From mikeburke99 at yahoo.com Wed Jul 10 00:42:12 2002 From: mikeburke99 at yahoo.com (mike burke) Date: Sun Feb 8 02:51:42 2004 Subject: [Dryerase] 11 Articles From July Indy (Venezuela, Iraq, death penalty, AIDS, civil liberties...) Message-ID: <20020710054212.50010.qmail@web20509.mail.yahoo.com> It is great to see this list up and running. At the Indypendent we just published our July issue. Below are links to 11 articles with national relevance for your consideration. mike burke the indypendent new york city * * * * * AIDS Project Creates Hope in South Africa http://www.nyc.indymedia.org/front.php3?article_id=27187 “Tell Tale Signs”: America Drifts Toward Police State http://www.nyc.indymedia.org/front.php3?article_id=27196 Iraq: Smart Sanctions Still Kill http://www.nyc.indymedia.org/front.php3?article_id=27213 Venezuela: Apocalypse When? http://www.nyc.indymedia.org/front.php3?article_id=27216 Rallying Against Nukes: Peace Activists Seek to Revive Slumbering Movement http://www.nyc.indymedia.org/front.php3?article_id=27217 Indigenous Voices Heard at U.N. http://www.nyc.indymedia.org/front.php3?article_id=27210 Making Change: Ithaca Leads Local Currency Movement http://www.nyc.indymedia.org/front.php3?article_id=27208 Pacifica: Rebels Rebuild Battered Radio Network http://www.nyc.indymedia.org/front.php3?article_id=27204 Court Rules Against Death: Justices Bow to Increasing Opposition http://www.nyc.indymedia.org/front.php3?article_id=27200 National Briefs http://www.nyc.indymedia.org/front.php3?article_id=27197 International Briefs http://www.nyc.indymedia.org/front.php3?article_id=27214 USE POLICY: We haven’t drafted a formal policy but please use this for now: All of these articles may be reprinted in any not-for-profit publication if the original source of the article (the Indypendent) and our website (www.nyc.indymedia.org) is included. __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Sign up for SBC Yahoo! Dial - First Month Free http://sbc.yahoo.com From wires at the-alarm.com Thu Jul 11 21:56:05 2002 From: wires at the-alarm.com (Alarm!Wires) Date: Sun Feb 8 02:51:42 2004 Subject: [Dryerase] The Alarm! Editorial, 7-12-02 Message-ID: Hey all, The following is our editorial for the issue we put out earlier this evening. It is perhaps the most pertinent to folks outside of our region. Enjoy! Fhar Do we live in a world of exceptions? Last week when Donovan Jackson and his father were pulled over for expired tags on their vehicle neither expected to find themselves in the national headlines. Had it not been for the impulse of an amateur cameraman they wouldn?t have. What was captured on camera shocked viewers: a 16-year-old being flung onto a police car and then brutally assaulted by an officer. According to reports, the footage comes after the bulk of the Inglewood incident had occured. Of course, there has been an outcry, as citizens of Inglewood and others demand the immediate termination of the officer in question. What does not come to the forefront in this incident is the need to examine our overall surroundings and institutions. This week George W. Bush gave a speech addressing the recent wrong-doings of a number of corporations. He called the behavior of corporations, such as Enron and Worldcom, deplorable, and he outlined a need for stiffer penalties for those ?caught? doing misdeeds. The markets did not respond favorably, and the general public changed the news station. Two weeks ago a young mother was convicted of a hate-crime against an man of Arab descent. She faces three years in jail for running her vehicle into his, and then assaulting him on a San Jose street. Locally, there was minimal response. All three of these incidents are treated as relatively isolated situations. When Donovan Jackson was assaulted by the officer in southern California, he was immediately compared to Rodney King. When Worldcom was found to be cooking their books, they were in the same company as Enron. When this woman in San Jose was convicted there were not immediate comparisons, and the response was simply a stern sigh. These are presented to us, the public, as isolated situations, as exceptions to our average expectations. But are they? The fact of the matter is police aggression is a constant reality; corporations constantly fudge their books or act in ways that are less than ethical; and hate crimes are occurring everyday that are related to or independent of 9/11. Yet, these three events are said to be exceptions. People often comment that if the ?corrupt? exceptions within our society are rooted out, we will live in a ?just and civil society.? What we need to recognize is that all of these ?exceptions? are not isolated events; they are all a part of systematic issues within our society. As a matter of fact, when we identify these events as isolated, it distracts us from looking at systemic problems. These events are actually necessary to maintain the power of both capitalism and state over personal or community relationships, because they reinforce the ideology that the system works by rooting out such exceptions. This ideology creates an atmosphere where exploration into systemic issues does not occur; indeed, it creates safe harbor for these incidents to occur. When people do not take notice of the police and their activities, some cops will act cavalier. When people invest their money and hope for the best, never checking up on their investments, corporations will give the bosses raises and inflate their actual earnings reports. When the general public allows for people to say and act as they wish towards anyone who is ?not a true American,? we become a xenophobic society. We have to awaken our senses and sensibilities. We need to recognize our role as members of a community, and become accountable to one another. Let corporate America pretend to be accountable to itself; it is our job to recognize that corporations are NOT a part of our communities. We need to look at what we invest in?corporations or communities. Is there a tangible link between these three incidents I have mentioned above? There is the obvious link; these are our headlines. Then there is the implicit link; all of these incidents happen in an environment ripe with apathy. Once we recognize that each of these events are not exceptions to the status quo, but rather a result of the status quo, we can respond accordingly. It should not take the beating of a developmentally disabled young man to make us take notice?or maybe it does. Can the beating of Donovan Jackson bring about something better in our communities? Can we begin to look closely and become more accountable to one another; if not, we will never be members of a community. ?Michelle Stewart 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 Jul 11 22:13:36 2002 From: wires at the-alarm.com (Alarm!Wires) Date: Sun Feb 8 02:51:42 2004 Subject: [Dryerase] The Alarm--Deadly Illusions Message-ID: <5B3C79AE-9545-11D6-B276-003065F4865E@the-alarm.com> The following is a commentary piece from Conn Hallinan, a regular contributor to our paper. Most of his work appears originally in the San Francisco Examiner, but he retains the copyright outside of the SF area. He is aware of our copyleft policy and is apparently fine with being included under its rubric. You might want to contact him before printing. I, unfortunately, am not the one with his address, but you can likely find it on the SF Examiner page. Deadly Illusions By Conn Hallinan The Alarm! Newspaper Contributor The Middle East has always been a place where illusion paves the road to disaster. In 1095, Pope Urban?s religious mania launched the crusades. In 1915, Winston Churchill?s arrogance led to the WWI bloodbath at Gallipoli. Illusion tends to be a deadly business in those parts. And once again, illusions are about to plunge the Middle East into catastrophe. The first of these is George W. Bush?s ?vision? for peace between Israeli?s and Palestinians, a ?vision? consistent with the President?s uncomplicated ?See Spot Run? world of good guys and bad guys. Since the Palestinians are ?bad guys? the message is simple: Develop democracy (but only elect people we approve of), create free market capitalism, halt resisting the thirty-five year occupation, and stop causing trouble. If the Palestinians somehow manage all this while under occupation, then in three years they might get an ?interim? state with ?provisional? borders and sovereignty?if Israel agrees. The Sharon government, on the other hand, are the ?good guys,? so it gets to keep building settlements, occupying territory, and besieging West Bank cities until the Palestinians complete all the above tasks. Does anyone really take this seriously? Ariel Sharon is a man obsessed with illusions. He has always fantasized that combining violence with appointing leaders he can manipulate will get him his way. He was a supporter of the secret Israeli operation that, according to Tony Cordesman of the Center for Strategic Studies, funneled funds to Hamas in the late ?70s as a way to undermine the secular Palestine Liberation Organization. We know how that one turned out. Then he invaded Lebanon in 1982 to destroy ?terrorism,? killed 17,500 Lebanese and Palestinians, and appointed Bashir Jumayil President. Jumayil was promptly assassinated, and Israel found itself in the middle of an 18-year war, which it ended up losing. And once again he is using massive force in the West Bank and Gaza and trying to pick who leads the Palestinians. Sharon?s latest illusion is to fill the occupied territories with Jewish immigrants from France, Argentina, the U.S. and Russia, so that he will not have to remove a single settlement. According to Sharon, ?Netzarim in Gaza is the same as Tel Aviv.? Netzarim is a tiny settlement of fifty families in the Occupied Territories that takes up as much land as the Jebalya refugee camp, which holds 100,000 people. Tel Avid is the largest city in Israel. A recent study by the human rights organization B?Tselem, shows that while the settlements only occupy about two percent of the West Bank, through strategic placement and a network of roads restricted to settlers, they control forty-two percent of the Territories. Under Sharon, existing settlements have been expanded, and thirty-four new ones established. That millions of Jews will immigrate to Israel and live on the West Bank is sheer fantasy. Indeed, according to surveys by Peace Now, some sixty percent of the Jewish settlers would move back to Israel proper if the government would offer the same incentives it does for them to live in the West Bank: reduction in income taxes, low mortgage rates, and subsidized education. Peace Now projects that this ?re-transplant? would cost $700 million. It now costs $1.4 billion a year to subsidize the settlers and occupy the West Bank. There are illusions on the Palestinian side as well, the most glaring being that suicide bombers will drive the Israelis out of the Occupied Territories. In fact, the bombers only yield the moral high ground to Sharon and strengthen the annexationists in Tel Aviv. These illusion are ruining both Palestinians and Israelis. The former live in what is a virtually a national prison, with tens of thousands of their young men incarcerated, their economy destroyed, and a death toll approaching 2,000 since Sept. 2000. The Israelis may not be imprisoned, but they live in fear. The burden of empire has drained their treasury, forcing huge social service cutbacks, driving inflation to eight percent, and filling the jobless rolls. More than 550 have died. But sometimes illusion produces clarity. While Americans tend to think of Israel as Sharon and the Palestinians as suicide bombers, the reality is far more complex. Sharon has called up the reserves, but he will have to do without the 466 reservists who refuse to serve in the Occupied Territories. Hamas has pledged a new round of suicide bombers, but it will have to do so in the face of call by fifty-five leading Palestinians to stop the bombings in Israel. The call has already had an effect, according to the Financial Times, which reports that Palestinian support for suicide bombings is declining. There are people of goodwill on both sides, people not blinded by the illusion that violence solves everything. For the moment they are marginal, but their numbers are greater than they were last month, and they will be greater yet next month. They grow in numbers because their ?vision? is the only way out illusion. 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 Jul 11 22:14:45 2002 From: wires at the-alarm.com (Alarm!Wires) Date: Sun Feb 8 02:51:42 2004 Subject: [Dryerase] The Alarm--Pacific Agoraphobia Message-ID: <841716E2-9545-11D6-B276-003065F4865E@the-alarm.com> This piece is from one of our loyal contributors. A fabulous fellow with a tendency toward high-falutin language. We've forced him to tone it down for us, with mixed success. Manuel is a very smart writer and rhetoritician. He generally approaches problems of international significance. This is one exception where his commentary is based on local events. You may still find it interesting Pacific Agoraphobia By Manuel Schwab The Alarm! Newspaper Contributor 5-12-02 Agoraphobia, which is the clinical term for the fear of open spaces, is derived from the Greek words ?agora? and ?phobia.? The Agora was a large public square at the center of Athens. It was open to the Athenian citizen class, although only about 5 to 10 percent of the population of Athens could afford to live a leisurely life that included hours spent debating and talking in the Agora. As opposed to the theater?in which the distinction between spectators and orators was clearly marked?the Agora was the center of participatory political discussion in Athens, a place in which discourse was fragmentary rather than dominated by a single citizen. In modern Greek, the meaning of ?agora? has been altered. ?Agora? now refers not to a public forum but to a marketplace. Nevertheless, ?agoraphobia? still carries the connotation of a fear of public engagement: a phobia of putting oneself at stake in front of one?s fellow citizens. If the public documents about the current debate on the use of downtown space are any indication, it would serve us at this time to reflect on the shifting definition of ?agora.? In response to a series of ?incidents? that are perceived as threats to the placid face of our beloved Pacific Avenue?a shooting, a stabbing and agressive panhandling? the Santa Cruz City Council has held public forums and formed a special committee on downtown issues. Close on the heels of this chorus of concern, the July 3?10 edition of Metro Santa Cruz treated Santa Cruzians to ?The Reality Check Issue,? in which it attempted to ?put some overdue perspective on the controversy over safety in downtown Santa Cruz.? The institutional and media responses from the community demonstrated the heartening fact that Santa Cruz is actually concerned about its public space. But the terms of the debate led to the unavoidable observation that we cannot, at least as far as the dominant perspectives of our community are concerned, imagine the difference between civic spaces and commercial districts. What becomes clear in both the framing of the Council Committee?s recommendations, and the response of the Metro article?which relies heavily on community testimony?is that the Santa Cruz community works from extremely narrow assumptions about what a downtown should be, about whom it serves, and what constitutes the good health of a public space. What was once the politically heated public space, perfectly suited for the exchange of debate, has become marketplace, suited only for the exchange of goods and services. Yet even with this devolution of public space into the relative safety of rule?bound economics, we in Santa Cruz still retreat from any trace of the old political friction once associated with the Agora. The Downtown Issues Committee, for its part, is so split in its recommendations that it is difficult to understand where they would have us go with downtown. One minute they want the City Council to take a clear position regarding ?anti-social behavior.? But in the same statement they re-affirm their commitment to ?protecting public space.? These commitments may not at first seem at odds, until we realize that ?anti-social behavior? has come to include any form of friction, encompassing many activities that were once an integral part of ?public space.? ?Public space,? in turn, has become emaciated, left with nothing to flourish around but money transactions, so that merchant interests are the only ones that count. Not recognizing that these developments have transformed the defense of the space now considered public into an attack on the social sphere in all of its fertile messiness, the council is proposing to take measures that work in the exact opposite direction they intend Sarah Phelan?s article in the Metro illustrates the tension between the desire to regulate downtown and to still allow the space to be genuinely public. In the article we find the County Supervisor telling us in no uncertain terms that fears about downtown safety are generated and defined by the commercial interests in downtown. ?Usually the merchants plan a campaign [to crack down on downtown problems] just before Thanksgiving,? Mardi Wormhoudt tells Phelan, ?but this year it?s earlier, maybe because of the economic downturn?? Perhaps, but if so the economic downturn clearly has the business sector peculiarly worried. Phelan claims she sees ?no signs of Armageddon,? and while I agree, it seems clear that signs of a new brink in the battle between private and public space is at hand. On the one side, we have the usual fare of self-indulgent overstatements by those who frequent downtown and clearly have a lot to gain by painting themselves as the targets of excessive oppression. Most glaring among these is Est?ban Fox, who seems to think that getting a ticket for sitting on a planter (yeah, we all know how ridiculous that is) puts us one step closer to building a ?20-foot-high wall around downtown?and a military takeover of downtown.? This claim seems excessive, especially in light of developments in Palestine and Israel, where citizens have every tangible reason to fear draconian governments. On the other hand, there are legitimate reasons to suspect the merchants? new campaign. New-Corp-on-the-block Borders has the audacity to publicly admit ?we?re considering installing an ATM that would limit loitering [around the Borders store] to 50 feet.? Reality check: with laws on the books like the one that would provide Borders with a 50 foot buffer for its ATM, town ordinances already fall clearly on the side of the merchants. No matter how self indulgent the ?gypsy kids? on the streets may get, there is a higher power indulging the commercial interests. This indulgence becomes even more clear when we look at the remaining recommendations of the Downtown Issues Committee. While they include a few more gestures like the promise to protect public space (the hiring of a Downtown Social Worker, for instance), the committee?s recommendations, aimed ostensibly at restoring a downtown ?out of balance,? bend over backwards to accommodate the merchants who feel so deeply threatened. Take a close look and you will recognize that the committee?s recommendations for Ordinance Modifications?made under the guise of simplifying the understanding and enforcement of the present ordinances on soliciting and sitting down on sidewalks?and you see that they are actually engineered to clear the mall of any such activity by ?undesirables.? ?The proposed adjustment is to make the distance for all of the above situations 14 feet.? Apparently, Borders will not have to bother with the 50 foot buffer around their store?by my estimation, a 14 foot distance from storefronts puts panhandling ?gypsy kids? in the street for almost the entire length of the Mall. The threat that these ?gypsy kids? pose, as Glenn Rogers informs us in Phelan?s collection of interviews, is not that they are dangerous. Rather, Rogers informs us that he tends to avoid ?walking along Pacific Avenue because I don?t want to get hit up for money all the time.? The irony, of course, is that extracting money from customers is precisely what every mall is engineered to do. The entire shopping district is a place where people go to be solicited for their money in exchange for one commodity or another. The fact that this economic exchange is an acceptable replacement for the democratic confrontations of the past is symptomatic of the time in which we seem no longer to have a social sphere, but an economy instead. In fact, as Greg Kindig rightly points out later on in the ?Nuz? section of the Metro the entire list of downtown issues ?reads like a list of symptoms.? But nobody seems to be understanding the disease. Focusing only on symptoms?from the disruptive presence of panhandlers to hacky-sack projectiles?amounts to establishing scapegoat issues to avoid the fact that our public engagement is bankrupt. Downtown?s status as a shopping/public district in which it seems that the stores themselves are the only citizens who ultimately have a right to occupy downtown? with prospective consumers as their temporary guests?is testimony to this. As is the repeated reference to the Beach Flats as the source of the dangerous elements in downtown?references that seem acceptable across the board, as they are made by residents, merchants, and homeless citizens alike. We are afraid of confrontations with difference, of heterogeneity, of any form of friction?we are agoraphobic, scared of others, afraid of precisely that which we need to make us strong. Of course this superstitious disposition is neither the fault of Sarah Phelan, nor of the Metro Editorial Staff, nor for that matter of the City Council. What all three entities should be taken to task for, however, is that they present this superstition without challenging it systematically. After glossing over the myth of the ?dangerous? Beach Flats and the victimized chain store?or rather allowing these myths to speak for themselves?it is downright aggravating to see Phelan take on the quite evident process of gentrification and dismiss it as mythical. One almost gets the impression that Phelan is bent on ignoring the facts. Has she forgotten that the fear that the Cinema 9 would drive out the Del Mar cannot be so quickly dismissed, as the theater actually did go under, and the ?beautiful renovation? touted by one of her interviewees was made possible only by a city government bailout. And while the Dotcom bomb may have made a serious dent in the office rentals downtown, it has not made a dent in the rent prices that the previous Dotcom boom helped drive skyward. Luckily, it seems that there are still plenty of us left who realize that the replacement of the social considerations with economic transactions is an unacceptable compromise. For now, even the Committee Forums and Reality checks that offered such a startling illustration of the problem also offered us a good picture of those people left in resistance. The biggest danger, then, is that we will slowly be taught to underestimate the import of this struggle to maintain our spaces for civic confrontation. When that happens, we will have lost a monumental battle in the fight for self determination. In the final analysis, what must become more and more clear to all of us is that ironically, the capacity for self determination depends on our willingness to be confronted, often uncomfortably, by others. 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 Jul 11 22:15:46 2002 From: wires at the-alarm.com (Alarm!Wires) Date: Sun Feb 8 02:51:42 2004 Subject: [Dryerase] The Alarm--Eye on the INS Message-ID: Michelle Stewart, who wrote our editorial this issue, does a weekly column focusing on the INS and immigration policy, mostly in the southwest. Eye on the INS A weekly focus on the INS and immigration policy Was it really news on July 4, 2002? By Michelle Stewart The Alarm! Newspaper Collective Case Study: Mohammad Nour al-Din Saffi On Wednesday, July 3, 2002, federal agents stormed a hotel suite across the street from the Miami International Airport. Their target was Mohammad Nour al-Din Saffi. Saffi, a naturalized New Zealander and employee of Tiger Lines Cargo (a New Zealand-based airline company), entered the US last Wednesday via LAX where he was detained and questioned about his visit. Saffi stated he was going to Miami to take a recertification course for flight engineers; he was entering on a tourist visa. He had the appropriate documentation from his employer and the flight school had confirmed his immigration status with the Department of Justice. Despite his long interrogation by a battalion of INS and FBI agents, he was eventually allowed to continue on his trip. As Saffi boarded the plane for Miami, the agents at LAX called the Florida INS authorities to inform them that he was on his way. A surveillance operation was offically underway. INS agents then called the flight school, Aeroservice Aviation Center, to ask Saffi?s intent. They were informed he was scheduled to take a course to recertify his license to fly Boeing 747s. The INS identified this as a different act than was reported by Saffi, and declared that he had lied to an INS official upon entry into the US, and that he entered without the correct visa. Saffi was picked up at his hotel room that same evening and the news broke on July 4, 2002. Who is Mohammad Nour Al-Din Saffi? Why was this news? To an outsider, Saffi is a 36-year-old man of Arab descent who works as a flight engineer for Tiger Lines Cargo, and has been a naturalized New Zealander for the past six years. To the FBI and INS, Saffi is a man of Arab desent who was last in the United States just days before 9/11, and this latest visit would have been to go to a flight school on the July 4th weekend... oh, and his stepfather is Saddam Hussein. ?The circumstances are somewhat disturbing,? said Jim Goldman, INS chief of investigations. ?It?s an awful long way to come to take a refresher course. Post 9-11, an individual such as this definitely comes onto our radar screen.? But are the circumstances really so disturbing? Not really, once the facts become evident. According to Saffi?s employer and the flight school, they followed all of the immigration rules related to entering the US and taking the flight engineering class. The school ran all of Saffi?s immigration information per the instructions on the new Department of Justice webpage to ensure that he was cleared to attend the class. Both the school and employer are stumped, and contend that the incident is just a simple mistake of failing to acquire a student visa. Berton Beach , Vice President of operations at the flight school outlines the confusing immigration polices regarding student visas and flight school, ?There is no requirement on any information we have from the Department of Justice or from the FBI or from INS that a [student] visa is required,? (CNN, 7/6/02). Indeed, the Aeroservice Aviation Center is likely one of the best-informed flight schools because it holds the dual distinction to be the best flight school in the nation as well as one of the schools to train an alleged 9/11 hijacker. It is only under recent immigration reform that Saffi is required to get a student visa for this type of course, and, according to INS, he is being detained and deported for failing to get the student visa, not for ?lying? to an INS officer about his intentions at the flight school. Saffi has admitted to misunderstanding the need for a student visa to attend the class, and the school has broadcast that they were misinformed. Yet Saffi sits in detention, waiting to be deported, and will be barred from entering the US for five years. A rather steep penalty for a simple mistake. Well, there are a few inflammatory details that need to be addressed. First, Saddam Hussein, many years ago, married Saffi?s mother. There is much gossip surrounding the affair that pre-dated the marriage, and the incidents of violence surrounding the marriage. Suffice it to say, that I will not be further engaging this gossip, but feel free to visit CNN?s webpage for the whole soap opera. At the end of the day, Saffi has no relevant ties to Saddam Hussein since the connection is only through his mother and he lives a totally autonomous life. The second factor is his presence in the US days before 9/11. The Department of Justice claimed this was suspicious. The simple fact was that he was here on a flight (he is a flight technicican) en route to London. Finally, there is the question of why he came to the US on the 4th of July weekend to go to flight school. According to his employer, it is the best school for the training he needed and it seems obvious that the school would have had openings and smaller classes on the Independence weekend. What do we do with all of this then? Do we chalk it up to an under-handed deed by Saffi?as did the federal authorities? Do we recognize that immigration law is changing so rapidly that no one really knows what type of paperwork to file and when?as is the contention of all of the affected parties in this case? Or do we admit to the larger issues? Mohammad Nour al-Din Saffi made the mistake of entering into the US as a man of Arab descent looking to go to a flight school. This is the baseline fact, all that comes before and after are secondary. His link to Saddam Hussein is simply the icing on the cake; first and foremost, Saffi was seen as an Arab looking to fly. If it were anything less, the feds would not have stormed the hotel room, made a big splash on Independence Day, and then deported him for something as silly as a visa mistake. Saffi entered the US and declared his intention, and when he made a mistake he admitted fault. Yet, he sits in detention. And there are dozens more stories like this; stories where immigrants are not aware of the varied nuances of immigration policy and paperwork. Immigration law changes at such a rapid pace, little time or attention is devoted to disemminating the facts. Post 1996 immigration law was changing at this same speed; again there was no effort to really explain to immigrants and visitors the policy changes, and it has extreme effects on many people. In many cases, small mistakes then resulted in people being barred from the US for five to ten years. This recent mistake for Saffi will result in a five year bar from the US. We are in ridiculous times, measured easily by this ridiculous hysteria and penalties. The only reason we heard about this case was because the headline could read that Saddam?s stepson was in jail, that he wanted to fly a plane, and that he was caught just before the 4th of July. Many in the country read the first paragraph of this story last week and breathed a collective sigh of relief. We need to read past these shock-value headlines and see what is happening to people in this country. One close read of any of the details of this story should have instigated a collective outcry. And yet, these stories are only on the increase. Since detention is still a secretive process there is limited information available, and there are currently over 1,000 people being held in INS detention with infractions that range from the mundane to the exteme. Until we bring all of these cases out into the open we will continue to hear about stories such as that of Mohammad Nour al-Din Saffi. Your comments are welcomed and encouraged 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 Thu Jul 11 22:16:47 2002 From: wires at the-alarm.com (Alarm!Wires) Date: Sun Feb 8 02:51:42 2004 Subject: [Dryerase] The Alarm--HIV Surveillance threatens anonymity Message-ID: This was our front page story last issue and was continued in this issue. Most of the interviews are from local folks, and it focuses primarily on California State, but it could be relavent elsewhere. HIV surveillance threatens anonymity By Caroline Nicola The Alarm! Newspaper Collective California implemented new regulations Monday to enhance the State?s existing system of HIV reporting. The legislation requires health care clinics and laboratories to provide local health officers with information on persons infected with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, using ?non-name codes.? HIV tests done anonymously will not be reported. However, in order to get access to medical services, a confidential test is required and the results will be reported using the non-name codes. State officials claim the codes will ensure individual privacy, but some health care workers worry that the new reporting requirements will scare people away from being tested. ?One of my biggest fears is that it will decrease the number of people tested,? said Saji Seven, African American HIV Prevention Coordinator at the Equinox, an HIV prevention center in Santa Cruz. Seven pointed out that the HIV case reporting system could be intimidating for those concerned with privacy. Roy Jimenez, Health Program Director of Salud Para La Gente in Watsonville, said just walking through the door of a clinic to be tested is a major decision for many people, and includes an understandable level of anxiety and fear. People may back off from being tested due to the new reporting requirements, he said. Sally Cantrell, HIV Prevention Services Coordinator of the Berkeley Free Clinic shares his concern. ?People at the highest risk for being HIV positive are the most reluctant to take a HIV test if they have to divulge personal information,? she said. The non-name codes will consist of an individual?s Soundex code (a phonetic, alphanumeric formula which is used to convert the last name into an algorithm), complete date of birth, gender and the last four digits of the patient?s Social Security number. The California Department of Health Services (CDHS) will use the reporting system to track the number of individuals in the state with HIV in order to provide access to prevention and treatment programs and to apply for federal funds, according to the State Department. ?The confidential reporting of HIV will allow more accurate epidemiological surveillance to better monitor the HIV/AIDS epidemic,? said State Health Director Diana Bonita. ?It will also provide for targeted planning, resource allocation and evaluation of HIV prevention programs.? Prior to the new regulations, Santa Cruz County already tracked communicable diseases and reported their findings to CDHS and the Center for Disease Control, a federal agency. The problem with that system is it didn?t give exact numbers, according to Cantrell. When people with positive results were tested more than once, the data did not indicate that the multiple positives were from one person, she said. Even though the State claims the new regulations ensure individual privacy, Cantrell argues the new HIV case reporting system compromises people?s anonymity. ?People can be clearly identified with that information,? she said. Cantrell said the health care system is not being up front with its clients. However, Leslie Goodfriend, Health Services Manager at the Santa Cruz Health Agency said the new tracking system is a very positive and necessary step in dealing with AIDS. She says it would be difficult, if not impossible to link people to their codes. The State has been interested in tracking HIV more effectively because of an increase in concern about HIV transmission, particularly among immigrant populations, according to Jimenez. He said the new reporting requirements will track where the disease emanates from and look at patterns, clusters and analyze how it affects local populations. Jimenez is concerned that the data might be misused to blame immigrants for the spread of the disease. ?Many of us in the health care movement will monitor that very closely,? he said. ?We want the data to be used to identify and treat diseases when they are noted, not to make accusations that might target any number of populations, whether they are Latinos, Asians or other folks who have immigrated here.? Currently, seven states (Hawaii, Illinois, Kentucky, Maryland, Massachusetts, Rhode Island and Vermont) have established HIV surveillance systems using codes in lieu of names. Five states (Delaware, Maine, Montana, Oregon and Washington) use a hybrid reporting system in which names of HIV-positive individuals are initially reported, but later replaced with codes. By the beginning of the fiscal year 2004, the distribution of federal funds to States will be based on the number of HIV cases reported through the HIV tracking system. Next week will explore the Soundex code and other ?Unique Identifiers? options used by health care agencies. HIV Surveillance Part 2: The Soundex Code By Caroline Nicola The Alarm! Newspaper Collective On July 1, California joined seven other states in reporting people who test positive for HIV using codes in lieu of names. Most other states that track HIV use a name-based system. This article is the second of two parts on the new HIV surveillance system in California. Advocates and people living with AIDS have waged a tough battle for the right to be tested anonymously, a battle lost in many states. People?s health can not be protected if their civil rights are compromised, said Anna Forbes, an AIDS policy consultant, writer and teacher. That dilemma is fundamental to concerns about the new HIV surveillance system in California. Unlike other conditions, funding for AIDS has been based on a numbers count since its beginning. Because State and Federal agencies want the funding to be based on the number of people who test positive for HIV rather than the number of full-blown AIDS cases, some case reporting system is needed. To get an accurate epidemiological account of how many people are HIV positive and in what populations, an HIV case reporting system needs to have a low duplication rate, meaning that people testing positive for HIV are not listed more than once. In order to do that, unique identifiers (UI) are needed. UI consists of a combination of public or private data elements used to distinguish people. The non-name codes used in California?s HIV case reporting system consist of an individual?s Soundex Code (a code based on the way a person?s name sounds phonetically), complete date of birth, gender and the last four digits of their Social Security number. In an effort to prevent duplications, people?s privacy erodes in the process, said cryptographer Philip Zimmermann, creator and founder of Pretty Good Privacy, Inc. He said there are two pressures working in opposite directions: one is to create a unique identifier, the other is trying to make it anonymous. ?Those two are working at cross purposes. The more unique you make a code, the easier it is to break its anonymity,? he said. Zimmermann has received numerious technical and humanitarian awards for his pioneering work in cryptography. He said there may be people who believe the non-name system using Soundex is anonymous, but those people are probably not software engineers or data security professionals. ?It is possible to break an anonymity scheme as flimsy as one based on Soundex, especially if it has other information in it like date of birth,? he said. All that would be needed to crack the non-name code would be a computer, a secondary data base that has all the necessary data elements in it and a copy of the algorithm used to produce the Soundex codes. So why use the Soundex code if it can be cracked? It is easy, cheap and States have been using it to report AIDS cases to the Center for Disease Control since the beginning of the AIDS outbreak, according to Forbes. She said if a State develops a different UI system, it would be harder to cross-match HIV data against other relevant databases such as the AIDS registry and the national death registry. ?It is a question between do you give your State a really good UI system that protects people?s privacy, or do you go with another system like Soundex that is easier and cheaper to use, but doesn?t protect privacy as well,? she said. Forbes argues that any UI system is still more secure then name-based systems because they are harder to crack. 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 Jul 11 22:17:33 2002 From: wires at the-alarm.com (Alarm!Wires) Date: Sun Feb 8 02:51:42 2004 Subject: [Dryerase] Casa Bienestar Message-ID: This was our feature story this week. It focuses on a harm-reduction center in Watsonville, a primarily latino community south of Santa Cruz. It has versions in both English and Spanish. Casa Bienestar By/Por Halie Johnson Translated By/Traducido Por Armando Alcaraz The Alarm! Newspaper Collective / Collectivo del Peri?dico ?La Alarma! The Center solidifies the relationship between three organizations that provide similar services in Watsonville The last school bell rings, and you decide to join some friends who are walking to a nearby youth center. You imagine a large room with fluorescent lights and too many rules. You and your friends walk up to a building with teens playing basketball in the parking lot. When you see a sign in front that reads ?Casa Bienestar?(House of Wellbeing), you realize one would be in for something different than what you expected Inside the building, more people your age are playing pool, and you recognize your favorite radio station in the background. You overhear someone explaining safe condom use to a group of teens. A woman with a warm smile takes a break from helping someone else with her homework to welcome you and offer you some chips and salsa. When Casa Bienestar, ?An HIV Prevention, Harm Reduction and Community Health Resource Center,? opened its doors in December 2000, it sealed the working relationship between three local organizations. The Santa Cruz Needle Exchange Project (SCNEP), the Santa Cruz AIDS Project (SCAP) and the Homeless Persons Health Project (HPHP) had been collaborating in various ways for nearly a decade, creating and staffing the Santa Cruz Drop-In Center and providing street-level services in Watsonville and Santa Cruz. All three organizations work to prevent the spread of HIV, through meeting at-risk community members at their own level to provide assistance and education. For several years, SCAP, SCNEP and HPHP volunteers have been setting up weekly needle-exchange and HIV prevention sites in the parking lot of Watsonville?s Del Sol Market. HPHP provides health services while SCAP help provide free HIV testing. SCNEP provides a one-for-one syringe exchange, where injection drug users can trade one dirty syringe for a clean one. Needle exchange programs are based on the idea that lowering the number of contaminated syringes on the streets lowers the risk of new HIV infections. SCNEP also conducts regular outreach on foot, exchanging needles and giving out free condoms in areas where drugs are bought and sold. But according to SCAP Director of Education and Prevention Timothy Maroni, all three organizations needed a more permanent site in order to be as effective as possible. ?It was sort of hectic because we didn?t have a site for the services that we wanted to offer,? he said. In an effort to provide such a site, members of the three organizations founded Casa Bienester. In addition to providing HIV prevention and services to injection drug users, the center was developed to serve as a recreational space for Watsonville residents, with a focus on at-risk youth, ages twelve to twenty-four. ?Kids come in, they hang out, they check us out before they say ?okay, I need help,?? said Linda Valdez of HPHP. The Center offers free condoms, birth control, food, entertainment, advice, encouragement, clean syringes and a safe place to rest. ?Basically whatever their need is we try to meet it for them,? Valdez added. ?If we can?t, we do referrals.? HIV testing and needle exchange sites still show up behind Watsonville?s Del Sol Market every Wednesday afternoon. Now volunteers often refer participants to Casa Bienestar where they can access the same services with more comfort and privacy. ?I think [the center has] been able to expand the scope and quality and quantity of the services that we offer [in South County],? Maroni added. The line-staff at Casa Bienestar, who oversee the day-to-day operation of the center, represent all three of the collaborating organizations. Their goals include providing ?a home-like environment for youth to drop-in, hang out and access health services, which are all free of cost.? Martha Zabale of SCAP was born and raised in Watsonville. ?There are a lot of people who come here and basically need someone to talk to, so I get a chance with them before they decide to run away or something like that,? she said. ?I feel that they are comfortable here because we know Watsonville.? Ronaldo of SCNEP has lived in Watsonville for thirteen years and has volunteered with other local organizations. ?I?m still able to reach the people who I grew up with and help them,? he said. A Space for Many Purposes Casa Bienestar, much larger than the Drop-In Center in Santa Cruz, offers a ?hang out? room equipped with a pool table, TV/VCR, a stereo, a computer with scanner and internet access, a full kitchen and a conference room. ?We?ve had a lot of students who come in here, and we help them out with their homework or r?sum?s,? Zabale said, pointing out the computer station. Casa Bienestar also provides plenty of lounging areas where staff and volunteers can sit with youth and spark up conversation about school, sex, family or whatever is on a participant?s mind. There are two bulletin boards listing jobs, events, activities and other resources that might be of interest to young people. A health care office provides health and medical services from pregnancy tests to Hepatitis B vaccines. The Needle Exchange room has a separate entrance from the main reception area to facilitate the anonymity of clients. ?If there?s a bunch of kids playing pool out front, they can come in through the side and go, without being seen by family members or having to go through the embarrassment of seeing non-injectors,? explained Heather Edney, Executive Director of SCNEP. There are three offices for private meetings to help people feel more comfortable talking about difficult subjects. Edney feels that the awareness of young people in HIV prevention is crucial. A lot of what SCNEP, HPHP and SCAP do is geared towards youth. ?Almost all of the literature we produce is by youth and for youth. ?Fuck safe, shoot clean? speaks to youth,? Edney said. The Drop-In Center as a State-wide model for effectiveness The success of the Drop-In Center in Santa Cruz is what made Casa Bienestar possible, according to Maroni. The State Office of AIDS in California agreed that the Santa Cruz Drop-In Center, which opened in 1988, met an important need in North County. In fact, the State Office of AIDS used it as a model for the establishment of twenty similar centers throughout the State of California. The Drop-In Center in downtown Santa Cruz is not specifically youth-targeted, but approximately fifty percent of the participants who utilize it are below the age of twenty-four, according to Maroni. Harm Reduction In contrast to other drug counseling centers in Watsonville which generally work from an abstinence-based model, Casa Bienestar is set up to be a place where participants can obtain support even when they are not ready to kick the habit. ?A lot of people don?t want to be fixed today,? Maroni added. ?They might want to be in a couple of months from now, or a couple of years from now, but they know they can?t do it in a half an hour. So they?re living their lives, and we?re just there to live their lives with them, more or less how they tell us they want to live them.? ?There?s no yes or no, there?s no right or wrong,? said Edney. ?We give people as much information as we can and then they do what they want with it?. We?re just kind of trying to step in before things get worse.? [Spanish version follows] El Centro solidifica la relaci?n existente entre tres organizaciones que prov?en servicios similares en Watsonville. Suena la campana de salida de la escuela y decides acompa?ar a algunos amigos que se encaminan a un centro jouvenil cercano. Te imaginas un cuarto grande con luces fluorecentes y con demas?adas reglas. T? y tus amigos llegan a un edificio donde hay adolecentes jugando baloncesto en el estacionamiento. Cuando ves el letrero de enfrente que dice ?Casa Bienestar,? te das cuenta que esto puede ser muy distinto a cualquier cosa que te hubieras imaginado. Dentro del edificio hay otros de tu edad jugando billar, y reconoces a tu estaci?n de radio favorita tocando m?sica en el fondo. Alcanzas a escuchar a alguien que explica a un grupo de adolecentes sobre el uso seguro del cond?n. Una mujer con una sonrisa c?lida deja de ayudar a alguien mas con su tarea para darte la bienvenida ofreciendote chips y salsa. Cuando la Casa Bienestar, ?Un Centro de Recursos para Prevenci?n del VIH, Reducci?n de Da?o, y Salud Comunitaria,? abri? sus puertas en diciembre de 2000, se solidific? la relaci?n de trabajo de tres organizaciones locales. El Proyecto de Intercambio de Jeringas de Santa Cruz (SCNEP), El Proyecto SIDA de Santa Cruz (SCAP), y el Proyecto de Salud para Personas Desamparadas (HPHP), hab?an trabajado en colaboraci?n durante casi una d?cada, creando el Santa Cruz Drop-In Center y proveyendo servicios en las calles de Watsonville y Santa Cruz. Las tres organizaciones trabajan para prevenir el contagio del VIH reuni?ndose con miembros de la comunidad de alto riesgo en su propio nivel para proporcionar as?stencia y educacion. Los voluntarios de SCAP, SCNEP y HPHP han estado colocando sitios temporales para prevenci?n del VIH por varios a?os en los estacionamientos del Mercado Del Sol en Watsonville. HPHP prov?e servicios de salud y SCAP ayuda a proporcionar pruebas gratis de detecci?n del VIH. SCNEP ofrece un intercambio de uno a uno de jeringas, donde quienes usan drogas inyectadas pueden intercambiar sus jeringas sucias por nuevas sin usar. Los programas de intercambio de jeringas operan bajo la premisa que al disminuir el n?mero de jeringas contaminadas en las calles tambi?n se disminuye el riesgo de nuevas infecciones de VIH. SCNEP tambi?n conduce campa?as de alcance a pie, intercambiando jeringas y distribuyendo condones gratis en areas donde hay compra y venta de drogas. Pero seg?n Timothy Maroni, Director de Educaci?n y Prevenci?n de SCAP, las tres organizaciones necesitaban un lugar mas permanente para poder ser lo mas efectivas posible. ?Era muy dif?cil porque no teniamos un lugar para los servicios que quer?amos ofrecer,? el dijo. En un esfuerzo conjunto para proporcionar tal lugar, los miembros de las tres organizaciones fundaron la Casa Bienestar. Adem?s de proveer prevenci?n de VIH y servicios a usadores de drogas inyectadas, el centro fue desarrollado con el objetivo de servir como un espacio recreacional para los residentes de Watsonville, enfoc?ndose en j?venes de entre los doce y veinticuatro a?os de edad considerados como alto riesgo. ?Los muchachos y muchachas vienen, y est?n aqu? un rato viendo el lugar y ech?ndonos un ojo antes de decir ?necesito ayuda,?? dijo Linda Valdez de HPHP. El Centro ofrece condones gratis, m?todos anticonceptivos, comida, entretenimiento, consejos, apoyo, jeringas limpias y un lugar seguro para descansar. ?B?sicamente, cualquiera que sea su necesidad tratamos de atenderla,? a?adi? Valdez. ?Si no podemos, les proporcionamos referencias.? Los lugares de pruebas de VIH e intercambio de jeringas a?n aparecen detr?s del Mercado Del Sol en Watsonville cada mi?rcoles por la tarde. Ahora los voluntarios refieren a los participantes a la Casa Bienestar donde pueden tener acceso a los mismos servicios pero con m?s comodidad y privacidad. ?Creo que [el Centro] ha sido capaz de expander el enfoque, calidad y la cantidad de los servicios que ofrecemos [en el Condado Sur],? a?adi? Maroni. El personal ?de linea? de la Casa Bienestar, que se encarga de las operaciones diarias del centro, representa a las tres organizaciones colaborantes. Sus objetivos incluyen el proveer ?a los j?venes con un ambiente hogare?o donde puedan venir, disfrutar, y tener acceso a servicios de salud, los cuales son libres de cargo.? Martha Zabale, de SCAP, naci? y creci? en Watsonville. ?Hay mucha gente que viene aqu? que b?sicamente necesita de alguien con quien hablar, entonces tengo una oportunidad con ellos antes que decidan escapar de sus casas o algo as?,? ella dijo. ?Siento que est?n c?modos aqu? porque conocemos Watsonville.? Ronaldo de SCNEP ha vivido en Watsonville por trece anos y ha trabajado como voluntario para otras organizaciones locales. ?A?n puedo alcanzar la gente con quien crec? y ayudarlas,? el dijo. Un Espacio de UsosM?ltiples La Casa Bienestar, mucho mas grande que el Drop-In Center en Santa Cruz, ofrece un cuarto de estancia equipado con una mesa de billar, televisi?n, videocasetera, est?reo, y una computadora con ?scanner? y acceso al internet, as? como una cocina completa, y un cuarto de conferencias. ?Hemos tenido a muchos estudiantes que vienen aqu?, y nosotros los ayudamos con su tarea o con sus r?sumes,? dijo Zabale, se?alando la estaci?n de la computadora. La Casa Bienestar tambi?n prov?e suficientes lugares donde el personal y los voluntarios pueden sentarse a conversar con los j?venes y adolecentes sobre la escuela, el sexo, la familia, o cualquier otra cosa que tengan en mente. Hay dos pizarrones con enlistados de trabajos, eventos, actividades y otros recursos que pueden ser de inter?s para los j?venes. Una oficina de salud prov?e servicios m?dicos y de salud, desde pruebas de embar?zo hasta vacunas contra la hepatitis B. El cuarto del Proyecto de Intercambio de Jeringas tiene una entrada separada del ?rea de recepci?n principal, para as? facilitar el anonimato de los clientes. ?Si hay un mont?n de muchachos jugando billar enfrente, pueden entrar y salir por el costado, sin ser vistos por familiares o sin tener que pasar por la incomodidad de ver a personas que no se inyectan,? explic? Heather Edney, la Directora Ejecutiva de SCNEP. Hay tres oficinas para entrevistas privadas para ayudar a las personas sentirse mas c?modas al hablar sobre temas que encuentren dificiles. Edney cree que es crucial la conciencia de los j?venes sobre la prevenci?n de VIH. Mucho de lo que hacen SCNEP, HPHP, y SCAP est? encaminado hacia la juventud. ?Casi toda la literatura que producimos est? escrita por j?venes para los j?venes. El fuck safe, shoot clean le habla a la juventud,? explic? Edney. El Centro Drop-In como un modelo estatal para la efectividad. Seg?n Maroni, el ?xito de el Drop-In Center en Santa Cruz fue lo que hizo posible que se hiciera la Casa Bienestar. La Oficina Estatal del SIDA en California (SOA) decidi? que el Drop-In Center en Santa Cruz, abierto en 1988, atend?a una necesidad importante en el Condado Norte. Incluso, el SOA lo us? como modelo para el establecimiento de veinte centros similares a lo largo del Estado de California. El Drop-In Center en el centro de Santa Cruz no est? exclus?vamente orientado a los j?venes, pero aproximadamente cincuenta por ciento de los participantes que lo utilizan est?n por debajo de los veinticuatro a?os de edad, seg?n Maroni. Reducci?n de Da?o A diferencia de otros centros de apoyo para drogas en Watsonville que generalmente trabajan con un modelo basado en la abstinencia, la Casa Bienestar est? dise?ada para ser un lugar donde los participantes pueden obtener apoyo a?n cuando no est?n listos para dejar el h?bito del consumo de drogas. ?Mucha gente no quiere cambiar hoy,? a?adi? Maroni. ?Podr?n querer cambiar en un par de meses, o en un par de a?os de ahora, pero saben que no pueden hacerlo en media hora, as? que est?n viviendo sus vidas, y nosotros solo estamos aqu? para vivir con ellos sus vidas, m?s o menos de la manera en que ellos nos dicen querer vivirlas.? ?No hay un si o un no, y no hay un bien y un mal,? dijo Edney. ?Le damos a la gente tanta informaci?n como podemos y ellos hacen lo que quieran con ella? S?lamente estamos tratando de intervenir antes que las cosas se pongan peor.? 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 Jul 11 22:28:12 2002 From: wires at the-alarm.com (Alarm!Wires) Date: Sun Feb 8 02:51:42 2004 Subject: [Dryerase] The Alarm--Transience in Santa Cruz Message-ID: <65F75771-9547-11D6-B276-003065F4865E@the-alarm.com> This comprises the first two of a three-part series on "Transience in Santa Cruz". It is obviously fairly specific to the area, but it touches on issues of importance everywhere: entrenched bureacracies beholden economically and politically to a tax base which is itself dependent on a transient, insecure workforce. It is particularly applicable to college towns and tourism hubs. It is also some of our most biting journalism so far (if i do say so myself). Transience in Santa Cruz In this series, I address the role of transience in Santa Cruz?how it affects our community economically, politically and psychologically. To accomplish this analysis, however, requires a redefinition of transience which includes more than the narrow colloquial version of ?the transient? limited to homeless vagabonds. Without this redefinition, it becomes far too easy to scapegoat the homeless for the problems stemming from a much broader and more systemic transience. Part One: The economy By Fhar Miess The Alarm! Newspaper Collective Transience, in a very literal sense, is a perennial phenomenon in Santa Cruz, and it is by no means a new one. The Ohlone tribes, who were likely the first people to settle here, are said to have migrated between the mountains and the low wetlands seasonally, as the weather and availability of food changed. As broad-leaved plantain (which some call ?White Man?s Foot? because of the way it tended to spring up wherever settlers tread) began to populate the area, seasonal migrations took on a slightly different character, but they were still determined, to a large degree, by shifting weather and availability of natural resources. As those resources?mostly forests?became denuded at the end of the 19th Century, tourism began replacing the resource-intensive manufacturing base that had come to define the Santa Cruz area. It was still a very transient set of communities, but that transience was driven less and less by seasonal weather changes and more and more by market fluctuations. It?s interesting to examine what we mean by ?transient? in this historical context. Most people in Santa Cruz, when asked to point out a transient, will look about for the nearest person they can identify as being homeless. In a sense, they are right. In one?somewhat superficial?respect, the homeless in Santa Cruz are transient much as the native Ohlone were: their need for shelter and the shelter options they choose are largely determined by what the climate dictates. This climate, however, is very different from the climate known to the Ohlone before missionaries and settlers arrived. Contrary to the local natural climate, which was (and is) ideal for human habitation and cohabitation, our present climate is marked economically by inflated housing costs and deflated wages, with the availability of both being determined to a large extent by a much more significant transient population than the homeless: namely, the student and tourist populations. For those who are homeless, it is also a social climate marked by violence. The Homeless 2000 Needs Assessment survey for Santa Cruz County, conducted by Applied Survey Research, indicated that seventy-six out of 811 people said they had been physically beaten, sixty-five said they had been robbed and thirteen had been sexually assaulted. The Santa Cruz Police Department noted in a memo that homeless people are more likely to be victims of crime than the housed. The survey also noted that more than three quarters of respondents had lived in Santa Cruz County for over five years. Almost thirty percent grew up here. Respondents? biggest daily problem, after lack of work or income, was transportation, which indicates that their transience is more of an unpleasant necessity than a choice. But this is only one sliver of the transience that characterizes our region. According to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, the agricultural sector accounted for some 12,940 documented workers in the county in the peak growing season of 2000, with only 4,469 employed that winter. Many of those displaced are forced to relocate after the growing season. UCSC students account for some 13,000 people during the school year, but only 2,900 during the summer vacation. The tourism industry offsets this to an extent. On its own, the Seaside Company and its concessionaires employ over 1,200 people to keep the Boardwalk running during the summer. Many of these are travelers from outside the country, participating in Seaside Company?s ?Work & Travel Program? which houses seasonal travelers and employees in La Bahia apartments, displacing the largely student population which resides there the rest of the year. Students planning to stay in Santa Cruz over the summer must vacate to make room. The UCSC community accounts for a large part of the transient nature of our community. In early summer, while the departure of the students allows locals to breathe a sigh of relief for a week or so until the tourists show up in droves, it also strains the region economically. The housing market goes totally out of whack as students who live in town try to find subletters before they leave town for the summer, and students who live on campus or in seasonal housing such as La Bahia try to find off-campus housing, and often for longer than just a summer sublet will allow. The job market goes through similar spasms. Graduation marks another period of transience, where many will venture over the hill to find decent-paying jobs. Many of these graduates will stay to live on this side of the hill. When they do find high-paying jobs, particularly in high-tech fields, this exerts an enormous amount of pressure on housing costs and availability in Santa Cruz County, as well as other counties to the south and east. This climate is what prompted the National Association of Homebuilders in January to label the Santa Cruz/Watsonville housing market the least affordable in the nation (we have since dropped back down to third place, after San Francisco and Salinas). UCSC Chancellor MRC Greenwood?s overhaul of the institution to make it a ?Gateway to Silicon Valley? can only exacerbate this situation. It is evident, between increased funding priorities for applied sciences and engineering and the gutting of the Narrative Evaluation System (NES), that the UCSC administration is bent on turning the University into a well-oiled machine to churn out skilled workers and bases of knowledge for the Silicon Valley. Manuel Schwab, who advocated the retention of NES during the 1999-2000 school year, described the battle this way: ?One of the issues that gave the NES fight much broader significance beyond the desire for a certain intellectual atmosphere was that many of us realized that quantifiable evaluation was one way to facilitate the transition of students from the intellectual laboratory to the ?real-world? workforce. ?It was yet another method to make it difficult for us to think of ourselves outside of the career track,? he said. Still, the University administration boasts of its contribution to the community through money students, faculty, staff and visitors to the campus spend in Santa Cruz County. From July 1, 2000 to June 30, 2001 it valued this contribution at $413.8 million. While a portion of that money goes toward well-paid workers, particularly in the construction trades, members of the campus community spend nearly the majority of it to support low-wage positions in the retail sector. Those same retail workers are the ones to serve travelers when the transient demographic of Santa Cruz changes from students to tourists. According to Bureau of Labor Statistics records from the year 2000, the retail sector is the second largest employer in Santa Cruz, after services, with the lowest average weekly wage of any sector at $374. The largest portion of employers in the retail sector is eating and drinking establishments, with an average wage of $232 per week (of course, these are statistics for documented labor)?hardly a living wage in Santa Cruz. Even I make more than that (barely). Merchants all over Santa Cruz County depend on revenues from tourism, but their particular brand of transience is even more insecure than that of the campus community. If it?s a bad year, whether due to recession or fears of terrorism, merchants become neurotic at the prospect of lost revenues. This neurosis surfaces in the form of proposals for draconian ordinances in shopping districts, where that other population of transients?the homeless?already complains of constant harassment by law enforcement. Results from the Homeless Needs Assessment Survey of 2000 indicate that over 15 percent of respondents listed ?problems with police? among their most troublesome daily problems. It seems ironic for merchants to blame problems caused by the capriciousness of Santa Cruz?s tourist transients on some of Santa Cruz?s most stable transients?the homeless. It is particularly ironic when one considers that those same merchant?s wages and hiring policies (transient student and youth populations are favored over more stable residents who are less likely to accept such low wages) encourage?more than any other sector?the sort of economic climate that forces people out into the weather. In Part Two of ?Transience in Santa Cruz?, I will focus on the political apparatus that solidifies much of what happens on the economic level into policy and bureaucratic practice. Transience in Santa Cruz Last week, I examined the role of transience in the local economy of Santa Cruz. In this installment of ?Transience in Santa Cruz,? I?ll be drawing attention to the political apparatus that both encourages, and is determined by, that transience. Readers may remember from the last installment that I conceive of transience not primarily as the homeless and the transient poor, but as tourists and students. Part 2?The Politics of Transience By Fhar Miess The Alarm! Newspaper Collective In the late 1920?s, as Ku Klux Klan chapters grew around Santa Cruz, Fred Swanton, Santa Cruz Mayor, industrialist and town booster, lead caravans promoting the area?s tourist attractions, most of which he had built himself (or, more accurately, paid others to build for him). In 1933, during the last year of Swanton?s five-year mayoral term, he transferred title on a few acres of public land at the current location of the Boardwalk parking lot and some of its rides from the City to the Santa Cruz Seaside Company. The Seaside Company has owned and operated the Boardwalk since Swanton himself bankrupted the operation in 1915. Santa Cruz politics has changed a lot since then. Certainly, one would hope that a KKK rally would not last long here these days. But, in other ways, the old guard is still very much in power. According to maps from the 1850s, the land that Swanton sold to the Seaside Company was below the ?mean high tide? level, in what are called ?tidelands?, properties owned by the State of California and held in trust by the City of Santa Cruz. According to the State Constitution, those tidelands should never have been transferred to any private party. In 1998, activists challenged the City Council to file suit against the Seaside Company to reclaim the land and restore the tidelands to natural habitat for Coho and Steelhead. The San Lorenzo Estuary, which was largely filled in after the construction of the river levee, is deemed essential for the ability of the fish to survive upon entering the briny waters of the Monterey Bay. Apparently, the State Lands Commission found the evidence compelling enough to offer to back up the City if it were to take the case to court. The City Council ceded eighty percent of the land to the Seaside Company in October of 1998 rather than suing for the entire property. But a few months later, a new council?populated by councilmembers such as Kristopher Krohn and Ed Porter who had been elected partly on their pledge to advocate for the return of the land to the City?reversed the decision. Unfortunately, according to Beach Flats resident Phil Baer, the weight of the tourism industry giant leaned hard upon the professional city staff (City Manager Richard Wilson and City Attorney John Barisone) who advise the council. The city staff in turn leaned on the City Council. ?My observation is that the City Council rarely, if ever, does anything other than what the staff suggests and advises that they do,? he says. Metro Santa Cruz reported on July 4, 2001 that the council held private negotiations that summer with the Seaside Company. Despite vigilant protests from activists and claims of violations of the Brown Act, which mandates open access to public meetings, the council eventually dropped the case. Tourist transience is big money in Santa Cruz. Former Santa Cruz Mayor Mike Rotkin estimates that between one-third and two-thirds of Santa Cruz tax revenues come from the tourism industry. The City Admission Tax, which comes primarily from the tourism industry and the Boardwalk in particular, accounts for about $1.5 million of city tax revenues annually. The City also levies a Transient Occupancy Tax (TOT) on hotel patrons, which accounts for over $3 million annually, and sales taxes from money spent by tourists amount to millions more. When it comes to local politics, that big money talks, and?as the tidelands case illustrates?often behind closed doors. Baer notes that the Seaside Company exerts ?this quiet, behind-the-scenes pressure that you can never seem to trace exactly, but things always seem to go their way.? The City spends big money to keep tourism in Santa Cruz as well. Upwards of $400,000 per year is allocated from the City?s General Fund to support the Convention and Visitor?s Bureau (CVB) which promotes tourism in Santa Cruz. The primary benefactor of this subsidized advertising is the Seaside Company with its various tourist attractions. But city subsidies for the tourism industry are not always so direct. The City also contributes significant funds for public works (which go toward cleaning up sidewalks and beaches, etc.) and police protection. ?A lot of our police efforts are directed towards tourism,? says Rotkin. ?When you put police officers on Pacific Avenue or in the beach area, that?s pretty much tourist-related.? Several people I spoke with would like to see some hard numbers detailing the amount of money that tourism actually brings to the Santa Cruz community as well as the social, environmental and economic costs of accommodating tourists. Those numbers are hard to come by. In the course of conducting interviews for this series, I have found politicians and bureaucrats alike reluctant to offer solid figures on either the costs or the benefits. I was lucky to get approximations. Fred Geiger, an activist who follows the Seaside Company and the local tourism industry, had a few things to say about it. ?I don?t think the business community wants to have that kind of information out there because people might decide that it?s simply not worth it,? he says. ?Many other towns have condemned these types of operations [like the Boardwalk]?Los Angeles, Santa Monica, Venice, Long Beach?because they bring blight to the community.? Of particular concern to activists is the sort of vehicle-intensive ?day-tripper? tourism attracted to the Boardwalk which contributes little to the local community except reduced air quality, increased noise and traffic, and drunken rowdiness. Folks like Baer and Geiger claim that much of this day-tripper tourism precludes lower-impact, ?conceivably beneficial? tourism, not to mention the health and sanity of locals. Student transience There is, however, a dearth of political will to move away from tourism as a local tax base. ?I don?t think anybody is thinking that there?s some other industry that?s going to replace tourism in Santa Cruz,? says Rotkin. But he does note the way in which Santa Cruz?s economic and political establishment of the 1950?s dealt with the lack of any off-season industry by pushing for the location of a UC in town. In some ways, though, they ended up shooting themselves in the foot. ?I don?t think they understood the political impact of bringing a major university here,? says Rotkin. After all, the voting age was still 21, and students were not allowed to vote outside of their home districts for some time. Vietnam-era state and federal legislative changes reversed those conditions. This, in combination with the student body that was attracted to one of the most radical experiments in higher education at the time, led to a strong progressive shift which gave the town the nickname ?The People?s Republic of Santa Cruz?. Santa Cruz still carries that reputation across the country?undeservedly so, according to many. Contrary to the high ideals which originally put people like John Laird, Mike Rotkin, Ed Porter and others into local government, Baer now describes the City Council as a ?dynasty?. ?The local politics are so entrenched that you?re basically choosing between incumbents and former council members, selecting from this handful of people who can get elected any time they want and just sort of pass it back and forth between each other because we have some regulation on the books that no council member can sit on the council for more than eight years,? he says. ?They then have to take a two-year break, and then they can go for another eight years, on and on until they?re senile and attending council meetings from the retirement home.? To a large degree, this state of affairs can be attributed to the transience of the political powerhouse that is the student body. Eight-year term limits do little good in a population with at best a four-year attention span. ?As much as I like the students and the university and higher education,? says Baer, ?in general, I don?t think of the average UCSC student as being particularly cognizant of what?s going on in city politics or what the impacts are of the votes that they somewhat casually cast. ?I think they get played by the people who are influential up there [on campus], notably Mike Rotkin,? he says. ?Their vote is being used by people to do some things I?m not sure students would really want done if they understood how it was really playing out.? What Baer is referring to is the myriad controversies that Rotkin, who teaches a class on Marxism at UCSC, has gotten himself embroiled within. Rotkin, along with councilmembers Scott Kennedy, Cynthia Mathews and Mike Hernandez consistently found himself in hot water with local activists over issues such as the Beach Area and South of Laurel Plan, which included converting La Bahia apartments into a convention center, an expansion of the Boardwalk and the razing of affordable housing in the Beach Flats, among other things. The plan was meant to ?revitalize? (many would say ?gentrify?) the area and bolster tourism. The Rotkin-Kennedy-Mathews-Hernandez council majority also came under fire for supporting the Gateway Plaza and Costco developments. Rotkin, who is running for a fifth term in November, cites this as an attempt to take advantage of a potential non-tourist tax base and stem the flow of capital out of the community into big-box havens such as Fremont and Sand City. Community activists countered that these developments would only support low-wage jobs and the profits of huge corporate chains. Those other transients When asked what the city had done to mitigate the tourism industry?s tendencies to draw down wages in the area with the proliferation of low-skill, poorly-paid jobs, Rotkin responded, ?It?s led to people thinking that we need to help try and support organizing so that people in those industries can organize and provide an economic defense for themselves.? As evidence, he cited a case in 1981 in which, as Mayor, he supported a strike at a local hotel. He was hard-pressed to cite more recent examples, but noted that the City requires that contractors pay prevailing wages in the building of city developments and that, had the La Bahia Conference Center idea gone through, the City would have required the employer to pay prevailing wages. The City?s recent passage of the Living Wage Ordinance, which requires the city and its contractors to pay their employees an annually-indexed ?living wage?, indicates that?at least ideally?the City Council is in support of decent wages and workers? rights to organize on the job. While this may tend to exert an upward pressure on regional wages, it will likely be limited to workers specifically identified in the ordinance. There are some notable exceptions, such as the Santa Cruz Community Credit Union, which this spring voted to tie their lowest wages to the city?s annually-indexed ?living wage?. Unfortunately, those workers in the largely tourism-driven retail sector are least likely to share in the ancillary benefits. When it comes to material, systemic support for decent wages and working conditions, the City?s record is not so impressive. Continuing no-strings subsidies for the exploitive tourism industry are a notable example. ?Police protection?, which, according to Rotkin, comprises a large portion of public subsidies for tourism, is particularly problematic. When asked who it was that was being policed in this case, Rotkin answered ?everyone.? However, the casual observer will note that, at least when it comes to Pacific Avenue, the scruffier transients are targeted overwhelmingly over the more well-to-do tourist transients who visit the area. Again, hard numbers are hard to come by on this issue, as law enforcement officials are reluctant to keep records to track it. Even stricter downtown ordinances and more rigorous enforcement of existing downtown and anti-homeless ordinances can only compound this problem. As tempers flared around the time of the police-instigated riots of 1994, members of the Santa Cruz General Membership Branch of the Industrial Workers of the World (the IWW, or ?Wobblies?) put it succinctly: ?All low-paid waged laborers?are essentially being warned by anti-homeless legislation to ?play it safe? on the job so as not to end up on the street. ?The effort to stigmatize and outright vilify an economic circumstance that all waged workers must constantly struggle to avoid is a very useful strategy for keeping labor in line. In Santa Cruz, a worker?s existence is primarily defined by the constant struggle to maintain legal housing where over half of one?s monthly wages may go towards rent. The criminalization of the condition of being unable to pay rent functions as a very real demand that workers remain ever-grateful for current employment, regardless of conditions or pay. ?By securing access to a subdued and fearful service-industry workforce, supporters of anti-homeless legislation (almost entirely bosses) seek to simultaneously sweep the streets of the homeless while assuring that there will always be a willing employee to hold the broom.? Where to now? This piece began in 1920?s Santa Cruz, when the Wobblies were as active here as they were in 1994, then struggling against the timber barons in the Santa Cruz Mountains. Tom Scribner, whose bronze statue perches on the Pacific Avenue sidewalk facing the St. George Hotel and whose portrait graces the wall of the Poet & Patriot, was a Wobbly during those times. He devoted most of his life to organizing with the unemployed and downtrodden against the financial system that kept them down. He was later known for his skill in playing the musical saw, which he often did in public spaces. If only our eclectic street musicians were treated with such respect nowadays. Still, it is positive that we have a statue of an old-time radical and no such visible monument to the racial and class bigotry which ran rampant in the ?20s in Santa Cruz (at least until Louis Rittenhouse erects?as Bruce Bratton claims he plans to?a commemorative plaque to his grandfather, a major proponent of the ?Keep California White? movement). But, we cannot rely on a transient and unrooted student radicalism to maintain the pseudo-progressive majority in Santa Cruz. For one thing, the political power of the student body is likely to become increasingly fragmented as a new student demographic is brought to UCSC by bolstered Economics and Engineering departments and a waning commitment among faculty to non-traditional education. For another, it is clear that the student body has enormous political power, but that political power will be easily mobilized, as it always has been, to serve the interests of the political elite who have in turn enslaved themselves to the economic interests of the tourism industry. The solution does not lie in City Government. As Phil Baer notes about his experience in City Council meetings, ?It just seems like a predetermined process. You go there, you say your spiel, but you get the sense the decision has already been made.? How we vote matters far less than how we relate to our bosses, our landlords or those who would presume to police us. It also matters far less than how we all relate to each other?the community ties and the alternative institutions we build together. My next installment of ?Transience in Santa Cruz? will focus on how transience affects these interpersonal relationships. It will not appear in the next issue, but rather in the following one, to give all of you time to relate your stories and register your opinions on this topic. Please send us your thoughts to our P.O. Box or e-mail me at fhar@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 Thu Jul 11 23:03:02 2002 From: wires at the-alarm.com (Alarm!Wires) Date: Sun Feb 8 02:51:42 2004 Subject: [Dryerase] The Alarm--Re-tool Message-ID: <43406019-954C-11D6-B276-003065F4865E@the-alarm.com> This was a column i attempted to do for three weeks, but dropped it as the workload became to high. It highlights new, not-so-new, and emergent technologies and critiques them. Target technolgies: cell phones, IBM and the "Segway Human Transporter". They are current, but not especially timely, in many cases. They are not locally-specific. 6-21-02 Segway or non sequitor? By Fhar Miess The Alarm! Newspaper Collective In December of 2001, inventor Dean Kamen unveiled his newest development: a two-wheeled machine called the ?Segway Human Transporter (HT)?, which looks remarkably like a push mower, but functions as a small one-person vehicle. The machine, which comes in both consumer versions and customized versions for corporate clients, weighs some 65lb. and is able to travel up to speeds of 12.5 mph. Through some very sophisticated engineering and a parallel system of microprocessors that surpasses the computing power of many desktop personal computers, the machine is able to respond to slight tilts and shifts in weight so that it moves forward as the driver shifts forward and stops when he or she stands up straight. The Segway HT can turn on a dime by the use of simple handlebar controls. Segway LLC (the partnership which Kamen formed to develop, produce and market his invention) boasts an executive management team with some impressive credentials. Members of the team have cut their teeth working for such heavyweight organizations as Subaru, IBM (see last week?s Re-tool), the Rand Corporation, Johnson & Johnson Medical, Inc., Ford Motor Company, General Electric Company, The Gillette Company, Martin Marietta Data Systems and various arms of the United States Government. Segway LLC?s business savvy and its executives? years of experience in corporate culture show through. Until the personal consumer version of the Segway becomes available, the company is focusing on marketing to large corporate clients. The Segway HT?s major selling point, according to its manufacturer, is that it ?increases worker productivity by allowing workers to do everything more efficiently. Greater speed and capacity will enable them to carry more and cover greater distances. Machines can be outfitted with customized accessories, allowing workers to transport enough equipment to perform multiple operations and reduce the need for re-supply trips.? True to standard corporate rhetoric, these machines are represented as ?labor-saving devices? which are liberating to workers. The Segway HT is billed as a solution to repetitive stress and other work-related injuries, although not in order to improve health and safety for workers, but to ?allow? them to remain on the job longer. It will not ?allow workers to do everything more efficiently?; it will mandate that they work more efficiently. Such technological tools do not save labor, they exploit it in order to enhance productivity. As for the personal consumer model, Segway LLC executives remain confident that the Segway HT will fundamentally change the way people move from place to place in their personal lives, as well as at work. They likely derive this confidence from their army of lobbyists urging state and federal legislatures to revise laws prohibiting motorized vehicles from sidewalks. Many other individuals and groups, however, are not so buoyant about this eventuality. Consumer and medical groups such as the Consumer Federation of America and the American Academy of Pediatrics, for example, are pressing for greater restrictions on the speed at which these vehicles may travel and the safety gear their drivers must wear. Others are not so circumspect. ?I think the Segway is evil,? says Christopher Congleton, half jokingly. Congleton is a graduate researcher at the Institute for Transportation Studies at UC Davis. ?Like any transportation tool, people don?t think about anything beyond the direct experience of the technology itself?they don?t consider the effects on public space from a mixed-use environment populated by Segways.? As Congleton notes, the Segway is not without its analogs in the realm of motor vehicles: ?The Segway is the pedestrian SUV: although lacking the emissions and inefficiency of its larger cousin, the Segway caters to similar character traits as most SUV markets. It may encourage a new class distinction with aristocrats atop elevated roving pedestals dominating those on foot. One can imagine a sidewalk with varying densities and speeds of traffic, with the Segway marginalizing the elderly, the multi-mobile [?the disabled? in common parlance], children, and those who cannot?or chose not to?afford the Segway.? Referring to the possibility of road rage spilling over onto sidewalks, trails, and other mutli-use and pedestrian areas, Congelton claims, ?the chance for injuries could be high, quite possibly stemming from intermodal aggression.? But, as noted by Chris Carlsson, one of the progenitors of ?Critical Mass?, ?there?s a huge market for finding ways to move people around in ways that negate their ability to propel themselves under their own power?. At first glance, one would be tempted to think that many of the wonders of modern innovation are the result of pure laziness. But, upon closer examination, it becomes abundantly clear that innovation has been driven by some very industrious individuals who are not content to allow simple laziness to determine product demand. At the same time as these individuals manipulate demand for ?labor-saving devices? through cunning and aggressive marketing ploys, they operate organizations that mandate high levels of worker productivity. Laziness is not an inherent human trait; rather, it is a by-product of a sped-up workforce with little or no control over its own productive activities. After working 50, 60 or more hours per week in an environment where productivity is paramount, is it any wonder that we find it hard to derive satisfaction from such quaint activities as walking, kneading dough, growing food, or any number of other activities made obsolete and horribly ?inefficient? by new-fangled techno-fixes? For the most part, Dean Kamen has in the past stuck to medical gadgetry, his most recent invention before the Segway HT being a self-balancing machine for wheelchair users. Of Kamen?s over 150 US and foreign patents, this is his first major invention developed without regard to any discernible medical condition?or is it? Is it not possible that the Segway HT was developed for a consumer base that has been crippled in even more profound?if less obvious?ways? In Japan, they at least have a word for this condition: karoshi, which roughly translates as ?death by overwork.? It is no surprise that a group of career corporate executives such as those who populate Segway LLC should find it mutually beneficial to partner with a man most well-known for inventing high-end gadgets to facilitate the mobility of disabled people. Why should they limit themselves to the congenitally sick and the accidentally disabled when there is money to be made from those maimed?with symptoms ranging from simple laziness to diagnosable karoshi?by an economic system they have invested their entire careers into perpetuating? After having broken our legs, literally and figuratively, they are eager to find someone to develop some value-added crutches they can sell to us at a premium. As long as we fail to recognize how the crippling work habits we?ve inherited have been foisted upon us, we will remain perpetually frustrated by technological solutions that are in fact nothing more than disempowering half-measures by design. This brutal feedback loop will not be interrupted by government or industry because both depend on it. It can only be interrupted by each of us as producers, consumers and living, breathing, loving human beings determined to make our destinies together on terms we?ve decided collectively. 6-14-02 IBM and the impending holocaust By Fhar Miess The Alarm! Newspaper Collective This Tuesday (June 11), International Business Machines Corporation (IBM) made an announcement that their researchers had developed a new technology for data storage which surpasses the capabilities of any other storage technology by 20 times. This new development comes as a result of a technique originally exploited in the 1880s by the founder of the company which eventually became IBM. That technique is the use of punched cards as a means of storing, tabulating and eventually processing data. The primary difference, of course, is size. IBM?s new machine, developed by its Millipede program, uses nanotechnology to create a pattern of indentations, each measuring only 10 nanometers (about 6,000 times smaller than the width of a human hair). The original punched-card system, developed by Herman Hollerith, was first used on a massive scale during the 1890 US Census. Ultimately, the need of the government to accurately gather intelligence on its citizenry was what drove the technology (it also enabled Hollerith?s monopolistic business practices). A constitutional mandate in combination with large upsurges in population at that time meant that a technology needed to be developed which would make the Census feasible. The Hollerith system was the solution (true to IBM?s present motto). When Adolf Hitler ordered a census of all Germans in the first weeks of his ascension to power in 1933, IBM?s Hollerith machines were equally indispensable for the first steps toward what would eventually become the Third Reich?s ?Final Solution?. In fact, Dehomag (IBM?s German subsidiary, in which it held a 90% stake) was contracted by the NSDAP (the Nazi Party) to conduct the entire census process (with the exception of the actual collection of data, which largely fell upon the Storm Troopers and SS) in Prussia, Germany?s most populous state. The application of the Hollerith machines, as well as the export of training and technical personnel and resources by IBM New York, was not limited to this early case, either. As has been well documented in Edwin Black?s IBM and the Holocaust, IBM resources and personnel were used throughout the Reich, not least of all in the Race Political Office. The Dehomag Hollerith machines? assistance in the areas of demographics and information management is what made the Nazi dream of a Final Solution a viable possibility. In February of 2001, when Edwin Black released his book clearly outlining collusion between IBM, Thomas Watson (IBM?s head), Dehomag (IBM?s German subsidiary) and the NSDAP, it generated a flurry of denunciations and denials from the company as well as great deal of overall hoop-lah in the media. While the historical facts are very much significant, particularly in light of the reparations suit filed at the same time against the firm, they may possibly pale in comparison to the ramifications of the technology IBM is currently developing. In August of 2000, IBM announced the formation of its new Life Sciences Division, dedicated to producing machines and technologies capable of serving the needs of biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies in the growing disciplines of genomics, bioinformatics and proteomics. Despite the fact that it entailed the allocation of millions of dollars, the move went largely unnoticed in the media by all except the business press. One of the stars of the Life Sciences Division is IBM?s ?Blue Gene? supercomputer. The machine was developed to be able to efficiently manage and process enormous volumes of genetic information. It will be used by various sectors of the biotechnology industry (pharmaceuticals, agricultural biotechnology and animal genetics) to map plant and animal genomes (including the human genome), analyze and simulate protein folding (with applications primarily for pharmaceuticals development) and study the roles of certain portions of genetic codes in plant and animal development and living functions. IBM and its Blue Gene clients are quick to assure us that all of these new developments will only be utilized for the betterment of the human condition. We ?alarmists? are not so sure. This past week (June 9?12), the Biotechnology Industry Organization (BIO) held its annual conference, this year in Toronto, Ontario. For each of the past several years, the conference has been marked by protests from activists who consider the current trend of biotechnology development anathema to the betterment of the human condition, not to mention that of the planet. This year was no exception (see article, page 9). On the second day of the BIO conference, Carl Feldbaum, President of BIO, delivered a speech to the conference in which he outlined his ten-point platform for ?Biotechnology?s Foreign Policy?. This platform was modeled after Woodrow Wilson?s 14 points, which were meant to inaugurate the League of Nations and marked the beginning of an era of internationalist liberal democracy and economic development. Here are some highlights: Point One states, ?The industry must work with governments and international bodies to integrate biotechnology into compelling responses to public-health crises.? And how is it that we should come to conclusions about what constitutes a ?public-health crisis?? Well, that brings us to Point Five, which states, ?For biotech?s positive outcomes to truly flourish, we need to agree that both international and national regulatory regimes be based on science.? Feldbaum goes on: ?As more and more nations upgrade their regulatory systems to consider complex biotechnology products, we urge them to detach that process from politics and ideology, even superstition.? Apparently, Mr. Feldbaum is one of the old guard who still believe that reductionist scientific inquiry is utterly devoid of politics and ideology, even superstition. Take, for instance, the investigations of the very scientifically-inclined eugenicists and statisticians whose work informed and facilitated the Final Solution. One would be hard-pressed to conceive of a basis for these scientists? endeavors which wasn?t political, ideological or even superstitious. In Point Ten, Feldbaum declares, ?biotechnology should be used to develop treatments and protective products for both military personnel and civilians, but it must never be used to develop weapons.? Well, that?s all very nice, but it?s too little, too late. Biotechnology has been used for the purpose of weapons development for some time, and it is not likely to stop now. The case of anthrax is well known, but recent news shows only increasing trends toward weapons development. IBM recently (November of 2001) partnered with Lawrence Livermore National Labs to develop a new Blue Gene supercomputer specifically for nuclear weapons development and storage. Indicating more deliberate collusion between nuclear weapons research and the biotechnology industry, Compaq Computing, Sandia National Labs and Celera Genomics agreed in January of 2001 to work together on a project to develop a supercomputer comparable to IBM?s Blue Gene. It is being developed openly and specifically for nuclear weapons research. Underlying Feldbaum?s tenth point is the assumption that it is possible and advisable to keep the power of biotechnology and bioinformatics ?out of the wrong hands?. If there?s anything we should learn from the case of IBM, it is that it is neither possible nor advisable. That power is always already in the wrong hands. The governmental and economic forces which drive the vast majority of scientific development are problematic from the beginning. Those scientists who uncritically respond to those pressures are not absolved of responsibility for the very political and ideological (even superstitious) forces which drive their work. To go back to Feldbaum?s fifth point, he says, ?every new technology inevitably provokes a political confrontation between alarmists [*snicker*] and the scientific community. ?Again and again, the science proves the alarmists wrong.? For one, this assumes consensus among the scientific community, which is rarely present. Consensus among the so-called alarmists is scarcely monolithic, either (for instance, we have no presentiment about the computer chip implants being the ?Mark of the Beast?). And, on the contrary, science does not prove the alarmists wrong; history suggests that wherever science succeeds in erasing its inherently ideological and political nature, it invites disaster and?at the risk of sounding ?alarmist??holocaust. 6-7-02 Cell phones suck more than just your brains By Fhar Miess The Alarm! Newspaper Collective Union Network International (UNI) inaugurated its ?global week of organizing? among workers at mobile phone companies around the world May 27-31, highlighting an aspect of cell phone culture that has gone largely ignored: its effect on working people and work habits. Much has been made of the controversy surrounding the safety of cell phone use and of proximity to transmission towers and antennas (a great survey of how this plays out in our community can be found in the May issue of the Green Press). And the popular annoyance with cell phones and their users in public spaces like movie theaters and restaurants has given rise to an abundance of jokes, comics and regulatory signage. But these are largely coping mechanisms and safety valves for a perhaps more deeply held anxiety about cell phones: that they are fundamentally calling into question the way we relate to each other and the spaces around us, and the boundaries we place between work and leisure time. It is easy to get caught up in chicken-and-egg discussions when considering the role of cell phones in a sped-up and over-worked society. Is the popularity of cell phones attributable to their inherent virtue as nifty and useful gadgets (with a few unintended effects of a destabilized, flexible workforce)? Or did the popularity of cell phones arise in the first place because of worker?s needs to keep up with a hyper-connected and highly-casualized global economy around them? It would be easy to say that the popularity of cell phones paralleled the privatization and casualization of the global economy in an organic fashion, much as the telegraph and railroads grew alongside one-another. Unfortunately, this analysis erases the role of leading executives in shaping global market forces, just as it would denigrate the deliberate market and labor-force manipulations of industrialists in the late 19th century which led to fourteen-hour (and more) workdays in that era. On the consumer end of the equation, a number of mobile phone operators across the globe?many of which are comprised of mergers and joint ventures between the Baby Bells*?have spearheaded the telecommunications ?revolution? which has made ?telework? both possible and, in some instances, necessary, for a flexible, just-in-time global market structure. Those of us who have had cell phones know the always-on-call, perpetual-multitasking modes we get sucked into, despite our best attempts to avoid these patterns and limit cell phone use to keeping in touch with the people who are most important to us. But, these deliberate attempts to affect generalized work speed-ups and increased ?flexibility? throughout the global workforce become most evident in the attitudes of telecommunications company executives toward their own workers. At the end of the summer of 2000, 87,000 workers at Verizon Communications?which owns Verizon Wireless, the largest mobile phone operator in the country?went on strike for eighteen days. The issues? Forced overtime, forced relocation, job security and the right to organize. In essence, the striking workers at Verizon were protesting precisely the conditions (high stress, long working hours, insecurity and enforced mobility) that are the corollary of the technology they were being paid by Verizon to operate, maintain and support. The strike won Verizon workers significant gains in all of the issues over which they went out. Verizon?s experience apparently taught a few lessons to other cellular providers facing mounting pressure from workers in the months leading up to the fall surge in new phone orders from incoming students. A change in tactics was in order. A year later, in August of 2001, Cingular Wireless, the second largest mobile phone operator in the United States, signed a ?card-check and neutrality? agreement with Communications Workers of America (CWA), the union which represented 72,000 of the 87,000 workers striking against Verizon. This paved the way for relatively unimpeded union organizing campaigns. The executives at BellSouth and SBC Communications (two of the remaining four Baby Bells), which co-own Cingular Wireless, have clearly learned a few things about how to make their joint venture run smoothly without the risk of costly work stoppages. Cingular has recently even introduced special discounted deals to CWA members on mobile products and services offered by the company: the carrot to Verizon?s stick. If they can?t enforce ?Taylorism?, ?rationalization?, ?workflow management?, or ?flexibility? (or any other of the various industry euphemisms for work speed-ups and lack of job security) on the shop floor, they?ll do it through the lure of product marketing and incentives. CWA has apparently accepted these dubious shows of goodwill uncritically. A joint press release by CWA and Cingular has touted the amicable partnership between the two parties, and the wonderful services (as well as the pre-packaged sense of ?self-expression?) to be offered by Cingular Wireless. There is no outward recognition of the effect of telecommunications products and services on the work habits and employment relations the CWA claims to have as its primary concerns. To the contrary the CWA advertises these products and services glowingly. Evidently, CWA has become blinded by the prospect of thousands of new dues-paying highly-skilled and well-compensated telecommunications workers in the ranks. As a result, they have sacrificed long-term working and living conditions for a large swath of the global working class in exchange for short-term gains in job security limited to those workers CWA directly represents. To have rejected the card-check and neutrality agreement would have been suicide for the organization, but to do so uncritically is fratricide (and also suicide, if one takes some of the health and safety warnings about cell phones seriously). The United Auto Workers (UAW) and International Longshore and Wherehouse Union (ILWU) made similar concessions to employers over automation and containerization (respectively), leading to declines in both the power and relevancy in two of the most militant mainstream unions in the United States. So long as we remain attached to the ideal of an ultimately amicable partnership between capitalism and an organized working class, the former will win out over the latter. So long as we maintain that capitalism and technological ?progress? for the sake of profit is inevitable, we will ensure the same. * The ?Baby Bells? were the seven companies set up to provide local telephone services after the US government broke up the AT&T telephone monopoly in 1984. The concentration of telecommunications services into the hands of companies which formerly comprised a monopoly has generally followed the pattern of mergers between Rockefeller?s old Standard Oil empire spin-offs in the petroleum industry. 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 xraymagazine at yahoo.com Fri Jul 12 07:51:29 2002 From: xraymagazine at yahoo.com (XRay Magazine) Date: Sun Feb 8 02:51:42 2004 Subject: [Dryerase] UPC Stories Message-ID: <20020712125129.95028.qmail@web14407.mail.yahoo.com> UPC Organizers chat with XRay An email interview by Stephen Novotni with UPC organizers Jen Angel and Jason Kuscma X: How many people showed up? What was the farthest someone travelled to get there? Jason: Approximately 700-800 people showed up this weekend from over 36 different states and Canada. Both the east and west coasts were well-represented and we had people from the hearts of Florida and Texas as well. A good number of the attendees were midwesterners and local Northwest Ohio residents. X: How does the 4th UPC compare with the first or last year's? Jason: The 4th UPC differed from the others primarily in its intention. In the past, the conferences had been about 2/3 devoted to media and art while the balance was made up by activist-related workshops, panels and discussions. This year we not only increased the number of sessions per day (and per time slot) but we made sure that each one was explicitly related somehow to democratizing the tools for do-it-yourself media making. We had independent film screenings, workshops on web production, screen-printing, bookbinding, and a host of others. We also used panel discussions to allow independent media makers talk about the work they are involved in. Jen: We've also become more organized. This year, people were able to register and pay online, we had welcome packets/bags for each person that were full of books, cds, flyers, magazines, buttons, etc, and we had new evening events, like the Saturday night Bowling party, where we rented an entire bowling alley for conference-goers. X: What's been the most valuable thing you've learned from the event? Jason: The most important thing that I think a lot of people take home from the weekend (myself included) is a renewed sense of purpose-kind of a reminder that the work that we do is important, and sometimes we need to renew that purpose and energy to keep it all going. Jen: I also think that events such as this one constantly reinforce how much we need and can learn from one another. X: What do you think is in store in the future of the progressive/indie/leftist press? Jason: I think we are at an exciting time right now where participatory media projects have the potential to contend with the corporate giants. Everyday folks know that the stuff they see on television and read in the paper is not entirely accurate and often immoral in it's omission of certain news. Participatory media counters this by creating more media sources that amplify the voices of the people. I'm excited by how far indymedia.org has come in such a short time, and I also think it's remarkable that Clamor is still around after two years...both of which are using models that technically shouldn't be able to work in a market that works best when it panders to the lowest common denominator. X: What are the most important things women can do to have a voice in the media? What publications are best at advancing the role of women in the media? Jen: Well, there are many ways that women can be strong in media. One is to participate in creating and founding new media institutions, such as new magazines and radio stations, etc. It is important for women to not only participate in these things, but to help create them. Women who are currently involved need to lead by example and help reset our ideas of what the "norm" is.... Instead of featuring a women's issue or a radio show devote to women, how about producing a magazine where all the writers and contributors are female, but the topics are regular topics and not specifically womens-interest topics? That would be more powerful. There isn't any one organization that exemplifies how women should act within media. Venus magazine is a great resource, but it is organized differently than many participatory media resources. THere are many good organizations out there, but no matter how much outreach they do, individual women need to take the initiative to find their own voice. X: The conference had some diversity, but how can more minority-owned publications and publishers be brought into the mix? Jason: This is always a concern of ours, and something we've tried to address every year. The primary way that we can work on increasing diversity would be to increase the funds available to bring folks who are not as easily able to drop what they're doing to head to a conference in Ohio. With an increase in sponsors, donors and other fundraising projects, we should be able to bring folks in from a variety of media projects from various communities of color. Jen: However, we have always had a lot of women involved, and have been very good at bringing together a good mix of ages, from high school students to experienced media activists in their 50's and 60's. *Current List members should feel free to use this piece for one time use in their publications or on an ongoing basis online. Please attribute to Stephen J. Novotni, GoXRay.com __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Sign up for SBC Yahoo! Dial - First Month Free http://sbc.yahoo.com From wires at the-alarm.com Thu Jul 11 22:55:05 2002 From: wires at the-alarm.com (Alarm!Wires) Date: Sun Feb 8 02:51:43 2004 Subject: [Dryerase] The Alarm--Writings of Manuel Schwab Message-ID: <28CE585E-954B-11D6-B276-003065F4865E@the-alarm.com> Here is a collection of Manuel Schwab's pieces since our first issue on May 17th. They are all very good and none of them are particularly local. Some are timely, but not in a way that would make them sound dated if reprinted. The last issue (7-5-02) was omitted because his piece revolved around a photograph that i'm not sure how to get to y'all. They are ordered from oldest to newest 5-17-02 Antiterrorism, Zionism, and Apartheid By Manuel Schwab ?You cannot in one breath claim the right of the Jews to political power and sovereignty in one part of the world?and in the next breath seek to take away the same hard-won right from the children of the Boers.? In this way H. Katzew, the Editor of the Zionist Record in South Africa, characterized the ideological equivalency he perceived between the Zionist state in Palestine and his own country?s Apartheid regime. The analogies between the two regimes are, in fact, striking; both were the result of systematic expropriation or simple seizure of native land, both depended on the support of an imperial international consensus. Both depend on racialized citizenship laws and racially biased political codes. Both withstood decades of international pressure against them (often only surviving with the support of a few powerful allies). It demands an explanation, therefore, why 11 years after the celebrated collapse of Apartheid, the largest military operation by Israel targeting the Palestinian population (a population that Israel has systematically displaced, persecuted, and oppressed) is met with official support from the same government that touts the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission as an exemplary political transition. The necessity of an explanation seems all the more pressing if we look beyond the broad structural similarities of these two settler regimes and examine what cannot be called anything but a peculiar alliance. It was May 15th, 1948?the same month that the Afrikaner Nationalist Party which implemented the ?separate development? (Apartheid) policy in South Africa came to power?that the state of Israel was officially recognized by the United Nations. The build up of what was to become the military infrastructure of Israel, however, began long before the state?s official recognition; it was in fact prior to the success of the Zionist settler state that we see Zionism?s relationship to the South African colonies burgeoning. We can take the case of the Haganah, a pre-military infrastructure that played an instrumental role in the suppression of the Arab Revolt against the British (1936-1939), as an example. Established in 1920, it is from the ranks of the Haganah that the infamous Irgun emerged, later to become responsible?alongside their more radical right wing splinter group, The Stern Gang -- for the April 1948 massacres in Jaffa and Deir Yasin. It was also the Haganah that enjoyed the financial and political support of General Jan Christian Smuts?the early Apartheid ideologue (before the policy was officially implemented) and celebrated prime minister of South Africa. Although it is important to note that this objective was under some dispute throughout the pre-history of Israel, many Zionists taking it as their objective to combat both the British Mandatory Authority and the Arab Palestinians, General Smuts? interest in Zionism was its promise to defend British imperial interests in the Middle East. Smuts was revered as one of the founding father?s of the League of Nations, and is remembered for making indispensable contributions to the British dream of the establishment of a new international society. He was a man who believed just as firmly in race-separation, and in the control of native populations by a settler regime explicitly constructed around racial exclusion. His relationship to Chaim Weizmann, who was the first President of Israel and one of its most important founding Zionists?as well as staunch pro-British Zionist?was an important diplomatic and strategic boon to the diplomatic success of Israel. Weizmann?s diplomacy would help frame Israel as the imperial bulwark which Smuts believed necessary for the occidentalization of Africa, and Smuts in turn made Zionism a personal diplomatic project. The collusion between Israel and South Africa was far more than a fleeting allegiance between two racialist ideologues at a time when many western powers were still avowedly dedicated to some version of traditional colonialism. Beyond being the products of the same colonial power block (the Balfour agreement that promised British support for a Zionist State in Palestine and the 1909 South Africa Act of Union were the result of the machinations of the same network of imperialist players), the cooperation between South Africa and Israel included tactical, ideological, and politico-economic alliances that lasted at least until the final decade of the Apartheid regime. The chief of staff of the Israeli Air Force, for instance, lectured in the late 60s on the tactics Israel used during the 1967 Six-Day War to a South African Air Force academy. A rough decade later (circa 1975), Israeli Officers were still being sent to South Africa to train troops there in counter-insurgency techniques, a collusion aired publicly at that time by the London Guardian. Beyond these glaring collaborations, bilateral trade and expansion arrangements with South Africa were actively pursued by the Israeli Histadrut (the second largest employer in Israel at the time, next to the state) through the 70s in relation to South Africa. This all fell against the backdrop of the Cold War, a time in which the US had already proven its capacity to fight their battles against the Soviet Union by surrogate, supporting regimes they felt to be instrumental for the containment of communism (with overt Military interventions like the Vietnam war, but more often clandestinely) the world over. Whatever is to be said about the appropriate way to situate Israel and South Africa in this picture, it is clear that the magnitude of US military and financial support to Israel made the latter?s international interventions possible. From the mid 1970s on, furthermore, the South African Apartheid government was engaged in the period in which their policy against Apartheid resistance was explicitly framed as an attempt to prevent the spread of socialist affiliation in that country. Both states, then, can be viewed, even by conservative estimations, as crucial stratagems in the global containment policy of the Cold War. The barrage of institutional facts that emerge when we examine the Zionist relationship to Imperial powers in general and South Africa (the most famous settler regime save perhaps the United States, which all but succeeded in the extermination of its own native population) makes clear certain claims that are often hotly disputed by analysts of contemporary Zionism. The fledgling Zionist state was by definition a settler regime, and moreover one whose founding architects self-consciously positioned themselves to take advantage of the imperial aspirations of the major global powers from 1948 on. It is clear from their correspondences that neither Herzl (widely acknowledged as the founder of modern Zionism), nor Weizmann, nor Ben Gurion (Israel?s first Prime Minister) ever had any illusions about the necessity to systematically displace the Palestinian Arabs. The government of Israel was, finally, an explicitly racialized political regime, and its close relationship to the Apartheid government can only be understood in the context of its relationship to its own native populations?a political and economic subjugation which is as robust as ever?and its relationship to the US. It seems then that there must be less of a contradiction than we think between the global liberal world order our nation vainly claims to champion and the racist empires from which it sprung. Israel operates, after all, under the banner of its renowned status as a beacon of democracy in the Middle East. It has made the seamless transition, on the ideological level, from the imperially funded settler regime of the past to the stratagem on the forefront of an ever-expanding sphere of liberal influence of the present. It stands alongside the US?despite laughable admonitions we?ve heard of late from our administration attempting to preserve competing alliances in the Arab world?in a fight against ?politically motivated violence.? The irony of this formulation will not escape the careful reader who recognized state violence as definitively political. Israel?s policies have not essentially changed since its close collusion with the Apartheid Regime of the 80s, and even this relationship was compatible in many western propagandists eyes with the civilizing mission of Israel until the regime fell. This seeming contradiction would come as more of a surprise if Israel?s pseudo-metamorphosis didn?t mirror in particular ways the liberal recuperations of our own neo-imperial ideologies, more and more often structured around our ?humanitarian? interests in intervention. On this last point, we must be clear. The current US war, which is fought like countless others to make the world safe for the democratic and the tolerant, is perpetrated in the name of security, and for this we must take our government to task. For the contradiction that we see in the claims of our own national objectives and the means by which our government pursues them is secondary to a deeper contradiction to which we must pay attention as much in our analysis of Israel as domestically. The contradiction between the interests of an industrialist government, built around hard military core, and our interests as its citizens (consenting or otherwise) cannot be overlooked. From the earliest stages of the successful Zionist campaign to gain control of Palestine, there were vocal opponents both within the Palestinian Jewish settler community and from the entire range of the Jewish community at large who decried the imperialism and racism of the Revisionist Zionists. Among them was Bernard Lazarre, a member of the Zionist Organization at a time when the question of whether Zionism would be imperialist was not yet decided, and who resigned in 1899 because of what he believed was an attempt by burgeoning Zionism to mislead its people. (Lazarre, incidentally, fought Herzl on the necessity of a Homeland, emphasizing rather a coalition based defense of European Jews in Europe). We find today the same form of dissent in Israel (yes, from a minority, as dissent always is in democracies), and we should not be seduced into believing that the high approval ratings for the Sharon government are an indicator of some innate hatred stemming from the population. Governments are always robust during a ?crisis of security,? and we see this all too well in the case of our own marginally accepted administration which suddenly, under attack, is given leave to enact policies that would otherwise have seen a president deposed. Nor should we be seduced into believing that this high approval rating amounts to a de facto legitimacy for Sharon and his policies. Remember that in the case of our own government, the attacks which came to legitimate the Bush administrations power were precipitated by decades of imperialism by his precursors, imperialism that systematically militarized the anti-American resistance we now decry. Remember that Sharon took power after a long history of personal military service, in which he was commanding officer during the massacres of both Sabra and Shatilla, and that his visit to the temple mount was the critical spark in the violence that swept him into office. Once a state is at war, it demands as a matter of public responsibility that we revere its leaders?and neither Sharon nor Bush is in the least bit oblivious to that fact. As far as the history of these wars is concerned, sanity would require us to remember the responsibility that both Sharon and Bush hold respectively for initiating the violence they now purport to defend themselves against. But sanity is not the objective here, and in a state of emergency it somehow becomes subversive to even acknowledge their agency. Patriotism, however, is more than ever a prime objective, and during war time, it is more and more clear that historical memory itself has become unpatriotic. 5-24-02 Subjecting ourselves to objectivity By Manuel Schwab The Alarm! Newspaper Contributor The non-neutrality of the media should not come as a revelation in an age in which virtually every new medium is credited with ushering in a new world. Whether it is by virtue of the rapidity of data transmission (the lynchpin of the utopian dreams of the silicon valley) or a spectacular capacity for impressing messages onto its target audience (the seduction of the moving picture), media always exert their influence. The dream of a magic tunnel through which the world can pass unaltered is as unrealizable as it is desired. In this desire lies, among other things, a recognition of the threat that ideology poses to our autonomy. We fear that our capacity for judgement will be hijacked by the selective vision of the messengers who are the mediators of our world. And this fear is, let us make no mistake here, a well founded anxiety, issuing forth from deep within the infrastructure of liberal democracies, in which opinion-building is the acceptable mode of the modern tyranny. It is, however, misdirected to look for purified information (?the facts?) to solve this dilemma. What would this objectivity look like? A neutral presentation of facts? Hardly. Facts themselves are the products of non-neutral systems of knowledge, and presented by themselves they are at best alibis for ideological biases which get passed off not as opinions but as common sense. To report, for example, a theft, without reporting the systematic production of the poverty that compelled it, is to frame the thief for the crimes of a larger conspiracy of powerful actors. Is this analysis itself an ideologically informed interpretation? Evidently. But it is not those opinions in which committed interests are apparent that threaten our capacity to make judgements of our world. It is rather those who postulate their opinions as fact, unleashing all the technologies of veracity at their disposal to effect a pretense of neutrality, that we should fear. The distance between facts (which are rendered rigid, isolated, and robbed of potential) and truths (which must be the outcome of collective negotiations, situated in that collective, and therefore susceptible to the potentialities of the collective imagination) is vast. The systems of knowledge which are currently dominant perform a dual operation. They work first to rigidify and isolate facts, next to pass them off as though they are the products of our collective ingenuity. They have thereby effectively erased the distinction between truth and fact, and in doing so have made their interests look like the products of our agency. Consequently, the world which we see as a constellation of the actual is itself a manifestation of intricate mediations: fantasies passed off as non-negotiable despite being the product of subjective interests that demand contestation. It is this world that we internalize when we ask to be handed reality as it appears on the most general level (in other words, when we demand ?just the facts?). This internalization quickly makes us complicit in the reproduction of the reality which we have been handed. It is perplexing that we desire this kind of complicity. More precisely, it is a terrible inversion of our relationship to reality that we should believe it to precede our interventions, that we must first understand it in all its mute actuality before we can concern ourselves with its possibilities?possibilities that will always be relegated to the ghetto of marginalized opinion until conviction lifts them from that squalor. Reality is not a stable entity that is simply observed and responded to. It has always been constructed, and it is our job to reclaim it for our own making. Often, to pose a question is to imply its answer, and this is a frequently overlooked component of the ideological intonation of news. For the case at hand, to pose the question in terms of the relative objectivity of news is to entirely miss the point. The question is rather one of the responsible disclosure of conviction. It should be made eminently clear that an attack on the pretenses of objectivity is not a defense of the right to discard considerations of accuracy. The irrefutable destructive power of a politics based in the fabrication of facts and narratives has been demonstrated to us (whether you take the disinformation campaigns around Vietnam or the current double-speak about Sharon?the ?man of peace? with an occupying army?as your point of departure, the lesson is the same). But rather than ask for objectivity, we should ask whether the objective conditions that are the substance of news reporting are being exposed as the result of argument, engineering, and fabrication. In short, we should ask if the news we are reading is reporting the truth of how prevailingly un-objective the objective fabric of our world really is. The reporting of ?pure fact? leaves dominant opinions potently invisible. Responsibility, on the other hand, demands a reporting that lays its subjective convictions unabashedly alongside the facts that are its motivation, and alongside the subjective fantasies made visible that are the foundation for these facts in the first place. The question should not be how to construct the magic tunnel through which reality can pass unaltered, but rather why we are so eager not to alter a world ripe for intervention. 5-31-02 Memorial Day and a storm in Rome By Manuel Schwab The Alarm! Newspaper Contributor On Thursday, May 30, the Guardian reported that lightning had hit and splintered a 3000-year-old obelisk located in Rome. Italian authorities consider it a miracle that no one was hurt. The obelisk, the Guardian report continued, had been stolen from Ethiopia in 1937 by Benito Mussolini to glorify the political might of the expanding fascist dictatorship. As a result of the lighting strike, a junior Culture Minister for Italy announced that the Foreign Ministry?s proposal to return the ill-gotten cultural artifact to Ethiopia would not be pursued, because the obelisk was now ?too fragile to move.? If there is any symbolic weight to the broken rock in Rome, its center of gravity is certainly the impact of Fascism?s legacy on the political imagination of the West. Since the end of the Second World War, Europe (and the United States closely behind) has been working to come to terms with its encounter (which many argue is anything but past) with this extreme manifestation of nationalist authoritarianism. This reckoning is all the more relevant today, in an era where the global political climate is once again marked by shocking international alliances, startling attacks on the sovereignty of nations, and a general return to the rhetoric of an international war against a monolithic evil. If we read the damage to the obelisk and the ensuing government reaction as a figure for our current western relationship to Fascism, then what has been shaken loose is our commitment to resist nationalist justifications for authoritarianism in the present. The lightning strike comes on the heels of Bush JR?s Memorial Day declaration at Saint- Mere-Eglise in Normandy, the site of the first landing of US Forces during the D-Day invasion of June 6, 1944. And there too, in Normandy, nearly fifty-seven years after the invasion, the rhetorical echoes of the old fascist heritage reverberate. In an insidious double move, Fascism is invoked as the prototypical threat to liberty, and nationalist aggression is offered as its only antidote. It should strike every civilian as a travesty that the commemoration of the war- dead falls, year after year, under the banner of the same nationalism that has served as a justification for the sacrifice of generations of civilians. But our current administration, at war, would never pass up such an opportunity to exploit the history of those who have already been killed in the service of their country. In fact, it seems that this war only demands renewed sacrifice, and that an alliance on the scale of the Second World War is being invoked to justify the deaths of countless Americans ? not to mention those countless others that never seem to count. Making a seamless transition from remembering the grief of the families of D-Day victims, our President now insists that, ?For some military families in America and in Europe, the grief is recent, with the losses we have suffered in Afghanistan.? More pointedly, he continues that ?Our security is still bound up together in a transatlantic alliance, with soldiers in many uniforms defending the world from terrorists at this very hour.? We should be deeply alarmed at this conflation of our present war with World War Two ? not because the casualties of either war are to be disparaged, nor because the geopolitical parameters of the two Wars are to be confused. Rather, we should be alarmed that our current administration is positioning itself as the central engineer of a war in which it demands global complicity. We should be alarmed that it is once again acceptable for our president to uncritically remind the world that ?the grave markers here [in Normandy] all face West.? Have we stopped paying attention to the dead of the East? Judging from the casualty reports we heard daily from mainstream news sources during our war in Afghanistan, evidently. But there was a period, more recent history than the war hawks would like to acknowledge, in which large populations in the West were vigilant (a word that has now taken on an entirely new meaning) against the resurgence of such internationally hostile nationalism. The New Left of Germany is a compelling example from that time: a radical movement of the young generation of the 1960s and 70s driven by the fear that the industrial leaders of Nazi Germany had never experienced the ?de-nazification? attempted in the political sector of that country. There was, alongside this German youth, the movement in the US and abroad against the Vietnam War. Many of these anti-war protestors emphasized the Cold-War imperialism that was the backdrop of that war. They considered the actions of their country as genocide (an opinion shared by Jean-Paul Sartre) practiced to further the goals of an insupportable American nationalism insinuating itself into to politics of the Third World to combat the Soviets. The anti-Soviet surrogate wars they waged continued through the late 1980s, and into Afghanistan. Back then, ironically, our Government was funding Osama Bin Laden in his fight against the Soviets. But that Cold War era (for which we should be anything but nostalgic) is now ?officially over.? Back in Italy, the site of the pregnant lightning strike on the old spoils of Fascist expansionism, Prime Minister Berlusconi took the weeks after September 11 as an opportunity to stump for his particular brand of far-right nationalism. He said that the attacks demonstrated once and for all the supremacy of Western civilization, and that they should inspire all European nations to re-commit themselves to their occidental roots. Apparently, more than just the tombstones face West. Or perhaps, the new geopolitical situation is even more complicated. Berlusconi was not, after all, the only world leader to take advantage of the rhetorical reservoir handed over to the belligerents of the world in the form of our government?s declaration of the War On Terrorism. Immediately after the attacks, Vladimir Putin announced to the world that America?s new war was comparable to Russia?s war against Chechnya, and that the two superpowers should join in the global struggle against terror. For a while it seemed that his plea would miraculously fall on deaf ears, but we should not be so lucky. The day before running the story on the lighting-struck-Roman obelisk, the Guardian reported on the impending US-Russian agreement as ?an epoch-making agreement that will give Russia a say alongside NATO and bury the Cold War forever.? But if the Cold War has been officially buried, the lightning that struck twice against the twin towers on September 11 was not the cause of death. Rather the attacks are, in addition to all their immediate horrors, an abiding alibi for a new era of militarism. If Bush?s call to arms does not suffice, and the posturing of Putin seems obscure, what about Sharon?s invasion of Palestine clothed in the imperial rags of anti-terrorism? Or what about the strange political about face of German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer? Fischer was himself somewhat of a radical anti-authoritarian in his German-New-Left-Youth, and a man who has for years been fighting the attempts of right-leaning government officials, both past and present, to brand him a terrorist for his political past. In the days after the attacks, he mused on public television that the September 11 events demonstrated the need to re-invent the relationship between civilian and military intelligence. Perhaps Bush was onto something after all about the importance of Memorial Day. He described it as a day that ?our country has set apart to remember what was gained in our wars, and all that was lost.? These days, we do not need to think far back to remember ?our war?. And these days, while what we are gaining is at best hypothetical, what has already been lost is all too concrete. New legal statutes infringe deeply into our civil liberties, and the massive restructuring of the FBI, made public four days after Memorial Day, refocuses that administration?s objectives on ?intelligence gathering,? promising only to streamline (and increase) the centralized surveillance of our domestic population. But back to that Ethiopian Obelisk in Rome. Since the lightning strike, we will have to wait indefinitely to see that monument of Fascist imperialism returned to its country of origin and thereby finally dismantled. Like that obelisk, our own repressive nationalism is now deemed by those who run our government to be ?too fragile to move.? It is unclear how long we will have to wait until we believe that our sense of national security is once again stable enough to endure critique. For the time being, it seems that the Cold War has given way to a new acquiescence in the face of old forms of authoritarianism, and if we are to commemorate on Memorial Day, it must include the rapidly shrinking presence of critical dissent. 6-7-02 The fantasy of nuclear democracy By Manuel Schwab The Alarm! Newspaper Contributor Some 40,000 people have been killed in Kashmir over the last ten years, according to human rights groups watching the region. This past week, our Defense Department released estimates of potential death tolls between 6?12 million people in the event of a nuclear conflict between India and Pakistan. Nuclear war is efficient. Perhaps it is this efficiency that makes the rattling of the nuclear sabers such an intoxicating thing to a particular sector of the societies capable of doing so. One particular leader in the fight to wrest Kashmir out from under Indian political domination articulated with a peculiar candor how he felt after Pakistan detonated their six nuclear warheads in 1998. He believed that this would prove to the rest of the world once and for all that ?they? (whoever the ?they? he alligned himself with happened to be) were not a bunch of ?castrati?. At first, the statement is almost amusing, with its mix of grotesque chauvinism and misplaced identifications. It is harrowing to recognize, however, how common such terrible confusion about the national capacity for nuclear war really is and how this reflects on the political capacity of that nation?s citizenry. Immediately after the collapse of the Twin Towers in New York, footage began to circulate around Europe of one of the rafters of the wreckage besmirched with the massively rendered plea ?c?mon bush, nuke ?em.? This was long before anyone was certain who ?they? were going to be, but it seems clear enough that the author of the request was inspired by some sense that with a massive nuclear retaliation, his feeling of agency would be restore?perhaps that ?America? (and by some strange alchemy he too) would show without fail that it could withstand anything. But neither a nuclear attack on the perpetrators of that bombing, nor a nuclear strike in the conflict over Kashmir will do anything to bring the situations to which they would respond back under control. Neither would they be politically, ecologically, or tactically viable. Obvious as that may sound, there seems to be a gap between this rationality and the fantasies in which nuclear weapons are obscured. These are fantasies that date back to the early days of colonialism, but found their culmination during the Cold War, and have proven resilient enough to leap the threshold between that era and our New War without serious modification. Remember for a moment the story of Slim Pickins in Stanley Kubric?s cold war classic, ?Dr. Strangelove?. Pickins, who is commander of a US bomber carrying Nuclear arsenal refuses to be deterred from his mission to drop the Bomb on the Russians by a failed communications system and a malfunctioning pair of cargo doors. His struggle to deliver his deadly motherload looks like a testimony to the individual?s triumph over obstinate circumstances, and one is almost tempted to cheer when he finally manages to discharge the Bomb, which he rides like a cowboy on a mechanical bull all the way to ground zero. But before any of us can cheer, we remember that the commands by the Pentagon to drop the Bomb were, in fact, a false alarm. To make matters worse, the Russians have installed a massive ?doomsday device? meant to deter against attack by triggering a nuclear chain reaction strong enough to destroy the globe in the event of any attack on Russian soil. What looked like a triumph of heroic ingenuity turns out to be a global catastrophe, a catastrophe caused precisely by technologies that end up, eventually, robbing even their manufacturers of any agency. Is this not what we see in all of the national nuclear projects? During the Manhattan Project, one of its most prominent Nuclear Physicists fantasized that the internationalism of the scientific enterprise (transnational cooperation in the pursuit of scientific problems) would serve as a model for a new transnational political order. Furthermore, the military had to rely on a massive complex of civilian agents to produce the Atom Bomb. Even if this large ?scientific democracy? did not serve as a model for international communalism, it would ensure that there would be a broad control over these technologies by the civilian sector. This model was carried to its logical extension in India, where the military stepped even more drastically out of the way of the scientific establishment, leaving the civilian scientists to take care of everything. The production of these weapons would finally impose an order on the nations that possessed them, making the anarchic renegade wars of inter-ethnic hatreds that belonged to a pre-modern era definitively a thing of the past. Each of these fantasies, however, have turned out to resolve into their opposite. The scientific internationalism envisioned by Neils Bohr turned out, in fact, to be the brinksmanship of the Cold War, in which the only common ground between political actors was the technology they used to threaten mutual destruction. The complex of civilian agents has only brought the ?scientific democracy? necessary for the development of nuclear technology into unavoidable collusion with the military that depends on them, and this military-industrial mutualism has, we all know, done nothing to make decisions about military policy more accessible. What has happened rather, is that this technology has further rationalized war in such a way as to make it easier for a tiny elite to operate in a completely irrational way. The national empowerment that joining the ranks of the nuclear powers affords only reflects on the extreme elite, and is generally bought at the expense of the populations in whose name it?s done. What this means in the current standoff between India and Pakistan is that a Nuclear Industry, modeled on the old colonial model of scientific and industrial exclusion, rests at the center of a conflict just as tied to that colonial history. If the suggestion by some of the nationalists behind these Nuclear projects that they will increase the power of the citizens of those countries is a fantasy, the destructive efficiency of the technology is, unfortunately, all too real. 6-14-02 When does fascism become legitimate? 1933, 1941, and 2001 By Manuel Schwab The Alarm! Newspaper Contributor ?War is not merely an act of policy but a true political instrument, a continuation of political intercourse, carried on with other means. What remains peculiar to war is simply the peculiar nature of its means.? ?Carl von Clausewitz After September 11, the US government began to make systematic comparisons between the attacks on the World Trade Towers and the Japanese military assault on Pearl Harbor in December 7, 1941. These comparisons were clearly meant to convey to national and international audiences the gravity of the attacks. Alongside these comparisons, however, an alternate discourse emerged. Many critics of the US response to the attacks made a different comparison. They invoked the burning of the Reichstag building in Germany February 27, 1933. This comparison also was meant to convey the gravity of the events, but it was a very different gravity. This particular allusion was meant to highlight the way in which the events of September 11 were used as an alibi for all sorts of repressive legislation unfathomable before the attack. In fact, both pieces of legislation offer an illuminating model with which to analyze our current administration?s response to the terrorist attacks of September 11. The arson of the Reichstag lead to the signature by the German State of an emergency decree ?for the protection of the people and the state.? This decree stipulated, among other things, that, ?restrictions on personal liberty, on the right of free expression of opinion, including freedom of the press; on the rights of assembly and association; and violations of the privacy of postal, telegraphic and telephonic communications and warrants for house searches, orders for confiscation as well as restrictions on property, are also permissible beyond the legal limits otherwise prescribed.? What followed was one of the most infamous campaigns by any European administration to consolidate its own power in the twentieth century. The Hitler government rounded up thousands of dissidents under its newly acquired right to impose ?protective custody.? The industrialists of that period rallied around that new government, both with financial contributions and with research and development work. The total industrial contribution towards the March 5 election campaign of the Nazi?s was about three million Marks, and the Krupps foundation joined IG Farben in being among the most notable contributors. Krupp was the munitions manufacturer for the Reich during the second world war, and IG Farben manufactured Zyklon-B the chemical used in the gas chambers of the German concentration camps. The Pearl Harbor attacks, in their turn, precipitated, the most sweeping suspensions of constitutional protections of the twentieth century. Executive Order 9066, which called for the removal and internment of Asian Americans, had to overcome considerable challenges at the supreme court level on the grounds that it violated the rights of Asian American citizens against illegal search and seizure and equal protection under the law. It is the fact that this deportation and internment of Japanese Americans was upheld by the supreme court that should compel us to suspicion regarding our current government?s invocation of that historical precedent as a model for September 11. In upholding the legality of these relocations despite the obvious violation of Japanese American rights to equal protection and against illegal search and seizure, the supreme court cited the compelling interest of the state to defend national security in times of crisis. One state of emergency, it seems, deserves the creation of another. The suspension of Civil Liberties in the aftermath of Pearl Harbor was one of several similarities between the US Government?s policy during WWII and that of the Nazi Government. The state of exception that the German Government heralded in 1933 culminated in the establishment and operation of the extermination camps until the end of the war. Although the US government did not (thankfully) follow suit with the extermination, it mimicked the emergency suspension of rights under presidential war powers, and mimicked also the close relationship that the German state established between its government and German industrial interests. Back at home, one of the shining lights of American Fascism, Lawrence Dennis, sang the praises of the fascist enterprise on our side of the Atlantic. ?Integration of government agencies, and coordination of authority may be called the keystone principles of fascist administration,? the economic fascist wrote in 1936, distressed only that the development of fascism in America would be impeded by the ?liberal norms of law or constitutional guarantees of private rights.? Just as Dennis sought to bridge a gap between the fascism of Europe and what he saw as nascent fascism on our side of the Atlantic, it seems that the current administration seeks to combine the security fallouts of the Reichstag fire with the political latitude their predecessors gained sixty years ago with the Pearl Harbor attack. For the one massive difference between the Reichstag fire and Pearl Harbor was that while the arson of the former clearly constituted a crime by domestic actors, and was therefore treated as a criminal act, the attack on Pearl Harbor was clearly framed as an act of war. Under the present establishment of Military Tribunals in the US outpost in Guatanomo Bay, and the recent classification of US citizen Jose Padilla (also known by his assumed name Abdullah al-Muhajir) as a foreign combatant, have made it more and more difficult to distinguish between civilian crimes and military aggressions. The attacks on Pearl Harbor were, furthermore, the beginning of our involvement in the last war that the United States government declared legally. Since then, it seems that the line between war crimes and civilian crimes is a distinction made at the discretion of our government?s authorities. Consider, for example, that in the preceding decade, not act of ?terrorism? has ever been considered an act of war. Whether it was the bombing of Pan Am 103 in 1988, the first World Trade Center Bombing of 1993, or the bombing of the US Embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998, none were considered acts of war. This attack, however, was not only framed as such, but has thereafter been used as a justification to suspend all kinds of constitutional protections via the USA Patriot Act, and is now poised as an alibi for the establishment of a Department of Homeland Security. This department is, without any exaggeration, the prototypical reform dreamed of by people like Lawrence Dennis in the 1930s. It brings the responsibilities of the Border Patrol, the Coast Guard, the Federal Emergency Response Agency, the Nuclear Regulatory agency, and on and on under the direction of a single agency. Furthermore, this agency will be supported in its pursuit of national security by such corporate syndicates as the Security Industry Association, and such surveillance heavyweights as the Visionics corporation, which recently had the US debut of its face recognition technology in Tampa Florida. These private sector competitors have a niche built around identifying how our state can better watch us, convincing it of the need to, and then procuring private contracts to build the appropriate technologies for surveillance. Gestures towards fascism? Perhaps. But maybe we are dealing with something a bit different. While the new war in which we are engaged is indeed being used to justify all kinds of draconian internal measures, it seems also to be blurring the line between who is and who is not under the jurisdiction of this increasingly authoritarian American leadership. Our current George W. seems the master slayer of distinctions. While it is becoming difficult to know the difference between security and government incursions into our daily lives, he has come up with a doctrine of international behavior to replace the Truman Doctrine of the Cold War. This one, however, makes no distinction between terrorists and those that harbor them, in which the only thing that is clear is that ?you?re either with us or against us?. While this seems, perplexingly, to treat the rest of the world as an extension of our own war policy, it may shed light on one part of the post September 11 strategy of our administration. If we can define entire countries outside of our national interest, we can also remove entire domestic populations from the ?national? populace that the invocation of national security seeks to protect. In the classic fascist move, dissident and undesirable populations are excised from the body politic, and its defense measures are turned against them in the interest of the rest. 6-21-02 Invading the Hague in the name of humanity By Manuel Schwab The Alarm! Newspaper Columnist In the second weeks of June, a flurry of headlines began to emerge around Europe warning of the imminent invasion of Holland by the US. Dutch Authorities reported wryly that they were digging trenches in The Hague. The Europeans were reacting to the passage of a piece of legislation that is affectionately referred to on their side of the Atlantic as ?The Hague Invasion Act.? Known on our side of the Atlantic as the ?American Servicemembers? Protection Act of 2002,? its most provocative section gives congressional authorization to the President ?to use all means necessary and appropriate to bring about the release of any person [American or American allied]?who is being detained or imprisoned by, on behalf of, or at the request of the International Criminal Court.? The International Criminal Court (ICC), which is slated to begin to function effectively on July 1, 2002 as the first permanently standing international court for the prosecution of ?crimes against humanity?, is located in The Hague. There is, of course, no invasion of Holland on the horizon, and the existence of a bill like this one is more of a symptom of the international-frontier-lawman mentality of our present administration than of a climate in which this kind of invasion is foreseeable. What is, however, noteworthy about the ?Hague Invasion Bill? is how clearly it unmasks the posturing of the US as the champion of international human rights as an ideological device. Furthermore, this is an ideological device that the Administration is guarding vigilantly. It is, after all, the defense that we act in the name of human rights that serves to justify our unilateral violations of international sovereignty, and these violations seem to be this administration?s most important foreign policy stratagem. To really understand the irony of delegitimating the ICC?s capacity to interrogate the actions of our own servicemembers, we need to place the passage of the ?American Servicemember Protection Act? in context of the trial of former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic. Milosevic, for those of us (some of them clearly government officials) who have forgotten, was the ?butcher of Belgrade? in our 1998 invasion of Yugoslavia. That war, which we fought to defend a Yugoslavian minority population against the genocide by their compatriots, was one of our wars for the sake of human rights. The deposed president now sits before the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) on trial for war crimes. But our commitment to prosecuting the human rights violations that he has committed seems to have flagged. The US, as it turns out, has been consistently refusing to permit Richard Holbrooke, the former US ambassador to the UN, to testify before the ICTY in the Milosevic trial. Besides his somewhat ambivalent record as regards his relationship to Milosevic, it is clear that the US is afraid that Holbrooke?s testimony would set a precedent of US officials testifying before an international tribunal. This is precisely the kind of precedent that the US wants to avoid regarding the ICC. It is no big surprise that the refusal to allow Holbrooke?s testimony before a criminal tribunal that is prosecuting Milosevic was more thoroughly reported overseas than here in the states. Milosevic was, after all, our alibi for one of the humanitarian interventions in Yugoslavia. What is a bit more surprising (and disturbing) is that the passage of the American Servicemember Protection Act, a piece of legislation that has been in the active works for a full year, was barely reported here in the States. In fact, the act was passed as a subsection (Title II) of an appropriations bill passed June 6. It was difficult, therefore, even to find the legislation to which the Dutch were responding, and to discover what the real content of the act was. This difficulty was certainly more than incidental. The text of the bill itself redoubles the irony of a comparison to Milosevic, our former nemesis. It is not a simple case of withdrawing support for his trial, but an actual structural relationship between our national leaders? willingness to be held accountable for their own wartime activities and those of the feared ?butcher of Belgrade.? Milosevic has made it somewhat of a staple of his courtroom antics to decry the ICTY as an illegitimate court on the grounds that it violates the national sovereignty of the former Yugoslavia. In his estimation, he could only be subject to a court that his country has recognized, essentially nullifying the possibility that war crimes charges could ever be pursued against national leaders whose government deemed such violations legitimate practice. The logic is stunningly arrogant. But we seem to agree precisely with this exculpatory logic. As the act puts it, ?The United States is not a party to the Rome Statute [the statute that empowers the ICC] and will not be bound by any of its terms. The United States will not recognize the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court over United States nationals.? We, who have now joined the ranks of those who we marked as the most important violator of human rights globally, clearly have interest in passing legislation that partakes in the logic of war criminals without public notice. What better characterizes the desire of war criminals than the demand for a total lack of any accountability? What, after all, could we possibly have to hide? We, who have fought wars in the name of human rights, we should not be the country that fears the potential prosecution of our citizens and servicemembers for war crimes. But the passage of the Servicemember Protection Act ensures that any attempted prosecution of US citizens will be considered an act of aggression against the US. And it seems that it is precisely the human rights campaigns?which were cast in a dubious light by the lack of commitment the US showed to Milosevic?s prosecution?that are identified by the US for special protection from the ICC. The act demands that the president use his influence in the UN to protect ?members of the Armed Forces of the United States participating in [peacekeeping] operation from criminal prosecution or other assertion of jurisdiction by the International Criminal Court.? Not only do we share the logic of our enemies, but we seem to have special motivation to ensure that the wars we fight for humanitarian purposes are also those which we want exempt from an international humanitarian court?s censure. Not only is our human rights commitment exposed as?at best?a commitment we only cultivate when it is convenient, but it is exposed as a name we give to operations we have specific interests in keeping from international censure. Because we are infamous for our exceptionalism, constantly demanding that we be exempt from the standards of international conduct that apply to the rest of the world, it is easy for the Dutch to joke about their imminent invasion. But a country that already houses a pantheon of arguably the most egregious war criminals at large (Kissinger, Reagan, William Casey) should not be taken so lightly in respect to the strange position it defends: the position of being able to commit international human rights abuses consistently in the name of human rights. 6-28-02 ?Semper Fi, my love? By Manuel Schwab The Alarm! Newspaper Collective In his State of the Union Address of January 29, 2002, George W. Bush announced his plan to generate an opportunity for Americans to participate in the War on Terrorism through a new volunteerist organization to be called the USA Freedom Corps. The proposal, it seems, is to ?harness the power of the American people by relying on their individual skills and interests to prepare local communities to effectively prevent and respond to the threats of terrorism, crime, or any kind of disaster.? It seems we have been called to task this time. We who inhabit the largest and most far reaching economic empire to date are perpetually reminded of our ostensible influence on the government that acts in our name. But we rarely ask the honest question of that government, demanding that it tell us by what justification it takes our name as the foundation for its strength. As a result, the people who should, all things considered, be taking governments to task wherever they prevail are instead called to justify ourselves by volunteering to do its work. In a time when we should recognize more than ever the parasitic character of a government that has made its civilian population the target of the revenge of its enemies, we are instead stupefied by that government?s demands for service. What would once have been seen as an invitation for dissent has become a competition to demonstrate our loyalty, and the stakes of this loyalty are astronomical. The political world, it seems, is running around on its head. Perhaps it has something to do with the climate: the thin oxygen of the panicked airline cabins in which our national policy was first espoused. Quoting the transcript of conversations from the cockpit of the fourth hijacked plane of 9/11 (which crashed over Pennsylvania) G.W. Bush announced to us that the ?new ethic? nay, the ?new creed? of the nation would be ?let?s roll.? The story goes that ?let?s roll? was the last transmission from the cell phone of a passenger who later went on to drive the plane to the ground, and it doesn?t take much to see what interest Bush has to ?harness the power? of this story. But nobody asked by what authority he deigned to take those words as his own. As the president spoke of ?the sacrifice of soldiers, the fierce brotherhood of firefighters, and the bravery and generosity of ordinary citizens? nobody asked what this ?new culture of responsibility? really meant, or who and what we ?ordinary citizens? would be responsible to. Nobody asked, for that matter, what compelled a librarian in Louisiana to start a ?grassroots initiative? to compel her coworkers to survey the circulation records of patrons, and to turn any relevant information over to the Federal Authorities. Nobody demanded an explanation of why the President of one of the most powerful unions in the country, the Teamsters, felt justified to take at his disposal the lives of 500,000 of his rank and file when he offered them up wholesale to the security apparatus of our government, claiming that ?these people can be the eyes and ears of the homeland security office.? Heroic. Except that heroism really only gains its content within a given script, and it should be clear from the abundance of heroes in our government?s current chapter of fairytales that this is a time when heroes play an indispensable role in moving this story along. And perhaps the proliferation of heroes is so necessary because it makes it that much more difficult to take a critical position regarding the script itself. The new volunteerist culture that the President is spending so much energy to create is no exception. He has called for every American to spend 4,000 hours over their lifetime engaging in programs such as his newly created USA Freedom Corps?an organization which runs the gamut from offering us voluntary participation in policing activities to incorporating us into the Federal Emergency Management agenda. Far from finally offering us the heroic agency that they promise, these kinds of incorporations into the federal fairytale only make us more servile. They conscript us with a promise that they will unlock our potential. An eloquent masochist I know told me once with all sardonic glee, ?you?ll have to excuse me, my only experience with slavery thus far, has been voluntary.? While I appreciated the subversive turn of phrase, the parallel between masochism and slavery never struck me as terribly apt. The parallel between this new culture of service and voluntary servitude is another matter. The former relation is personal, and its iconoclastic intimacy is made possible by the deepest of trust, by the most profound inversion of power relations imaginable. It does, despite the provocations of the phrase, have nothing to do with slavery. It is the affinity of partners that makes a certain submission possible without the attendant disempowerments. No attempts by a government to try to invoke this affinity to disempower its citizens will ever be capable of bridging the chasm between these two experiences. But these attempts are repeatedly successful, and successful enough that we somehow accept the argument that government service can unlock our deepest potential. In fact we should neither need our government to tell us who our heroes are, nor should we need them to tell us how to exercise our capacities. But Bush clearly evokes this deeply personal relation, positioning himself and his government as the force capable of unlocking the potential of its citizens. He speaks of his belief that ?September 11th brought out the best in America? and calls for ?every American to commit at least two years? to the service of your nation.? In the same State of the Union Address, Bush invokes the words of Shannon Spann, whose farewell to her husband?who was killed in a CIA operation in Mazur-E-Sharif?was ?Semper Fi, my love.? To some of us, those words were familiar from the chilling tomes of devotion written by Oliver North to then president Ronald Reagan. The phrase translates roughly to ?always faithful,? and was a common phrase of devotion among Roman sentries. There is something chilling about hearing the widow of a man who died serving the imperial interests of his nation take as her last words to her husband an old roman military devotion. There is an added dimension of perversity when these words are re-invoked to shed light of the state of the union. Are we really so confused that we must borrow from military terms when expressing devotion to our love ones? When we blur the distinction between love and political loyalty, between family and nation (as we so often do), are we not draining our deepest emotions of their gravity? And what, pray tell, should compel us to such faith in our government? What, pray tell, compels us to serve? By what authority is the name of countless dead taken as the seal of approval for every form of obedience to the state; a state that has been devouring so many of us in a genuine form of ?voluntary slavery? for so long? Is it lost on us that the 4,000 hours of voluntarism that G.W. Bush asks for are demanded at the same time that mandatory Military Service is being proposed for the first time in 30 years in congress? Is it lost on us that we are being asked to show our allegiance to this nation with the very substance of our lives? Evidently, because judging from the public response to the perpetual war we have so clearly been promised, all we can do is swoon over the parade of heroes as though we have lost the ability to commit ourselves to anything we have not been instructed to love, as though we would be faithful to this nightmare of a nation-state indefinitely. 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 Jul 11 23:04:43 2002 From: wires at the-alarm.com (Alarm!Wires) Date: Sun Feb 8 02:51:43 2004 Subject: [Dryerase] The Alarm--Dis-Ease Message-ID: <80D99C03-954C-11D6-B276-003065F4865E@the-alarm.com> This is a wonderful column, called Dis-Ease, written by Leila Binder, who we will unfortunately be losing soon to the graduate creative writing program at NYU. This issue was the first issue for which she was unable to get us a column in time for publication, but here are all of her other columns, which are not locally-specific and to a large degree are timeless. They are ordered from newest to oldest. 7-5-02 Mega ports & spectacular portholes By Leila Binder The Alarm! Newspaper Collective The Aleph was probably two or three inches in diameter, but universal space was contained inside it, with no diminution of size. Each thing (the glass surface of a mirror, let us say) was infinite things, because I could clearly see it from every point in the cosmos. I saw... endless eyes, all very close, studying themselves in me as though in a mirror, saw all the mirrors on the planet (and none of them reflecting me)... ?Jorge Luis Borges, The Aleph In 1347, the Bubonic plague reached Genoese held Crimea when Mongolian invaders dumped infected corpses into the city to contaminate its inhabitants; it is likely that the plague then spread from this port city into Europe with the fleeing Genoese. Biological warfare, in other words, is as old as war itself, and continent-wide epidemics are as old as horseback invasions and caravans. But long-range missiles are a lot faster than horses. What is different from past centuries of empires and warfare is the extent of the present super-empire?s capacity for global bio-war induced epidemics, for global simultaneous warfare. The Netherlands, France and Belgium are the first European governments to have joined the US Customs Service Container Security Initiative (CSI). Under this initiative, US customs officers will soon coordinate with their Dutch, French and Belgian counterparts to screen container ships for weapons of mass destruction in Rotterdam, Antwerp and Le Havre. Customs officials hope to eventually extend the system to 20 of the world?s ports that send the largest amount of cargo to the US. US military and customs officials claim that terrorists are targeting the global trade system. One wonders what kind of high-level military intelligence this conclusion took (think, World Trade Center). They say the global trade system is also a vehicle for terrorists and that, therefore, US Customs should be involved in security efforts in these mega ports abroad for the sake of US national security. This is quite a breach of the sovereignty of these European nations; the US will now be involved in policing their ports, regulating the goods that pass through their countries. US hegemony is becoming all the more total. The control of ports has long meant the control of empires. In Brazil and Africa, the Portuguese centered their colonies around port-factory towns; cane would be brought to the port, processed and shipped out. They didn?t bother to venture inland to the same extent as the Spanish did, for instance. In Brazil, colonial governors would be granted strips of land that extended from the coast to the line of Tordesillas, the line of demarcation between Portuguese and Spanish colonial domination. This was often merely a line on the map; land was granted that had never been explored. What the Colonial administration most wanted was to transport sugar and other goods, and all they needed to achieve this was control of slave labor and the port cities. The Dutch also created a worldwide colonial empire that was mostly based in port cities. Many of the ships that conquered these cities originated in the port of Rotterdam, now the largest port in the world, which the US will soon be policing. The glory of the Portuguese and Dutch empires has long faded, and European governments are happily cooperating with the new empire by allowing it into its ports. Today, shipments that pass through West coast ports make up seventy percent of the US gross domestic product. Last Thursday, June 27, longshoremen rallied in Oakland, threatening to strike if the Pacific Maritime Association (PMA) did not compromise in negotiations over a new labor contract. The 10,500 West Coast Longshoremen contracted by the PMA control the traffic of goods into 29 Pacific ports amounting to $260 billion in cargo last year. If there remains any doubt about the centrality of ports to colonial projects both past and present consider that Tom Ridge, director of the office for Homeland Security, asked them not to strike because it would affect national security. Jack Heyman, the business agent for the San Francisco Longshore Union, said of Ridge, ?He said that he didn?t think it would be a good idea if there was a disruption in trade.? Of course, the government doesn?t want the longshoremen to strike, and national security is the stock excuse of the day. The global trade system and the nation that currently tries to dominate it incite anger in everyone from French cheese lovers, to window-breaking Seattle protestors, to Christian right wingers who believe that global trade will soon create a mark-of-the-beast that everyone will need to buy anything, to Islamic fundamentalists. The WTC and Pentagon were obvious potential targets. Yet, the global trade system and its accompanying high-speed transport and communications technologies are ironically also a means through which terrorist attacks can be launched at a distance or extended over great distances. The present global system of trade is only possible due to the development of fast long distance transport and communications systems. As the writer Paul Virilio has noted, the limit speed of this system has been reached, that of electromagnetic waves. The instantaneity of television created the global spectacular event, such as the first landing of humans on the moon, or 9/11. A friend of mine spent last fall in northwestern Colombia as an international human rights observer. When the planes hit the towers of the World Trade Center, the priests in the town turned on the generator so that she could see what had happened in New York. They turned on the old TV and she saw three planes hitting six WTCs. Nevertheless, in the middle of a war-torn jungle, she was part of the global event. Capitalism as a global system has expanded from ports with ships that carry silk, silver, pepper and casks of wine, to encompass the universal spectacular porthole, the windows through which nearly everything can be seen at once, like Borges? Aleph but much less romantic. Just as the speed of the airplane made 9/11 possible, the Internet creates the possibility for a widespread instantaneous attack, at least in our imaginations. But, for now, ?cyberterrorism? is more hype than a real threat to the global trade-power nexus. Dorothy Denning of Georgetown University, ?Those types of actions are a lot more difficult to engineer with a computer than they would be with a bomb?and whether they would work or not would be a lot less certain.? While such a threat may be far off, the internet already provides the means for a universal simul-cast assault on our senses and minds, for now everywhere is a port. Which terrorize us more: the old fashioned bombs of the publicly recognized terrorists or the constant bombardment of corporate-managed images and data? Unlike the Genoese, we have nowhere to escape to. 6-28-02 Carving up the Steppe By Leila Binder The Alarm! Newspaper Collective During the 27 hour bumpy journey across the steppe back to Ulaan Baatar, Mongolia, in a van crammed with as many people, dead marmots and fresh sheepskins as it could fit, my friend Tungaa looked out the window and asked me, ?Is there land like this in America, that isn?t owned?? At first, the question struck me as absurd, but the more I thought about it, the more her question made sense and it was my answer that seemed absurd. ?No, Tungaa,? I said, ?there isn?t.? Most of Mongolia?s land is unowned and most of its inhabitants are herders who still use methods that have been in existence for thousands of years. The US government has decided that this should change. The Gobi Initiative, a three million dollar program sponsored by the US Agency for International Development (USAID), aims to teach the principles of capitalism to Mongolian herders. Veterinarian Amanda Fine of the USAID said, ?People want to live in the Gobi as they always have. If they can get access to the market, they can continue their way of life.? But this program is in effect quickly putting an end to that very way of life. It is purportedly a solution to the recent droughts and harsh winters, which are to a large extent a result of overgrazing and changing weather patterns due to global warming. According to Lester Brown, of the Worldwatch institute, ?[D]esertification is getting worse?and I think 80 percent is due to man-made causes.? Before 1991, in Communist Mongolia, herding was organized collectively. These collectives (negdel), limited herd sizes with quotas. The breaking up of the negdel and the introduction of a capitalist market for meat and dairy products in the 1990s introduced an incentive to increase production. The zud, uncommonly short grazing grasses which have brought famine and the widespread deaths of cattle in the past few years, is the outcome of this new tendency to overgraze for profit, profit that was not a consideration in the era of the negdel. Both global warming and the zud are a result of the capitalist system which, according to USAID, is supposed to cure the problems which that very system played a large role in creating. The Gobi Initiative is part of a long- term US strategy. Over the last couple of decades, the US, through its own agencies and various international institutions, has been pushing for the privatization of practically everything held in common around the world. These ?new enclosures??to reference the enclosure of the English commons that helped create the conditions for capitalism centuries ago?limit people?s access to the means of subsistence, which had been maintained either through communal or non-alienable land tenure, or through pensions, welfare, and guaranteed employment. On Wednesday, June 26, a bill was passed which allowed Russians to buy and sell farmland for the first time since the Revolution in 1917. At the moment, individuals own less than 10 percent of Russia?s 1 billion acres, the rest is still owned by former collectives or the state. This is part of Russia?s bid to join the WTO. As Michael Moore, the general director of the WTO, said, before joining, Russia would need to first ?perfect its legislation system, particularly its land laws.? In Krasnaya Sloboda, Russia, Yuri Baimirov (interviewed for a June 20 New York Times article) is one of the few who owns his own land. Mr. Baimirov pointed out some drawbacks to the break up of the collectives, ?The first year when I worked the land, I had the feeling that it really belonged to me. But because I was no longer a part of the collective, I had no fertilizer. I had no equipment.? When I lived in the former Soviet Republic of Moldova in 1994, this was a common complaint. The equipment of the collectives in many villages was divided up among members, so that one family had the tractor, another the plow, rendering the entire community incapable of farming at all. This story does not only concern post-Communist societies, nor does it always go smoothly. Last week, President Alejandro Toledo, of Peru, decided to suspend the privatization of two electric companies in Southern Peru, Egasa and Egesur in the Arequipa and Tacna regions, because of protests that had spread throughout the country to as far away as Iquitos, Cuzco and Ullaca. Highways and the road to the Tacna airport were blockaded?a method of protest that is circulating throughout Latin America. Two protestors, Edgar Pinto Quintanilla and Rafael Talavera Soto, were killed after the police shot tear gas canisters at their heads. At least one hundred protestors were injured. These protests erupted because of the price hikes that would inevitably accompany privatization, in other words, because of simple financial pressures. But the spread of the protests to regions of the country unaffected by this particular sale indicates a more fundamental and widespread opposition. The protests cut across social classes to an unusual extent, even 108 provincial and district mayors in the Cuzco region went on a hunger strike to protest privatization. It is certainly hard to imagine such protests by mayors in the United States. One reason for this is that even the American poor feel that it is normal, natural and inevitable to pay for everything, even the most basic necessities: things as essential to life as water, heat and land. Here in the US, the media portrays privatization as necessary, a bitter pill that must be swallowed. Supposedly there is no other way. And to us in Santa Cruz this seems obvious. Yet, although it is difficult for those of us who live in this touristy town (where people are willing to pay three dollars for a latt?) to grasp, it is clear that the ownership of land and the principles of the capitalist market in general are conceptions and social relations that are not natural and haven?t spread or been accepted by everyone, everywhere. At least not quite yet. Even in the year 2002 on the Mongolian steppe, the USAID has to spend millions to send missionaries of capitalism to ensure that there is no piece of earth undivided by lines and fences, no minds unsocialized to market relations, and to ensure that my friend Tungaa?s simple question becomes obsolete. 6-21-02 The Death of the Crowd: Mountains, Deserts and Invisible Walls By Leila Binder The Alarm! Newspaper Collective Men with big mustaches smiled through their gold teeth. Street workers sat on the curbs in the heat and fanned themselves with their derbies. Boys in knickers ran alongside the car with bulky loads of piecework on their shoulders....Nags in their yokes lifted their bowed necks to gaze at her. Ragmen struggling with their great junk-loaded two wheeled carts, women selling breads from baskets in their arms: they all looked. ?a crowd in New York, early 1900s E.L. Doctorow [A] veritable commercial symphony of swarming consuming monads moving from one cash point to the other. ?the anti-crowd of Los Angeles, late 1900s Mike Davis City of Quartz On June 26?27, the G8 summit will be held in the resort town of Kananaskis, Alberta in the Rocky Mountains. This remote village with only 450 hotel rooms was chosen in order to prevent mass protests and disturbances. Although the mountains already make the amassing of large crowds almost impossible in the first place, protesters are also being denied permission to set up a solidarity village. Vehicles entering the area will be searched, and the airspace above the village will be closed and patrolled by jet fighters. Meetings like those of the G8, WB/IMF and WTO can be held almost anywhere, and this isn?t the first time a remote location was chosen to prevent large protests. The November, 2001 WTO meeting was held in Qatar, a desert country with strict visa requirements and a total ban on free assembly. There have even been suggestions about holding meetings on ships (Genoa) or on the internet (instead of the canceled Barcelona June 2001 World Bank meeting). The fact that the meeting organizers have to go to such lengths to hold their meetings appears to be a success on the part of protesters; however, these counter measures are quite effective. Most protesters of the G8 summit will not even try to go to Kananaskis, they will go to Ottawa instead. Global meetings can be held virtually anywhere, in the most isolated places on the earth, or nowhere?retreat into cyberspace. But the crowd that populates our day-to-day environment cannot be sent away to some desert or mountain top. Law enforcement must, therefore, use other means of crowd control in cities. In many American cities, the crowd seems to have already disappeared; the streets are nearly empty of street hawkers, outdoor chess games, and children playing ball. The more wealthy the neighborhood, the more surprising the sound of feet or street conversation or laughter. These are precisely the neighborhoods which have the most cameras, rent-a-cops, and motion sensitive lighting. In the 1850s in Paris, Haussmann replaced the small alleys that had been the setting of many barricades during two insurrections with wide boulevards. At the same time that he made the construction of barricades difficult, he destroyed entire neighborhoods of workers who were likely to rebel in the first place, displacing their residents to the suburbs. He had one strategy to pacify class struggle that was less violent: he built parks so that classes could mix, in hopes that this would lessen tensions. Olmstead used a similar strategy in New York City when he planned Central Park in 1863 after the great Draft Riot. Just as Keynesian economics served to pacify class struggle by offering aid to the dispossessed and consumer goods to workers, Olmstead and Haussmann aimed to lessen class hatred by offering the poor pleasant parks where classes would mingle. This strategy is as pass? as Keynesian economics: today the segregation of classes and fragmentation of the crowd is so complete as to be unnoticeable, executed through new technologies that make for the most efficient era of surveillance, stratification, and militarization of public space in history. Mike Davis wrote, ?No need to clear fields of fire for cannon when you control the sky; less need to hire informers on every block when surveillance cameras are universal ornaments on every building.? However, the fact that new technologies of segregation exist (helicopters, a thousand and one forms of surveillance technologies) does not preclude the use of the good old standbys (physical segregation and the building of walls). In Quebec City in April 2001, the authorities built a four-mile-long twelve-foot-high concrete wall to keep protesters out of the conference area for the Summit of the Americas. And, in January, the Santa Cruz city council passed a plan to expand dining space around Sushi Now! and the Ali Baba falafel shop forcing out people who used to hang out in front of these businesses. So they built a small wall around Sushi Now! This is not meant to compare the magnitude of these two regulatory measures, but simply to demonstrate that the old methods are still employed on both a large and small scale. There is widespread speculation that the UCSC campus (with its separate colleges) was in part designed in such a decentralized way to make it impossible for large groups of students to gather in one central square. UCSC?s first Chancellor, McHenry, denied this but said, ?We got started in a very turbulent time?there were open fights at Berkeley in the time that we opened?during that period we admitted a lot of students whose parents were concerned about the safety of their children. There was a lot of heat around the University to provide a safe environment.? In April, when tanks could not fit in the alleys of West Bank refugee camps, they promptly bulldozed them. Now, in the West Bank, the Sharon Government is using every means of segregation possible; from that which kept invaders out in feudal times to that used to keep the poor out much of West Los Angeles: walls, fences, ditches, patrol roads and electronic surveillance devices. The construction of a 217-mile fence along the old Israeli-Palestinian border and within the West Bank began this week. Again, there seems to be an underlying theme to these disparate examples. Whether it is the hard architecture that is manipulated to control the crowd, as was speculated about UCSC, or the more sophisticated micro-surveillance used by states, the regulation of public space remains a major state interest. The camera is an electronic and invisible wall; surveillance technologies, like heat sensors in helicopters, are but the newest forms of Haussmanization: enemies of the racially and economically mixed, hawking, yelling, music playing, publicly drinking crowd. As the crowd disappears under the tide of artificially scented odors and piped in muzak of the mall, and the early morning florescent lights and evening ID bracelet checks of jail become the new medium of our day-to-day lives. 6-14-02 Chips are for Kids by Leila Binder The Alarm! Newspaper Collecitve When he realized there was no reason to fear anyone looking back at him, his sense of guilt vanished at once, and the vista began to change before his eyes. He was vividly aware of the change in the relationship between himself and the scene, between himself and the world. ?Kobo Abe, The Box Man It used to be that dogs were kept on leashes and children were held by their parents. Then several years ago I saw a child on a leash in an airport, drooling and licking the floor while the parents bought tickets. Things have ?progressed? since then. In the past few years millions of pets in the US have been implanted with computer chips so that they can be found if lost. And now?you guessed it?the digital leash is available for your children as well. This April, the FDA approved the use of computer ID chips that can be embedded under people?s skin, provided that it does not contain medical data. The VeriChip emits a radio signal and contains an identification number. These chips will likely be used to track prisoners, children and workers with top security clearances. Applied Digital Solutions, the company that designed the VeriChip, said the chip will only contain an identification number for now, but they hope to someday sell chips which also provide medical data. The same company also produces an implant called Digital Angel which combines a Global Positioning System (GPS) and monitoring system. This was designed for parolees, Alzheimer?s patients, and people in danger of being kidnapped. It is already for sale in three South American countries where kidnapping is common. GPS is already used to track people on parole in many cities in the US. Wherify, of Redwood Shores, California, has developed a similar technology specifically for children: a bracelet that allows parents to track their kid?s movement on a map on the internet. Playing hooky will soon be a thing of the past. Do you ever feel like you?re being watched? While targeted groups of people are being literally transformed into cyborgs in order to be trackable, surveillance cameras are indiscriminately recording and thus tracking the movement of anyone who happens to pass by. These cameras are becoming increasingly common. After IRA bombings in London?s financial district in ?93 and ?94, John Major?s government decided to install a network of closed-circuit television cameras (CCTV) on the eight official entry gates that control access to the city. Then, after the kidnapping and murder of a two-year-old by two ten-year-olds in ?94, the government allocated three-quarters of its crime-prevention budget to encourage local police departments to develop CCTV networks. Presently, Britain has over 2 million CCTV cameras. These cameras are now being combined with a new computer technology that matches the face of a passerby with photos entered into a database. Since facial recognition technology only requires a single photo to build its database, it falls through the crack of existing data protection laws in Britain, according to Phillip Bowe, of TSSI Biometric Specialist. Of course, privacy-advocacy groups disagree, but the fact is that this technology has already been widely used for eight years. London CCTV cameras take pictures of every driver?s face that passes by, and cameras in London lead to more traffic citations and car theft arrests than anything else. Officer Parsons, a London police officer, said, ?The technology here is geared to terrorism. The fact that we?re getting ordinary people?burglars stealing cars?as a result is sort of a bonus.? The technology, however, has never actually been used to catch a terrorist. ?Facial biometrics can help take away the monotony of CCTV monitoring,? said Bowe. But according to Jefferey Rosen of the New York Times, who investigated the CCTV networks in London, security guards who monitor these cameras actually spend a good proportion of their time trying to scope out events like consenting adults making out in cars, amusing their bored selves by watching a network of intimate images. In Britain they have even placed CCT Vs in school bathrooms?though not in stalls?in order to deter student smokers. The US usually lags a few years behind Britain in its acceptance of surveillance technology. But now September 11 has mowed down American?s resistance to surveillance and intrusive laws. If things continue in the current direction, it will only be a matter of time until we too allow cameras to be placed in bathrooms. September 11, like the IRA bombings of ?93 and ?94, has provided an excuse to begin to install similar CCTV and facial recognition technology here in the US. And, like in Britain, it so far has done little except violate our privacy and make us feel paranoid. The mere supposition that the glass eye is upon us has proven time and time again to be enough to deter inappropriate and illegal behavior. In fact, signs that advertise the presence of cameras may be just as much a deterrent as real cameras. ?The deterrent value has far exceeded anything you can imagine,? said Officer Lack, of the London Police Department, about CCTV cameras. Like children who believe in Santa Claus, or people who fear a _one_ omnipotent and omniscient god, all we need to know is that we are _always_ being watched and we will fall in line, or at least feel guilty for our sins. At the 2001 Super Bowl in Tampa, Florida thousands of spectators had their faces scanned without their knowledge. Officials claimed that this was done so that terrorists could be identified; yet only 19 ticket scalpers and pickpockets were identified and no one was arrested. Washington DC officials studied the British surveillance system before setting up a camera network in April 2000 to monitor protests of the IMF and World Bank. These cameras have been programmed to scan public places. This system does not yet make an automated match between a face and a ?watch list? of international terrorists. The DC police spent 7 million on a command center that was first used in September. This center has dozens of video stations from which cameras are monitored. ?In the context of September 11, we have no choice but to accept greater use of this technology,? said Stephen Gaffigan, the head of the DC Police Department Project. Of course, these cameras didn?t stop a plane from ramming itself into the Pentagon. September 11 wasn?t the first time that surveillance cameras failed to do anything but violate our privacy, invade intimate moments and track our movement. Since September 11, airports have been using cameras to link facial identification to databases of terrorist suspects. Joseph Arick, the CEO of Visionics, the company that produces FaceIt face recognition technology, testified before a special committee of the Department of Transportation recommending the development of a bio-metric camera network for vulnerable airports throughout the country. In an interview with the New York Times, he said authorities from throughout the country have contacted him and asked about the possibility of placing such cameras in subways, stadiums and near monuments. He dreams of _one_ all-encompassing biometric network of surveillance cameras throughout the country. God is no longer the only omniscient being that human beings have envisioned; now some dream of a giant network of glass, fiber and microchip eyes. ?The Office of Homeland Security might be the overall umbrella that will coordinate with local police forces,? to create this network, he said. ?How can we be alerted when someone is entering the subway? How can we be sure when someone is entering Madison Square Garden? How can we protect monuments? We need to create an invisible fence, an invisible shield.? But not everyone is walking around paranoid. In protest against the ubiquity of surveillance cameras, the Surveillance Players have performed theater in front of cameras in New York City since 1996. They have performed a wide variety of plays and adaptations from books, from Orwell?s _1984_, Becket?s _Waiting for Godot_, Reich?s _The Mass Psychology of Fascism_, and Poe?s _Masque of Red Death_. They have also performed in front of several of the biometric surveillance cameras?now totaling over 100?that were placed in Times Square to scan the faces of passing pedestrians to catch suspected terrorists after September 11. Web-cam protests were carried out in Arizona, Germany, England, Italy, Minneapolis and San Francisco on September 7, International Anti-Surveillance Camera Day. In Tempe, Arizona, Surveillance Players performed shows to protest local laws against skateboarding, cruising, loitering and the ever presence of surveillance cameras. According to participant Banaszewski, they wanted to protest ?the fact that all they really want to encourage is shopping.? The Players perform not only for web-cams but to show people where cameras are and to draw passers-by into the show. There is a web-cam looking down Locust St. at Pacific in downtown Santa Cruz. Every time you pass, you are being watched. Don?t just allow them to just record your usual way of walking, biking or driving, get some friends together, write your own script, use your imagination. 6-7-02 The Functional Brain by Leila Binder The Alarm! Newsppaer Collective When we want to give expression to a dramatic situation in our lives, we tend to use the metaphor of heaviness. We say that something has become a great burden to us. We either bear the burden or fail and go down with it, win or lose. And Sabina?what had come over her? Nothing?. Her drama was a drama not of heaviness but of lightness. What fell to her lot was not the burden but the unbearable lightness of being. ?Milan Kundera, The Unbearable Lightness of Being In the ?90s doctors began to prescribe anti-depressants in unprecedented quantities to both children and adults. Many of these prescriptions were filled out by general practitioners, and, in most cases, not even the doctors claim that the people consuming the drugs have serious problems. Before, people would have just had to deal and face life unmedicated. Now, avoidance is rationed by physicians in precise doses, not nearly as pleasant as deciding for oneself to buy that extra pint. The comfortable and insured middle and upper classes who can afford these drugs are overworked and overburdened with cars and houses and children; they seem to have everything they need. I am tempted to callously brush this aside since I?m just old enough, poor enough and East Coast enough to have grown up without ever knowing that anti-depressants existed. People seemed to do better without anti-depressants or psychobabble. On the other hand, maybe things really are getting worse. People are spending more time working, watching TV and on the internet; no one has time to socialize. Depression among people who have so much can only come out of a lack, a lightness. We suffer from a lack of burdens, of relations, a general sense of meaninglessness. If you ask just about anyone what the average sleep time is, they will answer eight hours. This is based on daily schedule which leaves eight hours for work, eight for re-creation (fun, and body and house maintenance) and eight for sleep. I have been rushed out of bed by friends with the words: ?You?ve had your eight hours, get up!?, more times than I can count. The fact that I need nine or ten hours doesn?t matter. I wonder if many of those anti-depressant consumers who don?t even claim to have serious problems are just people with erratic energy. Like the person who sleeps ten hours, they might simply get too enthusiastic or distracted or despondent?fill in the blank, to function. The word functional, has evolved from meaning simply that one can get through the work day and do necessary tasks, to being an indicator of overall psychological health. Salon.com writer Jenn Shreve described her own motivations for taking Prozac in college, ?For the ?60s generation, LSD was a tool: It opened the mind to extreme experiences, allowed one to flirt briefly (and sometimes not so briefly) with madness. But we didn?t want to come within screaming distance of madness?it would limit possibilities, screw up our portfolios. Sure, we needed to be creative, but above all we needed to produce.? Apparently even sexual energy is too erratic; or at least, it is something many are willing to sacrifice in order to feel ?normal?. As one patient of Derek Polansky of the Harvard Medical School described the effects of one anti-depressant, ?I feel like I have a velvet glove around my clitoris. My responses, my whole sexual self is muted.? These drugs don?t only normalIZE people?s moods, they also transform the very chemical make-up of their brains. And since they are prescribing these drugs to children at earlier and earlier stages of brain development, it is conceivable that these drugs are causing brains to develop in similar ways. The scientists don?t even claim to understand the effects of these drugs on children, yet they are being prescribed to children as young as two. They do know however, that television and video games slow and inhibit brain development. The repeated exposure to any stimulus sets up a particular circuitry in the brain and deprives the brain of other experiences. Many features of children?s television programming use tactics developed in for advertising purposes and purposely try to attract the brains attention involuntarily; they discourage the child from learning to use her brain independently. Also, the speed of video games and television is causing children to have shorter and shorter attention spans. This is one reason that doctors give for the ?upsurge? in ADD/ADHD cases, diseases that didn?t used to even have names. The corresponding increase in Ritalin prescriptions could also be attributed to cuts in funding in public schools. Teachers have more students and are thus more overworked and impatient. Another reason may be the fact that teachers are forced to center their lessons around standardized test performance. The pressure for high test scores leaves teachers with little patience for inattentive children. While I don?t doubt that television is decreasing children?s ability to pay attention, I wonder, was there ever a time when children were attentive and quiet? Research is being done to isolate the genes that cause manic depression, and genes have already been found that are a factor in the development of schizophrenia. Dr. Jamison of the National Advisory Council for Human Genome Research fears that this knowledge will lead to selective abortion; the elimination of mental abnormalities from the gene pool. With selective abortion, the early prescription of anti-depressants, high doses of television and video games, and education that centers around standardized testing, our society could someday be full of humans whose normalized brains function all in the same way. 5-31-02 Sexy Salmon and Naked Chickens by Leila Binder The Alarm! Newspaper Collective Of the streets that blur into the sunset there must be one (which, I am not sure) that I by now have walked for the last time without guessing it, the pawn of that Someone Who fixes in advance omnipotent laws sets up a secret and unwavering scale for all the shadows, dreams and forms woven into the texture of this life ?Limits, Jorge Luis Borges Last week Tony Blair gave a speech condemning ?anti-science? culture and criticizing the growing movement against genetic engineering. The sabotage of genetically modified test crops occurs somewhere in Britain nearly every week. On May Day this year, 95 % of those polled in Weeley, Essex county voted against a planned test site in their area. The Independent described the feeling many Brits have about the science their government supports as a sense of unease. Recently, the ?culture of science? has found a new way to propagate itself; corporations are making arguments in cyberspace under the names of people and citizens? groups that do not exist. The Bivings Group was contracted by Monsanto to conduct a PR campaign using ?viral marketing.? Its web site, entitled ?Viral Marketing: How to Infect the World? explains, ?Once you are plugged into this world, it is possible to make postings to these outlets that present your position as an uninvolved third party?. Perhaps the greatest advantage of viral marketing is that your message is placed into a context where it is more likely to be taken seriously.? Viral marketing even spurred the retraction of an article in Nature magazine that claimed that genetically modified pollen had infected native maize over a large area in Mexico. Hundreds of postings, claiming that the article was biased, eventually led to a petition. The first postings were signed by a ?Mary Murphy? and ?Andura Smetacek?, but these people and the ?Center for Food and Agricultural Research? that Smetacek purportedly represents appear not to exist. Blair asserts that protesting against genetically engineered food is ?a retreat into the culture of unreason? and begs us to embrace the culture of science. So does Monsanto. They seem to think we should embrace corporate arguments made by puppet non-existent people and organizations on the internet. Apparently, reason is based on the arguments of the highest bidder. Blair?s ?culture of reason? has long been spread by corporations for a price; viral marketing is just their newest propaganda device, infecting cyberspace so that it may infect gene pools. Professor Philip Dale, from the John Innes Centre, said, ?The recent destruction of field crop experiments, which were designed to generate knowledge on which sound decisions are made, has parallels with book burning in less enlightened times.? This is ironic since it is the corporations who wish to wipe out anti-genetic-engineering sentiment. However, genes aren?t simply texts, they are the foundations of life. Blair said that science ?can be used by evil people for evil ends.? Strange that he brings up this possibility, since the corporations that support him and his government use science to their ends. So, what are these illustrious ends? I will draw a sample exclusively from the last week of news. The first mutant featherless chicken was designed here in California, at UC Davis in 1954. The only problem was that it was too small to be marketable. Now, Dr. Avigdor Canaher of Hebrew University in Israel has designed a large pre-plucked boiler that grows faster than your regular chicken. ?Feathers are a waste. The chickens are using feed to produce something that has to be dumped and the farmers have to waste electricity to overcome the fact,? said Dr. Canaher. These mutant pre-plucked chickens are more tolerant of hotter climates than other chickens. Meanwhile, the Hadley Center for Climate Prediction and Research in London just released a report that indicates that the earth is heating up at a higher rate than expected. In fifty years we may be blessed with a planet where only the mutant featherlesschickens survive. As if pre-plucked chickens were not disturbing enough, they have also designed an extra-large super-sexy salmon. Some scientists claim that test areas are secure but others say that it is inevitable that these genetically engineered salmon would eventually escape. This salmon is more attractive to the opposite sex than wild salmon and thus would likely wipe out other species of salmon through sexual selection. Also, they were engineered to be bigger to provide more meat to sell in supermarkets but in the wild they would eat up all the smaller salmon. Last Friday, the Wall Street Journal reported that UCSF is conducting stem cell research applying cloning technology much like that used to create Dolly, the cloned sheep. Eventually humans will be engineered too. Not only is it frightening that ?they? will fashion humans according to their fancy, but, because they do not understand what the potential effects of their experiments are, they do not even know what Frankenstein will look like. Will they make humans sexier like the salmon? And if so, according to whose liking? Will genetic engineering be a kind of plastic surgery prevention, with everyone looking like they?re from Beverly Hills, white with big breasts and no wrinkles? The US military attempted to create completely isolated laboratories in the middle of the Pacific on ships and atolls; they repeatedly tested biological and chemical weapons on US soldiers between 1964 and 1986. Much like nuclear testing on atolls, these experiments could never be totally contained. Radiation and bio-pathogens will always disperse into the environment. Just as the hermit who works on his computer from home and only eats take-out food is under the mistaken impression that he is separate from society?that his food appears miraculously, neither prepared by a cook or harvested from some field where it was grown?some scientists and businessmen are under the mistaken impression that DNA can be separated from the body or the species. Scientists admit that they do not know the effects of tampering with DNA and that such experiments cannot be contained in the first place?pollen blows in the wind and sexy salmon could escape their test sites and spawn their way through the gene pool: genetic engineering is a massive uncontrolled experiment. DNA has become patented data, a commodity, treated as equivalent to all other DNA as if it were an easily-replaceable spare part for a machine. The propagators of the infectious twin cultures of reason and science are determined to isolate the coding of life and engineer in the image that the market dictates. The new evolutionary logic is: survival of the most profitable. 5-24-02 Work harder, don?t have sex by Leila Binder The Alarm! Newspaper Collective It so happens that I get tired of my feet and my fingernails and my hair and my shadow. It so happens that I get tired of being a man? That?s why Monday burns like petroleum when it sees me arrive with my jail face? ?Pablo Neruda, Walking Around Last week, the House approved a welfare reform bill that would require welfare recipients to work more, and if they?re unmarried, encourage them to attend sexual abstinence education, in other words, discourage them from having sex. The bill?which has yet to by approved by the Senate?would require 70% of welfare recipients to work 40 hours a week. The catch is that this program is more expensive to run than the old one, but they?re not giving it more funding. And some Democrats are concerned that states will invent useless work to fill quotas. Along similar lines, the Millennial Housing Commission?s final report will soon recommend to Congress that people who get federally subsidized housing be required to work to keep their homes. In the name of family values, the government is willing to pay more to force the poor to work more?though there might not always be something useful for them to do? and spend less time with their families. At the same time, they?re not increasing funds for child care. Instead of child care, they?re proposing marriage and sexual abstinence programs. According to the Alan Guttmacher Institute, under the 1996 welfare reform law, abstinence education ?has as its exclusive purpose teaching the social, psychological and health gains to be realized by abstaining from sexual activity.? The proposed law is based on the 1996 law, which did not define sexual activity. This leaves the possibility open for ?educators? to define sexual activity in the broadest way, including everything from sexual intercourse to masturbation. What if educators chose to extend their prohibitions to masturbation and kissing? If these programs were successful, and they had access to unlimited funding, what would society look like? I picture being a woman in such a society like never being able to leave the back of the women?s section of Pakistani bus, where you?re segregated?physically distant, but close enough to hear the incessant lewd chatter of the men?s section. I can understand why most of those promoting this bill are men. No woman in her right mind wants to endure living in a nation full of men even more sexually frustrated than they already are. According to the logic of proposed Welfare Reform bill, unmarried poor people simply shouldn?t be having sex; instead, they should be out working. Even stranger, there are those who think having a monthly period is simply too much of a bother for the busy working woman. According to the former logic, work is more important than sex; according to the latter, work is more important than natural biological cycles, or avoiding cancer. Seasonale, a drug which reduces menstrual periods to four times a year, could go on the US market by 2003. In a July 27, 2001 article in Wired.com, Dr. Anthony Dobson, a reproductive endocrinologist at UCSF said, ?Many women believe that having a monthly period is necessary for their well being. This belief dates back to the Dark Ages when people were bled for just about any ailment, and it should remain there. Women have a period to prepare themselves for pregnancy, nothing more.? I?m not particularly fond of cramps and PMS but something doesn?t sound right here. This pill contains the same hormones as the birth control pill, and ?the pill? causes cancer. Higher levels of estrogen increase one?s risk of having a blood clot, stroke, or breast cancer. Apparently, the pharmaceutical companies are willing to do anything to increase our capacity to work. This is not surprising since many of the ailments that pharmaceutical companies try to cure are caused by work-related stress in the first place. Now, they are developing a ?career pill? that prevents a woman?s ovaries from putting out eggs for decades at a time. What they do not know is what shape the eggs would be in decades later. Remember Dolly the sheep? They cloned the sheep but the clone quickly became Dolly?s age. What would these babies come out like? This week, a new study by Management Recruiters International told us what we already know: people are working longer hours. Sometimes there simply isn?t enough time in the day to finish all of this work. It seems that some people have responded to this time compression by trying to stop time itself. An ad for Bo-tox?Botcholism toxin injected into one?s face so that wrinkles disappear?said, ?No surgery, No downtime.? This is an odd attempt to reverse time without taking up any time. When will they find a pill that stops aging and death? Sex, menstruation, childbirth?the body itself has become too much of an inconvenience, we are simply too busy. 5-17-02 New World Evil by Leila Binder The Alarm! Newspaper Collective ?I mean I ask you?how come the only people who ever say ?Evil? anymore are southern cracker televangelists with radioactive blue eyeshadow? None of these bastards look like Hitler, they never will, not exactly, but I say as long as long as they?re playing in Mr. Hitler?s neighborhood we got no reason to relax.? Zilla in Tony Kushner?s play, A Bright Room called Day. That was written in 1987. Times have changed. These days the word ?Evil? is everywhere. While Tammy Faye has been relegated to some dark corner of cable TV land, the televangelist mentality has gone mainstream. CNN is in every fancy hotel lobby in the world, and George W. sounds a lot like Jim Baker. Remember your Sunday school teacher?s ranting about fire and brimstone, Good and Evil? Now Bush tells us that ?you?re either with us or against us? and if you?re not with us you?re on the side of ?Evil.? Evangelicals go to great lengths to bring those who have been led astray by forces of ?Evil? over to their side. There is an ?ex-gay? Christian movement (I like to call it the compulsory heterosexuality club), an ex- Jewish Christian movement, then the one that every hitchhiker knows best, the I-used-to-be-a-speed-freak, crack-head, alcoholic-(fill in the blan k)-until-I-found-Jesus-but-I-still-like-to-talk-for-3-hours-at-a-stretch club. All over the world there are God fearing Americans on missions. Once, I was sitting in Wencelas square in Prague when a herd of naive mid-western youth appeared and started to tell everyone about Jesus-in English of course. Just behind them was an enormous old church with a big cross on the top. Apparently no one had told them that the Czechs had heard of that guy Jesus before. There is even a Mormon temple in Ulaan Baatar, Mongolia and hundreds of Mongolian youth have been sent to Utah This week a somewhat bizarre phrase has been plastered all over the news, ?Christian Zionist.? After centuries of Jew hating, the 40 million strong Christian Right and its lobby is now the Zionist?s best friend. Every college campus has a chapter of ?Jews for Jesus?; they must see tremendous opportunities for expansion these days. I can see it now, a Christian Zionist nation in the Middle East, blue eyeshadow melting in the desert heat. The Christian right and Ariel Sharon have more in common than one might think. After all, Sharon sounds a bit like a televangelist lately too. His only problem is that he lacks the Southern accent and love of peanut butter sandwiches that give Dubya that touch of authenticity. Sharon, the ?Man of Peace?, reportedly made up an odd guest list for a new regional peace conference to be held in Washington. His list included leaders from Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Morrocco, Israel and the US and yet excluded Syria, Lebanon and the Palestinian Authority. Hassan Nafaa, a commentator for Al Ahram newspaper, explained the rationale of the desparity like this: ?The logic behind the guest list for the regional conference is sufficiently simple that even Bush will understand. For just as Bush has divided the world into the forces of good?championed by the US and its allies and embracing all who cooperate with it?and evil, so Sharon divided the Middle East into the good?Israel and all who agree with it?and the evil, i.e. those who do not agree.? (9-15 May). Sharon has fashioned his own Axis of Evil, with Mr. Arafat as the pivot. Bush tells us that there?s a whole lot of ?Evil? with a capital E out there. And this week, as if the odd juxtaposition of North Korea, Iraq and Iran in the old Axis of Evil weren?t confusing enough, there is a new and improved Axis of Evil. In his speech entitled ?Beyond the Axis of Evil?, Undersecretary of State John Bolton announced a new member, Cuba. Apparently, Cuba might have the capacity to make biological weapons, but no one is even pretending to have proof. Bolton believes that Cuba ?has at least a limited offensive biological warfare research and development effort.? One has only to remember the recent wave of Anthrax deaths to know that the US produces biological weapons itself. A May 10 Village Voice article reported that documents from the Marine Corps show that they have developed species of bacteria and fungi that can eat through vehicles, roads and weapons, and microbes that can corrode explosives and chemical weapons. And the Navy has now produced a bio-agent that can destroy plastic and rocket fuel (and it?s not too gentle on your skin either). We all know little Cuba simply doesn?t have the resources to compete with our arsenal of weapons of mass destruction. But that doesn?t seem to matter. Although the term ?Evil? is being used to construct a new geopolitical order, with the addition of Cuba to the ever-expanding Axis, this order is reminiscent of the old one. Those commies are ?Evil?; they need to find Capitalism as their personal savior. 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 Jul 15 21:31:20 2002 From: dr_broccoli at hotmail.com (Shawn G) Date: Sun Feb 8 02:51:43 2004 Subject: [Dryerase] AGR Highway widening Message-ID: This piece is mostly a local concern, but someone may find it interesting Asheville Global Report (www.agrnews.org) Citizens voice concerns about widening I-240, I-26 By Melita Kyriakou Asheville, North Carolina, June 12 (AGR)— Over 300 people filled AB Tech’s Laurel Auditorium to capacity on Wednesday, in a community forum held by the North Carolina Department of Transportation (NCDOT) and the local Transportation Advisory Committee (TAC) regarding the proposed widening of Interstate 240 to eight lanes from its current four in West Asheville. Due to the amount of public outcry over the proposed widening and constituents’ anger at lack of citizen input, TAC, composed of elected officials from Buncombe County and the city of Fletcher who are responsible for local transportation decisions and work closely with the NCDOT, decided to hold a special final community input session before TAC’s final decision on the proposed I-26/240 widening scheduled for Thursday, June 20 during their regular monthly meeting. The groups and individuals attending the input session spanned the local social spectrum and represented a broad range of local interests. Ron Inkspan, a member of the I-26 Connector Awareness Group, which has successfully brought the project into the public eye over the past few years, questioned the accuracy of NCDOT predictions for the necessity of eight lanes on 240. He called for updated traffic flow models and a new evaluation of safety issues, stating this is “a milestone project whose effects will be with us for decades to come.” He also was skeptical of the projections used by NCDOT to assess the need for eight lanes, which are based on peak hour projections for 2025, arguing that the interstate should not just be thought of as a way to move vehicles, and that it should be based on the minimum profile of cars, because “if we put all of our eggs into widening the highway, we lose alternative transit.” He concluded his commentary by stating the highway should not be built “at the expense of our air, community, or sustainability.” Air quality was a concern voiced by many. A Medical Evidence Summary presented by a member of the American Lung Association and the Buncombe County Medical Society demonstrated the poor state of Western North Carolina’s air quality and the disproportionate percentage of childhood asthma cases in this region. According to the Summary, Asheville is in the middle of a “stagnation zone” where ozone and carbon monoxide emissions from cars and power plants stew in our mountain valley contributing to environmental and health hazards. One of the leading causes of air pollution is car exhaust, which would only increase with the eight-lane proposal. The medical spokesperson also criticized NCDOT for fighting for their ability to make “big roads,” in effect, for acting the part of the powerful bully who only wants “to do things their way.” This sentiment was echoed by Gloria, a member of previous community planning committees who stated “we need roads for Asheville, not Atlanta,” and that if you “go to Atlanta, you will see the road to hell is paved.” The “Haywood Renaissance would be killed by this” proposed eight lane project, stated a local merchant who was angered by “so much erroneous proof of the need for eight lanes.” The debate of whether eight lanes would hamper or help the local economy was heated. Many concerned citizens stated their belief that eight lanes through Asheville would ruin what so many people come here to enjoy: a small picturesque city surrounded by greenery. “Overkill” was a word repeatedly mentioned by critics of the proposed plan. Yet not all present at the meeting were critical of the plan. Jerry Behan, coordinator of Buncombe’s Emergency Services, stated that “malfunction junction” (as the I-40/240/I-26 interchange has come to be known) has been “studied [and] planned to death.” His sentiments were echoed by local fire chief Steve Elliot who expressed his disinterest in the actual number of lanes added to the interstates but wished the project to get under way as soon as possible to prevent further problems for emergency vehicles becoming stuck in traffic. In fact, most people in favor of NCDOT’s proposal were not enthusiastic for eight lanes per se, but were for the expedition of the project. A spokesperson for the Asheville Area Chamber of Commerce was one of a very few who explicitly supported eight lanes because it would stimulate economic activity in the area. This is despite the projection that by 2025, 70 percent of the vehicles using the Smokey Park Bridge, which is where 240 crosses the French Broad River, will be transport trucks. Yet Mr. Letovsky from the Chamber of Commerce stated that with only six lanes crossing the French Broad, approximately 30 to 40,000 vehicles would need to be diverted onto other streets to keep traffic from a standstill. He did not state from where this fact was gleaned. The Asheville Board of Realtors expressed their support of the eight-lane proposal for purposes of a speedy resolution of the project. The concern with the time frame of the project is due to the fact that four of the five alternatives proposed by NCDOT involve eight lanes while the fifth involves no additional lanes. In effect, while community input into the years-long process of designing this huge infrastructure development has repeatedly stressed the need for alternatives involving fewer lanes, NCDOT has essentially ignored them and now, with no established six-lane proposal, the development of a new plan would drag out the process even more. In league with the board of realtors, the Asheville Small Business Association called for even more than the proposed eight lanes. While these supporters of NCDOT’s proposal of eight lanes were the minority, they wield a tremendous amount of authority and clout in Asheville. With humor, righteousness, distress, foresight, and rationality, the vast majority of constituents at the community input session stressed their belief that eight lanes would destroy West Asheville, not revitalize it. Opponents of the eight lane proposal echoed the US Department of Energy’s conclusion that because more lanes means more cars, “this ‘solution’...is short lived.” Sustainable growth, alternative modes of transportation, quality and protection of the environment and residents’ health, affordable housing, and safety were issues touched upon by many opponents of NCDOT’s plan of eight lanes for I-240. This is why this issue goes far beyond four, six, or eight lanes. It is about sustaining and fostering what makes Asheville what it is: a beautiful place to visit and live. While NCDOT plans for increased sprawl, commuting by single-occupancy vehicles, and no increase in the use of public transport, others have a vision of Asheville as a more livable community with better public transportation, bike lanes, and no sprawling box-store developments. Instead of eight lanes, some opponents voiced their support of a proposed outer loop that would divert traffic from the Smokey Park Bridge and be a safer route for the potential transport of nuclear waste to Yucca Mountain. While lanes are an issue, the need for improved interstate signage; coordinated traffic lights on surface streets off of the interstates; intelligently constructed interchanges; and better exit and entrance ramps and lanes are perhaps bigger necessities than more pavement. One speaker, in reference to NCDOT, stated that “to someone with a hammer, everything looks like a nail.” The opinions and sentiments expressed by the concerned citizens of Asheville in opposition to NCDOT’s eight-lane proposal prove that they are using every tool at their disposal to assess the traffic situation in context and deal with it in the most sustainable, healthy, and livable way possible to make Asheville one of the most wonderful small cities in America and not just another potential sprawling metropolis. More information on the I-26 Connector Awareness Group can be found on their website: www.i26group.org. _________________________________________________________________ Join the world’s largest e-mail service with MSN Hotmail. http://www.hotmail.com From dr_broccoli at hotmail.com Mon Jul 15 21:33:27 2002 From: dr_broccoli at hotmail.com (Shawn G) Date: Sun Feb 8 02:51:43 2004 Subject: [Dryerase] AGR afghan elections Message-ID: This is a world news story ... still maybe timely? Asheville Global Report (www.agrnews.org) Afghans elect government leader under fear and interference By Shawn Gaynor June 18 (AGR)— Afghan representatives gathered last week in a Loya Jirga (grand council) and selected the Northern Alliance interim president Hamid Karzai as the head of the newly forming Afghan government. Many have said that the elections, supported by the US and Australia among others, were rife with coercion, foreign diplomacy, and electoral manipulation, with the result being a victory Washington’s allies. Of the candidates, 8 were killed before the election, and the former King Mohammed Zahir Shah withdrew on the second day of proceedings after consultations with US officials, leaving almost no one willing or able to run strongly against Karzai. The State Department, commenting on the election of Karzai said, “We congratulate Mr. Karzai . . .We have had excellent working relations with Chairman Karzai and the Interim Authority.” A state department spokesperson went on to say, “we think this is a very important step in reconstruction of the country and re-establishment of Afghan self-government.” A statement by the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan (RAWA), a group who struggles for the rights of Afghanistan’s violently oppressed women, said of the election: “Our wounded and bewildered people, who have borne the constant blows of the past ten years, seem to be looking at it with disappointed eyes. Disappointed because the Loya Jirga has been convened under the patronage of guns and threats and the corruption of fundamentalists.” Before the delegates arrived in Kabul for the council, the Tajik ethnic group, who dominate the Northern Alliance, had reportedly already been favored in several key ways. According to the election guidelines set in Germany, Taliban supporters and those who committed war crimes were explicitly barred from being a representative. According to RAWA, who have long been anti-Taliban, Pashtuns not related to the former Taliban government where excluded unjustly. Furthermore, many Northern Alliance war criminals and fundamentalists were permitted to serve as representatives. The election districts that the delegates where drawn from for the Loya Jirga were taken from a census conducted during a time when the Tajik, the ethnic group of the Northern Alliance, was previously in power and heavily favors them. The fraud went deep, with Tajik territories claiming representative seats for universities that do not exist, in order to boost their delegations numbers. “And it is still unknown where these universities came from except by the force of the Northern Alliance who imposed them on the Loya Jirga Commission in order to instill yet more of their own elements in the Loya Jirga,” said the RAWA statement. According to Human Rights Watch, who monitored the meeting, the Afghan intelligence services, controlled by the now elected Karzai, had a strong presence at the gathering, actively surveilling the conversations of the over 1,500 delegates and creating a hostile and threatening atmosphere. One delegate, an experienced Afghan journalist, told Human Rights Watch, “Amniat [the Afghan intelligence service] was checking people, overhearing conversations, looking into rooms. They were marching around with a camera, photographing people.” On the second day of the proceedings, Human Rights Watch reported warlords, who where not authorized to participate in the process, entered the proceedings, “Mingling with the delegates and threatening those who called for their exclusion or opposed their agenda. Several delegates, including some women, reported threats when they complained about the warlords’ participation in the grand national assembly.” Agence France Presse reported that warlords conducted their own meeting on the second night of the proceedings, attempting to divide power in the new government outside the Loya Jirga process. “After subverting the voting process in many regions of Afghanistan, the warlords are now trying to hijack the Loya Jirga itself,” said Zia-Zarifi, a delegate to the Loya Jirga. “If the warlords succeed in their nefarious quests the security of the Afghan people will be put squarely in the hands of those most likely to threaten it.” A RAWA spokeswoman said of the unwarranted participation of the warlords, “unless the pathogen of fundamentalism is eliminated from the government and all its departments, no development, no institutions and no decisions will be untainted.” Women were under-represented ten to one in the body, mostly filling seats guaranteed to women by the rules laid out in Germany, and not a regionally elected seat. Many reported harassment and threats from Afghan warlords. Women’s groups had been pushing for a guarantee of 25 percent of the body’s delegates. _________________________________________________________________ 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 Jul 15 21:44:11 2002 From: dr_broccoli at hotmail.com (Shawn G) Date: Sun Feb 8 02:51:43 2004 Subject: [Dryerase] AGR stonewall Message-ID: Focus is not too local.... Asheville Global Report (www.agrnews.org) History of Stonewall Rebellion inspires Asheville commemoration By Katie Mingle June 26 (AGR)— On Saturday, June 29, Asheville residents will celebrate the 32nd anniversary of the Stonewall riots by gathering in Prichard Park decked out in their queerest gear and ready to parade through the city. The Stonewall riots, also remembered as the “Stonewall Rebellion” and simply, “Stonewall,” are considered to be a milestone in gay activism and are honored in gay pride parades and celebrations all across America each summer. The fine details of the Stonewall Riots may vary depending on the account. The line between fact and fiction becomes a bit blurred under the weight of such a legendary event. However, some details of Stonewall and its consequences cannot be disputed. The event took place June 28, 1969 at the Stonewall Inn, a well-known gay bar on the west side of lower Manhattan. It started with a fairly routine police raid on the bar and ended after five days of rioting by thousands of people in the streets of New York. That the raid was “routine” implies only that these raids happened frequently, but it is not to imply that these raids at Stonewall and at other gay bars all throughout the US didn’t have dire consequences for the people arrested, for the drag queens and butches especially, who were often raped, beaten, and humiliated by the police. June 28 was a night like any other at the mafia-run Stonewall Inn when eight police officers raided the bar and forced the patrons to stop dancing with each other (there were laws against same-sex dancing) and into the streets for ID checks. When they began to arrest some of the drag queens (there were also laws against cross-dressing), the crowd became heated and people started yelling and fighting. Some say the drag queens led the Stonewall Rebellion, others say it was the bull dykes. Most likely there was no one punch or single bottle thrown that spurred the melee that commenced that night. What is certain is that all hell broke loose on the street outside the Stonewall Inn and that the people fought back with a fervor that they hadn’t unleashed before. Eventually, the people forced the police inside the bar where they stayed locked up until back-up arrived on the scene and the riot was temporarily dispersed. Thirteen people were arrested and a handful of police were injured. The entire riot lasted only about 45 minutes, but it was what followed in the days after June 28 that turned Stonewall into a colossal event. Over the next four days, about two thousand people came out into the streets of the West Village in what was less a protest than an explosion of rage against the oppressive conditions they had been living under for so long. Two thousand may sound small in light of what gay activism and gay pride have become, but in 1969 it was the largest ever public demonstration by lesbian, gay, and transgendered people. Immediately following the days of rioting people began organizing and formed new activist groups such as the Gay Liberation Front (GLF) and the Gay Activists Alliance (GAA). However, Stonewall was not the beginning of gay activism, but a unifying moment. Renee Vera Cafiero, a gay rights activist during the time of Stonewall, put it this way: “Stonewall was a spark. It was Rosa Parks. Rosa Parks was not the beginning of the black civil rights movement but somehow she was unifying. She was something that you could rally around. And Stonewall, for some reason, was the rallying point.” Before Stonewall, New York, San Francisco, Chicago and other large American cities had well-organized and fairly extensive gay sub-cultures that date back to the late nineteenth century. Groups such as the Mattachine Society, a gay men’s organization, and the Daughters of Bilitis, a lesbian organization, came into being following the second world war. These groups would meet and publish newsletters and sometimes organize small demonstrations. They were generally interested in gaining acceptance into mainstream society for homosexuals. After Stonewall, gay activism underwent a change in ideology. The language of the movement was one of the first things to change as people stopped strictly using the word “homosexual” to describe themselves. Instead, the new movement preferred the word gay and adopted the slogan “Gay is Good.” This slogan and others used by gay activists were inspired in large part by the civil rights movement which was unfolding at the same time. Many people in the movement became less interested in a culture they found to be bigoted, cruel, and ultimately a bit dull. They became engaged, instead, in forming their own culture which they hoped would be allowed to flourish and enjoy constitutional rights and freedoms. Still, the progress effected by the original pioneers of gay activism cannot be denied. These individuals and organizations laid the foundation for the future of gay activism and the promotion of many social changes. The history of the Gay Rights Movement is thick and complex. Like most political and cultural revolutions, it endured multiple schisms between men and women and conservatives, liberals, and radicals. Nevertheless, important strides have been made by the gay community in many realms. Great losses were suffered as well, among them the assassination of Harvey Milk, the openly gay superintendent of San Francisco; the death of 32 people in an intentionally set fire in a gay bar in New Orleans; and the millions of people who died of AIDS while the government denied them the proper funding and care. “Still today there is so much to be done in gay activism,” said one of the organizers of the Asheville Stonewall event. “At least kids are learning about the civil rights movement in school. You never hear a thing about the Gay Rights Movement or all the horrible injustices people suffered. We want this parade to remember all the brave people in the past but also to acknowledge that gay issues are still pushed under the rug too often. On Saturday we won’t be under the rug, we’ll be out there having a fun time and being as queer as we please.” _________________________________________________________________ Chat with friends online, try MSN Messenger: http://messenger.msn.com From dr_broccoli at hotmail.com Mon Jul 15 21:46:20 2002 From: dr_broccoli at hotmail.com (Shawn G) Date: Sun Feb 8 02:51:43 2004 Subject: [Dryerase] AGR Homeland security Message-ID: Small article on homeland security bill before congress right now Asheville Global Report (www.agrnews.org) New Office of Homeland Security to concentrate power, increase secrecy By Brendan Conley June 26 (AGR)— In what would be the most significant restructuring of the federal government since the 1947 creation of the Department of Defense, President George W. Bush is seeking to create a Department of Homeland Security that would bring together foreign and domestic intelligence agencies and would be exempt from laws requiring public disclosure and protecting whistleblowers. Congress is considering the Homeland Security Act on an accelerated schedule that could result in the creation of the department by the first anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks. The department would combine 100 federal entities, including the Secret Service, Coast Guard, and Border Patrol, with 170,000 employees and total annual budgets of $37 billion into one agency. The FBI and CIA would be required to turn over intelligence reports relating to potential attacks against the US to the new department. “If you like the idea of a government agency that is 100 percent secret and 0 percent accountable, you’ll love the new Homeland Security Department,” said Timothy Edgar, an American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) Legislative Counsel. “The Administration’s plan exempts the new agency from a host of laws designed to keep government open and accountable and to protect whistleblowers.” In perhaps the most striking bid for secrecy, a provision in the bill creating the new department would exempt its employees from the Whistleblower Protection Act, the very law that helped expose intelligence failures related to the Sept. 11 attacks. FBI Agent Coleen Rowley blew the whistle on her bosses for mistakes in the probe of Zacarias Moussaoui, who has been indicted on six counts of conspiracy in last year’s attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Protections against retribution for whistleblowers like Rowley would not exist in the new agency. The new department would be exempt from the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), the ACLU said, “essentially eliminating the agency’s responsibility to answer public questions about how well it is addressing these threats.” The FBI and CIA would be required to share intelligence reports with the Homeland Security Department, blurring the line dividing foreign and domestic spying. This melding could endanger the rights and freedoms of US citizens, according to civil liberties advocates. The creation of the new agency is expected to further propel the military and law enforcement buildup since Sept. 11. The Coast Guard, one of the agencies that would be folded into the new department, announced plans to improve and expand its fleet. A joint team of Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman was awarded an $11 billion, 20-year contract that will allow the Coast Guard to buy 91 ships and 145 airplanes and helicopters, as well as upgrade 49 cutters. _________________________________________________________________ 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 Jul 15 21:49:08 2002 From: dr_broccoli at hotmail.com (Shawn G) Date: Sun Feb 8 02:51:43 2004 Subject: [Dryerase] AGR The G8 in Canada: an African agenda Message-ID: G8 lead up piece The G8 in Canada: an African agenda By Sean Marquis June 25 (AGR)— This week thousands of people will converge on the Canadian city of Calgary to protest a meeting of G8 leaders being held in the remote town of Kananaskis, Canada, June 26-27. What will get lost in the news accounts of police vs. protesters will be what the protesters had to say and what the G8 was doing to warrant protesting. The Group of Eight (G8) made up of Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United States, and Russia, is meeting to discuss issues ranging from terrorism and Israel/Palestine to global economic policies. This summit will have a focus on Africa. Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chretien is a heavy backer of the New African Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD). The G8 Summit is expected to endorse the NEPAD initiative. The mandate for NEPAD had its genesis at the Organization of African Unity (OAU) Extraordinary Summit held in Sirte, Libya during September 1999. After more economic and trade summits several proposals had been envisioned. An integration process of the various initiatives followed, and on July 11 2001, NEPAD (or the New African Initiative (NAI) as it was temporarily known at the time), was adopted as Africa’s principal agenda for development. What makes NEPAD a very attractive neo-liberal policy to G8 leaders is that it comes from African countries and is an initiative of African leaders, in particular Presidents Tabo Mbeki of South Africa, Abdelaziz Bouteflika of Algeria, Olusegun Obasanjo of Nigeria, and Abdalaye Wade of Senegal. According to NEPAD’s own documents, it is “an instrument for advancing a people-centered sustainable development in Africa based on democratic values,” and has continent-wide objectives such as “economic growth and development and increased employment; reduction in poverty and inequality; and enhanced international competitiveness and increased exports.” President Wade met with US President George W. Bush on June 19, just ahead of this week’s summit. According to the US State Department the two discussed the “war on terrorism” and NEPAD, with both men in support of “the importance of the private sector’s investing in regional development.” A detailed NEPAD Program of Action will be presented to the G8 Summit and to the inaugural Summit of the African Union in South Africa in July. The European community, the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund(IMF) and the United Nations will also participate in the Kananaskis meeting. Benefit for elites, detriment for poor A common complaint of civil society groups and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) is that the primary objective of NEPAD is to make Africa investment-friendly for the benefit of African elites and foreign investors at the detriment of already impoverished African populations. On June 6 the Southern African Catholic Bishops’ Conference (SACBC) issued an assessment of NEPAD in a document, Un-blurring the Vision: An Assessment of the New Partnership for Africa’s Development by South African Churches. While the SACBC supported NEPAD’s goals on decreasing poverty and promoting peace initiatives among African nations, the report criticized NEPAD’s “blurred vision” of how to achieve its stated goals. “NEPAD’s vision is blurred by fixing its sights on increased global integration and rapid private sector growth as the answer to overcoming poverty, and by its failure to engage with Africa’s people to transform the continent,” the report said. The SACBC also said that “[NEPAD]’s economic strategy is discredited by the harsh impact on the poor in African countries that have already adopted similar policies. It pretends to be unaware of the severe negative social impact that rapid privatization of basic and social services has on impoverished communities in Africa.” As to process, “NEPAD has neglected Africa’s people both in the process of its construction and in its primary focus,” said the SACBC report. World Vision, Canada, a Christian humanitarian organization, suggests an eight-point plan, which is somewhat critical of national and collective policies of G8 nations in regard to African nations. Some of the suggested points are: support peace and conflict prevention - stop shipping weapons to Africa; adopt fair trade rules - end resource exploitation; and require accountability to the people - stop propping up dictators. While echoing World Vision’s sentiments on peace and arms shipments, other groups also point to the furthering economic destruction that is most likely to be carried out under the auspices of NEPAD. In Apr. 2002, the Heinrich Boell Foundation, together with the Mazingira Institute and the African academy of Sciences, held its African Forum for Envisoning Africa: Focus on NEPAD in Nairobi, Kenya to critically examine NEPAD and its underlying principles. The Forum concluded that NEPAD follows the same neoliberal principles that are heavily criticized by civil society worldwide. These policies are responsible for increasing gaps between the rich and the poor and result in economic disasters, such as the recent clashes in Argentina. “In spite of the recognition of the central role of the African people, civil society has not played any role in the conception, design and formulation of NEPAD. Furthermore, NEPAD adopts social and economic measures that contribute to the marginalization of women,” according to a statement by the Forum. A report by the World March of Women, NEPAD, Gender and the Poverty Trap, questions NEPAD’s ability to achieve it’s stated objective to “promote women’s participation in the political life of African countries.” In part this is due to the fact that NEPAD is seen as an extension of South-Africa’s own neoliberal macroeconomic policy, known as Growth, Employment, and Redistribution (GEAR). GEAR, according to the report, “has promoted deregulation, which has led to deteriorating conditions of employment, and trade liberalization…This economic restructuring has had a disastrous impact on the two key centers of footwear and leather production in the country [the provinces of the Western Cape and KwaZulu Natal].” “As the footwear and leather sector is overwhelmingly dominated by women workers, they are the most affected by the disastrous impact [of these policies],” the report states. The report also questions the ability of NEPAD to be “democratic” and “inclusive” when “the records of the major promoters of the NEPAD – i.e. the Presidents of South Africa, Algeria, Nigeria and Senegal -- include the repression of dissent, bloodshed, mass popular protests and social unrest.” Same policies, new name Many groups contend there is no difference between NEPAD and the structural adjustment programs (SAP) that have been promoted by the IMF and the World Bank. SAPs are largely responsible for the privatization of the social sector in developing nations leading to the sale of state-owned water, electricity and health services to private, and often foreign, interests. In a June 17 Canadian Press article, Sarath Fernando, a member of Sri Lanka’s movement for land and agricultural reform, drove home this point. “Debt, aid, advice, structural adjustments, remodeling of economies — more than the money part, it is a mechanism for having control over our lives, over our resources, over the whole economies in our countries,” said Fernando. NEPAD is little more than re-colonization of Africa and is just an extension of GEAR, said protesters at a meeting of the World Economic Forum (WEF) at the International Convention Center (ICC) in Durban, South Africa on June 6. The event was reported by The Witness, a Durban daily. “The name NEPAD is a myth -- there is nothing new about it. It is just GEAR for [all of] Africa and, just as GEAR resulted in the loss of one million jobs in South Africa, so too will NEPAD further plunge Africa into poverty,” said Ashwin Desai of the Concerned Citizens’ Group. According to The Witness, Professor Dennis Brutus of Jubilee South Africa said the WEF is part of the global corporate process which is expected to support NEPAD. “The essence of the document is that Africa promises to obey all requests from the West and will submit to their demands, particularly in the area of investment. Africa will be enslaved to satisfy the demands of the West,” Brutus said. “NEPAD will lead to privatization of basic services which will then be sold back to Africa at a profit.” _________________________________________________________________ Join the world’s largest e-mail service with MSN Hotmail. http://www.hotmail.com From dr_broccoli at hotmail.com Mon Jul 15 21:51:37 2002 From: dr_broccoli at hotmail.com (Shawn G) Date: Sun Feb 8 02:51:43 2004 Subject: [Dryerase] AGR Millions celebrate gay pride worldwide Message-ID: Asheville Global Report (www.agrnews.org) Millions celebrate gay pride worldwide By Brendan Conley July 1 (AGR)— From Asheville to Zagreb, millions of people throughout the world participated in gay pride celebrations over the June 29-30 weekend. Lesbians, gay men, bisexuals, transgendered people, and their supporters marched in parades, celebrating their queerness and standing up for gay rights. The events ranged from giant festivals that were embraced by the establishment to tense protest marches where participants endured attacks and harassment. New York City hosted one of the world’s largest gay pride parades, with an estimated one million people participating, appropriate for the city that can call itself the birthplace of the modern gay rights movement. Most gay pride events are held at the end of June to commemorate the 1969 Stonewall Rebellion, in which patrons of the Stonewall Inn led days of riots to protest a police raid of the Greenwich Village gay bar. Thirty-three years later, New York’s gay pride parade was led by the mayor, Michael Bloomberg. State legislators vowed to work toward the legalization of same-sex marriage. The event began with a mass wedding in Central Park, with clergy of various faiths blessing the unions of more than 50 same-sex couples. The march proceeded down Fifth Avenue to Greenwich Village. In Toronto, more than 100 floats paraded through the city’s Gay Village as more than a million people braved scorching heat for the annual gay pride celebrations. One participant was Marc Hall, a 17 year old who sued his school board for the right to bring his boyfriend to the prom. In San Francisco, where more than a million people took part in the celebrations, Dykes on Bikes led a spirited parade through the Castro district. The participants honored Jon Cook, who became the first openly gay police officer to die in the line of duty when he was killed in an automobile accident two weeks ago, chasing a domestic violence suspect. Other celebrations took place in Chicago, Minneapolis, Paris, and Dublin. The events in North America and Western Europe seemed to walk a fine line between celebration and protest. Some activists decried the commercialization of gay pride. In Atlanta, where 300,000 people took part, the corporate-sponsored events resembled other large cultural festivals, with corporations, local businesses, and politicians vying for attention. While the Coors brewing company sponsored the festival, maintaining a monopoly on beer sold in Piedmont Park, activist groups ran full-page ads in a local newspaper urging a boycott of the company over its “anti-gay” policies. In Asheville, North Carolina, anti-capitalist protesters joined with queer folk to march through the streets. In Seattle, while gay police officers, firefighters, and politicians took part in the official gay pride celebrations, the Seattle Fruit Brigade held an “anti-corporate, pro-freak” alternative event. In San Francisco last month, activists created a “Gay Shame” event to critique the commercialization of the mainstream gay pride movement. In other parts of the world, gay activists fought repression and harassment. In Israel, tight security and the tension of war affected the festivities. Tel Aviv, which boasts the country’s largest gay community, hosted a parade of hundreds of lesbians and gays. In Jerusalem, activists overcame a hostile local government and Orthodox Jewish protesters to declare “Love Without Borders” in the city’s first ever gay pride event. Many gay Israelis linked their cause with the struggle against the occupation of the Palestinian territories. “Free Condoms, Free Palestine” read one sign. In Latin America, gay activists marched to demand equal rights. Thousands marched through the streets of Mexico City, with the theme “For the right to be different, a society of coexistence.” In Venezuela, where homosexuals are often fired from their jobs if their sexual orientation is discovered, an estimated 1,200 protesters marched through Caracas. One of the biggest gay pride events in Latin America took place in Sao Paulo, Brazil earlier in June. The march of about 400,000 people was led by the city’s mayor, the left-wing sexologist Marta Suplicy. In Zagreb, Croatia, about 200 gays and lesbians marched through the center of the city, as riot cops held back hundreds of angry protesters. At one point, a tear gas canister was tossed at the marchers, but no one was injured. _________________________________________________________________ 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 Jul 15 22:09:04 2002 From: dr_broccoli at hotmail.com (Shawn G) Date: Sun Feb 8 02:51:43 2004 Subject: [Dryerase] AGR G8 Ottawa Message-ID: Here is our piece on the G* in ottawa. One the website we have some photos (issue 181), and we have a compiled piec for the other g8 stuff there also. Asheville Global Report (www.agrnews.org) Anti-capitalists ‘take’ Canada’s capital By Eamon Martin Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, June 28 (AGR)— Undeterred by near-relentless rainfall, thousands of revolutionary anti-capitalists marched through the streets of Canada’s capital city in solidarity demonstrations marked to coincide with the Group of Eight (G8) summit of Western industrial leaders taking place in the remote resort village of Kananaskis in Alberta. Two days of marches ended with demonstrators taking to the steps of the nation’s parliament where protesters rallied against capitalism, fascism, war, exploitation, imperialism, and George W. Bush. With no liberal presence in sight, a sea of balaclavas, bandanas, ski masks and red and black flags of militant, soaking-wet protesters followed a serpentine path through Ottawa’s streets. As high-rise office dwellers gawked at the streets below them, the throngs of thousands chanted in the pouring rain, “One-two-three-four – we don’t want your facist war! Five-six-seven-eight – organize and smash the state!” “We’re trying to defeat capitalism. Capitalism is responsible for most of the world’s problems,” explained Bill Lambain, 72, from Toronto and a member of the Ontario Coalition Against Poverty. Protest organizers had put out a call to action to “Take the capital” on June 26 and 27. Included on their website was an address list of corporate headquarters and international embassies that the event planners figured would be helpful to the visiting protester in search of a good location to vent their frustrations. In response, police were stationed on most street corners. Some of those on the “Radical Tour” list closed operations for the days of action. An Ottawa McDonald’s restaurant shut down, temporarily covering its storefront from top to bottom in plywood. City school children were given a surprise holiday and The Eternal Flame national monument at the capitol was doused and covered. “The goal is very clear – a political and economic disruption of those institutions and government offices that help perpetuate the agenda of the G8,” said organizer Jaggi Singh. On Wednesday, around 3,500 demonstrators took the city’s streets, stopping traffic in a circuitous route through the capital’s financial and commercial district. During the day, local activists, in a cry for public housing, broke into and occupied an abandoned house. The march paid a visit to the site along its side-winding path. Behind a banner reading, “Sick of waiting? Occupy!” activist Dan Sawyer shouted from a second-floor balcony of the squatted house to the hundreds assembled below. “It’s a crime that this house is empty while 15,000 families wait seven years to get social housing,” said Sawyer. “We’ve had enough. We’re taking over this house.” While police looked over the scene powerlessly, a few masked participants smashed in the windows and popped the tires of a squad car across the street. At 3:30pm, Ottawa Police Staff Sergeant Rick Levine talked to the squatters and announced that police would not go in to remove them. “It’s [the situation] not going to change as long as you keep it cool,” he said. Not long after, the day’s main march culminated with rallying on the steps of Parliament Hill. Protest slogans were quickly spray-painted and written in chalk on much of the area’s walkways. Among the phrases freshly adorning The Eternal Flame was “Eternal Struggle.” A small number shed their clothing while a few others toked “victory” bowls of marijuana. One hour later, a separate march descended on the US embassy where revelers protested against US imperialism and the Bush administration’s “terror war.” More than any other G8 leader, the US president was undeniably singled-out as a target of outrage. Protesters chanted “Feed Bush more pretzels!” and “Bush is a terrorist!” until their throats were audibly hoarse. And much to the delight of most present an effigy of Bush was set afire in front of the embassy. The next day, marches continued in much of the same fashion but with an even greater contingent of around 5,000 people participating. Thursday’s march was organized under the banner “1000 Flags of Resistance -- No One Is Illegal.” The central theme was an anti-capitalist attack against the criminalization, subjugation, and exploitation of indigenous peoples worldwide by the industrial forces of the Western world. Moreover, the day’s events were to express solidarity with those who are struggling for their rights to self-determination, whether in the Philippines, Colombia, Palestine, or even the US and Canada. Signs depicted slain Genoa, Italy G8 protester Carlo Giuliani beneath the caption “Killed By G8.” A widely distributed statement explained: “Today, the leaders of the G8 states are meeting in Alberta, surrounded by scenic mountains, golf courses, and thousands of soldiers and police. These eight men are the executive board of global capitalism, and the directors of the so-called “War on Terrorism.” “We are marching together today in clear opposition to the G8 and its agenda …Hypocritically, capitalist globalization makes it easier for rich people and their money to cross borders, while controlling and exploiting the poor. We call for open borders, and full rights for migrants and refugees worldwide.” At the outset, police threatened to tow away the march’s sound van. But hundreds of protesters immediately swarmed the vehicle, preventing any such thing from happening. The march proceeded with delayed stops at crucial intersections, the National Defense Building, the British High Commission, and the Ministry of Citizenship and Immigration. “Free Palestine!” thousands demanded in front of the Israeli embassy. One Ottawa woman who wished to remain anonymous, “nearly 80”and a member of the Raging Grannies, described her group’s position: “We’re here because we’re older women and we’re concerned about a decent world being left for our grandchildren. The G8 and all the things they’re doing are fucking up the world.” Despite weeks of alarm about “violent protests” and snide condemnation by local officials and media, the tenor of the protests were distinctly physically non-confrontational. Besides the damaged squad car, a smashed anti-abortion marquee, some small smatterings of impromptu graffiti, and a few paint balls thrown at a bank or two, property destruction was notably tame. Conversely, there were also few incidents of arrest or police provocation. Last Autumn, John Baglow, Ottawa resident and regional leader of the Public Service Association of Contracted workers (PSAC), participated in demonstrations against the Group of 20 meetings held at the time. Taken aback by repressive police measures they saw then, Baglow and his wife helped organize a protest witness team. This year, Baglow and other witnesses were on call 24 hours in case the police might renege on their promise to not evict the squatters. “Quite frankly, [police conduct last fall] was outrageous,” Baglow said. After a public outcry, “the police figured they really had something to learn. They were much better this time.” This year, hundreds of riot police were present in Ottawa but kept out of sight in nearby parking lots and hotels. “It’s been asked if we’re grateful for the police. Let’s have a reality check here,” offered Singh. “There are over a hundred groups who’ve endorsed this demonstration. Many of them are groups that represent Arab groups, Muslim groups, African groups – some groups that are generally targeted. These groups have been visited by the police. They’ve been told explicitly that ‘if you participate in a non-permitted demonstration, you could be arrested,’ or ‘you know, you might not want to be involved with these groups.’ That’s what’s happening in the background. So you ask if we’re grateful? No, we’re not grateful for those visits or that intimidation.” Singh himself is no stranger to protest intimidation. During last year’s protests against the Free Trade Agreement of the Americas summit in Quebec City, the activist was suddenly abducted by undercover police while walking down a city street and then detained for weeks on bogus conspiracy charges that were ultimately thrown out. Challenging numerous members of the press who attempted to bait the organizer into advocating violence, Singh spoke about the nature of this peace movement at a press conference earlier in the day: “What we’re talking about is community control over resources –those necessities that you need to live your life. When we talk about Africa and the G8 -- they’re promoting privatization schemes that make water and electricity beyond the ability of the average person in Soweto or other communities in South Africa to have access to those things. “We’re talking about cooperative control over these resources, creating decentralized communities, a people-centered economy. This is not Utopia. This is reality. These are things that do occur in small steps all over the place and things that can occur. They’ve occurred historically and they can occur again. But to do so we need to denounce those systems that make that community control, that kind of mutual aid, that kind of community solidarity impossible, because instead you’re promoting profit. The leaders of the G8 are quite explicit about this. George Bush said that in order for the economy to prosper, corporations need to make more profits. That’s his vision. I don’t think that’s the vision shared by most people. Enron and WorldCom -- I don’t believe people think we need to promote that kind of greed. We promote another vision based on social justice.” _________________________________________________________________ Send and receive Hotmail on your mobile device: http://mobile.msn.com From dr_broccoli at hotmail.com Mon Jul 15 22:12:45 2002 From: dr_broccoli at hotmail.com (Shawn G) Date: Sun Feb 8 02:51:43 2004 Subject: [Dryerase] (no subject) Message-ID: Here is an origanal story from Argentina from a corispondent of ours there. more to follow... Asheville Global Report Route blockades spread across Argentina By Vero and Buzzard Buenos Aires, Argentina, June 26 (AGR)— Last Friday there were route, highway and street blockades, and marches all over the country, including dozens in Buenos Aires. Inside the city, the marches of the CCC and CTA converged on the Plaza de Mayo where the movement and union leaders gave speeches and led songs and chants. Though there were other marches and blockades of various other groups, few others went to the plaza during those hours. The marches and blockades, though they all had their own demands, were to commemorate the 6-month anniversary of the popular revolt of Dec. 19-21 and in remembrance of those killed in the repression. Every day one hears about Cortes de Ruta (route blockades) in all parts of the country and each week there are more. Every day more and more people are joining the various Piketero (a person who takes part in a route blockade) groups, looking for ways to survive in a country where more than half of the populace lives below the poverty level. The means, organization, and daily activities of the different groups may vary greatly, but most of the demands are the same when a group blockades a route: the refusal of the new proposed budget (which would cut 400,000 state jobs, cut the hospital, school, and retirement budgets); creation of jobs; release of Piketero political prisoners; non-payment of the debt to the International Monetary Fund (IMF); re-nationalization of privatized natural resources and public services; nationalization of the banks; re-opening of abandoned factories under worker control; and the most commonly seen -- payment of Planes Trabajar (welfare plans). In the last 25 years, almost all public services and national resources have been privatized -- most to foreign businesses. More than 300,000 people have been downsized since the beginning of the year and in that time food and gas prices have more than doubled. Hospitals in the poorer zones, outside of the capital, are being closed, while those that remain open are running out of supplies (almost all imported). Many schools are not holding classes, either because of teacher strikes or because they are literally falling apart (many children living in poverty don’t go to school at all, they are working or begging in the street). To cash in on their retirement payments, retired folk have to wait in endless lines and are given the runaround by beaurocrats, only to find that more has been taken out of their 120 peso per month check, if they are able to get it. Every day it gets harder to get what one needs from the trash in the city because every day there are more people searching through the trash. For these reasons there are hundreds of thousands of Piketeros participating in various groups. There are organizations of every type, from one that uses the name of Movimiento Teresa Rodriguez, led by Roberto Martino and continues the legacy of the Fogoneros (the people that kept the tires burning through the below-freezing nights during the blockades outside of the YPF/Repsol refinery in Cutral Có ´96) to the Corriente Clasista Combativa (a group directed by the Communist Revolutionary Party, which has never had a clash with the police due to their refusal to blockade routes in key places) to the Movimiento de Trabajadores Desocupados Anibal Veron which blockades routes, starts community gardens, reclaims space to build asentamientos, (housing on squatted land, usually made from whatever is at hand, although the MTD collects funds for bricks and shingles before beginning the occupation and construction) and operates community and cultural centers, among other things. There are seven main groups, some with decades of experience in community organizing, and all but two are tied to or were created by political parties or national unions. Some of the Cortes de Ruta groups make all decisions by direct democracy and revocable representatives, some make some decisions in this way but have leaders, and some are simply led by the unions or political parties. The level of autonomy from their respective union or political party varies. They united as a Bloque Nacional Piketero in May of 2001 and held a number of national congresses, but have since divided again. The root of the division was the decision of the leadership of the CTA, Víctor De Gennaro, not to take to the streets during the revolts of December ’01, according to him, for questions of security. Many of the other groups have since shunned them. Nonetheless, during the speeches in the Plaza de Mayo last Friday, it was announced that the CCC and the CTA are to merge. While the government has raised the stakes on Cortes de Ruta, labeling it as the crime of sedition, most people arrested in the blockades are shortly released (many times after being brutalized and tortured). There are currently 2,800 people undergoing processing for arrests in Cortes de Ruta. On the other hand, the Government arrests Piketero leaders, tries them on trumped-up charges, and holds them in prison for years. After a great increase in protests that repeatedly closed down downtown Buenos Aires and a lot of negotiations between the leaders of the CCC and CTA and the government of Duhalde, Emilio Alí and Raúl Castells (two CCC leaders) were released in the last month without completing their sentences. Historically, mostly teachers’ unions and student groups have accompanied unemployed laborers in the Cortes de Ruta. Since the rise of the independent Neighborhood Assemblies, the Piketero movement has had many relations with other sectors of society, in that the Inter-neighborhood Assembly (partially made up of middle-class professionals) has pledged solidarity with the Piketero movement. Many of the marches and protests of the Inter-neighborhood assembly are supported by the Bloque Piketero National, and vice-versa. What one sees from the outside is that due to the heterogeneity of the piketeros, while an assembly may mobilize to support a blockade organized by the Federacion de Tierra y Vivienda, the same assembly booes a CTA union leader off the stage if he gets up to give a speech. The Planes de Trabajar have been the most effective force in quelling and dividing the Piketeros that the state has come up with. The Planes de Trabajar essentially consist of a three-month welfare subsidy of 150 pesos per month per household. The federal government hands them down either to the municipal government or to the Piketeros themselves. While many of the groups demanded genuine and stable work 6 years ago, now most of the blockades demand these subsidies. Getting the Federal government to agree to pay these subsidies is only the first step in the fight to obtaining the money they imply. Once a group wins the concession of these subsidies, if it is handed to the municipal government, it is usually as hard or harder a struggle to make the local government to turn over the money. There is a lot of discussion about how to distribute these subsidies. Some groups combine the money from all the subsidies to start cooperative enterprises and finance community and cultural centers, free schools, and the construction of asentamientos. Other groups distribute the money evenly among those participating in the blockades. _________________________________________________________________ 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 Jul 15 22:13:18 2002 From: dr_broccoli at hotmail.com (Shawn G) Date: Sun Feb 8 02:51:43 2004 Subject: [Dryerase] Route blockades spread across Argentina Message-ID: Sorry for the resend Here is an origanal story from Argentina from a corispondent of ours there. more to follow... Asheville Global Report Route blockades spread across Argentina By Vero and Buzzard Buenos Aires, Argentina, June 26 (AGR)— Last Friday there were route, highway and street blockades, and marches all over the country, including dozens in Buenos Aires. Inside the city, the marches of the CCC and CTA converged on the Plaza de Mayo where the movement and union leaders gave speeches and led songs and chants. Though there were other marches and blockades of various other groups, few others went to the plaza during those hours. The marches and blockades, though they all had their own demands, were to commemorate the 6-month anniversary of the popular revolt of Dec. 19-21 and in remembrance of those killed in the repression. Every day one hears about Cortes de Ruta (route blockades) in all parts of the country and each week there are more. Every day more and more people are joining the various Piketero (a person who takes part in a route blockade) groups, looking for ways to survive in a country where more than half of the populace lives below the poverty level. The means, organization, and daily activities of the different groups may vary greatly, but most of the demands are the same when a group blockades a route: the refusal of the new proposed budget (which would cut 400,000 state jobs, cut the hospital, school, and retirement budgets); creation of jobs; release of Piketero political prisoners; non-payment of the debt to the International Monetary Fund (IMF); re-nationalization of privatized natural resources and public services; nationalization of the banks; re-opening of abandoned factories under worker control; and the most commonly seen -- payment of Planes Trabajar (welfare plans). In the last 25 years, almost all public services and national resources have been privatized -- most to foreign businesses. More than 300,000 people have been downsized since the beginning of the year and in that time food and gas prices have more than doubled. Hospitals in the poorer zones, outside of the capital, are being closed, while those that remain open are running out of supplies (almost all imported). Many schools are not holding classes, either because of teacher strikes or because they are literally falling apart (many children living in poverty don’t go to school at all, they are working or begging in the street). To cash in on their retirement payments, retired folk have to wait in endless lines and are given the runaround by beaurocrats, only to find that more has been taken out of their 120 peso per month check, if they are able to get it. Every day it gets harder to get what one needs from the trash in the city because every day there are more people searching through the trash. For these reasons there are hundreds of thousands of Piketeros participating in various groups. There are organizations of every type, from one that uses the name of Movimiento Teresa Rodriguez, led by Roberto Martino and continues the legacy of the Fogoneros (the people that kept the tires burning through the below-freezing nights during the blockades outside of the YPF/Repsol refinery in Cutral Có ´96) to the Corriente Clasista Combativa (a group directed by the Communist Revolutionary Party, which has never had a clash with the police due to their refusal to blockade routes in key places) to the Movimiento de Trabajadores Desocupados Anibal Veron which blockades routes, starts community gardens, reclaims space to build asentamientos, (housing on squatted land, usually made from whatever is at hand, although the MTD collects funds for bricks and shingles before beginning the occupation and construction) and operates community and cultural centers, among other things. There are seven main groups, some with decades of experience in community organizing, and all but two are tied to or were created by political parties or national unions. Some of the Cortes de Ruta groups make all decisions by direct democracy and revocable representatives, some make some decisions in this way but have leaders, and some are simply led by the unions or political parties. The level of autonomy from their respective union or political party varies. They united as a Bloque Nacional Piketero in May of 2001 and held a number of national congresses, but have since divided again. The root of the division was the decision of the leadership of the CTA, Víctor De Gennaro, not to take to the streets during the revolts of December ’01, according to him, for questions of security. Many of the other groups have since shunned them. Nonetheless, during the speeches in the Plaza de Mayo last Friday, it was announced that the CCC and the CTA are to merge. While the government has raised the stakes on Cortes de Ruta, labeling it as the crime of sedition, most people arrested in the blockades are shortly released (many times after being brutalized and tortured). There are currently 2,800 people undergoing processing for arrests in Cortes de Ruta. On the other hand, the Government arrests Piketero leaders, tries them on trumped-up charges, and holds them in prison for years. After a great increase in protests that repeatedly closed down downtown Buenos Aires and a lot of negotiations between the leaders of the CCC and CTA and the government of Duhalde, Emilio Alí and Raúl Castells (two CCC leaders) were released in the last month without completing their sentences. Historically, mostly teachers’ unions and student groups have accompanied unemployed laborers in the Cortes de Ruta. Since the rise of the independent Neighborhood Assemblies, the Piketero movement has had many relations with other sectors of society, in that the Inter-neighborhood Assembly (partially made up of middle-class professionals) has pledged solidarity with the Piketero movement. Many of the marches and protests of the Inter-neighborhood assembly are supported by the Bloque Piketero National, and vice-versa. What one sees from the outside is that due to the heterogeneity of the piketeros, while an assembly may mobilize to support a blockade organized by the Federacion de Tierra y Vivienda, the same assembly booes a CTA union leader off the stage if he gets up to give a speech. The Planes de Trabajar have been the most effective force in quelling and dividing the Piketeros that the state has come up with. The Planes de Trabajar essentially consist of a three-month welfare subsidy of 150 pesos per month per household. The federal government hands them down either to the municipal government or to the Piketeros themselves. While many of the groups demanded genuine and stable work 6 years ago, now most of the blockades demand these subsidies. Getting the Federal government to agree to pay these subsidies is only the first step in the fight to obtaining the money they imply. Once a group wins the concession of these subsidies, if it is handed to the municipal government, it is usually as hard or harder a struggle to make the local government to turn over the money. There is a lot of discussion about how to distribute these subsidies. Some groups combine the money from all the subsidies to start cooperative enterprises and finance community and cultural centers, free schools, and the construction of asentamientos. Other groups distribute the money evenly among those participating in the blockades. _________________________________________________________________ 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 Jul 15 22:15:34 2002 From: dr_broccoli at hotmail.com (Shawn G) Date: Sun Feb 8 02:51:44 2004 Subject: [Dryerase] AGR Israeli reoccupation intensifies Message-ID: Asheville Global Report (www.agrnews.org) Israeli reoccupation intensifies By Brendan Conley July 2 (AGR)— Israel intensified its US-funded reoccupation of Palestinian territories, killing several Palestinian civilians and destroying the Hebron headquarters of the Palestinian Authority. The Israeli army attacked the Palestinian Headquarters in the West Bank town of Hebron on Fri., June 28, using more than a ton of explosives. About 15 Palestinian militants had defended the headquarters, but Israeli officials have found no one -- dead or alive -- in the rubble. Bulldozers are continuing the destruction. Israel banned international journalists from major West Bank towns until recently. Hebron is one of seven towns in the Palestinian territories that Israel has reoccupied recently, imposing a blanket curfew that has confined about 700,000 residents to virtual house arrest. Israel justified the invasion as retaliation for a series of Palestinian suicide bombings and attacks last week that killed more than 30 Israelis. Israeli troops reportedly shut down an office for liaison with the Palestinians near Bethlehem, ordering the staff out and replacing Palestinian flags with Israeli ones. The violence continued throughout the territories. In the Gaza Strip, Israeli troops killed a Palestinian woman and wounded her husband near the Israeli settlement Kfar Darom. Israeli troops killed a 12 year old Palestinian boy in the al-Fara refugee camp near Jenin by shooting him in the chest with a tear gas canister. The attacks came as the United States -- which provides Israel with extensive military funding -- repudiated the Palestinian leadership. US President George W. Bush demanded June 24 that Palestinians elect “new leaders” -- apparently meaning leaders other than Yassir Arafat, who came to power in elections deemed “free and fair” by international observers. On June 30, US Secretary of State Colin Powell said that Washington has cut ties with Arafat, and has no plans to deal with him in the future. A bill is pending in the Knesset, or Israeli parliament, that would deny compensation to Palestinians injured by the Israeli Defense Forces, even in cases where soldiers violated the law. Israeli human rights organizations are protesting the pending bill. _________________________________________________________________ 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 Jul 15 22:18:21 2002 From: dr_broccoli at hotmail.com (Shawn G) Date: Sun Feb 8 02:51:44 2004 Subject: [Dryerase] AGR Route Blockades SPANISH Message-ID: Asheville Global Report (www.agrnews.org) Piketeros en Argentina Por Vero y Buzzard Buenos Aires, Argentina, 26 de juno (AGR)— El viernes pasado, 21 de junio, hubo cortes de ruta, calles y autopistas y marchas en todo el país, incluyendo docenas en Buenos Aires. Dentro de la ciudad, las movilizaciones de la CCC (Corriente Clasista Combativa) y la CTA (Central de Trabajadores Argentina) convergieron en Plaza de Mayo adonde los líderes del movimiento y del sindicato dieron discursos y entonaron cánticos. Aunque hubo otras marchas y cortes llevados a cabo por varios grupos, sólo algunos de ellos estuvieron presentes en la plaza en aquellas horas. Las manifestaciones y los cortes, aun con demandas propias, conmemoraron los seis meses de la revuelta popular del 19 y 20 de diciembre y a los muertos durante la represión. Todos los días se habla sobre cortes de ruta en todas partes del país y cada semana hay más. Cada día más y más gente está participando en los grupos piketeros, buscando los medios para sobrevivir en un país adonde más de la mitad de la población vive bajo el nivel de la pobreza. Los modos, la organización y las actividades diarias de los diferentes grupos varían ampliamente, pero la mayoría de las demandas es la misma cuando un grupo corta la ruta: el rechazo al nuevo presupuesto (que recorta 400,000 cargos públicos y los fondos para salud, educación y jubilaciones), la creación de trabajo, libertad para los piketeros presos, el no pago de la deuda al FMI, la nacionalización de los recursos naturales, los servicios públicos y la banca, la reapertura de fábricas abandonadas bajo control obrero, y lo más comúnmente visto: el pago de los Planes Trabajar (subsidios que luego explicaremos). En los últimos 25 años, casi todos los servicios públicos y los recursos han sido privatizados y la mayoría comprados por empresas extranjeras. Más de 300,000 personas fueron despedidas en lo que va del año, mientras las tarifas de los servicios y los alimentos se han duplicado y triplicado en algunos casos. Están cerrando los hospitales de las zonas pobres de afuera de la ciudad por falta de insumos médicos, y aquellos que están abiertos se están quedando sin éstos (casi todos los insumos son importados). En muchas escuelas no se dictan clases, ya sea por las huelgas de maestros o porque se están literalmente cayendo a pedazos (muchos de los niños pobres ni van al colegio porque están trabajando o mendigando en las calles). Los jubilados cobran retiros miserables (120 pesos algunos) y hacen colas interminables para logarlo. Cada vez se hace más difícil conseguir algo en la basura porque cada día hay más gente reciclando. Por todo esto es que hay cientos de miles de piketeros participando en varios grupos. Hay agrupaciones de todo tipo, desde el independiente Movimiento Teresa Rodríguez, en honor a una piketera asesinada durante un corte y liderado por Roberto Martino, que continúan con el legado de los fogoneros (la gente que mantuvo las gomas ardiendo en las frías noches de los cortes a la refinería Repsol-YPF en Cutral Có en el ’96), hasta la Corriente Clasista Combativa (un grupo dirigido por el Partido Comunista Revolucionario que nunca chocó con la policía debido a su negativa de cortar rutas clave). El Movimiento de Trabajadores Desocupados Aníbal Verón, por ejemplo, corta rutas, desarrolla huertas comunitarias, ocupa tierras para construir viviendas y opera centros culturales comunales. Son siete los grupos principales, algunos tienen décadas de experiencia en organización comunitaria y todos, salvo dos, están relacionados o fueron creados desde partidos políticos o sindicatos. Ésta es una lista de los grupos más grandes y sus afiliaciones políticas: Teresa Vive (Izquierda Unida, partido comunista). CCC (Corriente Clasista Combativa del PCR, Partido Comunista Revolucionario). Polo Obrero (Partido Obrero, comunista). Movimiento Territorial de Liberación (Partido Comunista). MTD Aníbal Verón (Movimiento de Trabajadores Desocupados, independiente y horizontal). Federación de Tierra y Vivienda (CTA, Central de Trabajadores Argentina, el segundo sindicato más grande del país). Movimiento Teresa Rodríguez (independiente, liderado por Roberto Martino). Algunos toman las decisiones por medio de una democracia directa y representantes revocables, otros deciden de la misma manera pero tienen líderes y algunos, simplemente, están dirigidos por sindicatos o partidos políticos. El nivel de autonomía de sus respectivos partidos o sindicatos varía según el grupo. En mayo de 2001 se unieron en el Bloque Nacional Piketero e hicieron varios congresos nacionales, pero en marzo volvieron a dividirse debido a diferencias ideológicas sobre cómo llevar adelante la lucha. La raíz de esta división fue la decisión que tomó el líder de la CTA, Víctor De Gennaro, de no tomar parte en las revueltas callejeras de diciembre por, según dijo, cuestiones de seguridad. A partir de esto, muchos grupos no quisieron tener más que ver con este sindicato. A pesar de esto, durante los discursos del viernes pasado en Plaza de Mayo fue anunciada la unión de la CCC y la CTA. Mientras el gobierno aumentó las penas por bloquear una ruta, penalizando la protesta como “delito de sedición”, la mayoría de la gente detenida en cortes es “largada” con bastante rapidez (muchas veces después de haber sido golpeada y torturada). Actualmente, hay alrededor de 2,800 personas procesadas por cortar rutas. Por otro lado, el gobierno arresta líderes piketeros acusándolos de cargos inventados encarcelándolos durante años. Tal es el caso de dos líderes piketeros, Emilio Alí y Raúl Castells, que fueron puestos en libertad en el último mes sin llegar a término de condena, luego de dos años de permanecer en prisión y de un gran incremento en las protestas que repetidamente cerraron el centro de Buenos Aires exigiendo su liberación y también, de algunos “acuerdos” entre los líderes de la CCC (organización a la que pertenecen) con el actual gobierno de Duhalde. Históricamente, más que nadie fueron los sindicatos de docentes y las agrupaciones estudiantiles los que acompañaron a los trabajadores desocupados en los cortes de ruta. Desde el surgimiento de las asambleas barriales independientes, el movimiento piketero ha comenzado a relacionarse con otros sectores de la sociedad. La asamblea interbarrial de Capital Federal (parcialmente compuesta por profesionales de clase media), por ejemplo, convino en solidarizarse con el movimiento. Muchas de las marchas y protestas de la asamblea interbarrial son apoyadas por el Bloque Nacional Piketero, y viceversa. Desde afuera, lo que se observa en los últimos seis meses es que el movimiento piketero es muy heterogéneo entonces, mientras una asamblea puede movilizarse para apoyar un corte organizado por la Federación de Tierra y Vivienda, la misma asamblea abuchea a un sindicalsita de la CTA durante un discurso sin saber que están ligados. Los Planes Trabajar han sido la fuerza más efectiva para desactivar y dividir a los piketeros que ha desarrollado el estado. Éstos planes consisten esencialmente en un subsidio de 150 pesos mensuales durante tres meses para cada desocupado con familia. El gobierno federal los otorga tanto a las municipalidades como a los grupos organizados de desocupados para su distribución. Mientras que al principio, muchos de estos grupos demandaban trabajo estable y genuino, ahora la mayoría exige estos subsidios. Hacer que el gobierno federal acuerde en pagarlos es sólo el primer paso en la lucha por conseguir el dinero que implican. Una vez que un grupo consigue la concesión de los planes, si éstos están en manos de la municipalidad es aún más difícil hacer que el gobierno local entregue el dinero. Cuando los subsidios son otorgados al grupo, casi invariablemente los medios acusan a su gente de corrupción y malversación provocando y dando pie a inspecciones gubernamentales, que en muchos casos se parecen a allanamientos e investigaciones policiales. Hay mucha discusión sobre cómo distribuir los subsidios. Algunos grupos (el MTR, por ejemplo) se los dan directamente a la gente que estuvo en el corte exigiéndolos (lo cual para muchas familias y trabajadores significa el fin de su compromiso con el grupo o con la lucha en general). Otros (CCC, PO) los guardan y sólo los pagan según el nivel de compromiso o directamente en forma proporcional al número de cortes y protestas en el que la persona estuvo involucrada. Otros (MTD) juntan el dinero de todos los subsidios para emprender cooperativas de trabajo y financiar centros comunales y culturales y escuelas libres. El gobierno de Duhalde tiene un nuevo plan llamado Plan Jefes y Jefas de Hogar, que bien puede quitar mucha fuerza a los grupos piketeros. Desde este mes, el gobierno federal ha comenzado a pagar subsidios a las cabezas de familia que se encuentren desempleadas. Todos los que cumplan con las condiciones deben anotarse en las municipalidades de sus barrios. Mucha gente, especialmente de la CCC y el Polo Obrero (dos de los grupos con más convocatoria para sacar gente a la calle) que participa en los cortes de ruta, lo hace para acumular Planes Trabajar. Es probable que esta nueva medida cambie la cara del movimiento piketero, dejando por un lado a aquellos que tienen un interés político y por otro, a los que desean un cambio social radical. Al mismo tiempo, 150 pesos por mes no están para nada cerca de ser suficientes para cubrir las necesidades básicas y cada día hay más hambre y desocupación. _________________________________________________________________ Chat with friends online, try MSN Messenger: http://messenger.msn.com From dr_broccoli at hotmail.com Mon Jul 15 22:25:43 2002 From: dr_broccoli at hotmail.com (Shawn G) Date: Sun Feb 8 02:51:44 2004 Subject: [Dryerase] AGR SOA watch trial Message-ID: We have a picture for this too http://www.agrnews.org/issues/182/nationalnews.html Asheville Global Report (www.agrnews.org) Trial begins for 37 SOA Watch activists By Melissa Fridlin Columbus, Georgia, July 10 (AGR)— The trial for 37 human rights activists who committed civil disobedience at the School of the Americas (SOA) began in federal court on Monday. The defendants were among 10,000 who gathered last November to call for the closure of the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation (WHISC), formerly known as the School of the Americas. The defendants are charged with trespassing and face up to six months in federal prison and a $5000 fine. The trial is expected to last through the week. The trial is being held in the court of Judge G. Mallon Faircloth, in Columbus, GA. Judge Faircloth is known for giving the maximum sentence of six months to the majority of 26 people who came before the court in 2001 for similar actions. Clare Hanrahan and Kathryn Temple of Asheville, as well as Jon Hunt of Boone, were among the 2001 defendants, who were known as the “SOA 26.” Eighteen of the 37 defendants took the stand on Monday. Eight pled guilty to trespassing on the Fort Benning Military Reservation during the Nov. 18, 2001 SOA Watch demonstration: Leone Reinbold, of Oakland, CA; Bridgid Conarchy, 23, of Grayslake, IL; Ralph Madsen, 68, of Newtonville, MA; Maxwell Sadler Edwards, of Waterville, ME; Linda Holzbaur, 45, of Ithaca, NY; Shannon McManimon, 26, of Philadelphia, PA; and David O’Neill and Lee Sturgis, both of Elkton, VA. Ten others pled not guilty on Monday. They were found guilty by Judge Faircloth on Tuesday morning: Fr. William O’Donnell, 72, of Berkeley, CA, Toni Flynn, 56, of Valyermo, CA, Mary Dean, 37, of Chicago, IL; Kathleen Desautels, 64, of Chicago, IL; Fr. Jerry Zawada, 65, of Cedar Lake, IL; Rae Kramer, 55, of Syracuse, NY; Mike Pasquale, 33, of Syracuse, NY; Rev. Erik Johnson, 57, of Maryville, TN; Ken Crowley, 60, of Houston, TX; and Kate Fontanazza, 53, of Milwaukee, WI. Perhaps the most surprising development in the trial so far is the case of Lisa Hughes, 36, of West Hartford, VT. Hughes entered a plea of not guilty on Tuesday; the judge subsequently found her not guilty of trespassing. He cited two reasons for this radically different verdict. When she was arrested, Hughes was kneeling on the entrance road to Ft. Benning between the white line that has traditionally marked the legal boundary of Ft. Benning property and the chainlink fence that was erected last year at the entrance as a security measure in response to the events of Sept. 11. The judge allowed that she had not actually crossed onto the base because she had not climbed over or walked around the fence. The second factor in the verdict was that Hughes was kneeling in prayer, and not actually protesting. Although US Army Regulation 210-5 prohibits “picketing, protesting, demonstrations, political speeches, sit-ins, and other similar activities” on Ft. Benning property, kneeling in prayer is a completely legal act. The SOA/WHISC is a combat training school for Latin American soldiers that operates at Fort Benning, Georgia. Many human rights organizations have published reports that directly link graduates of the school to human rights abuses and atrocities. In 1996 the Pentagon was forced to release training manuals used at the school that advocated the use of torture, extortion and execution. In December 2000 Congress passed legislation which created the WHISC to replace the SOA. The renaming of the school was widely viewed as an attempt to diffuse public criticism and to disassociate the school from its reputation. Critics say that the school has changed little of its notorious curriculum. The US Army, on the other hand, says that the school has added human rights courses to its curriculum. “Our real goal is to ensure our students understand their role in a democratic society and that they serve the people, not abuse them,” said Col. Richard Downie, school commandant. SOA Watch and other organizations that oppose the SOA/WHISC maintain that the underlying purpose of the school, to control economic and political systems of Latin America by aiding and influencing Latin American militaries, remains the same. “The SOA is a terrorist training camp right in our own backyard,” said School of the Americas Watch founder Father Roy Bourgeois. “Those who speak out for justice are facing harsh prison sentences while SOA-trained torturers and assassins are operating with impunity,” said Bourgeois after four defendants read statements on the steps of the federal courthouse before the trial began. The press conference was interrupted in the middle of one defendant’s statement by federal marshalls, who informed the defendants and supporters that they were not permitted to stand on the courthouse steps because the steps are federal property. The press conference then moved onto the sidewalk. Later, supporters who were standing outside because they could not fit into the courtroom were asked not to sit on the low wall on either side of the steps. “We need to keep a neutral area between the courthouse and the people,” said one federal marshall. Columbus police were not present to address the resulting blockage of the sidewalk. A federal marshall stated, “We are only here to protect federal property. The sidewalk is not our concern.” Federal officials, including marshalls and courthouse security, were heavily criticized throughout the day by supporters of the defendants, many of whom could not get into the courtroom to watch the proceedings. The trial is being held in one of the smaller courtrooms, where there is space for approximately 40 observers after the 37 defendants are seated. “We have been requesting the use of the larger courtroom for a month now,” said Jeff Winder, Program Director for SOA Watch. “Court officials told us that the big courtroom was under construction, so they had to put us in a smaller one.” Some questioned whether there was sufficient reason to keep the courtroom closed. Those who walked by the room on Monday claimed there appeared to be no construction activity happening inside. One defendant spoke to Judge Faircloth himself on Friday about the matter, requesting that he make the decision to move the trial to the larger courtroom. “When I told him that they had said that the courtroom was under construction, he said they were actually simply replacing some sound equipment,” said Rae Kramer, of Syracuse, NY. “He said he would consider changing courtrooms over the weekend,” Kramer stated. However, no change was made. Bob Phares, a former judge from Raleigh, NC, was one of many who were upset by the change of courtroom. “There are 37 defendants in this trial,” Phares stated. “Each one has at least two or three family members and supporters with them; several have up to fifteen. These people traveled from all over the country to support their loved ones and most of them have been shut out of the courtroom.” SOA Watch staff was kept busy all day Monday making sure that defendants’ family members were in the courtroom as each one took the stand. “It is a difficult thing to do,” said Ann Tiffany, one of two people in charge of keeping a list of each defendant’s priorities for people they wanted in the courtroom. “We have people here from all over who may not have one person in particular that they are supporting, so they aren’t on the priority list,” Tiffany said. “But they still traveled a long way and want to support these people who are taking such a high risk for what they believe in.” Many of those people may spend the better part of the week outside on the sidewalk. “We could have avoided all of this if they had just opened up the larger courtroom in the first place,” said Phares. The defendants, meanwhile, gave moving testimony inside the courtroom that covered a wide range of reasons for risking such a harsh penalty. Rev. Erik Johnson, a defendant from Maryville, TN, said to the judge on Monday: “For me, going to prison is not something I want to do - the separation from my family - but I know I’ll come home. But that’s not true for hundreds of people in Latin America who disappear at the hands of SOA grads and are not heard from again.” _________________________________________________________________ Join the world’s largest e-mail service with MSN Hotmail. http://www.hotmail.com From dr_broccoli at hotmail.com Mon Jul 15 22:31:05 2002 From: dr_broccoli at hotmail.com (Shawn G) Date: Sun Feb 8 02:51:44 2004 Subject: [Dryerase] AGR Cops riot in Buenos Aires; protesters killed Message-ID: Asheville Global Report (www.agrnews.org) Cops riot in Buenos Aires; protesters killed By Vero Perez and Buzzard Gilmore Buenos Aires, Argentina, July 7 (AGR)— Everyone knew something was going to happen. Ten days ago, the government had decided to apply “mano dura” (hard hand), putting an operation into action that would put 2,000 more police on the street and clearly showed that piqueteros blockades of the Federal District would not be tolerated. So when the piquetero organizations gathered to blockade the Pueyrredon Bridge, which connects the capital to Avallaneda, in the south side of the city, on June 26, they did it advising participants to leave the kids at home. At 9am, the Bloque Nacional Piquetero, made up of various groups, including the movement’s most radical organizations, began to gather at the intersection at the foot of the bridge. The groups with the greatest presence that day were the Coordinadora Anibal Veron of the Movimiento de Trabajadores Desocupados, the Movimiento Teresa Rodriguez, the Movimiento Independientede Jubilados y Desocupados, and the Movimiento de Liberacion Territorial. This bridge is blockaded every week, but one had never seen so many boots and uniforms of such varying colors. The federal police, the naval police, and the national guard were all present. The repression began at 12pm. The protesters left running and many entered into the train station, looking for refuge, without realizing that it was a fatal trap. “I saw Darío [Santillán] arrive, who came over and tried to get him [a wounded demonstrater] to move. After, he told us to go, to get the hell out because he would stay,” the witness continued. “I got out of the station and crossed the Avenue. The police were already close; the cloud of teargas came rushing down the street. I started to run, made it a few meters and heard shots.” At that point the police entered the main hall and shot at least four of the protesters, under the command of Commissioner Franchiotti. Santillan continued trying to help Maximiliano Costeki, then raised his hands, asking not to be shot. He got up to run away and fell. The police swept through the station shooting and hitting people. One woman was strangled to unconsciousness, and the police continued beating her. One of these officers was later photographed grinning over Costeki’s corpse. The same officers dragged Santillan, still alive, from the back of the station out to the sidewalk. Outside, the repression continued for more than 15 blocks from the bridge with teargas, bullets, and police raids. The first place they raided was a storefront of the Communist Party. They shot teargas into the building, and the people inside jumped over the walls out back to escape to adjoining houses. Police kicked the door in and handcuffed those they found inside, separating the people who manage the space and shooting them point blank with rubber bullets. One was shot point blank in the head, leaving a pool of blood and cerebral fluid on the floor. The raids continued in the surrounding blocks. The police hauled in people they claimed were piqueteros. In the end, 188 people were arrested and more than 50 wounded, 20 of whom were shot with lead bullets. Two were killed: Maximiliano Costeki, 22, and Darío Santillán, 25. Three of the hospitalized remain in critical condition. “This thing is really complicating things for us,” said president Duhalde while watching the repression on TV, although he is the same who decreed that no more blockades would be tolerated. At first, the official version was that the protesters had fought among themselves. This is not a new tactic; the same explanation was given by the Governor of Salta when Anibal Veron was killed on Nov. 10, 2000 in the blockade of Route 34, a case that remains unsolved. Little has changed except for the amount of attention paid to the riots and shootings, due to the location in capital and the fact that it is the Minister of Interior giving the explanation instead of the governor of a remote province. According to the Minister of Interior, Jorge Matzkin, the police were justified. The next day, Matzkin’s statement left no room for doubts: “Their (the piqueteros’) actions constituted a plan of organized and systematic struggle, which could come to threaten and replace the formula of consent which the majority of Argentines have elected because there are others who prefer the language of violence.” This speech reminded many of the communications of the last bloody military government. He made no reference to the police’s actions. Matzkin made this statement supported by the SIDE’s (State Intelligence Service) findings that affirm that the piqueteros want Duhalde out of office. However, photos taken by media and human rights organizations depicted a very different picture from the one painted by Matzkin. The images showed that the police were the instigators of the violence. Immediately and clumsily, given the irrefutable evidence, the government has changed its tone to accuse the police. Since midday June 26, leftist political parties, student groups and the neighborhood assemblies have taken to the street. Some went directly to the 1st precinct in Avellaneda to demand the freedom of the arrestees and others began to march to the Plaza de Mayo, where the Pink House (which houses the executive branch) is located. The Legislative Palace had been evacuated “for security reasons” and the turnout of security forces was enormous, with infantry, water-cannon trucks and gas throwers everywhere within a few blocks around two locations. The climate was very tense and the repression from Congress was rapid. There were around 200 people protesting when the first gas was fired. In the Plaza de Mayo, the around 1000 protesters had better luck, and stayed without disruptions. For the following day word traveled fast and the call sign was clear: fill the Plaza de Mayo to protest the repressive government and demand the punishment of the murderers and those who gave them the orders. Unemployed, workers, students, leftist parties and neighborhood assemblies marched from congress to the Plaza de Mayo chanting against the government and the police. More than 12,000 turned out to sing: “I see it already, tonight we’re all piqueteros” and “I knew it, I knew it, the police killed the kids.” Everybody screamed “Murderers, Murderers” in the faces of the police the march passed, who numbered more than 200 between Federal Police, National Guard, and Naval Police. In spite of the fear of a worse repression, the march filled the plaza and clearly showed that the unemployed piqueteros of the urban region, the students, members of the leftist parties, the human rights organizations, and the middle class are united. Following the deaths and subsequent protests, several government and police officials resigned, including: the Minister of Security and Justice of the province, Luis Genoud. The Buenos Aires chief of police and subchief, the Superintendent of Security, General Commissioner Ricardo Degastaldi, and his subordinate, the general commissioner Edgardo Beltracci followed. On Friday, the police involved in the killings, including Alfredo Franchiotti, were arrested. _________________________________________________________________ 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 Jul 15 22:34:27 2002 From: dr_broccoli at hotmail.com (Shawn G) Date: Sun Feb 8 02:51:44 2004 Subject: [Dryerase] AGR Neighborhood assemblies Argentina Message-ID: In english and spanish Asheville Global Report (www.agrnews.org) Neighborhood assemblies reclaim space in Argentina By Vero Perez and Buzzard Gilmore Buenos Aires, Argentina, July 9 (AGR)— Since Saturday morning, July 6th, with the help of other nearby assemblies, the neighbors from the assembly named “Diego Nano Lamagana” have been squatting a lot that the municipality had long vowed to make a playground in their neighborhood, La Paternal. Like many other places, this lot has been abandoned for years, collecting garbage and rats. At this moment, the people of the assembly can be found cleaning the space to begin various projects for the community. The first and most urgent of these is the creation of a communal kitchen to serve afternoon snacks to the children from the schools in the neighborhood, as most of the schools don’t have kitchens. (In Argentina, many families depend on the schools to serve lunch to their children, but more and more school cafeterias are being cut out of the budget.) The work co-operative of the assembly, which has been making jam for months, will also operate there. They plan on eventually starting a cultural center, after-school help classes, and an art and trade school. The assembly’s folks are working hard under threat of eviction, and are spreading the word about their experience and asking for the help and solidarity of the people of the city. This assembly is not alone. In the last month, squatting has gained widespread popularity within the assemblies. The first of these squats began a little less than a month ago with the assembly of Parque Avellaneda, from the Flores neighbor hood on the west side of Buenos Aires. The assembly reclaimed a restaurant that had been abandoned for years on one of the main corners of the neighborhood. Neighborhood residents say the restaurant closed abruptly nearly two decades ago. Now that the assemblies have re-opened it, many people in the community have been quick to help because, by right, they are all co-owners in that the place has always been part of their neighborhood. Almost simultaneously, another assembly occupied another pizzeria, in Villa Urquiza. The objectives are the same: to establish a place for people to come together to put forth their concerns and look for solutions, an independent space to create specific answers for the neighborhood, making decisions in assembly by consensus. Many other assemblies are discussing the same idea; some already have places in mind to occupy. The action arises from necessity and with concrete objectives, but is a political act almost without precedent. The characteristics and demands of the neighborhood assemblies have progressed, strengthening and defining themselves since the birth of the movement. What was at first a spontaneous and almost instinctive reaction of the middle class is beginning to take form. “Get them [politicians] all out!” is the main demand, but the assemblies also call for the nationalization of the banks; state expropriation of all public services; the refusal to pay the debt to the IMF; the rejection of the 2002 budget plan; imprisonment of people involved in the genocidal dictatorship; and freedom for people imprisoned for struggling. The assemblies also believe in: no negotiation with the government; solidarity with the Piketeros; revindication of the occupation of the factories under worker control; and protest against state terrorism. December 19-21, 2001, the racket of the pots and pans of Buenos Aires and all of Argentina shook the country. Those days left exposed the truth about a ruling class that will stop at nothing to accumulate wealth and power, and not move a finger to operate a government that could serve the people. So came to pass what very few believed could happen: the people took to the streets to manifest their rage directly, giving back what the government had been dishing out for decades — violence. It seemed as though the last military dictatorship, under which 30,000 “disappeared,” had completed its function; not only to systematically annihilate almost an entire generation that tried to create a different reality, but also to make it very clear to the survivors that anyone who should think differently and attempt to organize to generate an alternative to this system would be “disappeared.” This idea is so strongly rooted in the generation that survived “el Processo” that for many years the fear and frustration made them cling to the only way of life that appeared valid: money, power, pop culture and other superficialities, and taking care of oneself while disregarding the needs of one’s neighbors. Because of this, the fear of organizing, the created indifference, and the perceived inevitability of failure, many were reluctant to put much faith in the assemblies. Today, after six months of practice and errors, dividing and coming together, with a calling not as wide as at first, but more solid, people are beginning to plan and put into action real alternatives for a dignified and respectful sustenance. The assemblies, like other groups involved in the struggle, are weaving networks that the powerful have been systematically destroying for more than 25 years. The neighborhood assemblies, the regional assemblies, the round tables between distinct groups, the commissions, and the next national assembly are concrete attempts that show this. Their method is non-hierarchical and open discussion. They know it is a slow process, one that it is impossible to create in days what took decades, armies, and a lot of money to destroy; but they are there, organizing, week after week, because they have awoken to the reality that there is no one better than oneself to satisfy one’s needs. Above all, they continue trying to construct an answer to the question, “Get them all out, then what?” Los pies en el barrio, el grito en el cielo Las asambleas vecinales están rekuperando espacios Por Vero Perez y Buzzard Gilmore Buenos Aires, Argentina, 7 de julio (AGR)-- Desde el sábado 6 de julio por la mañana, los vecinos y vecinas de la asamblea del barrio de La Paternal “Diego Nano Lamagna”, con el apoyo de otras asambleas vecinales, están recuperando un predio que la municipalidad supuestamente destinaría a un futuro patio de juegos. Como muchos otros sitios, éste se encontraba abandonado desde hacía años, juntando basura y ratas que nada ofrecían. En este momento, la asamblea se encuentra limpiando el espacio para comenzar con varios proyectos para el barrio. El primero y más urgente es el de un comedor donde se les dará la merienda a los niños y niñas de las escuelas del barrio, ya que muchas ni siquiera cuentan con una cocina para hacerlo. También funcionará la Cooperativa de Trabajo de la misma asamblea que desde hace meses produce mermeladas. Se darán clases de apoyo escolar, habrá un Centro Cultural y se proyecta para un futuro muy próximo crear una Escuela de Artes y Oficios. Los vecinos de la asamblea están allí trabajando muy duro y, bajo amenaza de desalojo, están difundiendo la experiencia y solicitando el apoyo y la solidaridad de la gente. La situación de esta asamblea no es única. Desde hace poco menos de un mes la experiencia se volvió algo contagiosa. La primera okupación fue llevada a cabo hace menos de un mes por la asamblea vecinal de Parque Avellaneda, del barrio de Flores, al oeste de la Capital Federal. Con objetivos similares, entraron en una pizzería-bar abandonada desde hacía años en una de las principales esquinas del barrio. Los vecinos cuentan que un día el lugar fue cerrado sin aviso previo. Los mozos y cocineros llegaron una mañana como cualquier otra a trabajar y se encontraron con las persianas bajas. Dicen que fue como un misterio y que nunca más supieron nada. Los dueños se habían esfumado dejando a varios trabajadores en la calle de un día para otro. Cuentan que hace algunas semanas, al entrar, las mesas estaban tendidas, las sillas en su lugar, todo exactamente igual como había quedado un día antes del “misterioso” cierre. Cuentan también que el gran reloj que cuelga de una de las paredes estaba parado marcando la 1.25 hs. Que al momento de entrar todos lo vieron y que al mirar sus relojes éstos daban la misma hora. Habían entrado a las 1.25 hs., pero casi dos décadas después. Los viejos vecinos del barrio comenzaron a acercase emocionados, el bar “de siempre” estaba abierto de nuevo y, al enterarse de la okupación, nadie dudó en apoyar la iniciativa y ahora, por derecho, todos son sus dueños porque el lugar siempre fue parte del barrio. Casi simultáneamente, otra asamblea recuperaba otra pizzería, una del barrio de Villa Urquiza. Y otra vez las necesidades y objetivos eran los mismos: un espacio adonde reunirse para que más gente se acerque a plantear sus inquietudes y buscar soluciones conjuntas, un espacio independiente para generar respuestas específicas para el barrio, tomando decisiones en asambleas por consenso. Actualmente, varias son las asambleas que discuten la misma posibilidad, algunas ya con lugares en vista para entrar. La acción surge de una necesidad, el objetivo de estas okupaciones es concreto, pero también encarna un hecho político casi sin precedentes. Las características y exigencias de las asambleas vecinales se han ido definiendo y afianzando desde su surgimiento. Lo que al principio fue una reacción casi instintiva y totalmente espontánea de la clase media hoy comienza a tomar forma. Algunas demandas y posiciones están definidas, aquel “que se vayan todos” es la principal exigencia, pero también están las de nacionalizar la banca, re-estatizar las empresas de servicios públicos, la reivindicación de las tomas de fábricas bajo control obrero, el no pago de la deuda al FMI, no al presupuesto 2002, no a la concertación con el gobierno, el repudio al terrorismo de estado, cárcel a los genocidas, libertad a los presos por luchar y solidaridad con los piqueteros, entre otras cosas. Todos conocemos los acontecimientos del 19 y 20 de diciembre. El ruido de las cacerolas de Buenos Aires y de toda Argentina retumbó en todo Occidente. Aquellos días dejaron al desnudo a una clase dirigente dispuesta a todo por acumular riqueza y poder para ella, y a nada por intentar llevar adelante un buen gobierno para la gente. Y pasó lo que pocos creían que sucedería, la gente salió a la calle a manifestar su ira de manera directa, devolviéndole al gobierno lo que les estaba dando desde hace décadas, violencia. Parecía que la última dictadura militar con sus 30.000 desaparecidos había cumplido su cometido que fue, además del aniquilamiento sistemático de casi toda una generación que intentaba crear otra realidad, dejar bien en claro entre los sobrevivientes que todo aquel que pensara diferente y quisiera organizarse para generar una alternativa a este sistema sería desaparecido. Esta idea está tan fuertemente enraizada en la generación que vivió ese proceso que durante muchos años el miedo y la frustración los hicieron aferrarse a lo único que les mostraban como válido: el dinero y el poder, el “sálvese quien pueda”, la cultura de lo “light” y la farándula televisiva, entre otras superficialidades. Por eso fue que al principio, mucha gente no apostaba demasiado a las asambleas. Por el temor a organizarse, la indiferencia creada, la certeza inconsciente de la derrota segura. Hoy, a seis meses de ensayos y errores, de juntarse y dividirse, con una convocatoria no tan multitudinaria como en sus comienzos pero más sólida, se empiezan a prefigurar e intentar poner en marcha alternativas reales para una subsistencia con dignidad y respeto. Las asambleas, como otros grupos en lucha, están tejiendo de nuevo las redes que sistemáticamente vienen destruyendo los poderosos desde hace más de 25 años. Las asambleas interbarriales, las regionales, las mesas de enlace, las comisiones, la próxima asamblea de asambleas nacional, son intentos concretos que lo demuestran. La discusión horizontal y abierta es el método. Saben que el camino es lento, que no se puede reconstruir en días lo que llevó años, décadas, ejércitos y mucho dinero romper, pero se organizan y están ahí porque despertaron a la realidad de que nadie es mejor que uno mismo para satisfacer sus propias necesidades. Y, sobretodo, continúan intentando construir una respuesta a la pregunta, “que se vayan todos, ¿y después qué?”. _________________________________________________________________ MSN Photos is the easiest way to share and print your photos: http://photos.msn.com/support/worldwide.aspx From wires at the-alarm.com Sat Jul 20 18:10:11 2002 From: wires at the-alarm.com (Alarm!Wires) Date: Sun Feb 8 02:51:44 2004 Subject: [Dryerase] The Alarm!--Ejidatarios protestan contra aeropuerto Message-ID: Article about Mexican airport protest. Spanish version first, followed by English Ejidatarios protestan contra aeropuerto Por Carlos Armenta Colaborador del Periodico ?La Alarma! Protestando el despojo de sus tierras por el gobierno mexicano para la construcci?n un nuevo aeropuerto internacional de la Ciudad de Mexico, ejidatarios del municipio de San Salvador Atenco se enfrentaron a fuerzas policiales del Estado de M?xico el d?a 11 de Julio. Los ejidatarios estaban en camino a manifestarse contra un acto del gobernador del Estado de Mexico, Arturo Montiel. Seg?n Luis Mart?nez, ejidatario de Atenco, ?[Montiel] tendi? una trampa para justificar una acci?n policial en nuestra contra.? De acuerdo a Mart?nez, el gobierno estatal arrest? a 15 campesinos y otros 14 fueron hospitalizados en calidad de detenidos. Los ejidatarios tambi?n informaron que hubieron dos muertos y cinco desaparecidos del movimiento, adem?s de los heridos y detenidos por el gobierno estatal. En respuesta a la agresi?n policiaca, dieciseis comunidades cercanas a San Salvador Atenco bloquearon las diferentes carreteras de acceso al poblado. Asimismo, los campesinos quemaron tres tr?ileres de la empresa Coca-cola y decidieron prenderle fuego a un autob?s cada dos horas, hasta que el gobierno estatal libere a sus compa?eros detenidos. Tambien retuvieron al subprocurador de Texcoco, Andr?s Mendiola, junto con otros dos funcionarios de la procuradur?a de Justicia y cuatro agentes judiciales. Mendiola se comunic? con sus superiores y les advirti? que ?no dejen que entre nadie [a San Andr?s], porque si no, me matan.? Despu?s de que unos dos mil efectivos de la Policia Federal Preventiva rodearan a San Salvador Atenco, y que Santiago Creel, secretario de gobernacion, amenazara con usar ?mano dura? para resolver el conflicto, el gobierno al parecer cambio sus t?cticas ante numerosas manifestaciones de apoyo a los campesinos por parte de diversos sectores de la sociedad civil. Primero liber?, aunque solo bajo fianza, a los l?deres campesinos que se encontraban presos, y despu?s, por primera vez desde el inicio del conflicto, la presidencia acord? celebrar una reuni?n con los campesinos para poder iniciar un di?logo directo. El origen del conflicto entre los ejidatarios de San Salvador Atenco y los gobiernos estatal y federal es el decreto presidencial del 22 de octubre de 2001, mediante el cual se declara la expropiaci?n del 73% de los terrenos del municipio en cuesti?n para la construcci?n de un nuevo aeropuerto internacional para la zona metropolitana de la ciudad de M?xico. Desde entonces, los ejidatarios de Atenco se han trasladado a la Ciudad de M?xico en m?ltiples ocasiones para manifestar su inconformidad, y han iniciado un proceso jur?dico contra el proyecto. El decreto establece un pago de tan solo 26 pesos ($2.50 d?lares, aproximadamente) por metro cuadrado (10 pies cuadrados) para terrenos de riego y 7.20 pesos (0.70 d?lares) por metro cuadrado para terrenos de temporal. El gobierno federal insist?a en que los habitantes del municipio no ten?an arraigo por sus propiedades, al tratarse de una comunidad nueva en la cuenca del lago de Texcoco. El 12 de julio, al d?a siguiente del enfrentamiento, el presidente Vicente Fox declarar? que el proyecto del aeropuerto no se detendr?a o modificar?a. Sin embargo, dos d?as despu?s, el secretario de gobernaci?n Santiago Creel dijo que no habr? aeropuerto si no se llega a un acuerdo con los ejidatarios y que se estudia la posibilidad de pagarles m?s por sus terrenos. Sin embargo, los ejidatarios afectados dicen tener raices en el lugar y no querer abandonar sus tierras. ?El gobierno debe entender que no queremos m?s dinero por nuestras tierras, sino que las dejen como est?n,? dijo Martinez al enterarse de las declaraciones de Creel. A lo largo del conflicto, los medios de comunicaci?n m?s grandes en M?xico se han esforzado por atacar los esfuerzos organizativos de los campesinos. En la cobertura de los ?ltimos acontecimientos TV Azteca y Televisa, las dos principales cadenas televisivas, presentaron solamente la versi?n de los funcionarios gubernamentales. Para justificar su parcialidad, declararon que se les hab?a negado la entrada al pueblo. Sin embargo, seg?n los campesinos de Atenco, cualquier reportero con acreditaci?n, sin importar de que medio se trate, ha tenido acceso al lugar. Arturo Montiel, gobernador del Estado de M?xico, atribuy? el enfrentamiento ?a un grupo ajeno al proyecto del aeropuerto, auspiciado por intereses contrarios al desarrollo del pa?s, que han actuado en forma violenta?. Dijo tambi?n que su gobierno ?intervino apegado a la ley para mantener en nuestra entidad el estado de derecho.? Montiel no explic?, cuando se le pregunt? al respecto, cuales eran esos intereses externos a los que hizo referencia. Lo cierto es que los campesinos de Atenco reciben apoyo a lo largo del pa?s. Diferentes organizaciones sociales de los estados de Oaxaca, Yucat?n, Guerrero y Michoac?n, as? como el sindicato de los trabajadores de la llantera Euzkadi y el frente popular Francisco Villa emprendieron una mobilizaci?n hacia Atenco y anunciaron el cierre de autopistas en sus estados. Los ejidatarios tambi?n son acompa?ados en sus protestas por un grupo de estudiantes y profesores de la Universidad Nacional Aut?noma de M?xico (UNAM), y por miembros del Frente Zapatista de Liberaci?n Nacional (FZLN) y del Frente Popular Revolucionario. Ignacio del Valle, uno de los l?deres arrestados en la manifestaci?n del 11 de julio, dijo en entrevista a La Jornada que el movimiento recibe tanto apoyo por la justeza de sus demandas y por ser un claro ejemplo de como un modo de vida esta en peligro de extinci?n. ?El concepto de globalizaci?n ha pegado muy fuerte. El sistema ya no oculta lo que trae detr?s. Dice abiertamente ?te quito tu tierra y te exploto.? Los campesinos no somos otra cosa que mano de obra barata, ni a quien se le ocurra impulsar el campo.? Farmers Protest Airport By Carlos ArmentaTranslated By Armando Alcaraz The Alarm! Newspaper Contributor Farmers of the municipality of San Salvador Atenco in Mexico confronted the state police while protesting the loss of their lands to the Mexican Government to build a new International Airport. The farmers were on their way to protest a public event of the Governor of the State of Mexico, Arturo Montiel. Luis Martinez, farmer of Atenco, said, ?[Montiel] set a trap to justify using the police against us.? According to Martinez, the State Government arrested 29 farmers, fourteen of whom were hospitalized. Martinez also said that two farmers were dead and five had disappeared. In response to the police aggression, sixteen communities nearby San Salvador Atenco blocked the different roads entering the town. In addition, the farmers burned three Coca-Cola delivery buses and said they would burn one bus every two hours until the government freed the farmers that had been arrested or put in detention. They also took the Assistant Attorney of Texcoco, Andres Mendiola, two other officials of the Justice Department, and four federal agents hostage. Mendiola warned his superiors ?don?t let anybody enter [San Salvador], because if you do, they?ll kill me.? After some two thousand Federal Police surrounded San Salvador Atenco, and after Santiago Creel, Secretary of Internal Affairs, threatened to crack down on the farmers to end the conflict, it seems the Mexican Government is changing its tactics in response to numerous protests by different sectors of civil society in support of the farmers. The government freed the farmers that were jailed, although it only released them on bail. Also, for the first time since the conflict started, the presidency agreed to meet with the farmers to start a direct dialogue. The conflict between the farmers of San Salvador Atenco and the State and Federal Governments originated with the presidential decree of October 22, 2001. The decree declared the expropriation of seventy-three percent of the municipal land for the construction of a new International Airport to serve the metropolitan area of Mexico City. Since then, the farmers of Atenco have gone to Mexico City on multiple occasions to express their dissatisfaction, and have also started a juridical process against the project. The decree establishes a payment of only 26 pesos (approximately US$2.50) per square meter (ten square feet) of irrigated land and 7.20 pesos (US$0.70) per square meter of non-irrigated. The Federal Government insisted that the farming community, near the lake of Texcoco, had not spent enough time on their properties to establish legal residency. On July 12, a day after the confrontation with the police President Vicente Fox declared the airport project would not be changed nor stopped. However, only two days later, Secretary of Internal Affairs Santiago Creel said that there would be no airport built if an agreement was not reached with the farmers. He also added that the Government is looking at ways in which the farmers could be compensated for their land. However, the farmers say they have had roots in their place of residence since colonial times and that they don?t want to abandon their lands. ?The government must understand that we don?t want more money for our land, we want them to let the land be as it is,? said Martinez after hearing the declarations of Creel. Since the beginning of the conflict, the biggest media organizations in Mexico have tried to smear the farmer?s efforts to organize resistance. While covering the latest events, TV Azteca and Televisa, the two main television channels, presented only the Government officials? version of events. To justify their partiality, they declared that they had been denied entrance to the town. However, according to the Atenco farmers, any journalist with a press pass, no matter what media organization he or she was associated with, had free access to the town. Arturo Montiel blamed the confrontation on a ?group that had nothing to do with the airport project, motivated by interests contrary to the development of the country who had acted in a violent way.? He also said his government ?lawfully intervened to maintain the entity in the rule of law?? Montiel failed to explain what the external interests he was referring to were. The farmers of Atenco are supported across Mexico. Various social organizations in the States of Oaxaca, Yucatan, Guerrero, and Michoacan, and the Worker?s Union of the Tire Factory ?Euzkadi?, and the Francisco Villa Popular Front announced the closing of several roads in their Sates. Also, a group of students and teachers of the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) and members of the Zapatista Front of National Liberation and the Revolutionary Popular Front are accompanying the farmers? protests. Farmer Ignacio del Valle, a leader arrested in the protest on July 11, said in an interview with La Jornada on July 17, that the movement receives such wide-spread support because their demands are just, and because the conflict revolves around a way of life in danger of extinction. ?The concept of globalization has hit strong. The system no longer hides its true intentions. It openly says, ?I take your land and I exploit you.? We the farmers are nothing else but cheap labor, and nobody even thinks of supporting the land.? ----- 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 Sat Jul 20 18:12:18 2002 From: wires at the-alarm.com (Alarm!Wires) Date: Sun Feb 8 02:51:44 2004 Subject: [Dryerase] The Alarm!--Eye on the INS--Fortress Europe Message-ID: <237B52F8-9C36-11D6-9FF1-003065F4865E@the-alarm.com> An aging Europe can be found locked in its fortress By Michelle Stewart The Alarm! Newspaper Collective ?It is difficult to point to any winner in the Danish election, but the losers are easier to identify. They are all those with dark skin, humanism and decency. Goodnight, Denmark.??Dagens Nyheter, Swedish Daily Paper. Recently, I have caught myself speculating on the possibilities of the European Economic Community, curious of the ways immigrants are treated there, and how immigration is handled. Here in North America, we bought into NAFTA hook, line, and sinker; however, the only borders it opened up were those associated with capital. NAFTA served the interests of industry as the borders became increasingly porous to goods. In the past, I assumed that Europe had better will toward immigrants, that the Union was demarcated by both an investment in capital as well as a recognition of the needs of migrating people. That assumption was both na?ve and wildly unrealistic. I realize, now, as I look into the various projects the EU has undertaken, that a trade bloc is a trade bloc?it is obligated to trade not people. It is interesting then to consider Europe, and to look at the issues facing that bloc and how many of its policies and ideologies are common to the US?s notion of trade bloc participation. Last month member countries of the EU met in Seville, Spain with the key issue at hand being illegal immigration and how it effects national security?sound familiar? Tony Blair has recently threatened to cut ?third-world? aid for those countries which don?t assist in halting ?illegal? immigration. Does this not seem like ridiculous logic? Penalize the impoverished country because its citizens are fleeing (with good reason) in search of a better life. Of course, to actually address this issue correctly, Mr. Blair and many other world leaders would have to face the situations they have caused. The ripple effect of European colonialism can not be forgotten in many reaches of the world, especially when one considers the fall-out of colonialism and the rise of neo-colonialism. But members of the EU trade bloc do not want to address these matters, since it is much easier to speak poorly of their southern neighbors than it is reconcile the past and present, and attempt to assist them. As it stands, the largest groups of illegal immigrants originate from Ecuador, China and Angola; they most commonly arrive in Madrid, Paris, Dublin and London posing as tourists with forged documents. In May, the interior ministers (of EU member nations) met in Rome to consider a new plan to create a unified EU border police. One of the more controversial proposals is to fingerprint all incoming immigrants from any nation outside of the EU?sound familiar? Consider the US?s new interest in tracking Arab visitors from selected countries, and requiring biometric identification for all new visitors. But back to Europe?. Each nation would share database information and personnel in the interest of securing the border that surrounds the EU. The policy would heavily affect the airports (the main point of entry for immigrants) and seaports. Of the nations highly interested in this program are France and Italy; those in vocal opposition are Germany and Spain. Consider the above-mentioned cities that receive the most illegal immigrants, and it becomes apparent that the combination of Tony Blair?s intolerance of immigrants alongside of France?s support for the new border patrol will likely usher in this new policy. In some nations, the very presence of immigrants has become cause for hysteria. Take for example, Denmark, where a recent election brought ?immigration concerns? to the forefront. By the end of the election, the party just right of center was victorious by displacing the Danish Social Democratic Party, ending its nine-year rule. More shocking for some was the popularity and significant showing by the Danish People?s Party which came in third in the election boasting a twelve percent support base. Part of the Danish People?s Party?s platform was to oppose Denmark?s participation in the EU and to reduce the rate of immigration. The far-right party somehow found a constituency which strongly believed the claims that Denmark was being over-run with immigrants and that they were affecting the way of life in the country. One must consider the standard of living and the rate of immigration in Denmark to recognize the significance of this mindset. The reality is that Denmark enjoys one of Europe?s lowest unemployment rates, and the population is such that less than eight percent are foreign-born. So, what is the threat? Or maybe it is not so much a threat, but instead an increasing level of animosity. In a nation such as Denmark, when one considers those above mentioned factors, it becomes clear that the claim that Europe is becoming wholly xenophobic is perhaps merited. It would appear that Denmark, and other nations, face limited threats to their standard of living and instead are concerned with the ?color? of their nation-states. Taking a close look at the politics in Denmark or the ideas of Tony Blair, it becomes clear that there are no shining immigration policies to be found on the other side of the ocean. If we look to trade blocs to solve immigration problems we will have a long and oppressive wait ahead of us, since these blocs only consider people in relation to how they can best serve the labor needs of capital. In the US, the EU and other trade zones, we are seeing the expansion of a dual border policy; the border is only opening due to the needs of capital, while it becomes increasingly restrictive to immigrants. This then poses an interesting final question: the population of Europe is continuing to fall, and in the next twenty years the elderly population will be over twenty percent of the nation?s population?what does this mean? Economists and population experts would both agree that the only way to maintain the workforce population is through immigration. How will this play out in the coming years as an aging Europe needs young, foreign blood? 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 Sat Jul 20 18:13:59 2002 From: wires at the-alarm.com (Alarm!Wires) Date: Sun Feb 8 02:51:44 2004 Subject: [Dryerase] The Alarm!--War Notes Message-ID: <5F5DAC06-9C36-11D6-9FF1-003065F4865E@the-alarm.com> A bi-monthly column following the developments of our new permanent war, the war on terrorism By sasha k The Alarm! Newspaper Contributor Iraq Two days of talks between Iraq and the UN over the resumption of weapons inspections fell through on July 5. Iraq wanted the economic sanctions that have devastated the country to end before the inspectors returned, but the UN, under US pressure, demanded the inspectors must first certify that Iraq has no weapons of mass destruction before sanctions can be lifted. The UN was careful to stress that talks are still ongoing. Yet, the Bush administration was quick to condemn Iraq. Even while these talks were going on, the US continued its march to war with Iraq. A detailed Pentagon plan for the invasion of Iraq, leaked to the New York Times, called for a massive air and ground attack from several countries?Kuwait, Turkey, Qatar, and Jordan?as well as from the sea. According to New York Times sources, this is only a preliminary plan, and a consensus has not been reached in the Defense Department or in the Bush administration itself. General Tommy Franks, commander of the Central Command which would run such a military operation, has warned that the invasion would require at least 200,000 troops. Franks? assessment has been criticized by the hawks of the administration who are weary of an attack so dependent on the Army. Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld is known to dislike the Army. He is a proponent of what is known as Revolution in Military Affairs (R.M.A.), a theory which attaches paramount importance to new technology, especially in the Air Force and the Navy, and new systems like National Missile Defense. Rumsfeld?s staff notes that the Army was organized to defend Europe from attack, whereas new threats are going to increasingly come from Asia where the Air Force and Navy will play key roles. Douglas Feith, undersecretary of defense, has been very critical of Franks for his supposed excessive and outdated reliance on ground troops. Feith, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz and General Wayne Downing, until last week the White House?s deputy national security advisor for fighting terrorism?Downing reportedly resigned due to the lack of action against Iraq; his resignation was called ?bad news for the war? by several hawks?all advocate an Afghan-style strategy that would rely on a combination of air strikes and a coalition of Iraqi opposition forces. The Iraqi opposition, however, is notoriously fractured and weak. Meanwhile, Jordan, named by the plan as a launching pad for the invasion of Iraq, has denied that it would allow such an operation to use its territory. Government spokesman Mohammad Adwan was quoted in the Jordan Times as stressing Jordan?s ?firm stand on national and pan-Arab issues related to all our brethren in the Arab world, especially in Iraq and Palestine.? Adwan stated that the ?only means capable of solving the Iraqi question and ? bringing an end to the suffering of the brotherly Iraqi people? was a dialogue between the UN and Iraq. With only lap-dog Britain on the invasion bandwagon, the US has a long way to go if it intends to build the sort of coalition it did during the last Gulf War. US as the Defender of Democracy As Bush?s ?you?re with us or you?re against us? doctrine is being put into practice, we can see one of Bush?s first goals is to oust national leaders that are not willing to easily go along with US interests. First we had the attempted coup in Venezuela against democratically elected Hugo Chavez, then Bush called for the ouster of Yasser Arafat? also democratically elected?and now we are moving to knock out Saddam Hussein. Some have cautioned, however, that once Hussein himself becomes a target there is no reason for him to hold back on using any chemical or biological weapons he may have. China This week the Pentagon issued a strident report to Congress on the build up of China?s military. The report asserted that the Chinese military budget wasn?t the $20 billion publicly stated but probably more like $65 billion a year. (The US budget is $350 billion and Bush wants it to increase to $396 billion in the coming year.) China has been modernizing its military forces for years but increased the rate of change since the September 11 attacks. China is fearful of increased US hegemony, especially in Asia. The Pentagon report states that China seems to be moving away from a strategy of peaceful reunification with Taiwan to a military strategy. This is, of course, in response to a similar US shift in policy from diplomacy to military solutions to international conflicts. China recently bought several Russian submarines capable of blockading Taiwan. In addition, they added two more orders for Russian Sovremenny-class destroyers, which are armed with missiles designed to take out American aircraft carriers (they already operate two such destroyers). The report argues that these ships are being added to the Chinese arsenal to deter the US from intervening in any conflict between China and Taiwan. China is also worried about the build up of US troops in the Philippines and the possibility of a Japanese military build up. A bipartisan congressional commission also came out with a report this last week stating that, as China moves to a more high-tech economy, Chinese imports might eventually ?undermine the US defense industrial base.? Indonesia Since the beginning of the ?war on terrorism,? the US has been hankering to restart military relations with Indonesia. Relations were cut off three years ago after the massacres in East Timor. But the mostly Muslim Indonesia is seen as a key state in the war on terrorism. This week, however, the move to restart military aid to Indonesia was dealt two blows: first, a recent power shift in the military put the head of the Army in command of all three branches of the military. The Army has more ties to Indonesian Muslim fundamentalists than the other branches and it has also been responsible for more human rights abuses. The US wants to see the Navy and Air Force?forces they see as key in the ?war on terrorism??as taking command within the military. Secondly, marshal law was reinstated last week in the province of Aceh, which has been rocked by separatist conflict. 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 Sat Jul 20 18:14:36 2002 From: wires at the-alarm.com (Alarm!Wires) Date: Sun Feb 8 02:51:44 2004 Subject: [Dryerase] The Alarm!--Penance and the Penal Colony Message-ID: <75665F15-9C36-11D6-9FF1-003065F4865E@the-alarm.com> Penance and The Penal Colony By Manuel Schwab The Alarm! Newspaper Contributor This past week, the trials of two men charged with crimes against American citizens came within steps of their conclusion. The details of the trials and the public discussion surrounding their conclusions are saturated with symptoms of the new face of our domestic and foreign policy, which has slowly been emerging as the international alliance against evil begins to cope with the contradictions of the War on Terror. These trials set civic standards, and regulate the boundaries (between those oppositions of good and evil, moral and immoral, inside and outside, civilian and combatant, terrorist and legitimate combatant, crime and law) that are so crucial to the maintenance of coercive democracy. They are important sites to observe the direction that the political climate of the state is heading, dramatic illustrations of what is expected of us morally, and what immoralities we will be expected to accept. The defendants in the two trials were in all respects?except the broadest political categories?dissimilar and unrelated. Ahmad Omar Saeed Sheikh, known generally as Sheikh, was condemned on July 15 by a Pakistani judge to die by hanging. The charge was conspiracy to kidnap and murder Jewish-American journalist Daniel Pearl. John Philip Walker Lindh, whose charges revolved around his role as a combatant on the wrong side of our war against the Taliban and Al Qaeda, signed a plea bargain?which is likely to be accepted?that limits his sentence to approximately 20 years. Lindh is a 21-year-old from an affluent Marin County family who converted to Islam at the age of sixteen. His father was once an employee of the Department of Justice. Sheikh, 38, is from an affluent family of British Muslims. His father owned a successful clothing factory. These are the types of facts that the news media report with such pleasure: the scintillating incongruity of rich Westerners who somehow wander astray and end up in the worst of all possible situations, fighting alongside the fanatics of the third world. This, it seems, is the message that we are to glean from these trials, at least in part. But clearly the rhetoric about the two men diverges quickly. The proliferation of biographical details that have been uncovered about Lindh are implicitly aimed at explaining his wayward path. He was an avid hip-hop listener, the BBC reports, as though that somehow constitutes some seed that may come to violent fruition. Other sources submit that he was subjected to the propaganda of charismatic leaders. Lindh?s transgression is somehow inauthentic, dismissed as the product of indiscretion or negative external influence. The transgressions of Sheikh, on the other hand, are something we are to believe he carried in his blood. The profiles of Sheikh emphasize his criminal roots as a schoolyard bully, and report that he moved from one fundamentalist mission in adulthood to the next, until he finally met his end in the Pearl killing. Ironically, the Independent reports ?the kidnapper made only one mistake, though in hindsight it will be seen as a huge blunder. His ransom notes were written in better English than can be found on the front pages of Pakistan?s English-language newspapers.? That ironically impeccable English, however, tells volumes about the work that the two trials are meant to perform on the public consciousness. The difference between the image of Sheikh and Lindh is not, to be fair, entirely far-fetched. Sheikh in fact did have a much more serious commitment to the particular brands of Political Islam that he advocated than did Lindh. But another operative difference between the two men is that they are not, in fact, two rich Westerners of equal stature who wandered astray. Lindh?s background (and let this not be misconstrued to undermine the severity of the treatment he is actually receiving) is staunchly American, and despite the fact that he ventured far outside the boundaries of American behavior, he will be allowed back provided that he suffers through a certain degree of repentance. The ?you?re either with us or against us? logic of this war clearly comes with its qualifications. For Sheikh, his status as an insider to the greater western empire is qualified as perpetually contingent by virtue of his race. It will be revoked the moment he crosses that empire?s boundaries, as evidenced by the fact that he was not extradited to Britain despite the death sentence he was given by a court not of his country of origin. For Lindh, that qualification is that he can, like the biblical prodigal son, have his status of imperial immunity returned to him: that he can be purified (cleansed of his anti-American transgressions) by penance, bearing in mind that this penance might include torture. In fact, it was speculated about both cases that the defendants were tortured in the aftermath of their capture. For Sheikh, the fact that he was in Pakistani provisional custody for nearly two-and-a-half months before formal charges were brought against him was ample indication for many observers of his trial that he had a confession literally ?beat out of him.? As far as Lindh was concerned, we need not speculate on the treatment he was subjected to before he was transferred to federal custody on US soil. It is unclear how many Marines took ?souvenir pictures? of Lindh while he was strapped to a gurney in the belly of a cargo container on the deck of a US ship. No doubt, many of us have seen the pictures of a young man with plastic handcuffs ratcheted tightly around his wrists and straps across his legs, chest arms, and eyes. He was bound naked, and anyone who knows the climate of that region in December knows that the lack of appropriate protective clothing alone is tantamount to torture. But we will never see the fallout of this mistreatment by our government officials; part of Lindh?s plea bargain required him to drop any claims of mistreatment while in US custody. It remains legally invisible alongside the countless and no-doubt-more-egregious abuses committed against Lindh?s comrades who happened to be so unfortunate as not to be born on American soil to rich parents. For those Taliban combatants, torture is nothing more than a legitimate extraction of information necessary for the maintenance of ?homeland security.? We should anticipate that their stay in ?Camp X-Ray? (the military concentration of prisoners in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba) will within our lifetime go down as one of the grossest offenses against human dignity committed by our state in its history. For Lindh, however, the violence committed against him, no matter how intolerable, can be seen as a nationalist purifying ritual: a public display to ensure the American public that we know how to make our wayward sons loyal again. The proliferation of comparisons between the secret military tribunals legalized by GW Bush?s executive order?dating coincidentally from about the time of Walker?s arrest?and Franz Kafka?s story of totalitarian excess ?The Penal Colony? are not misplaced. In that story, the sentence levied against a criminal is inscribed onto the convict?s body over the course of half a day by a mechanical plotter of needles. The intention is that the prisoner will recognize the law that he broke in the same moment that he dies. In the case of Lindh, punishment is, of course, less severe. He was spared the secret military tribunals to which Sheikh would certainly have been subjected had the US extradition charges against him passed. For Lindh, furthermore, the death penalty is not on the horizon, and clearly the offer made to him by our attorney general was meant to ?preserve his future? as his attorneys put it in press conferences regarding the plea bargain. But the lessons of an empire intent on preserving the rules of its own law are nevertheless being inscribed on the body and life of Lindh. The torture that he was subjected to in the early stages of his incarceration began to wane as he came closer to home, as his hair was cut, his beard trimmed, and the accent of a man who had not spoken English frequently in the preceding two years was polished off. He was stripped of the Taliban identity that he had assumed through the repentance that is so intimately tied to the puritanical roots of the American empire. Suddenly we could see him as one of our own again. But the quest for purity that he had been on, by testimony of his parents, is as misguided as that of our criminal system in cleansing him of his political pubescence in his years in Afghanistan. The world is not organized into purified moral blocks, and it would behoove us to remember this when dealing with people like Sheikh, who are driven to commit indefensible violence by an outrage about the indefensible actions of our government. Upon kidnapping Daniel Pearl (a journalist who incidentally was known to challenge the rabid pro-US stance of his editorial staff on occasion), Sheikh and his fellow kidnappers said they would begin to treat Pearl humanely the moment the Afghan prisoners in Guantanamo bay were treated similarly. And no matter how misguided?nay, disingenuous?those claims for reciprocity and fairness sound coming from such politically questionable sources (let?s not forget that Bin Laden asserted that no American should feel safe until every Palestinian in the West Bank felt secure), most of us are left to wonder how long it will be until we take those demands seriously. How many times will we watch the intolerable violence of our own state effect counterviolence until we realize that the problem really starts at home. 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 Sun Jul 21 20:55:18 2002 From: dr_broccoli at hotmail.com (Shawn G) Date: Sun Feb 8 02:51:44 2004 Subject: [Dryerase] World’s cop needs to be above the law, unaccountable Message-ID: Here is a media watch piece from this weeks AGR MEDIA WATCH World’s cop needs to be above the law, unaccountable By Sean Marquis (AGR) In a July 15 article that may as well have been a White House press release, Time magazine gave a very pro-administration stance as to why “the US should be wary of the International Criminal Court [ICC].” The headline of the article by Michael Elliot said it all: “In this case, might makes right.” The crux of Elliot’s argument is that the US has the most powerful military in the world and the “ubiquity of American power has bred a natural resentment.” And in their “resentment” other, weaker nations will bring baseless ICC suits against the US, endangering the welfare of US military personnel “or Defense Secretary, for that matter.” The problem with Time’s article is that the argument Elliot attempts to use against the ICC is one of the very reasons for the ICC. Elliot writes: “The US is uniquely powerful, with a near monopoly on the ability to project force globally.” Elliot claims that this is one of the “sound reasons for exempting American troops and officials from the ICC’s purview.” Elliot claims that the world’s sole superpower (or “hyperpower” as coined by French officials), with a “near monopoly” on global military power, must be exempt from global accountability of that power. The US’s own system of government is supposedly based on “checks and balances” so that no one branch of government could gain too much power. But Elliot and Time feel it is ok that “might makes right” and the US military/policeman of the world needs no checks and balances. In a sop to one of the three balancing branches of the US government, Elliot writes that US “Congress…is not a rubber stamp; it has a constitutional role in international affairs, and it takes it seriously.” Elliot must not be aware that Congress takes its role so “seriously” that the Senate is currently “seriously” contemplating giving its “constitutional role” of international trade negotiations over to the president via “Fast Track” — a move already approved “seriously” by the House of Representatives. But “seriously,” Elliot has the audacity to say that the US is not alone in its fight against the ICC -- it currently has China, India, and Russia on its side. Hardly a great team. Both China and Russia have left a long list of human rights violations in their wake and India currently has several hundred thousand of its soldiers on its border with Pakistan in a recent spark-up of its ongoing ethno-religious conflict with that country — going so far as to have both nations threaten the use of nuclear weapons in recent months. With such a stunning team in its corner, what Elliot says the US is really concerned about is that under the ICC “the way would be open for a foreign prosecutor to frivolously accuse a US soldier…of war crimes,” and that the US would “run the risk of prosecutions in foreign courts brought by grandstanding magistrates looking for easy popularity.” Elliot does not mention the US firebombing of Dresden in WWII, the Mai Lai massacre in Vietnam, NATO bombing of civilian targets in Yugoslavia, or the entire illegal invasion of Panama by then-US president George H. W. Bush. In Elliot’s article such things are not mentioned and therefore not in the realm of possible war crimes committed by US personnel and heads of state. There are only “frivolous” lawsuits brought by “grandstanding magistrates.” The Time article also follows the government line that the US is against the ICC because “Washington wants protection for its peacekeepers.” The claim here is that the US is primarily concerned about “peacekeepers” involved in United Nations or NATO-backed interventions. But in the second-to-last paragraph of the article the lie is given to this argument by the author’s own statement: “It often falls on the US, as the most powerful nation on the planet, to apply force so as to mitigate evil. True, the US uses its power primarily in its own interest.” The spin here is that offensive US military power is used to “mitigate evil” and therefore the unquestioned implication is that US military power is used to promote “good” — whatever that may be. To accept this is to not question Elliot’s next statement that US power is used “in its own interest.” Questions not asked are: what are US interests? and are they “good”? Inadvertently -- or ironically -- Time magazine itself suggests some people who may question US-proposed impunity from prosecution under the ICC. Across the bottom of two pages preceding Elliot’s article, ran a brief list of some US “friendly fire” and civilian killing incidents in its terror war on Afghanistan. Mentioned are the recent US bombing of a wedding in Kakarak and the two separate US bombings of the same Red Cross compound last October. Also mentioned is that on Feb. 4 “A missile kills three men; one was tall, like Osama bin Laden,” and that the “US defends the hit.” Apparently if you are a tall Afghani you are a legitimate target of “the most powerful nation on the planet.” So when you put it all together, Time magazine is saying that if you are a tall Afghani wedding guest near a Red Cross building and the US drops a bomb on you, your family may be inclined to convince a grandstanding magistrate to bring a frivolous lawsuit against the most powerful nation on the planet. Then again, “might makes right.” _________________________________________________________________ Chat with friends online, try MSN Messenger: http://messenger.msn.com From dr_broccoli at hotmail.com Sun Jul 21 20:56:19 2002 From: dr_broccoli at hotmail.com (Shawn G) Date: Sun Feb 8 02:51:44 2004 Subject: [Dryerase] Food Not Bombs victory in Chattanooga Message-ID: Food Not Bombs victory in Chattanooga By Olivia Lim Chattanooga, Tennessee, July 14 (AGR)— On July 14, under the muggy summer heat, 75 people gathered at Miller Park in downtown Chattanooga for the Food Not Bombs (FNB) Victory Serving, Picnic and Celebration Rally. This event came after a week of negotiations and discussions between FNB and city officials about the serving of food to the hungry in Miller Park. Last Sunday, July 7, four police officers came to Miller Park to inform FNB that they could not serve food in the park without a permit. After a half-hour discussion with the police, that included threats of arrests, FNB organizers moved their serving for that day to a vacant parking lot across from the park. On Monday Food Not Bombs members Andy Fazio, Amy Nelson and Taylor Jones went to the Parks and Recreations Department to obtain a permit. According to Fazio they were denied the permit because the project manager of the Parks and Recreations Department told him that nobody wanted “bums” in the park. It looked bad. Fazio, who has been steadily serving hungry families and the homeless for three years, replied, “You just want the downtown swept of poor people to make the area a yuppie tourist haven.” After the unsuccessful attempt to get the needed permit, FNB contacted the local media for news coverage of the story. They also contacted the community for support in their time of crisis. Captain Mark Rawlston of the Chattanooga Police Department was quoted in the Chattanooga Times Free Press as saying “We’re not trying to target the homeless, but there are businesses that have made an investment in that area, and we’re not going to let a small group of people ruin it.” Food Not Bombs members said that the police told them that they were worried about the serving of food to the homeless because it is contributing to the homeless becoming more aggressive. Fazio’s response was: “They’re becoming violent doesn’t make any sense to me. How somebody can relate violence to us serving food is crazy.” After much pressure from the community in support of Food Not Bombs, city officials requested a meeting with Food Not Bombs organizers. On Thurs., July 11, Todd Womack, assistant chief to Mayor Bob Corker, two Chattanooga police officers, and Parks and Recreation Department director, Jerry Mitchell, meet with FNB members. The city issued the permit to the group. “The city said it would work with Food Not Bombs on the homeless issue,” said FNB volunteer, Amy Nelson. John Johnson, a FNB supporter, would also like to see the city take the initiative and come up with some programs to “provide jobs, homes, and gardens for the homeless and poor people.” Many people from various backgrounds in the Chattanooga community publicly came out to support Food Not Bombs for the Victory Celebration. Jeff Styles, the host of WGOW News Talk 1150, stated: “It wasn’t the police who wanted Food Not Bombs to stop serving food. The police got their marching orders from the developers. The main figures in the downtown development believe feeding the hungry in Miller Park is an eyesore.” Rosie, an elderly woman who lives on a fixed income, feels grateful for the regular servings from Food Not Bombs. She said: “They’re a godsend. Regardless of the weather they are here feeding people, and it is not just the homeless. It is families, people on fixed incomes, women with children and anybody who is hungry. I don’t know what I would do if Food Not Bombs stopped serving. They really help me out a lot.” During the victory celebration, Fazio proclaimed: “The permit means nothing to us. The city can revoke the permit anytime. If they do, we have the community behind us to support Food Not Bombs. Serving food to the hungry will continue no matter what.” _________________________________________________________________ Join the world’s largest e-mail service with MSN Hotmail. http://www.hotmail.com From dr_broccoli at hotmail.com Sun Jul 21 20:57:44 2002 From: dr_broccoli at hotmail.com (Shawn G) Date: Sun Feb 8 02:51:44 2004 Subject: [Dryerase] Asheville Wal-Mart decision postponed Message-ID: mostly a local concern but maybe interesting if your fighting a walmart in your town Asheville Wal-Mart decision postponed; continuance scheduled for July 23 By Beth Trigg Asheville, North Carolina, July 26 (AGR)— After nine hours of public comment, Asheville City Council voted on June 26 to postpone their decision on the proposed Super Wal-Mart development at the Sayles Bleachery site until almost a month later. Hundreds spoke out against the development, including neighborhood residents, environmentalists, business owners, and former mayor Leni Sitnick. ”We were elected to make these decisions,” said Councilwoman Terry Bellamy, “if that means extra time, that’s OK.” The discussion will continue, and a final decision will likely be made, at the Council meeting on July 23 at 5pm. Community Supported Development (CSD), the grassroots organization that is coordinating opposition to the development, says that they are gratified that Council voted for the continuance. “We are glad that Council had the good judgement to recognize the problems with Riverbend Business Partners’ plan,” says Christopher Fielden, an Oakley homeowner and member of CSD. “City Council is acknowledging with this continuance what we have been saying all along: there are serious issues relating to traffic, impact on surrounding neighborhoods, environmental impact, and other conditions of the city’s Unified Development Ordinance that must be addressed.” Fielden joined hundreds of other Asheville residents speaking at the city’s public hearing on the development on June 25. Because the public hearing portion of the meeting was officially closed before the council’s decision to postpone, there will likely be no opportunity for public comment at the meeting on the 23rd. However, CSD encourages citizens to attend: “We need Council to know that the eyes of the public are watching this decision,” said Sharon Martin. The developers have told Council that their plan, as Bob Deutch puts it, “complies fully with the UDO, and would be very, very good both for Asheville and Buncombe County.” Their testimony included references to job creation, “beautification” of an “eyesore” [the existing Sayles buildings], and increased sales and property tax revenues for the city. The developers’ local architectural consultants, Masters and Gentry, refer to the development as “creating living, working, and other opportunities” for the general public in Asheville. Opponents want to make sure that Council hears substantial arguments against the development based on the environmental impacts and the effects on local neighborhoods. “But if we want Council to know that there’s another perspective on this,” says Heather Steele, who opposes the development, “we’d better make sure we’re there in Council Chambers.” _________________________________________________________________ Chat with friends online, try MSN Messenger: http://messenger.msn.com From dr_broccoli at hotmail.com Sun Jul 21 20:59:52 2002 From: dr_broccoli at hotmail.com (Shawn G) Date: Sun Feb 8 02:51:44 2004 Subject: [Dryerase] Butal cops caught on tape Message-ID: Butal cops caught on tape By Brendan Conley July 17 (AGR)— In two incidents reminiscent of the 1991 beating of Rodney King, white police officers have been caught on videotape beating unarmed black men. Inglewood, CA police officer Richard Morse was videotaped beating Donovan Jackson, a black teenager, in the course of a routine traffic stop. Morse is shown slamming the handcuffed boy onto the hood of a patrol car and punching him in the face. In Oklahoma City, two white police officers were videotaped striking a black man 27 times with batons. The man was also pepper-sprayed twice. Hundreds of protesters marched on Inglewood City Hall in multiple demonstrations over the July 12-14 weekend. The protesters said that racial profiling led to the incident, claiming that Jackson and his father, Coby Chavis, would not have been stopped by police if they were white. Chavis was cited for driving with a suspended license, and Jackson was charged with battery on a police officer. Inglewood is adjacent to Los Angeles, scene of the 1991 beating of black motorist Rodney King by white police officers. The 1992 acquittal of the officers on assault charges sparked a multiracial uprising in which fifty-four people were killed. The protesters in Inglewood also demanded that Mitchell Crooks, the man who videotaped the Jackson incident, be released. After coming forward with the tape, Crooks, who is white, was arrested on outstanding warrants and is serving a seven-month sentence. Crooks said the police considered him a “marked man” for his role in the incident, and that he feared for his life. Officer Morse defended his actions, saying he punched Jackson only after the youth resisted arrest and grabbed the officer’s testicles. Other officers present said Jackson attacked Morse, scratching him above his ear and on his neck. In the video, Morse can be seen bleeding from a cut near his ear. On July 12, Inglewood Mayor Roosevelt Dorn said that investigations will be reopened into two previous complaints made against Morse. Morse is on paid leave while the investigations proceed. Also Friday, a woman filed a civil rights lawsuit against Morse and other officers, claiming that they beat her when they raided her home Oct. 20. Morse is being represented by John Barnett, who won the 1992 acquittal of LAPD officer Theodore Briseno in the Rodney King case. Another officer present at the scene, Bijan Darvish, who has alternately been described as being white and of East Indian descent, admitted to striking Jackson. In a police report obtained by the Los Angeles Times, Darvish wrote, “Fearing that Jackson would pull me into him and strike me with his other hand, I punched him two times in the face, using my right hand.” National black leaders converged on Inglewood over the weekend, including Dick Gregory, Martin Luther King III, and Maxine Waters. After a march on city hall, hundreds of activists and community members met at Faith United Methodist Church for a rally and organizing meeting. The organizers said they would demand a civilian review board to investigate police misconduct. Internal police investigations are often corrupt, according to Taleeba Shakur, Jackson’s cousin and one of the organizers. “We don’t want Jesse James to be investigating Frank James,” the Los Angeles Independent Media Center quoted her as saying. Congresswoman Maxine Waters dismissed speculation about what occurred before the videotaped beating. “We don’t know what happened before the video, we don’t know what happened after, but we do know what happened during the video, and that’s enough,” she said. Other activists focused on the education and organization of the black community as a political force. “It’s not police brutality, it’s not police abuse,” said James Simmons of the National Conference of Black Lawyers. “Stop talking like it’s an administrative problem. Let’s call it what it is. Absolutely, what happened is a crime.” Jackson and Chavis have filed a federal civil rights lawsuit against the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, the Inglewood Police Department, and several officers. In addition, a grand jury is investigating the incident, a prosecutor revealed on a call-in radio show. In Oklahoma City, police officers Greg Driskill and E.J. Dyer were videotaped beating Donald Pete, 50, who police said was soliciting prostitution and resisting arrest. The beating was videotaped by Brian Bates, a “video vigilante” who routinely videotapes illegal sex acts and reports them to authorities. The police chief defended the officers’ actions, and said the case was under review by an internal police committee. Sean Baker, a local representative of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, said he was “appalled” by the videotape. Nationally, the two incidents were decried by human rights organizations as more evidence that police brutality remains endemic in many areas of the United States, and usually goes unpunished. _________________________________________________________________ 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 Sun Jul 21 21:00:41 2002 From: dr_broccoli at hotmail.com (Shawn G) Date: Sun Feb 8 02:51:44 2004 Subject: [Dryerase] SOA nonviolent actions continue Message-ID: SOA nonviolent actions continue; 2 arrested, including IMC journalist By Melissa Fridlin Columbus, Georgia, July 15 (AGR)— As the week-long trial of the “SOA 37” concluded on Friday, School of the Americas Watch (SOA Watch) activists continued the tradition of nonviolent action against the SOA/WHISC by staging another action at the main gate of Fort Benning. Judge G. Mallon Faircloth gave twenty-nine human rights activists sentences ranging from three to six months in federal prison. Seven defendants received six months probation. Fines ranged up to $5,000. Ken Crowley of Houston, TX was the first defendant called before the judge for sentencing. His attorney stated that the federal probation office had made a recommendation that he be sentenced to 12 months probation and a $500 fine. Judge Faircloth ordered attorneys and defendants not to bring up any of the other probation office recommendations during sentencing. It is believed that a majority of the defendants received similar recommendations. The defendants were among 10,000 who gathered last fall to call for the closure of the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation (WHISC), formerly known as the School of the Americas (SOA). They were charged with trespassing after peacefully crossing onto the property of Fort Benning, site of the school, on Nov. 18, 2001. The SOA/WHISC is a combat training school for Latin American soldiers that operates at Fort Benning, Georgia. Many human rights organizations have published reports that directly link graduates of the school to human rights abuses and atrocities. In December 2000, Congress passed legislation which created the WHISC to replace the SOA. The renaming of the school was widely viewed as an attempt to defuse public criticism and to disassociate the school from its reputation. Critics say that the school has changed little of its notorious curriculum. Many of the activists on trial wore t-shirts proclaiming: “You Can Jail the Resisters But You Can’t Jail the Resistance.” SOA Watch activists followed through on that statement by continuing nonviolent action on Saturday, just 12 hours after sentencing concluded. The front gates of Fort Benning were closed at 10am on Saturday by SOA Watch staff person Rebecca Johnson, who chained them shut and locked herself to the gates. She sat underneath a sign that read: “Lock up SOA/WHISC, Not Peacemakers!” Johnson was joined by a vigil including some of the 37 who were sentenced and their supporters who gathered in a permitted demonstration area. No cars were able to enter the base through this entrance during the three hours it took Ft. Benning authorities to remove her. Frank Salerno, a journalist for the Atlanta Independent Media Center and Free Speech Radio, was also arrested while videotaping the action. Stepping a few feet over the line to get a better camera angle, Salerno stepped back when told that he was trespassing. Approximately 30 minutes later, he was detained by base security while on the Columbus side of the property line. After being questioned, fingerprinted and photographed, Salerno was released without being charged with a crime. His camera, film and notebooks were confiscated and held as “evidence.” This is the first time that a journalist has been arrested while covering an SOA protest. Though long and often tedious, last week’s trial allowed the 37 defendants to tell their personal stories and reasons for risking a possible sentence of six months in prison and a $5,000 fine. Richard Ring, a paralegal from Atlanta, GA, said, “While I was in Guatemala, I asked the people there what I could do to help, and they answered, ‘If you really want to help, go home and change your country,’” said Ring. “So I came to Fort Benning and thought, ‘What else can I do but cross the line?’” Many of the defendants challenged Judge Faircloth to find them not guilty, claiming that they were following a higher law when they crossed the line. The power of jury nullification was brought up several times. This power allows judges and juries to declare a defendant not guilty based on other factors, even when the evidence proves that the person actually committed the crime in question. Father Bill O’Donnell, a 72-year-old Catholic priest from Berkeley, CA, who has been arrested 224 times for civil disobedience over the last 46 years, condemned the court for being involved in “a sinister partnership with the Pentagon.” “This court has for years been pimping for the Pentagon, and as a pimp does, it covers up for the crimes of its prostitutes,” he charged. He then asked Faircloth to sentence him to six months at the WHISC instead of prison, so that he could “emerge and tell whether it has mended its ways.” Faircloth eventually did offer the possibility to nine defendants (not including Father O’Donnell) who were “first-timers,” people who have only crossed onto the base one time during a protest. The sentence would have included six months federal probation, with the requirement of attending classes at the WHISC for the entire six months. In addition, the defendants would not have been allowed to leave Muskogee and Chattahoochee counties for the duration of the probation. All of the defendants eventually refused the offer, saying that they could not in good conscience attend the WHISC, and would prefer to spend their sentence in a jail cell. During the trial of Peter Gelderloos, US Army Major Joseph Blair, a former instructor at the SOA, testified for the defense. “A few months ago, I reviewed the new curriculum of the WHISC. I found no substantive changes. The courses I reviewed were the same identical courses that I taught at the SOA in the 80’s; they simply changed the names… The WHISC continues to teach military practices to control civilian populations, directly violating treaties of the Organization of American States, domestic and international human rights laws, the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, NAFTA and other laws.” Gelderloos used Blair’s testimony to add to the evidence proving the urgency of the need to close the school. The judge, however, consistently refused the “necessity defense,” saying that there was no reason to believe that by trespassing on Fort Benning, that the defendants could have immediately stopped atrocities from happening. While activists were processing the sentences that were passed down on Friday, they were simultaneously celebrating. Steve Jacobs, one of 26 people prosecuted last year for similar actions, was released from Leavenworth Federal Prison on Friday. He had completed a one-year sentence for crossing onto Ft. Benning during SOA Watch’s November 2000 vigil and action. Even as Jacobs returned home, others were entering jail. Five of the “SOA 37” were taken into custody immediately following sentencing, after refusing to voluntarily report to prison. The rest of the defendants were released pending self-report to federal prison. _________________________________________________________________ MSN Photos is the easiest way to share and print your photos: http://photos.msn.com/support/worldwide.aspx From Ttrickykid at aol.com Wed Jul 24 23:44:23 2002 From: Ttrickykid at aol.com (Ttrickykid@aol.com) Date: Sun Feb 8 02:51:44 2004 Subject: [Dryerase] Water Rights Activists Blockade Ice Mountain Bottling Plant Message-ID: <0E546BBB.4A5DBDC0.0D21C386@aol.com> see the article with images and links at http://michiganimc.org/feature/display/26/index.php Water Rights Activists Blockade Ice Mountain Bottling Plant by Cyclone for the Michigan Indymedia Center Water rights activists blockaded the Ice Mountain bottling plant in Stanwood, Michigan Monday, shutting down truck traffic to and from the plant for over seven hours. At around 6:30 a.m. a group of seven protestors locked themselves together in the plant's shipping entrance, holding the position until mid-afternoon. A support rally numbering 60 joined the blockade group at around 8 a.m., staging pickets at the east and west entrances. The blockade is the latest in a series of actions by citizens looking to defend the state's water resources from an attempted takeover by the Ice Mountain Spring Water Company, a subsidiary of Nestle Waters North America. In May 2002 the company began production at its new $100 million bottling facility, pumping at rates which could top 200 million gallons in water withdrawals per year. Protesters see the project as a dangerous step toward privatization of the world's water resources and a serious threat to "water democracy". "This project flies in the face of almost every legal and social standard that we have regarding water use," said Louis Blouin, one of the blockaders. "Historically and globally, water has been viewed as a sacred resource, common to all, and something which--because of its essential nature--everyone is entitled to." "Now because water has become such a scarce resource globally, corporations are actually trying to profit off one of the most basic of human needs," Blouin said. "If we fail to act now, we are not far from a world in which the rich have a right to clean water and the poor do not." The state's permitting process has also drawn protests. In August 2001, upper level officials in the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality sanctioned the project after at least one DEQ agent refused to sign the permit "on principle". On another occasion, County officials changed zoning regulations in order to illegally maneuver around a referendum vote on the project. At public hearings, citizens of the affected counties voiced opposition to the project by a margin of nearly 9 to 1. A new referendum is now scheduled for August 6. State tax abatements to Ice Mountain, totaling almost $10 million over the next decade, have also raised eyebrows. "Thanks to the state's handling of this issue, we are now in a position where we'll actually be paying a corporation to take our water away," Blouin said. "No citizen has a right to take and sell millions of gallons of water from shared, public waterways. But the state is trying to tell us that a corporation does. It's simply absurd." Legal battles are raging as well. In August 2001, a separate citizen group filed a lawsuit against Ice Mountain in circuit court, contending the project violates Michigan's public trust principles governing the use of water from the Great Lakes Basin. "Under public trust principles of Michigan law, the citizens of Michigan--not corporations--have the primary right to use the water of Michigan's lakes and streams," said Terry Swier, president of Michigan Citizens for Water Conservation, the group bringing the suit. "Public trust protects the citizens' rights in these waters for fishing, boating, swimming, and survival. Pure water for pure profit violates the public trust and robs Michigan of its most vital heritage." "We firmly believe that Michigan and its citizens have a distinct say in who can take the waters of the State and divert them for sale for private convenience," Swier said. In addition to its significance for state law, the case may have huge implications for how water is defined in international trade agreements. "Water is already officially designated as a commodity according to the rules of the World Trade Organization (WTO) and North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA)," said Holly Wren Spaulding, an independent journalist and organizer with the Sweetwater Alliance. Spaulding says that a sanctioning of the Ice Mountain proposal by the State would amount to another step in the direction toward defining water--both legally and culturally--as a commodity rather than a public good. According to Spaulding, the Ice Mountain situation in Mecosta County could also be one of the first real tests of whether a state law guaranteeing public ownership of resources can be challenged by an international trade body inclined to view resources as private. Spaulding also points out that NAFTA and WTO rules could prevent Michigan from denying other bottling corporations access to water once Ice Mountain has its foot in the door. "So-called 'Preferential Treatment' guidelines in these trade agreements basically say that if one corporation--whether indigenous or foreign--gains access to an area to extract a resource, no restrictions can be made on anyone else who might wish to do the same because it would not be fair," Spaulding said. "If future investors in the region were to be turned away for some reason, the state, and in some cases the federal government, would be liable for fines to be paid to the corporation for its 'loss of potential profits'." Direct actions like Monday's are now being viewed as key tools for beating back Ice Mountain and restoring public control of the State's water resources. "We have the laws on the books now that would have stopped this project long ago. What we don't have is a government with the will to enforce them," said Blouin. "Stopping this water privatization scheme and restoring water democracy will now require action by citizens themselves." Protestors also stressed the global significance of their actions. "Today we are here in solidarity with all those around the world who have fought and won struggles for water democracy," Blouin said. "We put our bodies on the line today, but in Cochabamba, Bolivia, people actually gave their lives defeating one of the harshest water privatization schemes ever." Following the implementation of a project engineered by the World Bank and Bechtel Corporation, water bills for people in Cochabamba soared over 40 percent and citizens were actually outlawed from collecting rainwater. After days of protests and direct actions, the Bolivian government terminated the contract and Bechtel was forced to leave the country. "We cannot let this happen in North America knowing the sacrifice others have made elsewhere." Blouin said. "As guardians of the Great Lakes Basin--one fifth of the world's fresh water--we must think about strengthening both our commitment and our resolve," he said. "The consequences for us not doing so are almost too grave to imagine." To read more about the struggle against Ice Mountain in Michigan, visit the Sweetwater Alliance website at www.waterissweet.org or Michigan Citizens for Water Conservation at www.savemiwater.org.