From dr_broccoli at hotmail.com Thu Oct 3 22:03:31 2002 From: dr_broccoli at hotmail.com (Shawn G) Date: Sun Feb 8 02:51:52 2004 Subject: [Dryerase] IMF DC protests Message-ID: Asheville Global Report www.AGRnews.org Reprinting permitted for non-profit organizations, and members of the dry-erase news wire Hundreds arrested at DC IMF/World Bank protest By Nicholas Holt, with Rae LeGrone and AGR Staff Washington, DC, Oct. 2 (AGR)— Thousands gathered in Washington, DC last week to protest and disrupt the joint meetings of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. On the morning of Friday, Sept. 27, several affinity groups took to the streets and moved around the city, some with the intent of disrupting traffic, others simply to make their presence known and their message heard. The Anti-Capitalist Convergence (ACC), a Washington, DC-based group had called for a “day of non-compliance and resistance” in the city and for activists to creatively disrupt the day’s business. Several groups marched through the streets around the city, bicyclists filled streets with a “critical mass” group ride, and tires were set alight on commuter routes into the city, backing up traffic. Hundreds of police, many of whom had been shipped in from other areas of the country, were present, nearly all dressed in full or partial riot gear. They closely followed the protest groups around the city by foot, motorcycle, bicycle, and car, and tracked them with helicopters. In one incident, a crowd of about 100 protesters gathered in front of a Citibank branch office. After police began making arrests, two rocks were thrown through windows and the police pepper-sprayed the crowd. Smoke bombs were then thrown at the police. The Washington, DC Independent Media Center (IMC) reported that a protester was thrown against a window by police officer with such force that the window cracked. Another group of about 30 protesters, who confined their loud march to sidewalks, were detained by a large group of police and had their identification checked and recorded and their bags searched. All members of the group were released shortly after, even those without identification. Two activists dropped a banner inside the IMF building. A giant inflatable pig was set up in the middle of one downtown street. Although the blower malfunctioned and the pig did not fully inflate, police treated the battery used to power the blower as a bomb and shut down two blocks for about 90 minutes. Shortly after 9am, marchers from around the city, as well as participants in the critical mass bicycle action, arrived at downtown Pershing Park. Some of those gathered moved into the streets, but were pushed back by police. Protesters and journalists diffused into the park, where conversations, chants, drumming, and dancing commenced. At 9:45, without issuing any orders of dispersal, the police on foot, horseback, and bicycle, surrounded the perimeter of the park and refused to let anyone present leave. Lt. JD Herald of the DC Metro Police advised everyone trapped in the park to “sit down, relax, and do what you were gonna do.” He then explained that some of the police officers present had been working 16 hours a day for the previous four days and that those being detained in the park might get “a little attitude” from them. The detainees spent the next hour and a half confined in the park. Broadcast news journalists described the situation live to their listeners, while many of the protesters gathered in small groups to make plans for what appeared to be an inevitable mass arrest. Those arrests came as police suddenly began moving in on the detainees. Some being held were told they could leave on the opposite side of the park, but instead found themselves trapped on all sides by baton wielding law officers. Metro buses arrived, and police began roughly handcuffing and dragging people away and loading them on the buses. Across the street more protesters, separated from the park by horse mounted police, loudly chanted “Let them go!” and raised fists in support of those being arrested Shortly after, DC Metro Police Chief Charles Ramsey spoke to reporters. Those arrested, he explained, were being charged with “blocking a sidewalk ... failure to obey a police officer, parading without a permit, those kinds of things.” The version of events he described bore little resemblance to those experienced by those held in the park. The protesters “were in the street, they were ordered out, they refused, we got them out ... and now that we got our transport vehicles, we’re taking care of that,” he claimed. Among those arrested throughout the day were several legal observers, present to document police and protester interaction and police misconduct. Zachary Wolf, a national vice president of the National Lawyers Guild and a member of the DC-based Partnership for Civil Justice said the legal observation and support team would be “aggressively litigating the false arrest charges.” Wolf also noted that “There has been a fair amount of police brutality, [police] using their batons without cause against people who are essentially peaceful protesters.” Police continued loading the arrested onto Metro buses. Arrestees were then taken far from downtown to the DC Police Academy. DC-IMC reported that some buses took as long as 12 hours to reach their destination, and that some were still being processed as late as 3am Saturday morning. There were also reports of one individual, a man who participated in the critical-mass bicycle ride dressed in drag, being removed from the Metro bus he was being held on to a police van where he was badly beaten. As of Friday night, police reported 649 arrests, the vast majority of which occurred at the Freedom Park gathering. At a televised press conference, DC Mayor Anthony Williams praised Chief Ramsey’s work and said that although he and Ramsey, as African-Americans, owed much to the history of civil disobedience in the US, those protesting in DC that day were not part of that tradition. The ACC released a statement critical of the actions of the police: “We are disheartened by the violence which was perpetrated today by the police. Hundreds of people were arrested for doing nothing more than expressing their political beliefs using legal, nonviolent forms of protest and civil disobedience. Protesters and onlookers were shoved, beaten, and pepper-sprayed by the police, who seemed determined to prove their ‘control’ of the situation by hurting innocent people. “We cannot let our freedom to dissent be taken away, and we will not stop speaking out until we live in a world where everyone is free from exploitation and oppression, a world where one’s survival and access to human needs aren’t determined by one’s economic means.” On Saturday, thousands gathered near the Washington Monument for a rally against the IMF and World Bank coordinated by the Mobilization for Global Justice. Preceding the rally was a march organized by ACT-UP (AIDS Coalition To Unleash Power) demanding third-world nations be released from debt and that the funds of the international finance organizations be utilized to fight the spread of AIDS and help those living with it. The rally featured consumer advocate Ralph Nader, musician Michelle Shocked, and numerous activists from around the world who shared stories of their struggles against corporate domination of their countries. About a dozen counter-protesters, separated from demonstrators by twice as many police, held signs reading “I love capitalism” and boasting of conservatives’ employment and obedience to law. That afternoon, marchers walked from the Washington Monument to North Murrow Park, near the IMF and World Bank buildings. They then paused for musical performances. Police in riot gear moved in to block one side of the park, refusing to let anyone move directly across the street, but making an exception for two expensively dressed shoppers who explained they were trying to reach the Starbuck’s coffee house. With memories of the previous day’s mass arrest still fresh, tensions were high. When an American flag was set alight, many protesters fled in fear of police retaliation, but police reported only about 6 arrests. Though the IMF and World Bank delegates met without disruption, the Mobilization For Global Justice released a statement expressing satisfaction with the events of the weekend. “We won. Yes, we really did. How? We, the movement, helped make the meetings of the World Bank and the IMF into a news story where their policies and practices are examined, scrutinized and criticized,” the statement read. “It is one of the few times a year when media in America pay attention to these institutions and as just by speaking truth to power with our message about globalization and corporate greed we help form popular consensus among those who are just learning of this struggle.” _________________________________________________________________ Send and receive Hotmail on your mobile device: http://mobile.msn.com From dr_broccoli at hotmail.com Thu Oct 3 22:04:44 2002 From: dr_broccoli at hotmail.com (Shawn G) Date: Sun Feb 8 02:51:52 2004 Subject: [Dryerase] Eddie Hatcher Message-ID: Asheville Global Report www.AGRnews.org Reprinting permitted for non-profit organizations, and members of the dry-erase news wire. Hatcher sent to solitary for illness By Elizabeth Allen Asheville, North Carolina, Oct. 1 (AGR)— After being written up for “refusing to submit to a drug test,” political prisoner Eddie Hatcher has been sentenced to 60 days “disciplinary segregation” this past week. Correction officers came into his cell at 1am on Monday morning for a routine “random” drug test. The previous day, Hatcher, who has AIDS, took a styrofoam cup of what he described as “almost pure blood” to the unit manager after noticing blood in his urine for about a week. The manager then called medical. However, Hatcher says he did not receive treatment that night and was informed the facility was already occupied by someone in lock up. Later that night he said the nurse at the medicine window told him it sounded like he had a kidney stone, and to drink lots of water and fill out a sick call. The condition made him able to urinate, a point he and a nurse from prison say is indicated in the medical documentation from the prison. Nevertheless, after suffering all weekend, he was administered a drug test. “I told the officer I had a health problem and I couldn’t pee if they’d give me parole. He told me to drink 8oz of water, which he gave me and then gave me two hours,” Hatcher recounts. Still physically unable to cooperate, Hatcher was written up. In a phone conversation with Hatchers Sister, Ginger Ammerman, the nurse said if an inmate is unable to urinate then he is in kidney breakdown. Ginger Ammerman, Hatcher’s sister, said she believes that he received extra time in the hole because he pleaded not guilty. Inmates are allowed appeal hearings for infractions. “He has to appeal it himself, and can’t have an attorney. And where is it going to go?” Ammerman commented, reflecting her doubt that prison officials listen unbiased to an inmate’s cases. In a conversation with Ammerman, Marion Correctional Superintendent Sid Harkleroad reportedly expressed that he and other employees at the prison were angry over the contents of Hatcher’s website, www.eddiehatcher.org. He mentioned that a couple of employees had contacted lawyers and wanted to sue Hatcher, even though the website uses no names and does not specifically incriminate any particular officer. Hatcher’s website contains a new section specifically about the North Carolina prison system, including prison articles, poetry, and his personal prison dairy. In this section Hatcher denounces the over 30 prison enterprises operating in NC which make the prisons nearly self-sufficient, leaving 80% of the Department of Correction (DOC) budget for salaries. He emphasizes that nonviolent inmates are treated so harshly that when released they will be ill-adjusted and violent, “releasing all of the pent up psychological torment compliments of the NC Department of Correction.” “Prisons have become modern day torture chambers with chains attached to cold steel slabs were prisoners may lay naked in their own urine and feces for days and weeks,” said Hatcher on his website. Currently, Hatcher is serving life without parole for the 1999 drive-by shooting murder of Brian McMillan, a 19-year-old drug dealer in Maxton, NC. A jury convicted Hatcher, after less than 3 hours of deliberation, of shooting into an occupied property and first degree murder. He was acquitted of assault with a deadly weapon with the intent to kill McMillan’s girlfriend, Amila Chavis, who was shot in the hip during the incident. Forensic reports show that bullets found in McMillan’s body don’t match the rifle Hatcher carries in his truck. There were two types of bullets found on the crime scene. In order for Hatcher to have been able to commit the crime, he would have had to fire two weapons simultaneously while driving a five-speed truck down a country road at night – an impossible feat, considering that his left arm is permanently disabled due to a gunshot wound he received the previous November. Hatcher’s conviction was partially based on an alleged “confession,” “casually” made to a police officer while the two were alone, seven minutes after the SBI (State Bureau of Investigation) read him his rights and he refused to make a statement, but asked to see an attorney. There is also evidence that the district attorney bribed witnesses, and had previous affiliations with and concealed information about a juror. During the trial Judge Frank Floyd ordered Hatcher to represent himself as a defendant in a capital case. Prior to the recent jail time, Hatcher served five years after the 1988 takeover of the Robesonian newspaper offices in Lumberton, NC. Hatcher and his friend Timmy Jacobs demanded to speak with Governor Jim Martian to get a guarantee of an investigation into dozens of uninvestigated, unsolved murders in which police were suspected of involvement, the local government corruption concerning the vibrant drug trade coming from I-95, and the death of a young Black man in the county jail. Several hostages were released unharmed after they negotiated with the governor, who, aside from looking into the county jail death, failed to hold up his end of the bargain. Hatcher and Jacobs were motivated to do the takeover when Hatcher began to fear that he would be killed by law enforcement after they began staking out his apartment. Hatcher says the police were keeping an eyeon him because he was investigating the Robeson County drug trade and had obtained documents which he says implicated the police in trafficking. Hatcher was a member of and served as secretary for Concerned Citizens for Better Government, a group founded in 1986 by members of the Native American and African American communities in reaction to the violence and evidence of police drug dealing in the area. With the September death of Christopher Wood in Murphy and the approximately 11 other inmate deaths this year due to lack of medical attention, the treatment of inmates with medical problems has gotten a lot of press in recent times. Keith Acree, a public information officer for the NCDOC, asserted that most of the problems concerning lack of medical care that have been in the press occur in the county jails, run by the individual sheriff’s departments. They receive minimal state oversight from the Detention Services Department of the Health and Human Services office, which also regulates fire and safety codes. Acree said that he felt the prison was capable of treating a prisoner with AIDS, and explained an inmate can be transferred to a different hospital facility within the system if sick call deems it necessary. Ammerman remains doubtful that all necessary medical treatment has been provided. “I know one thing for sure and that’s I can’t see him [Hatcher] or talk to him for 60 days, and Eddie might be dead in 60 days,” she said. She also said that a doctor had recommended a kidney sonogram on Hatcher because kidneys are a particular area of concern for AIDS patients. “Certainty it doesn’t hurt for people to call or email [Marion Correctional Institution] and ask about Eddie and see if he’s doing ok and getting the treatment he needs,” said Ammerman. She also noted Hatcher has lost between 70 and 80 pounds while in prison. Acree said that the prison policy was to be both “fair and firm with every inmate,” and, “We don’t treat Eddie any differently than we treat any other inmate.” In reference to the drug test, Acree claims Hatcher’s name just popped up randomly on the computer. and that, “Our medical folks said he was given adequate opportunity to give a sample.” Acree said they weren’t punishing him for his website because he’s already had it for a number of years. Superintendent Harkelroad’s secretary said Harkelroad was currently unavailable for comment and was not likely to do so. _________________________________________________________________ Join the world’s largest e-mail service with MSN Hotmail. http://www.hotmail.com From dr_broccoli at hotmail.com Thu Oct 3 22:06:34 2002 From: dr_broccoli at hotmail.com (Shawn G) Date: Sun Feb 8 02:51:53 2004 Subject: [Dryerase] "Unborn" Message-ID: Asheville Global Report www.AGRnews.org Reprinting permitted for non-profit organizations, and members of the dry-erase news wire. Administration extends healthcare to "unborn" By Shawn Gaynor Asheville, NC, Oct. 2 (AGR)—A change by the Bush Administration to the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (S-CHIP) (a federal block grant to states) will, for the first time, classify a woman’s fetus as an “unborn” child, extending it healthcare assistance from conception, while ignoring comprehensive pre-natal healthcare for pregnant women. In the administration’s now familiar unilateralism, the new classification was passed as an amendment to a Health and Human Services regulation, therefore bypassing a legislative process. Legislation is simultaneously being considered by the US Senate to extend S-CHIP coverage to pregnant women, eliminating the need to cover the newly classified “unborn.” The change, announced Friday, has been harshly criticized by women’s groups and reproductive health providers across the country, who say the administration is attempting to undermine Roe vs Wade. According to a statement from Planned Parenthood: “The Bush administration is attempting to circumvent the legislative process to define at which point life begins in law. Establishing fetuses as persons shows that the administration’s true intent is not to expand healthcare coverage for pregnant women, but to undermine a women’s right to choose.” The change was first proposed by Bush in January, but, in a last minute surprise, coverage to the “unborn” was extended to the fetuses of women who are illegal immigrants as well. “They are going to become citizens in nine months or less,” said Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson. Thompson went on to deny that abortion was at issue, despite the regulations language “unborn children” originating within pro-life groups. “Shame on the Bush administration for using immigrant women —a population desperately in need of real comprehensive health coverage — to promote an anti-choice agenda,” said Judith Lichtman of the National Partnership for Women and Families. “We urge the administration to stop its cynical manipulation of public health policy.” The California Abortion and Reproductive Rights Action League said the new regulation was a “stealth campaign to end abortion rights, and could harm women’s health, by making them take a back seat to the program’s ‘patients” -- the fetus. “Under this proposal would a pregnant women with cancer be able to get potentially life-saving radiation treatment or chemotherapy, since such treatment could harm the fetus? This proposal shows how the Administration sees pregnant women: as vessels for carrying a pregnancy rather than as people with important personal healthcare needs.” Operation Rescue, a right-wing anti-abortion group with a history of violence against and harassment of healthcare providers, reacted to the new regulation by stating, “Tommy Thompson accurately redefined the term ‘health care’ and placed one more nail in the coffin of the abortion industry.” All previous legal and legislative challenges to label a women’s fetus as an individual with rights and protections have failed. The expansion to the S-CHIP program is estimated to cost $330 million for the next five years. States will be given the option of choosing whether or not to extend coverage to fetuses. The expansion does not provide funding for any additional healthcare for pregnant women. _________________________________________________________________ MSN Photos is the easiest way to share and print your photos: http://photos.msn.com/support/worldwide.aspx From joshua at clamormagazine.org Tue Oct 8 06:28:54 2002 From: joshua at clamormagazine.org (Joshua Breitbart) Date: Sun Feb 8 02:51:53 2004 Subject: [Dryerase] 20,000 Gather in Central Park to Say No to Endless War Message-ID: <1034076534.3da2c176e714d@mail.riseup.net> [images available at http://nyc.indymedia.org] 20,000 Gather in Central Park to Say No to Endless War by John Tarleton Twenty thousand people filled the East Meadow of Central Park Sunday afternoon in the largest anti-war demonstration on American soil since the current Iraq crisis began. The event, which marked the 1st anniversary of the U.S.-led bombing of Afghanistan, was one of more than 25 rallies around the U.S. organized by Not In Our Name (NION). The rally came as the Bush Administration is turning up the heat on Congress to approve a resolution authorizing the use of force against Iraq. People from all walks of life expressed concerns about the U.S. quest for global domination and the possibility of a pre-emptive war. ?We haven?t finished what we started in Afghanistan,? said Allsion McConnell, a community college student from Farmington, Connecticut. ?We should think about whether we should be invading other people and trying to change them to our way of life, which may not work for them.? ?I have such a horror that this is going to go on and on,? said Mabel Dudeney, 76, a survivor of the 1940-41 Battle of Britain in which much of London was destroyed by nightly German bombing. ?Russia is going to go into Georgia. China is going to attack Taiwan. Israel and the Palestinians are going to continue fighting War settles nothing.? Sunday?s rally also featured celebrity speakers including Susan Sarandon, Tim Robbins and Martin Sheen, hip-hop poet Saul Williams, David Byrne of The Talking Heads, jazz musician Oscar Brown, Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney, New York State Senator Tom Duane, and Masuda Sultan, an Afghan-American woman who lost 19 family members in the U.S. bombing of Afghnistan. ?Do we the people really want to be a new Rome that imposes its rule by the use of overwhelming force whenever its interests are threatened?? Sarandon asked. ?Even perceived potential threats? We do not want endless warfare.? During the rally, thousands of people took a ?Pledge of Resistance?. Part of the pledge reads, ?Not in our name will you invade countries, bomb civilians, kill more children, letting history take its course over the graves of the nameless.? ?There?s too many times in history where people have been opposed to something but haven?t stopped it,? said Miles Solay of NION. NION was initiated in March of this year as a project of the Revolutionary Communist Party, a Maoist group. NION held much smaller Pledge of Resistance ceremonies on June 6 in about a dozen cities and then continued building toward yesterday?s events. Full-page ads were placed in prominent papers like The New York Times. In New York, dozens of spirited young NION members fanned out into schools and subway trains to promote the Pledge. 150,000 leaflets were distributed in the last two weeks alone, according to Jana Astraea of NION. With the drive to war escalating, a small, obscure Leninist party suddenly found itself catalyzing a major anti-war rally that drew broad mainstream support. ?There?s many people who knew they weren?t the only ones who felt this way and they came here to prove it to themselves,? observed Yale anthropology professor David Graeber. Ten thousand people attended NION rallies in Los Angeles and San Francisco Sunday and another 5,000 turned out in Chicago. Also on Sunday, 1.5 million people attended anti-war protests that were held in major cities throughout Italy Pat Dunn and Ahmed Nassef of New York brought their son Ali, age 3, to Sunday?s event. It was Ali?s first big anti-war rally and he quickly came up with his own favorite slogan (?Pee for People!?). ?We wonder what kind of world there will be in 10 years and hope he doesn?t have to go to another anti-war rally,? Dunn said. Dunn and Nassef were previously living and working in Jordan and saw firsthand the sufferings of Iraqi refugees who had fled years of war and sanctions. They believe that another war would be disastrous for Iraq as well as the United States. ?Everybody wants the same thing?to be able to feed their kids and watch bad sitcoms at night,? Dunn said. The next big anti-war mobilization in the United States will occur Saturday October 26 in Washington, D.C. NION organizers in New York aren?t wasting a breath. They will be holding an emergency youth meeting 5:30 p.m. Monday at St. Marys church on 521 West 126th St. to figure out how they want to build on Sunday?s success. ?We took the pledge together and we want that to have meaning and content,? Astraea said. From xraymagazine at yahoo.com Tue Oct 8 23:09:08 2002 From: xraymagazine at yahoo.com (XRay Magazine) Date: Sun Feb 8 02:51:53 2004 Subject: [Dryerase] Cincinnati war protest brings thousands of demonstrators Message-ID: <20021009040908.67422.qmail@web14407.mail.yahoo.com> Use this story at will, kindly let me know if you do and credit/link to GoXRay.com. Use is limited to list subscribers and other po' folk like me. Pix available at GoXRay.com >>Cincinnati war protest brings thousands of demonstrators by GoXRay.com Editor Stephen Novotni More than 3,000 locals (an XRay staff estimate) and others attended a peaceful, mass war protest at Cincinnati's Union Terminal Oct. 7. The protesters included members of at least more than two dozen different, local groups. #The protesters organized in response to President Bush's speech to more than 700 invited guests at the Union Terminal. According to Intercommunity Justice and Peace Center Coordinator Sister Alice Gerdeman, who organized one of the groups attending, the protest was diverse - including people both black and white, very young and very old and representatives of a variety of different faiths and political orientations. "As rallies go, I think I would say it was very diverse," Gerdeman said. "There were people from various racial and ethnic groups...protesters and their parents and grandparents and we had poor people." Gerdeman said the energy was very good and that the event let people opposed to a war with Iraq know they aren't alone. "I think it says there are a lot of people concerned about peace," she said. "It gives them the energy to do whatever the next step is." "I think if I were a politician and I saw this happen in Cincinnati, I'd look closely at what happened," she said. "If we can get several thousand people out saying, 'No war,' then there are a whole bank of others(who did not come out in protest)." Cincinnati City Councilman David Crowley and Hamilton County Commissioner Todd Portune were among the people on the street. Crowley said that he was there in protest. Portune said that, while he had "...reservations about the direction the President is taking," he was on the scene only to listen to what the people had to say. "I don't agree with us rushing into war with Iraq," Crowley said. "You don't rush in when there may be other avenues." Crowley said, "If he (President Bush) invested half as much energy in diplomacy as he has with a war effort, we'd be in much better shape." Crowley, a Navy veteran, echoed other protester concerns with Bush's 'pre-crime' (our buzzword, not his) agenda. Crowley said, "At this point, for better or for worse, he (Saddam Hussein) isn't actively at war with anybody. As soon as this starts, its going to destabilize that whole region...these countries (in the Middle East) are tenuously at peace at best and we're going to go in and deliberately destabilize it? It just makes no sense." Crowley said he thinks his opposition will hurt him politically, but said he was compelled to speak his mind, The issue was too important to do otherwise. "Who's going to be fighting this war? It's going to be the young men and women of Cincinnati and elsewhere." Portune said he was at the protest to listen to what the people had to say. He said it is is a complex issue that demands thought and conversation with the American people. "The American people have been lulled into believing that we can embark on this course without real sacrifice or effort," Portune said. "I don't think that's the case and I think those cards should be shown as well." Portune said the President's actions are a marked departure from our foreign policy and need to be closely examined. Portune said the President should at least hold any action until after the November elections. Portune said, "Nothing has been suggested that Iraq can deliver on it's threat within the next 30 days. You have to ask yourself why he (Bush) is doing this before the election." Portune said he was not invited into the event inside the Union Terminal. According to Cincinnati Chamber of Commerce Manager of Public Relations Raymond Buse, the Chamber was charged by the White House with the job of inviting 515 guests to the event. Buse said the Chamber worked with about 15 community organizations including the Urban League and the United Way to select a list of guests that was non-partisan. Buse said the White House selected another 200 guests including the area politicians who came to the event. "I think they very clearly picked what they thought would be a favorable audience," Portune said. He said the fact that the Chamber was given the job of assembling a partial guest list was, "...as much a statement of whose interests were being addressed as anything...I think it would have been helpful to have a broad view and perspective in the audience." Buse said the guests picked by the Chamber were not picked to support any agenda. He said a lot of people who were invited chose not to attend. Buse said no one that the selected by Chamber representatives was included or excluded based on their politics. Portune said, "We should really be sure that this is the right thing to do and that we're doing it for the right reasons and that there is no other course of action that could produce the same result." __________________________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Faith Hill - Exclusive Performances, Videos & More http://faith.yahoo.com From editors at agrnews.org Sun Oct 13 15:35:37 2002 From: editors at agrnews.org (Asheville Global Report) Date: Sun Feb 8 02:51:53 2004 Subject: [Dryerase] Asheville joins people worldwide to say, =?iso-8859-1?Q?=91Not?= =?iso-8859-1?Q?_in_Our_Name=92?= Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.0.20021013163313.03271de0@buncombe.main.nc.us> Asheville joins people worldwide to say, ?Not in Our Name? By Shane Elliott and Kendra Sarvadi Asheville, North Carolina, Oct. 8 (AGR)-- Sunday, Oct. 6 marked the anniversary eve of the day that US bombs began falling on Afghanistan, as well as the day that the United States government declared war on people?s rights at home. Peace activists across the US and around the world participated in an international day of resistance, embracing the theme ?Not In Our Name? as a call to action to all conscious citizens tired of war as a quick and simple-minded ?answer? to complex world problems. Around 150 concerned citizens of Asheville packed the area in front of the Vance monument on Oct. 6 to listen to speakers and songs, to express their opposition to war, and to call for peace. The activists were from a diverse range of ethnic, religious, and economic backgrounds, as well as of a variety of ages. Small children danced while members of the activist community led alternately in singing and addressing the crowd with facts about the illegitimacy of the current war on Iraq, the US?s dependence on Middle Eastern oil, and Bush?s corporate greed-based policies of world domination. ?This is the first time I?ve come out to protest anything my sign says, ?Could it be we are the evildoers?? and from what I?ve seen of this government we pretty much are I think we?re bordering on facism,? said Marsten, one of Sunday?s participants. Asheville resident Anne Craig, who organized the demonstration, said she was pleased with the turnout. ?The goal was for people to leave feeling hopeful, that we can cause positive change, and stop this war machine that threatens our survival,? said Craig. Many participants indicated that the presence of one counter-demonstrator aside the response from passers-by had been overwhelmingly supportive. ?Everyone who drove by was honking and waving some people who drove by saw the signs, and stopped and got out and stood with us and asked for signs ? said Barry, another participant. ?I think all the talk of the war has, so far, obscured the main issues to say that it?s just about oil is kind of simplistic, but that?s the core issue. America wants to dominate and control the Middle East. They?ve been trying hard to find any way to connect Iraq with 9-11, and there is no connection bin Laden and his network don?t work with with Iraq; they?re fundamentalists and Hussein has been trying to crush the fundamentalists in his own country for years The Bush administration has been trying to use what happened to us a year ago as an excuse to further the oil agenda,? he added. From editors at agrnews.org Sun Oct 13 16:26:15 2002 From: editors at agrnews.org (Asheville Global Report) Date: Sun Feb 8 02:51:53 2004 Subject: [Dryerase] =?iso-8859-1?Q?Killer_cop_sues_for_=91slander=92?= Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.0.20021013172420.032a5720@buncombe.main.nc.us> Killer cop sues for ?slander? By Bud Howell and Allie Morris Greensboro, North Carolina, Oct. 8 (AGR)-- At 8am Monday morning, about 50 people gathered in front of the Guilford County Courthouse in downtown Greensboro, NC to support Jessie Barber and her husband Calvert ?Butch? Stewart on their way to court. Their son, Gilbert ?Gil? Barber, was shot five times and killed by Guilford County Sheriff Deputy Thomas Gordy. Gordy is now suing Jessie Barber for $10,000 because she called him a murderer during a press conference. He cites ?defamation of character? and ?mental distress,? which he has allegedly suffered since Gil?s parents began questioning the circumstances which led to the death of their 23 year old son. Monday?s court date dealt exclusively with Jessie Barber?s breaking a mediation agreement in which she agreed to no longer refer to Deputy Gordy as a murderer. The agreement in question was established after a previous court ruling recommended a ?mediation? between Gil?s parents and the deputy. Butch and Jessie?s lawyer, Anita Hodgekiss who works with the Center for Constitutional Rights, argued Monday that though the mediation was court ordered, the agreement that Barber signed was not and therefore not contractual by law. The judge?s formal decision is expected later in the week. Members of the October 22nd Coalition To Stop Police Brutality, Repression and the Criminalization of a Generation, the Greensboro Peace Coalition, Gil?s friends and family, and other concerned citizens packed the courtroom after a spirited rally alerting passers-by to what they called the ?outrageous injustices? surrounding Barber?s death. During the rally, amidst drumming and chants of ?No Justice, No peace,? Gil?s parents and others spoke through tears about their son and comrade. Ed Whitfield from the Greensboro Peace Coalition issued a stirring condemnation of the Sheriff?s Department?s disregard for the life of Gil Barber. ?The real tragedy here is that the humanity of this young man who was a member of our community, who had every right to live his life fully and productively, who was his mother?s baby, who was loved by his family this man had his life shot down that night, and to some people that?s not very serious because we live in a community and a country where some people?s lives aren?t valued very much.? On May 18, 2001, Sheriff Deputy Thomas Gordy responded to a 911 report of a one-car accident on Kivett Loop in Jamestown, NC. There he found High Point resident Gil Barber, bewildered and suffering from a serious skull fracture. Barber was naked and unarmed, not wanted for any crime, and, according to subsequent coroner reports, not under the influence of any drugs or alcohol. Yet minutes after he arrived on the scene, Deputy Thomas Gordy pepper sprayed Barber before fatally shooting him 5 times. Many details of just what happened that night such as why Gordy arrived at the scene readily armed-- have yet to be disclosed by the Sheriff?s Dept. Despite withheld information, District Attorney Stuart Albright, who based his conclusion on evidence from a controversial internal investigation led by Guilford County Sheriff BJ Barnes, ruled Deputy Gordy?s actions ?justifiable?. Backed by the Department and the Police Benevolence Association, Albright has refused to turn access of the case over to external investigators such as the State Bureau of Investigation. Those following the case question the impartiality of an investigation conducted by the very party liable for the killing. Gil?s parents continue to push for an external investigation, which they consider the only means through which the true story will be revealed. As for the internal investigation, Jessie Barber remarks. ?there has been no investigation as far as we?re concerned.? Many doubt the impartiality and efficacy of the Sheriff Department?s investigation particularly after Sheriff Barnes? own initial remarks on the case. Barnes publicly referred to Gil Barber as ?a raging bull? who was ?probably on PCP,? a claim deemed impossible on three occasions by the coroner. In a further show of support for his deputy, Barnes spoke on a local radio show calling Gil?s death ?a good shoot.? Frustrated at being repeatedly denied access by the Sheriff?s Department to public information, Gil?s parents filed a suit last year against Deputy Gordy to obtain full disclosure of the circumstances that led to their son?s death. The 911 tape of the incident was not released until over four months after the shooting. Ordinarily, such records are released in a matter of days. Authorities have given no reason as to why the tapes were withheld for so long. When finally turned over, Gil?s family said that certain intervals of time on the tape seemed to be missing. Also unknown is why the deputy ordered an injured car wreck victim forcibly to the ground. The police report indicates that Gordy?s first words to Barber were, ?get the fuck on the ground? repeated over and over again. Barber?s clothing was tangled in the trees near the accident and why the crime scene was bulldozed immediately following the incident. Uncertainties about the events of the morning of May 18 loom for the family who points to the rapidity with which the altercation ended in death. According to the police account, only 113 seconds passed between Gordy?s arrival and the five shots he fired. Gil?s parents contend that Gordy?s lawsuit is a scare tactic, set up to intimidate and silence any further questioning of the undisclosed circumstances that led to their son?s death. But they have no intention of backing down, says Gil?s father: ?They stepped on the wrong toes when they killed Gil, ?cause that was my only son, and I?m not going away.? Jessie concurs, noting the family?s work in the October 22 Coalition, ?they?re trying to shut us up, but it won?t work. As long as they kill people, we?ve got work to do.? If found liable for breaking the mediation agreement, Jessie Barber faces sanctions that range from a fine to possible jail time. Butch Stewart defended his wife at Monday?s rally, saying ?we call [Gordy] what he is: a murderer.? While the verdict is pending after Monday?s case, Jessie Barber remains defiant: ?I?m not going to ever pay [Deputy Gordy] for what he did, taking my son?s life. Gil had a right to live, just as Gordy has a right to live.? In his suit, Gordy is also seeking to obtain a list of the Barber?s individual supporters, including local residents involved with the October 22nd Coalition, a national organization which has provided a strong network of support for Gil?s family. Members of the October 22nd Coalition, who helped organize Monday?s rally in front of the courthouse, point out that Gil Barber is not alone. Since last September nine regions of the country have reported 157 unarmed people killed by law enforcement officers. This fact has become a focal point for Gil?s parents? pursuit of justice. In an interview, Gil?s mother said she has been reaching out to families who are surviving similar tragedies: ?I have to go to other families in the same situation. I don?t think I could stop if I wanted to. And I?m just glad that there are some people in the world who do support us and do see the wrongness of what?s going on.? From editors at agrnews.org Sun Oct 13 16:28:14 2002 From: editors at agrnews.org (Asheville Global Report) Date: Sun Feb 8 02:51:53 2004 Subject: [Dryerase] Bush ends lockout, ILWU ordered back to work Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.0.20021013172630.032a4cb0@buncombe.main.nc.us> Bush ends lockout, ILWU ordered back to work By Sean Marquis Oct. 9 (AGR)-- In a highly controversial move, president George W. Bush has invoked the 1947 Taft-Hartley Act to end the West Coast lockout of longshore union workers. Workers with the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) had been locked out of their jobs since Sept. 27 when their employers, the Pacific Maritime Association (PMA) shutdown the ports because of a contract dispute. At a White Hose press conference Bush said that the lockout ?threatens our national defense.? ?These ports load the ships that carry supplies to our men and women in uniform. These ports also receive parts and materials used by our defense contractors to complete projects and maintain military equipment. ?Because the operation of western ports is vital to our economy and to our military, I have determined that the current situation imperils our national health and safety,? Bush said. Bush also intimated that he was keeping an eye out for worker slowdowns on the docks when he said that in invoking the Taft-Hartley Act, he was ?ending the lockout and requiring work at the ports to resume at a normal pace.? Bush sought and won a federal court order Tuesday to end the lockout. The Taft-Hartley Act allows federal authorities to end a strike or lockout for 80 days, if it poses a "threat to national security." According to a report by the San Francisco Independent Media Center, Judge William Alsup has imposed a temporary restraining order until Wednesday, Oct. 16, when the court will most likely extend the restraining order for the full 80 days. Currently the order prevents the ILWU from engaging in slow downs and strikes. Prior to the injunction, the latest talks had ended with both sides blaming the other for failure to accept proposals and creating an untenable situation. The ILWU accused the PMA of making a contract proposal that was full of takeaways and represented a move backwards in bargaining and said the PMA also rejected a mediator request to extend the old contract for seven days that the ILWU accepted. ?It is clear from PMA?s latest proposal that they never had any intention of making an agreement,? said ILWU International President James Spinosa. ?Their strategy has been all along to use the lockout to push this situation to crisis and get the government to bail them out with the Taft-Hartley injunction.? The ILWU also said that rather than deal with the union?s main concernthat the jobs left over after the implementation of technology and the new jobs created by the technology be ILWU jobsthe PMA proposal will allow the companies to outsource those jobs. Joseph Miniace, President and CEO of the PMA, said that ?the Union rejected a comprehensive proposal that would make their members the absolute envy of the blue collar workforce in America.? ?As it relates to a Taft-Hartley injunction,? Miniace said ?the PMA gave the union every opportunity to get our ports up and running without government intervention. We gave them the premier contract offer in America, and we offered to re-open the ports by extending the old contract for 90 days.? The 80-day injunction Bush is seeking would give the PMA what it wanted by forcing the union back to work to get goods to retailers for the holiday spending season and give Bush what he needs to keep military supplies moving for his war on Iraq. The union however, after already working the month of September under and expired contract, will be ordered to work the rest of October, all of November and most of December under an expired contract. The Taft-Hartley enjoins both the employers and the union to return to the conditions of the old contract for 80 days. But the ILWU says that the Act?s provisions for fines, contempt of court citations and prison sentences for those violating the terms of the contract are aimed at workers. ?We fully expect PMA to use all the anti-union provisions of the Taft-Hartley injunction. These 80 days will not be a ?cooling off period,?? said Spinosa. ?PMA will start alleging ?slowdowns? by Thursday and will continue that. Taft-Hartley gives them 80 days of free shots at the union and we expect the employers will be dragging us to court daily, trying to bankrupt the union and throw our leaders in jail.? According to the ILWU on Tuesday, Oct 8, minutes before Bush went on national TV, PMA rejected a deal the White House was trying to brokera 30-day contract extension which the ILWU had already agreed to. According to Washington State Jobs with Justice (JwJ), the PMA was fearful of a strike when the ILWU contract was to expire this summer and pushed for work speed-ups to get as much commerce, and profits, through the ports as possible before a strike would happen. JwJ and the ILWU say that the work speed-ups led to dangerous conditions on the docks, prompting the ILWU to issue and order to workers to obey all safety regulations. The PMA said this was a work slowdown tactic and then locked out the workers and closed the ports. Between Mar. 14 and Sept. 3 this year, five ILWU workers were killed on the job in work-related accidents. Red and Green? In a statement given to CNN, AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Richard Trumka called Bush?s use of Taft-Hartley ?a tragedy with historic ramifications.? ?Early in the process, the Bush Administration threatened to invoke Taft-Hartleythus strengthening the employers' hand in bargaining and giving the [PMA] little incentive to bargain in good faith,? Trumka said. A coalition of environmental groups has also shown support for the ILWU workers. Members of the Alliance for Sustainable Jobs and the Environment, Earth First!, Rainforest Action Network, Bay Area Coalition for Headwaters, Global Exchange and the Sea Turtle Restoration Project joined locked-out dock workers for a solidarity rally at the picket line on Monday, Oct. 7. ?We have recently seen the Bush administration exploit the nation's fear of terrorism to suspend civil rights, particularly those of political activists,? said the Alliance for Sustainable Jobs and the Environment. ?By the same token, the Bush administration, through the Dept. of Homeland Security, has made statements about possible militarization of the ports, threatening the use of troops as scab labor, effectively stripping the ILWU of its collective bargaining rights. ?As progressive advocates of environmental values, we see the links between our agendas and the struggles of labor. We stand in solidarity with our brothers and sisters in the ILWU and fully support their rights to collectively bargain, without government intervention,? the alliance said. From editors at agrnews.org Sun Oct 13 16:31:48 2002 From: editors at agrnews.org (Asheville Global Report) Date: Sun Feb 8 02:51:53 2004 Subject: [Dryerase] =?iso-8859-1?Q?=91A_book_can_never_be_a_substitute_for_an_?= orgasm Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.0.20021013172819.032a0ec0@buncombe.main.nc.us> 'A book can never be a substitute for an orgasm' By Shawn Gaynor "Civilization", or rather recorded history, is full of powerful men who bend the world to their will, to fulfill their ambitions of personal power, wealth, and fame. In fact it is difficult to find a history book that focuses on anything other then the trials, victories and defeats of the powerful. Were is the common man in this jumble of kings, where is the woman? Where are the carpenters, the farmers, the bar tenders? Have they always just sat in the background, working, marrying, dying, all the while acquiescing to the wishes of the powerful? Yves Fremion's new book Orgasms of History, (AK Press) answers this question with a definitive No! Thought out history their have been moments when the world is turned upside down, when everything is drawn into question, and the faceless, nameless figures in the background of history spring to the forefront, and proclaim that they will be ruled no longer. Through these "orgasms", from the Roman slave uprising lead by Spartacus, to the French Situationists of May 1968, and beyond this book provides a history of people who would bow no more. With such a broad (and relatively unexplored) subject, the book does not offer a comprehensive history of each uprising, or revolution. Rather, it follows particular themes though out, demonstrating the repetitiveness of both inspirations, and mistakes. The major underlining theme of the book is movements demanding self-management. That is, an end to the power of bosses, judges, police, kings, presidents, generals, officers, mayors, and all others that seek to rule. Yes, that taboo of all taboos--anarchy. Any what can a book teach us of this? The author himself states, "Let no one kid themselves: a book is no substitute for a rifle. But it can help to train one's sights that bit better. A book can never be a substitute for an orgasm. But it can help while away the time between attacks, be they political, social, or amorous." One of the great lesson that can be gleaned from this cross section of uprisings, is that people can and do organize themselves together, without hierarchy, or coercion, and provide for the basic needs of society. In none of the examples given does the uprising end on account of starvation. Some warnings are also apparent in the book. Almost every such uprising in the last 100 years has not been crushed by the force of capitalists, but rather by totalitarian Communists, or as the author blanketly refers to them--Stalinists. Otherwise successful uprisings from the Ukrainian Maknovshchina, to the Spanish sydicalicalists, have met with tretury on behalf of communists who did not what self-management to succeed and there by threaten communism as well as capitalism. Another point warning that recurs through out the book is that during an "orgasm" a moments hesitation spells failure. Spartacus, with an army of 70,000 freed slaves hesitated before the gates of an undefended Rome, and was later defeated for it. Those who brought to life Paris Cummune, and drove the French government out of the capitol, failed to pressure their advisories, and waited until an army could be raised to defeat them. In some instances it was a "victory party" that spelled the unraveling of success. A last warning is that the price of failure is high. After an uprising is defeated tens of thousands are butchered. It is not that the combatants are punished (they are for the most part dead or in exile following defeat), but whole populations are "liquidated", for fear that the idea of self-management may survive the uprising which it always does. One of the books major short comings is that it does not spend sufficient time examining third world struggles for self-management. There is a chapter on the Iroquois League which, besides standing alone as an example of indigenous peoples struggle, is the sole example of total success in implementing a self-managing model. The Mexican revolution is explored, and self-management movements in china, however, the book remains by-in-large a Euro-centric history. This would not be a fault in the book had it been exclusively a history of European dissent, however, with a wider scope more could have been done to accommodate non European struggles. This is in no was a criticism of what the book contains, but perhaps a call for another volume. A major topic not addressed in the book is the anti-globalization movement. With the leaders of great nations having to meet in remote fortified positions for fear of the people, it could be argued that the last three years have represented a historical "orgasm" of unparalleled proportion, much more far reaching and long lasting then the May 68' uprisings that, for the first time in history shook every corner of the world. It is impossible to see in the mist of such a time where such dissent will lead. Will it fade, or be brutally crushed, or will it blossom into the world that has been envisioned and struggled for though out human history? It is for those who prize freedom to decide. From editors at agrnews.org Sun Oct 13 16:32:50 2002 From: editors at agrnews.org (Asheville Global Report) Date: Sun Feb 8 02:51:53 2004 Subject: [Dryerase] Chuck D takes on MTV Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.0.20021013173155.032a4a40@buncombe.main.nc.us> Chuck D takes on MTV By Shawn Gaynor Chuck D, front man of the Hip-hop group Public Enemy, is once again at odds with the mainstream music world, this time over song lyrics that MTV finds objectionable. So what is the word in question? Is it booty, bitch, ho? No, the word in question is "free", as in "free Mumia and H. Rap Brown". The "standards board" at MTV found the reference to these political prisoners objectionable, and threatened not to air the video "Gotta give the peeps what they need" video, off their new album Revolverlution, unless the word free was removed from the song. Chuck D, no fan of censorship said no. According to the Public Enemy web site, Chuck D claims that MTV originally asked that all references to Mumia be dropped, but said that after refusing to make the change MTV asked that the word free be removed. In a commentary written by Chuck D in September, Chuck said "I refused to edit out the Mumia audio and visual. That's crazy and they must be out of their fucking mind," he said. "The thing that has myself going to war is they [MTV] want to vanish all audio and visual references to Mumia Abu Jamal," Chuck D said in the editorial. "This is serious in a climate where they're playing the hell out of Nelly and Khia dumbing American kids down to 'it's so hot I'mma take my clothes off' down from 'my neck to the crack of my ass' with a 'shot of Courvosier'" "If they think having a political viewpoint in music is irrelevant, it's because they've taken the Nazi approach in censoring it themselves," he said. The song, which is the first track on the new Revolverlution album also contains political lyrics like "COINTELPRO again, here we go again," refereeing to the Bush administrations embracement of "counter-intelligence" against political decent. Chuck D has been at odds with the music industry before, over his support of Napster- an internet music file sharing web site. When asked recently if young people are still buying Public Enemy albums he replied that young are not buying albums, their burning their own. An MTV spokeswomen said that the station had barred videos because of there content in the past, but went on to admit that this may be the first time that political speech is the reason. After two weeks of wrangling, MTV and Public Enemy reached a compromise. The video itself will air in its entirety on MTV2's hip-hop show, premiering on September 30, but not on the normal MTV station. First hand accounts on the world wide web have stated that the video aired unedited on the MTV Europe station in early September, before the controversy started. From editors at agrnews.org Sun Oct 13 16:33:33 2002 From: editors at agrnews.org (Asheville Global Report) Date: Sun Feb 8 02:51:53 2004 Subject: [Dryerase] =?iso-8859-1?Q?You_won=92t_hear_Steve_Earle=92s_latest_on_?= the radio - but you should Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.0.20021013173255.032a47d0@buncombe.main.nc.us> You won?t hear Steve Earle?s latest on the radio - but you should By Nicholas Holt (AGR)-- Tune your radio for what passes as country music these days and you might hear the following words being sung: ?Now this nation I love has fallen under attack./A mighty sucker punch came flying in from somewhere in the back./Soon as we could see clearly though our big black eye/Man we lit up your world like the forth of July It?s gonna be feel like the whole wide world is raining down on you/Brought to you courtesy of the Red, White, and Blue [sic.]!? (Courtesy of the Red, White, and Blue by Toby Keith) Not a big surprise really. A cheery celebration of the murder of thousands of innocents to avenge the murder of thousands of other innocents belted out by a man who sings like a moose backed by his band of Muzac studio extras. Just what one could safely expect from Nashville Inc. in the days of the Bush Doctrine. Now compare Keith?s reactionary anthem with these lines: ?Four score and a hundred and fifty years ago/our forefathers made us equal as long as we could pay.? Or: ?Better be careful someone might hear ya/The walls have ears and the sky has eyes.? Or even: ?But Allah had some other plan some secret not revealed/Now they?re draggin? me back with my head in a sack/To the land of the infidel.? Steve Earle, who sings the above lines on his new album Jerusalem (Artemis Records/E Squared) you won?t hear on commercial country radio, not least of all because he plays, well, country music, as in the music that came down the mountains with men like Earl Scruggs and Merle Travis and was picked up by Johnny Cash and Hank Williams, musicians that guys like Toby Keith, Garth Brooks, and their like have no business being shelved anywhere near in the CD store. Earle, a five-time Grammy nominee, is an extraordinary songwriter who, by all appearances, has little concern for what will or won?t make heavy rotation on Country Music Television. About Jerusalem, he writes ?This is a political record because there seems no other proper response to the place we?re at now Freedoms, American freedoms, things voted into law as American freedoms, everything that came out of the 1960?s, are disappearing, and as any patriot can see, that has to be opposed.? Imagine Jim Hightower with a guitar, a progressive populist from Texas, a left leaning redneck, admiring of Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, and Patrick Henry, but more likely to sing about Emma Goldman, Malcolm X, Joe Hill, or Abby Hoffman. Or John Walker Lindh. Jerusalem attracted media attention far before it?s September release for the song ?John Walker?s Blues,? a speculative exploration of the mind and motivations of the ?American Taliban?: ?I?m just an American Boy-raised on MTV/And I?ve seen all those kids in the soda pop bands/But none of ?em looked like me./I started lookin? around for a light out of the dim/And the first thing I heard that made sense was the word/Of Mohammed, peace be upon him.? The song, possibly the most memorable both thematically and musically on the album, has earned Earle comparisons to ?Hanoi Jane? Fonda and cheap shots about his lack of superstardom. A review in The New York Post titled ?Twisted Ballad Honors Tali-rat? and written by a reviewer apparently unfamiliar with the notion of narrative-voice in songwriting accused Earle of glorifying Walker and comparing him to Jesus. ?I?m trying to make clear that wherever [Lindh] got to, he didn?t arrive there in a vacuum,? writes Earle. ?I don?t condone what he did Fundamentalism, as practiced by the Taliban, is the enemy of real thought, and religion, too. But there are circumstances the culture here didn?t impress him, so he went out looking for something to believe in.? Earle has been a long time and outspoken opponent of the death penalty and landmines, voiced his support for the Zapatistas, and, here in an interview with the AP, has been known to make such observations as ?capitalism is fundamentally oppressive because it depends on the service of labor in order to thrive.? The songs on Jerusalem touch on conflict in the Middle East, government surveillance, and the struggles of an ill-treated maquiladora worker, but also includes songs about the more traditional themes of prison life, lonely cowboys, and lost love, and country luminary Emmylou Harris makes an appearance for a duet titled ?I Remember You.? Earle, who possesses a full voice at once warm but scarred from past tendencies towards self-destruction conveying a steady attitude that suggests a starring contest with its possessor would be ill advised, is also a tremendous musician, equally impressive whether wrestling with an over-distorted six-string, finger picking a quiet ballad, or working out a bluegrass tune on the mandolin. Jerusalem will please both long time country music listeners and those looking for a good introduction to the genre. It is a truly impressive work. From editors at agrnews.org Sun Oct 13 16:34:29 2002 From: editors at agrnews.org (Asheville Global Report) Date: Sun Feb 8 02:51:53 2004 Subject: [Dryerase] Media watch group celebrates release of =?iso-8859-1?Q?=91Censored?= 2003' Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.0.20021013173341.032a54b0@buncombe.main.nc.us> Media watch group celebrates release of 'Censored 2003' By Brendan Conley Rohnert Park, California, Sept. 28 (AGR)-- Project Censored, the media analysis group based at Sonoma State University, has released Censored 2003, the latest of its annual compilations of the year's most "censored" news stories. The organization monitors mainstream and independent media and watches for important stories that are underreported by the corporate press and covered by independent publications. At an awards ceremony here on Saturday, independent media organizations -- including Asheville Global Report -- were honored for bringing to light the top 25 stories. Censored 2003, like the 25 yearbooks previously published by Project Censored, is something of a handbook for media literacy. Though the heart of the book is its summaries of the top 25 underreported stories, Censored 2003 also features articles about the global movement for free and independent communication and against corporate control of the media. The book contains updates on previous most-censored stories, and a resource guide to independent publications and media activist groups. In a rousing keynote address on Saturday, author Michael Parenti addressed the fact that some "censored" stories actually receive coverage in the mainstream media. That coverage, however, by the way it frames the issues, can serve to obfuscate rather than educate, he said. "It's not only what is or isn't covered, but it's also how it's covered," said Parenti. "So we need, along with Project Censored, we need Project Flim-Flam, Project Evade, Project Avoid-the-Most-Important-Thing-About-It." This year's number one censored story is "FCC Moves to Privatize Airwaves," covered by The London Guardian, Mediafile, and Mother Jones. In accepting the award for MediaFile, author Dorothy Kidd warned that the Federal Communication Commission is attempting to sell off our property, the public airwaves, and with it, our ability to communicate effectively. "This top story is really what Project Censored is all about: protecting and extending our basic human right to communicate," said Kidd. "The right to communicate may not seem as immediate as the other rights that are featured in all of the other stories: to clean water, to peace and life without war, to healthy food and farming, and all of the other concerns that the authors have raised. But without the means to speak, and publish, and receive the widest diversity of information, we will not survive these other crises." Project Censored's number two pick is "New Trade Treaty Seeks to Privatize Global Social Services," written by Maude Barlow in The Ecologist. Jerry Mander, President of the International Forum on Globalization, accepted the award for Barlow and said that her article is an "early warning" about negotiations on the General Agreement on Trade in Services that are currently underway in the World Trade Organization. If the agreement goes through, Mander said, "All public services will be on the auction block for global corporations to control. We're liable to end up with Mitsubishi running our educational systems and DeutscheBank running our libraries and cultural programs, and Enron in charge of Social Security." The third most underreported story cited is "United States' Policies in Colombia Support Mass Murder," covered by Counterpunch, Asheville Global Report, Steelabor, and Rachel's Environment and Health News. In accepting the award for Asheville Global Report, author Jim Lobe of Inter Press Service said that the fact that US military aid to Colombia supports human rights violations by the military and paramilitary groups, remains hidden from the public at large. Citizens of the US operate under "an absolute allergy to history," said Lobe. "We have a hard time facing the notion that we may not be entirely virtuous. That is something we all need to address as much as we possibly can, and hopefully at some point we'll find out even more about -- not only what went on 25 years ago, but also what is going on today." Asheville Global Report was also honored for story number 13, "Henry Kissinger and Gerald Ford Lied to the American Public about East Timor," also by Jim Lobe of Inter Press Service, and story number 24, "Wal-Mart Takes Union Busting to the State Level," by John Nichols and reprinted from the Madison Capital Times. For more information: www.projectcensored.org. From wires at the-alarm.com Thu Oct 17 22:28:45 2002 From: wires at the-alarm.com (The Alarm!Newswire) Date: Sun Feb 8 02:51:53 2004 Subject: [Dryerase] The Alarm!--Labor Briefs Message-ID: Boston janitors In a new development in a three-week-old strike of Boston-area janitors, Massachusetts Governor Jane Swift cancelled the state?s custodial contract with Unicco Service Company after the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) threatened to expand their strike to four state buildings. The workers are striking for better wages, full employment (only 1,900 of Boston?s 10,700 janitors are employed full time) and health benefits. Oakland screeners work stoppage thwarted On October 4, Oakland airport security screeners had planned a walkout protesting the discriminatory layoffs and re-hiring process of the federal Transportation Security Administration (TSA). The government agency countered by threatening to bring in replacement screeners from Sacramento and Reno, Nevada. Officials with the TSA also suggested that participation in the ten-minute walkout would ?have an impact on their applications and their future eligibility for employment.? Many of the present security screeners accuse the TSA, formed as part of post-September 11 federal security measures, of discriminating against them because they are naturalized citizens born in other countries, especially the Philippines. ILWU?Breaking News The Local 13 of International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU), representing longshore workers at the sprawling port complexes of Los Angeles and Long Beach, CA, filed a formal complaint October 15 against shipping companies represented by the Pacific Maritime Association (PMA). They charge shippers with sabotaging efforts to get work on the docks back to normal after a ten-day lockout was ended by Bush?s invocation of the Taft-Hartley Act the previous week. Union officials say that the shippers are refusing to hire and train enough new workers to get the job done. The complaint was filed with the Labor Relations Committee, formed after Taft-Hartley went into effect. The PMA in turn accuses the union workers with engaging in slowdowns by mixing up paperwork, showing up late and not making enough workers available. The union has countered that workers have done remarkably well, considering the ?logistical nightmare? produced by the PMA lockout. They also accuse the shippers of refusing to hire and train more workers to get the job done because it would give the ILWU more power on the waterfront.?F.M. 60,000 teachers march for union rights in Taiwan Some 50?60,000 state-employed teachers with the National Teachers Association in Taiwan marched on Saturday for the right to union representation. While various arms of the Taiwan government have paid public lip service to the teachers and their right to associate, the government remains firm in stressing that any association the teachers form will not have the right to strike. Ukrainian miners Coal miners at dozens of mines across eastern Ukraine began a three-day strike on October 16. The workers are calling for better working conditions and more state funding to help the industry acquire better safety equipment and facilities. Six workers had died in mining accidents in the Ukraine over the previous two days. CAW & DC Canadian Auto Workers reached a last-minute agreement with DaimlerChrysler AG in contract negotiations. The agreement came just half an hour before the workers were to have gone on strike. DaimlerChrysler agreed to retain 1,200 positions of workers at a Windsor, Ontario plant that the company plans to shut down sometime next year. French public sector workers protest privatization Public sector gas and electricity workers all across France struck October 3 over the plans of the new center-right administration of Jean-Pierre Raffarin partially privatize the nation?s state-owned utility services. Utilities workers were joined by workers at Air France and railway workers who have faced or are facing similar privatization schemes. Workers at France Telecom and other opponents of privatization were also present at the Paris rally in numbers. Attendance estimates ranged from 40,000 by police to 80,000 by organizers. 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. From wires at the-alarm.com Thu Oct 17 22:43:34 2002 From: wires at the-alarm.com (The Alarm!Newswire) Date: Sun Feb 8 02:51:53 2004 Subject: [Dryerase] =?ISO-8859-1?Q?=A1La_Alarma!--DV:__=BFPorqu=E9_no_lo_deja=3F?= Message-ID: ?Porqu? no lo deja? Por Celia Organista traducido por alfonso tovar Colaborador del Semanario ?La Alarma! La pregunta que causa una de las mayores frustraciones para todos aquellos que trabajamos con v?ctimas de la violencia dom?stica es, ?Porqu? no lo deja? No intentar? ofrecer una respuesta universal a esta pregunta. Cada mujer que sufre de la violencia dom?stica tiene sus razones particulares para permanecer en la relaci?n o para decidir terminarla. Algunas de las barreras que influencian la decisi?n de una mujer incluyen la presi?n o expectativas familiares, motivos religiosos, estatus socio-econ?mico, migratorio, nivel de educaci?n y/o preocupaciones legales. Yo creo, sin embargo, que dentro de todo tambi?n existe una raz?n firmemente incrustada en el pensamiento de cada mujer: el temor. El temor tiene diferentes facetas, e incluso el temor a ser asesinada. Para muchas mujeres en nuestra sociedad, esto es una amenaza real. Es una realidad que hemos atestiguado muchas veces en nuestra propia comunidad. Una mujer golpeada no puede asumir que tal riesgo no debe tomarse con seriedad. Para muchas v?ctimas de la violencia dom?stica existe el temor de no ser capaces de sostenerse econ?micamente, y no poder mantener a sus hijos. Todos somos concientes de lo dificil que es para un solo padre de familia el sostener a la misma. Tambi?n es hecho conocido que las mujeres ganan menos que los hombres en casi todo tipo de empleos y con frecuencia cuentan con menos educaci?n que los hombres. Localmente, la situaci?n puede agudizarse si consideramos que vivimos en una de las comunidades mas caras de este pa?s. Adem?s, una v?ctima de la violencia domestica es con frecuencia aislada y criticada al punto de hacerla vulnerable a dudar de ella misma o a perder la confianza en cualquiera de sus habilidades. Es importante recordar que la violencia dom?stica se da en todos los niveles econ?micos y profesionales. En ciertos grupos, las mujeres que llegan a ser v?ctimas de la violencia dom?stica pueden experimentar el agravio adicional de creer que no es posible escapar de esta situaci?n, pues el perpetrador puede contar con mayores recursos econ?micos como para enturbiar la credibilidad de su historia, arrebatar a sus hijos o presentar obst?culos legales. Para cualquiera que enfrenta la decisi?n de terminar una relacion, es natural (AGAIN, what is ?natural???) el experimentar el temor de la soledad. Esto puede influir en la decisi?n que toma una mujer golpeada. Muchas mujeres experimentan el temor y la realidad de ser acosadas incluso despu?s de que ya han dejado la relaci?n. Con mucha frecuencia, la mujer intenta escapar a la situaci?n para encontrar que el perpetrador continua persiguiendo, hotigando, acechando o incluso amenaz?ndola hasta que finalmente ella regresa. Algunas veces la mujer decide regresar porque el golpeador le ha prometido que las cosas cambiar?n, porque ha encontrado muchas barreras para continuar con su vida por si misma, o porque tiene la preocupaci?n de que la situaci?n puede empeorar si no lo hace. Se puede incluso alcanzar un punto en el que ella misma cree que no habr? manera posible de liberarse de esta din?mica. Podr?amos preguntar, ??C?mo es que se llega hasta ese punto?? Pregunte a cualquier sobreviviente de la violencia dom?stica y la mayor?a responder?n que nada ocurri? de la noche a la ma?ana. El abuso puede ser sutil. El abuso puede ser emocional, verbal y/o f?sico. Puede iniciar con cr?ticas acerca de la apariencia f?sica de la mujer, de c?mo cocina, como limpia, conduce, educa a los ni?os, las amigas y amigos que ella tiene, o sus habilidades sexuales. Usualmente se va generando un lento aislamiento de la v?citma. La sutil destrucci?n de la auto-estima de la v?ctima y la separaci?n de cualquiera con los que ella es cercana puede iniciar a tan temprana etapa como el noviazgo mismo. Cada vez estamos haciendo m?s trabajo en el sistema educativo, con adolescentes que ya estan involucrados en relaciones que comienzan a ser abusivas. La separaci?n de la mujer de la familia y amigos es una manera con la cual el perpetrador mantiene control sobre su pareja. Sobreviene una situaci?n en el que la potencial v?ctima carece de acceso a la red social que podr?a brindarle apoyo y comienza a depender unicamente en su pareja o conyuge. El criticismo constante eventualmente destruye la autoestima, y el aislamiento hace casi imposible el encontrar apoyo o reconocimiento. En el terreno de la violencia dom?stica siempre hablamos mucho de lo que se conoce como el ?Ciclo de Violencia?. Este ciclo inicia con un periodo de ?tensi?n en crescendo?, donde el golpeador hace amenazas y la v?ctima prev? alg?n tipo de abuso. El ?estallido? sigue a la fase de tensi?n, cuando la violencia alcanza su cl?max. Ya sea que la violencia sea f?sica, emocional, verbal o sexual, el ?estallido? significa la creencia del golpeador de que ?l tiene derechos de cualquier naturaleza sobre la mujer. Despu?s del estallido de violencia sobreviene una etapa de ?calma?, cuando el golpeador tiende a disculparse y prometer no volver a abusar nuevamente. Uno de los momentos de mayor confusi?n para la mujer puede ocurrir despu?s de que el estallido de violencia ha concluido. Aunque algunas mujeres nunca experimentan la etapa de calma, un buen n?mero de ellas deciden que quieren terminar la relaci?n con su pareja despu?s del estallido, pero son persuadidas de tomar tal acci?n por las promesas del golpeador de un mejor futuro. Una vez que se ha logrado un mejor entendimiento del ciclo de violencia en cada caso, las barreras en dejar una relaci?n, la p?rdida de auto-estima, el aislamiento y los temores que las v?ctimas de la violencia dom?stica tienen que enfrentar, resulta m?s sencillo comprender el porque muchas mujeres intentan una y otra vez rescatar sus relaciones o permanecer en ellas, ya que no ven otra salida. Yo s? como es doloroso el sentimiento de impotencia para todos aquellos que amamos a alguien que se encuentra en una relaci?n abusiva y no podemos ayudar. Tambi?n s?e que uno de los mayores errores que podemos cometer es mantenernos callados. Sospechamos o sabemos lo que ocurre con ella, pero tememos decirlo. Escuchamos lo que ocurre en la casa del vecino o notamos alg?n moret?n e intentamos ignorarlo. Necesitamos hablar, romper el silencio y ofrecer esperanza. No debemos caer en la frustraci?n cuando una mujer no lleva a cabo lo que nosotros creemos ella deber?a de hacer. Nos debemos abstraer de juzgar porque no conocemos sus temores y su realidad. Debemos recordar que su confidencia con nosotros puede acarrearle un mayor riesgo. Debemos respetar los l?mites que ella trace y, si ella lo permite, podr?amos ayudarla a pensar como mantener seguros a ella y sus hijos. Sobre todo, no debemos condicionar nuestro apoyo. Nosotros no podemos hacer elecciones y tomar decisiones o acciones por ella. No podemos rendirnos; a veces requiere de muchos intentos y esfuerzos antes de que una mujer se encuentre lista para dejar una relaci?n. Podemos ayudarla haci?ndole saber que estamos ah? por si ella requiere ayuda, por si requiere de alguien que la escuche. No tenemos el poder de cambiar la vida de nadie, pero podemos ofrecerles comprensi?n y apoyo. Asi que la siguiente vez que usted vea, escuche o lea sobre alguna sobreviviente de la violencia dom?stica, recuerde que puede haber una multitud de respuestas la pregunta: ??Porqu? no lo deja?? Sin embargo, yo pienso que la pregunta mas importante a responder ser?a ??Porqu? es que nuestra sociedad ? y nuestra comunidad ? tolera la violencia dom?stica?? Celia Organista es la directora ejecutiva del Women?s Crisis Support in Santa Cruz y Defensa de las Mujeres en Watsonville. Este art?culo apareci? por vez primera en el Aptos Times despu?s de que una mujer de la zona fue asesinada. La informaci?n recolectada por la policia indicaba que esta persona era v?ctima de la violencia dom?stica. 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. From wires at the-alarm.com Thu Oct 17 22:43:38 2002 From: wires at the-alarm.com (The Alarm!Newswire) Date: Sun Feb 8 02:51:53 2004 Subject: [Dryerase] The Alarm!--Op-Ed: Caltrans banner ban Message-ID: Freedom of speech demolished by new Caltrans ban on banners by Patrick Letellier The Alarm! Newspaper Contributor Last week, I hung an anti-war banner, ?WAR IS TERRORISM,? on the freeway overpass at 41st Avenue. A man from San Jose helped me, each of us holding it tight in the wind, using plastic fasteners to secure it to the fence for all the world to see?or at least all the traffic going south on Highway 1. I felt particularly attached to this sign, among many others with equally provocative messages, because I painted this one myself. I spent a couple hours last Sunday in the parking lot behind the Resource Center for Non-Violence turning this white, thrift-store sheet into my own personal message against war. Before hanging the sign, I attended a press conference led by two local anti-war and free-speech activists, Amy Courtney and Cassandra Brown. With others? help, I held the sign in front of this and that camera, and this and that reporter, hoping it would appear on TV or in a news story. The press conference was well organized, spirited and fun, quintessentially Santa Cruz, but I have to confess: all I wanted to do the whole time was get my sign on the freeway. I realized then how hungry I am for messages in the media that reflect my opinion about this ever-expanding so-called war on terrorism: that it?s patently unnecessary, unjust and immoral. That it?s a war based more on election-year politics, a stubbornly reticent economy and corporate profit than it is on weapons of mass destruction, security in the Middle East or the exporting of democracy. But opinions like mine, hardly revolutionary or radical, particularly when it comes to protesting a war, have been almost entirely absent in the media. In an era of flag-waving nationalism and simplistic approaches to complex international problems (?You?re either with us, or you?re with the terrorists?), there is little room for serious discussions of peace. If you?re against this war, you?re likely to be labeled out of touch with reality, just plain stupid or anti-American. This monolithic view paves the way to war without a vigorous and healthy debate, and leaves millions of peace-loving Americans without a voice in our national policy. In response, some of us have filled the streets in protest, in San Francisco, Washington DC, and other cities. Others, as was the case last week, have taken to the freeways. Yet there seemed little room even for my freeway sign. We had only begun to hang it when a man in a pickup truck drove by screaming, cursing and gesturing wildly. I wondered if we were going to be assaulted. Countless other people ?saluted? us in a similarly obscene fashion, while others honked their horns in approval, smiling, waving and flashing us the peace sign (it?s amazing what a difference one finger makes). Eleven anti-war banners were hung that morning on freeways around Santa Cruz, but when I checked on some of them not an hour after hanging mine, three had already been taken down. So threatening are these messages of peace, and so vehement are the war?s supporters, that motorists stopped and ripped them down. Now Caltrans has announced that, for safety reasons, it will prohibit all signs on freeways across the state. Given the past year, in which thousands of pro-USA, pro-war signs and countless American flags have been posted on freeways without incident, Caltrans? reasoning is dubious at best. I can?t help but wonder what has been deemed unsafe: the signs themselves or their message of dissent? Freedom of speech sounds great in theory, but when the rubber meets the road, so to speak, it takes nerve to express a less-than-popular view. I will continue to make freeway signs, if only to remind people it?s not only okay to speak out for peace, it?s absolutely necessary. As necessary as any other freedom we enjoy in this country. 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. From wires at the-alarm.com Thu Oct 17 22:43:41 2002 From: wires at the-alarm.com (The Alarm!Newswire) Date: Sun Feb 8 02:51:54 2004 Subject: [Dryerase] The Alarm!--DV: Why does she stay Message-ID: Why does she stay? By Celia Organista The Alarm! Newspaper Contributor The question that causes the most frustration for those of us who work with victims of domestic violence is ?Why does she stay?? I will not attempt to give you a universal answer to this question. Each woman who is a victim has her own unique reasons for staying in the relationship or choosing to end it. Some of the barriers that influence a woman?s decision include family pressure or expectations, religion, socio-economic status, level of education, immigration or legal issues. I believe there is one motivator that weaves its way through each woman?s reasoning: fear. Fear wears many faces. It could be fear of being killed. For many women in our society, this is a real threat. It is a reality we have witnessed several times in our own community. A battered woman can never assume that such a threat should not be taken seriously. For many victims of domestic violence, there is the fear of not being able to support themselves and their children. We are all aware of how difficult it is for a single head of a household to support a family. We also know that women earn less than men do at almost all types of employment, and often have less education. Locally, we have the added element of living in one of the most expensive communities in this country. Furthermore, a victim of domestic violence is often isolated, criticized and controlled to the point that she is more apt to doubt herself or has lost total confidence in any of her abilities. In other cases it may be the fear of losing economic or social status. It is important to remember that domestic violence exists in all economic brackets and professional groups. Women who are victims in some groups can experience the added burden of believing it is not possible to escape because the perpetrator may have greater financial resources to make her story unbelievable, take her children or present legal obstacles. Many women experience the fear and reality of being harassed even after they have left the relationship. Very often a woman may attempt to escape a situation and find that the perpetrator continues to pursue, harass, stalk and/or threaten her until she returns. Sometimes a woman decides to return because her batterer has either convinced her that things will change, she has encountered too many barriers to moving on with her life alone or she is afraid he may do something worse to her if she remains away. She may reach a point where she believes she will never be able to really be free of the situation. We may ask, ?How can she get to that point?? Ask any survivor of domestic violence and most will tell you it didn?t happen overnight. Abuse is very subtle. Abuse may be emotional, verbal and/or physical. It may begin with criticism of how she looks, cooks, cleans, drives, rears children, the friends she chooses or her sexual abilities. It usually includes a slow movement towards isolation of the victim. The subtle destruction of the victim?s self esteem and the separation from anyone who is close to her may begin as early as when the couple is dating. More and more we are doing work in the educational system with teenagers who are involved in dating relationships that have become abusive. The separation of the victim from family and friends is a way the perpetrator maintains control over the partner. It becomes a situation where the victim cannot access her support system and becomes dependent solely on the partner/spouse. Constant criticism eventually destroys self-esteem, and isolation makes it almost impossible for a victim to find support or validation. In the field of domestic violence we talk a great deal about what is known as the ?Cycle of Violence.? The cycle begins with a period of ?tension-building,? where the batterer may make threats and the victim senses pending abuse. The ?explosion? follows the tension-building phase, where the violence reaches its climax. Whether the violence is physical, emotional, verbal or sexual, the ?explosion? signifies the batterer?s belief that s/he has the right to control the victim by any means. After the explosion a ?calm? stage follows where the batterer may apologize and promise to never become abusive again. Although some women never experience the calm stage, this is often the most confusing time for a battered woman. Many women decide that they want to leave their abusive partners after the explosion, but are persuaded to change their minds by their batterers? promises for a better future. Once you understand the cycle of violence, the barriers to leaving, the loss of self-esteem, the isolation and the fears that survivors of domestic violence face, it is not difficult to understand why they may try again and again to salvage their relationships or stay because they see no way out. I know for those of us who love and care for someone who is in an abusive relationship, it is very painful to feel powerless to help. I also know that the biggest mistake we can make is to keep silent. We suspect or we know what is happening to her, but we are afraid to say it. We hear it at the neighbor?s house, or notice a bruise and we try to ignore it. We need to say the words that break the silence and offer hope. We must not become frustrated when a woman does not do what we think she should do. We must abstain from judgment because we do not know her fear or her reality. We must remember that her sharing with us could mean putting herself in more danger We must respect her boundaries, and if she allows it, we can help her think of how to keep herself and her children safe. Most of all, we should not put conditions on our support. We cannot make choices and decisions or take action for her. We cannot give up; it sometimes takes many efforts before the woman is ready to leave the relationship. We can help her know someone is there for her if she needs help, if she needs someone to listen. We do not have the power to change anyone?s life, but we can offer them understanding and support. So the next time you see, hear or read about a survivor of domestic violence, remember that there could be a multitude of answers to the question ?Why did she stay?? However, the more important question for each of us to answer is ?Why does our community tolerate domestic violence?? Celia Organista is the executive director for Women?s Crisis Support in Santa Cruz and Defensa de las Mujeres in Watsonville. This article first appeared in the Aptos Times after a local woman was murdered and the information gathered by the police indicated that she had been a battered woman. 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. From wires at the-alarm.com Thu Oct 17 22:44:08 2002 From: wires at the-alarm.com (The Alarm!Newswire) Date: Sun Feb 8 02:51:54 2004 Subject: [Dryerase] The Alarm!--Border briefs Message-ID: Border Brefs ?Other? Policy Hits Targets Beginning last month, on the anniversary of 9/11, the US established a third line for people to stand in at ports of entry: ?other.? Where once the lines were simply ?citizen? or ?non-citizen,? there is now this new line for travelers to ponder: Who is the ?other?? At the ?other? line, visitors must be photographed and fingerprinted before entering the US. This ?other? line was established for Muslim men ages 16?45 who are from a list of 26 countries. These ?other? men are deemed ?security risks? by the National Security Entry-Exit Registration System and are deemed target aliens to be monitored. The new policy to target Muslim men requires that visas not be issued to these men until their application is approved by officials in Washington, DC. Though the visa process is supposed to take 30 days, this new process of individually handling each application drags on much longer. Recently, Iowa State University reported that its physics department lost one third of it incoming graduate students because of related visa matters. Many other campuses have reported a similar situation. Bodies from Train Unidentifiable DENISON, NE, October 14, 2002?Eleven bodies were discovered in a sealed grain hopper 60 miles northwest of Omaha. Investigators believe the people found were likely the victims of a smuggling operation that went wrong. According to authorities, the grain hopper left Matamoros, Mexico in June bound for the US. When discovered in Nebraska, four months later, the vehicle?s door were sealed from the outside with no evidence of food or water inside. The severe state of decomposition made it impossible for the medical examiner to determine either age or gender on any of the individuals. It is believed that the victims succombed to any combination of heat, exhaustion, suffication, dehydration and/or asphyxiation. Attempts to identify the bodies and cause of death are underway?the grain hopper has been transported to Omaha for the investigation. 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. From wires at the-alarm.com Thu Oct 17 22:44:17 2002 From: wires at the-alarm.com (The Alarm!Newswire) Date: Sun Feb 8 02:51:54 2004 Subject: [Dryerase] The Alarm!--DV: Intricacies of DV Message-ID: The intricacies of domestic violence By Halie Johnson The Alarm! Newspaper Author?s note: to protect the safety and anonymity of some of the domestic violence survivors I interview I have used pseudonyms where there is an asterisk. ?We live in a world where violence is seen as okay in intimate relationships. Our biggest challenge is the status quo,? said Jennifer Rose, Director of Domestic Violence Services at the Walnut Avenue Women?s Center. ?I think we run up against statistics.? Rose works with women and children who may have witnessed or experienced this abuse. Celia Organista of Women?s Crisis Support/Defensa de Mujeres feels that in some ways the statistics help dispel popular misconceptions about who is a batterer and who is battered. ?The demographics of who we serve are parallel to the demographics of the community we?re based in,? she said she and others working around domestic violence (DV) prevention strive to teach the public that an individual?s or a couple?s economic status and race do not increase the likelihood of violence in their relationships. However, there is one factor that does appear to be a large factor in violent relationships: gender. According to US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the US Department of Health and Services 85% of reported DV victims are women, so most of the organizations that work around this issue assume the victim is female. The three local agencies that work the most with DV deal almost exclusively with female victims, Rose explained that working with male victims (other than adolescents and children) may jeopardize their clients? sense of security. For abused women, just having men around can be traumatic. In 2000, local law enforcement in Santa Cruz County received 1,374 calls for assistance in ?domestic disputes? and listed 1,213 cases of family violence where a weapon was involved [Source: Santa Cruz County Community Assessment Project, 2001]. Violence in Intimate Relationships A local woman, Colleen,* was battered by her husband to the point that he crippled her. ?When we got married everything changed within weeks. I wasn?t allowed to talk to anybody who was a female, and eventually no one at all. I couldn?t listen to music, I couldn?t open the curtains. I wasn?t allowed to work.? Colleen now has a restraining order against her ex, and said that every day she feels closer to leading a normal life, but still receives death threats from him. ?People in the community are just horrified by the idea,? another community member, Claudia,* said about living with DV. ?They can?t help but try to rationalize what has happened by trying to figure out how it?s your fault. I won?t take any small bit of responsibility for his violence.? Claudia left her husband, the father of her son, after several years of abuse, counseling, compromise, treatment programs, forgiveness and more abuse. DV is multi-faceted. There is more to the violence than what lies at the surface?the bruises, the rage, the appearance of helplessness. The physical evidence is only one small part of violence. Violence in an intimate relationship is about control and power more than anything else, as any victims? advocate will explain. Most batterers weave their way into the violence and domination through a subtle process that includes intimidation, isolation, insult and economic/decision-making control that leads to physical and/or sexual abuse. ?It was at the point where I?d literally say, ?tell me what you want me to do to make you happy,? and I?d do it. If he wanted sex, I?d let him do it, just to keep him from getting angry,? explained Claudia. Cat Ring of the local Battered Women?s Task Force explained, ?Batterers are extremely manipulative. They?re as nice as they need to be to keep you from leaving, and as mean as they can be without losing you.? 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. From wires at the-alarm.com Thu Oct 17 22:44:20 2002 From: wires at the-alarm.com (The Alarm!Newswire) Date: Sun Feb 8 02:51:54 2004 Subject: [Dryerase] The Alarm!--Eye on the INS 10-4-02 Message-ID: Put down the newspaper and step away from the water cooler By Michelle Stewart The Alarm! Newspaper Collective It is easy to read a headline and become outraged. If the story is exceptionally sensational, the names and details will remain in the press for a few days?maybe a week at the most. However, all to a commonly the outrage fades as the media turns its attention to a new ?top? story. We forget that behind the headlines are people who still have to live their lives after the camera crews leave. On September 12, 2002 one nurse from Georgia and three Muslim men traveling to Florida captured the public imagination. As the story unfolded, we were given the tale of a woman who overheard a discussion, called the police and became a national hero. Of the men, we were given a story of three medical students who played a ?prank? on a restaurant snoop. The end result of their chance encounter was a widely-publicized traffic stop that resulted in the shutdown of a major highway in Florida, a 17-hour detention, the loss of internships and a lot of primetime cable squabbling on behalf of both parties. And then a new story. That week?s big story was the Alligator Alley traffic stop; last week it was Madelyne Gorman Toogood (the mother who was caught beating her child on a department store surveillance camera). The story of the three medical students is filed into the archives of our collective memory. Of course, it should come as no surprise that the story did not end with the final coverage of it on CNN. Indeed the tale continues as Eunice Stone tries to fade out of the public eye?the controversy reportedly caused her so much stress she had to be hospitalized?and the three medical students Ayman Gheith, 27, Kambiz Butt, 25 and Omar Choudhary, 23 continue their battle to clear their names. Last week Altaf Ali, director of the Florida chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, reported that the three students had come to an agreement with Larkin Community Hospital in Florida to be allowed to continue their internships, at nearby hospitals and doctor?s offices. In a related matter, Dr. Enrique Fernandez, another doctor from Larkin, claims he was removed from his post when he attempted to assist the three students in finding another hospital in the Miami area to host them. As one of the coordinators of the three men?s education, Fernandez worked through Ross University in Chicago to arrange the internship in Florida. He was notified a week ago that his position was terminated without notice. Larkin/Ross claim the decision was an internal matter. Another related, though muffled, matter is coming from local law enforcement who have stated the 17-hour incident was the most expensive traffic stop in the history of Florida. At a cost of $100,000, law enforcement is also reeling in the wake of Eunice Stone?s phone call from Georgia. But this is the information that is not so interesting to the public?where the students do their internship, or who will pay for the costly traffic stop is not the stuff of water cooler discussions in the workplace. And why is that? How many words in this column, in the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, La Opinion will have to be devoted to stories of immigrants dying in the desert before we respond, how many more stories, words, articles about racial profiling in airports, fingerprinting men from Middle-Eastern countries, INS detainees? And the list goes on. How many times can the story be told, with different names and places, before we, as the general public, get off our collective derri?res and respond? Many of us pick up the paper everyday, we skim the headlines, we nod or shake our heads depending on the stories?we often follow the stories for a day or two if we are interested. Yet we do nothing but read the story. If we are enraged we might tell a friend. Picking up the newspaper everyday to become momentarily annoyed is ludicrous; as we allow ourselves to become increasingly complacent the landscape is changing. It is easy to lounge about in this armchair-opinion existence when it is the rights of others being stripped (directly) and not our own. We are experiencing a nativist moment the likes of which may challenge the anti-immigration backlashes of the 20s and 50s. The borders of the US are rapidly slamming shut, the target is anyone who is not native born. Unabashedly, the federal government has placed an ethnic target on all that is Middle-Eastern or Arab?the public has joined suit and extended that honor to anyone of similar appearance. All the while INS continues to target Mexico and Central America?s migrants with equal diligence. The federal government and its various agencies are doing a bang-up job of insuring people are both ostracized and targeted. Do we as a public need to back them up with our passivity? Are we so submissive that we only read the headlines, shake our heads?silently thankful that their sights were not set on us? If so, our complacency is guaranteeing the government will be allowed to further expand its sights. Since 9/11, the assault on immigrant rights has been colossal. However, the assault was mounted prior to the Twin Towers. Ideology and policy were not crafted in the past year. The history of immigration in the US is such that the ?rights? of others are often left in the rubble. Consider the thousands who have died trying to cross into the US, the thousands detained or deported after 9/11. I believe if you truly consider these matters, you will find yourself reacting, rather than continuing the fleeting water cooler discussions. 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. From wires at the-alarm.com Thu Oct 17 22:44:28 2002 From: wires at the-alarm.com (The Alarm!Newswire) Date: Sun Feb 8 02:51:54 2004 Subject: [Dryerase] The Alarm!--Labor briefs 10-4-02 Message-ID: Security Screeners protest racist hiring practices Security screeners at San Jose and Oakland international airports staged protests Monday, September 30, as new security screeners hired by the federal government take over those positions. The screeners are decrying what they consider to be racism in the hiring practices of the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), noting that more than 80% of the present screeners in Bay Area airports are ethnic minority workers in low-wage positions. The new federal positions are better paid and are being filled primarily by whites. The TSA was formed through the Aviation and Transportation Security Act after September 11, 2001 in response to outcries over security lapses among low-paid security personnel in airports. Davis signs agricultural labor mediation bills After months of broad-based organizing, a well-attended march through the Central Valley to Sacramento and a weeks-long vigil by farmworkers and their supporters at the Capitol, Governor Gray Davis signed bills into law that would mandate mediation between management and farmworkers in the event of an impasse in labor negotiations. The bills were a scaled-down version of those initially passed in the State Legislature that included provisions for binding arbitration in the event of a failure in mediation. Farmworkers and their supporters rejoiced while agribusiness groups expressed extreme dismay. At the same time, the Governor signed and vetoed a number of bills. One that he vetoed was a bill that would have allowed the issuance of drivers? licenses to undocumented immigrants. Mexican Government settles with Pemex union The government of Mexico agreed on a wage settlement Monday with the country?s oil-workers union, which represents some 108,000 workers at the state-owned Petroleos Mexico (Pemex). The politically fraught battle pitted Mexico?s President Vicente Fox against corrupt leaders of the union, who he charges helped funnel $170 million into the Institutional Revolutionary Party?s (PRI) 2000 presidential campaign. He had attempted to bring criminal corruption charges against the union leaders, but was stymied due to the immunity they held as legislators in the national government and the threat of economically devastating strikes. The union?s base of support was eroded due to popular recognition of corruption in its leadership and the wage settlement was widely viewed as a victory for Mr. Fox. Canadian Auto Workers gain assurances from Ford The Canadian Auto Workers (CAW) and Ford Motor Company reached an agreement on a three-year contract Monday, a day before the previous contract was set to expire. The contract came after negotiations over the fate of 1,400 workers employed at the company?s pickup-truck plant in Oakville, Ontario?a plant that Ford intends to close. Ford agreed to find new work for 900 of the 1,400 workers, which the CAW considered to be an acceptable compromise of its original position that all 1,400 jobs needed to be saved. Management claimed that it was unlikely that any workers would be laid off in the end due to the C$60,000 incentives offered to long-time employees of the company to take an early retirement with full pensions. The negotiations were closely watched by management and labor in the United States, as similar issues relating to plant closures are likely to come up in negotiations next year between the United Auto Workers, CAW?s American counterparts, and Ford. The escalating costs of health benefits are likely to be more central to the negotiations, however. Lay-offs continue global telecommunications industry As the global telecommunications industry continues to falter severely, workers in that industry are taking the brunt of the loss. SBC Communications, one of the ?Baby Bells? (local telephone providers split off from the AT&T monopoly in the 80s) which serves 13 states from the Midwest to California, announced that it will cut an additional 11,000 jobs, bringing the yearly total of layoffs to 20,000. Verizon Communications announced plans to cut another 1,000 union jobs in New Jersey, on top of the 512 cut earlier this year. Rather than laying workers off, Verizon has asked union members to accept voluntary buyouts. Only 332 of the original 512 have taken the offers. The company, another of the Baby Bells, announced that it would lay off 8,000 workers this summer. Qwest Communications and BellSouth, two other Baby Bells, have lain off 6,000 and 5,000 workers, respectively. The trouble isn?t limited to the United States, either. European firms such as Colt Telecom in Britain and Germany?s MobilCom have recently lain off thousands of their staff members 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. From wires at the-alarm.com Thu Oct 17 22:44:22 2002 From: wires at the-alarm.com (The Alarm!Newswire) Date: Sun Feb 8 02:51:54 2004 Subject: [Dryerase] The Alarm!--Nablus horror Message-ID: A Nablus Horror EDITOR?S NOTE: The following story was received from the International Solidarity Movement, a non-profit organization that works in the occupied territories in Israel. One of its members delivers this first person account of being in Nablus. Baha would take your hand and lead you through a crowd, be the first person to offer to help, he had a ready smile, and seemed younger than his 14 years. Usually Baha Al-Bahsh could be found near the Union of the Palestinian Medical Relief Committee?s (UPMRC) main dispatch area helping whenever he could, walking with the internationals, etc. Since April he has been a fixture with the local ISM, he was one of the first to start helping with the clean-up of the old city after the IDF?s gratuitous destruction. He was the kind of boy, I am told, who you couldn?t help liking. (this is the people magazine type set-up, what follows is not, the following is very brutal) Yesterday late morning, walking with 4 Internationals, Baha Al-Bashsh was killed by a single shot from an Israeli soldier on an APC. The 4 internationals watched helplessly as he bled to death in front of their eyes. Blood coming out of his nose and mouth. The bullet was fired from about 350 feet, it went through his arm entered his side and blew apart both his lungs and heart. The APC was partnered with a Merkava tank, the two vehicles had been patrolling through the old area of Nablus since earlier in the morning. The soldiers were very familiar with Baha and the internationals. The soldiers and the internationals knew each other by site and had seen each other together just 45 minutes before. When murdered Baha and the internationals were walking on Al Salaheia st. the tank and apc were turning off the same street to the right, but stopped when they spotted this group, the internationals did not think this alarming as they had some familiarity with the behavior of the IDF in this area. Further, any rock throwing by the local children had died down and was a ways behind, suddenly, however, a shot rang out, a puff of dust was seen by the internationals, Eva asked if everyone was alright and it was then that they noticed that Baha was lying down. (the shot went completely through him, shattering bone). The APC and tank trundled off immediately after, but most are pretty sure who the commander is. At this point, the IDF is saying that Baha had a molotov cocktail and was burned after being shot, Yahoo news reports that a 13 year old in Nablus had a molotov cocktail explode in his hands and died. The autopsy reports only that he died of a heamo thorax. X-rays showed bone fragments acting like shrapnel in his chest cavity. There was as much evidence that he was burned as there was that he was a unicorn. The internationals said that Baha had nothing in his hands, they would not be with someone who did. The IDF in their explanation imply that this was an intended murder. Not an accident that will be ?looked into.? They shot through a group of internationals into the chest cavity of Baha. (one of the internationals was 3 feet away, they were all clustered together). What makes Baha?s death even worse than the usual despicable fare (although far from being rare) is that there was simply no ?reason? for the IDF to fire. (obviously most of the reasons given by the IDF are specious and constitute the reasonings of war criminals). What makes this case different also is that he was killed in front of Internationals. Usually a child has a rock, or in some other way is considered to be threatening some of the most advanced armour in the world, this child, walking down the street with the internationals only presented the threat of non-violent resistance. Perhaps he was targetted because of his relationship to the internationals, an example was to be made, who knows. What is clear is that an IDF soldier deliberately murdered a 14 year old boy who?s only apparent crime was being a palestinian out after curfew (which is in effect 24 hours a day and is really more like incarceration in the mode of the warsaw ghetto). The IDF claims it can shoot anyone it wants during incarceration, but like the bank robber who claims the ?teller made me shoot him?, this is the logic of a criminal mind. Of course, there are countless stories like this, the IDF cynically concocting the most ridiculous reasons for its murderous actions. This death has inspired even more rage here, I heard very mild-mannered intelligent people saying that they might as well kill themselves by taking as many of ?them? as possible rather than be shot down like dogs. Sigh, the terrible cycle will continue I?m afraid. Ironically, a picture of Baha dead at the hospital shows him smiling, like he just had his tonsils out. 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. From wires at the-alarm.com Thu Oct 17 22:44:24 2002 From: wires at the-alarm.com (The Alarm!Newswire) Date: Sun Feb 8 02:51:54 2004 Subject: [Dryerase] =?ISO-8859-1?Q?=A1La_Alarma!--Ojo_en_el_INS?= Message-ID: La globalizaci?n ideol?gica en contra de la inmigraci?n Cinco mitos sobre la inmigraci?n (parte 3 de 5) Por Carlos Armenta Colaborador del Semanario ?La Alarma! El eurodiputado franc?s Sami Nair expone y analiza, en un art?culo publicado en el diario espa?ol El Pa?s, lo que el llama ?los cinco mitos sobre la inmigraci?n en Espa?a.? El presente art?culo (tercero de una serie de cinco) analizar? el tercer mito dentro del contexto de la inmigraci?n en los Estados Unidos. Tercer mito sobre la inmigraci?n: Los inmigrantes se benefician indebidamente de las leyes sociales favorables. Este tipo de resentimiento hacia los inmigrantes ha echado profundas ra?ces dentro de la sociedad estadounidense. Para muestra basta un bot?n: la proposici?n 187 de 1994 en California, la cual prohib?a que los inmigrantes ilegales y sus hijos?aunque estos ?ltimos hubieran nacido en los Estados Unidos?recibieran servicios de salud y educaci?n. Dicha proposici?n tambi?n requer?a que los restadores de servicios p?blicos reportaran al Servicio de Inmigraci?n y Naturalizaci?n (INS) la presencia de cualquier indocumentado, o hijos de indocumentados, en escuelas u hospitales p?blicos. El hecho de que dicha proposici?n haya prosperado al recibir el voto favorable de la mayor?a de los que, en esa ocasi?n, ejercieron su derecho al voto, demuestra el tan arraigado sentimiento anti-inmigrante en un estado en el que la mayor?a de sus habitantes son inmigrantes o descendientes de inmigrantes. Sin embargo, dicha ley fue declarada inconstitucional y nunca se lleg? a su plena implementaci?n. Este tercer mito sobre la inmigraci?n pierde su validez si se analizan y se comparan detenidamente, por un lado, las aportaciones que los inmigrantes hacen tanto al sistema de bienestar p?blico como a la econom?a en general, y por otro lado, los beneficios que estos obtienen de los fondos de bienestar social. Primero que nada, los inmigrantes que trabajan legalmente en los Estados Unidos pagan impuestos sobre sus ingresos, impuestos de seguridad social y aportan tambi?n parte de sus ingresos a fondos de pensiones. Sin embargo, el Congreso norteamericano debati? y aprob?, en la primavera de 1996, una de las m?s extensas y represivas legislaciones inmigratorias de su historia, la cual declar? inclusive a los residentes permanentes legales como inelegibles para recibir una gran variedad de beneficios sociales. Tales cambios a las leyes migratorias crearon una gran divisi?n dentro de los grupos que tradicionalmente defend?an los derechos de los inmigrantes en los Estados Unidos. Muchos de los defensores de los derechos de los inmigrantes alegan ahora que, aunque la inmigraci?n legal representa un gran beneficio social, la entrada de inmigrantes ilegales, por otro lado, tiene solo efectos negativos dentro de la sociedad estadounidense. Dicha opini?n se ve apoyada precisamente por el tercer mito aqu? analizado, solo que en este caso se aplica solo a los inmigrantes indocumentados. Sin embargo, lejos de ser una carga social, los inmigrantes indocumentados contribuyen de manera positiva a la econom?a de los Estados Unidos. De acuerdo con estudios hechos por el National Immigration Forum, los inmigrantes indocumentados pagan aproximadamente US $7000 millones en impuestos. Algunos de estos impuestos, incluyendo los US $2700 millones destinados a la seguridad social, as? como los US $168 millones al fondo estatal de beneficios para los desempleados, son subsidios directos a dichos sistemas, ya que los trabajadores indocumentados no tienen el derecho legal de recibir dinero de estos fondos a los cuales contribuyen. En el estado de California, el cual cuenta con aproximadamente el 43% de la poblaci?n indocumentada de toda la naci?n, los inmigrantes indocumentados pagan?ademas de los impuestos ya mencionados?US $732 millones adicionales en impuestos estatales y locales. El estado, por otro lado, y de acuerdo al Urban Institute, gasta US $1300 millones en educaci?n para ni?os indocumentados, y US $166 millones en servicios m?dicos de emergencia para sus familias, siendo este ?ltimo el ?nico tipo de servicios m?dicos, proporcionados por el estado, al que tienen derecho los inmigrantes indocumentados. Por lo tanto, es muy dif?cil sostener la idea de que los gastos que se erogan en la educaci?n de ni?os indocumentados, o en los servicios m?dicos de emergencia para sus familias, son una carga social, debido a que dichos inmigrantes pagan, en conjunto, una gran cantidad de dinero en impuestos destinados a fondos estatales de los cuales ellos no reciben beneficios. En otras palabras, los inmigrantes indocumentados aportan mucho m?s de lo que reciben. Adem?s de estas consideraciones, existe un estudio realizado por la UCLA a mediados de los 90s, y que revela que los trabajadores indocumentados contribuyen con aproximadamente el 7% de los US $900,000 millones del producto interno bruto del estado de California, o sea, US $63,000 millones. Si se considera que la poblaci?n indocumentada en California ascend?a, en esos a?os, a 1.4 millones de personas, entonces se puede calcular una contribuci?n individual bruta a la econom?a de California para cada inmigrante indocumentado, la cual ascender?a a aproximadamente US$45,000 anuales, incluidos ni?os, desempleados y personas enfermas o demasiado viejas para trabajar. Por otro lado, y aunque no existan cifras confiables en cuanto al salario promedio de cada inmigrante indocumentado, se sabe que estos reciben salarios muy cercanos, o inclusive por debajo, del salario m?nimo legal que en los a?os de realizaci?n del estudio era de US $4.25 por hora. Si suponemos que todos ellos perciben el salario m?nimo, su ingreso promedio individual al a?o ser?a de US $8840, lo cual se encuentra muy por debajo de la contribuci?n que su labor aporta al producto interno bruto del estado. Es entonces indudable que el trabajo de los inmigrantes indocumentados no solo contribuye con decenas de millones de d?lares a la econom?a estatal. Adem?s de ello, dichos trabajadores reciben solo un peque?o porcentaje de dicha contribuci?n, un porcentaje que es mucho menor al que reciben los trabajadores que son ciudadanos o residentes legales de los Estados Unidos. Dicha diferencia en el nivel de explotaci?n es una fuente extra de ganancias econ?micas para las industrias que dependen de una fuerza de trabajo compuesta principalmente de trabajadores indocumentados. 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. From wires at the-alarm.com Thu Oct 17 22:44:30 2002 From: wires at the-alarm.com (The Alarm!Newswire) Date: Sun Feb 8 02:51:54 2004 Subject: [Dryerase] The Alarm!--PMA lockout Message-ID: PMA locks out longshore workers By Fhar Miess The Alarm! Newspaper Collective In a move that could have wide ramifications for everyone from patrons of stores like Target and Wal-Mart to itinerant workers hopping freight trains to their next job, the Pacific Maritime Association (PMA) on September 29 locked out 10,500 members of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU), indefinitely shutting down all 29 West Coast ports in what it called a ?defensive shutdown.? Traffic through the ports accounts for billions of dollars worth of trade daily, and serves retailers such as Target, Wal-Mart and Home Depot. Union Pacific Railroad announced cancellation of all traffic of international marine containers billed for West Coast port destinations. A representative of the California Trucking Association has estimated some 10,500 to 12,000 truck drivers were being told to stay home because there is no work so long as the PMA keeps the docks shut. The PMA locked out longshore workers in response to what it considers slowdowns: deliberate reductions in productivity on the docks, often used by the union to gain leverage in contract negotiations. The union denied the charge, claiming that members were simply instituting agreed-upon safety procedures to prevent the sort of work environment that resulted in the deaths of five ILWU members in the past seven months. In union-speak, this is called ?work to rule,? where workers will perform work exactly as they are obliged to according to union contracts, safety rules or government regulations. Since those rules are generally not strictly adhered to, this practice results in an inevitable reduction in industrial efficiency. The PMA originally locked out workers on September 28 and opened the ports again on the morning of the next day after negotiations, but by noon most workers on the West Coast were again ordered off the job after the PMA charged that many work positions remained unfilled and productivity was at 54% of normal. The San Francisco Chronicle quoted Richard Mead, president of the ILWU Local 10, as saying, ?they wanted us to come back like we were going to be good little puppy dogs. It doesn?t work like that on the waterfront.? The coastwise contract between ILWU originally expired on July 1 but was renewed on a daily basis until talks broke down September 1. ILWU members remained on the job, but the PMA remained intransigent on the issue of technology and retention of union jobs in its implementation, despite significant offers by ILWU negotiators, leading finally to this weekend?s lockout. The union agreed to meet with the PMA and Federal Mediation and Conciliation Services (FMCS) head Peter Hurtgen on Tuesday, but walked out of negotiations when the PMA negotiating team showed up guarded by armed security personnel. Hurtgen chastized the PMA characterizing their behavior as ?inappropriate and a breach of bargaining protocol.? In a burst of rhetorical fancy, ILWU International President Jim Spinosa declared, ?This shows how they approach negotiations, hiding behind the government and armed thugs. PMA?s lockout is holding a gun to the head of the American economy and now they move to aim real guns at us. We will not be intimidated by these kinds of tactics and we will never reach an agreement as long as the PMA acts as if it can force a settlement at gun point rather than negotiate.? President Bush has urged the parties to resolve the dispute quickly to avoid the severe impact on the US economy and national security that results from the port closures. He has previously threatened the use of the 1947 Taft-Hartley Act to force workers back to the job or to send trained Navy workers to the docks to replace the 10,500 union members. ILWU Local 23 in Tacoma, Washington, has offered to continue loading ships with cargo destined for Alaska because of the large amount of basic necessities Alaskans receive by marine transport, much of it coming through the Port of Tacoma. The union has also pledged to continue handling military cargo and passenger ships. Cruise lines have resorted to bypassing the PMA in order to enlist the help of ILWU members in handling their ships, which ILWU members have offered to do free of charge. 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. From wires at the-alarm.com Thu Oct 17 22:44:26 2002 From: wires at the-alarm.com (The Alarm!Newswire) Date: Sun Feb 8 02:51:54 2004 Subject: [Dryerase] The Alarm!--DV: My story of DV Message-ID: My Story of Domestic Violence By Patrick Letellier The Alarm! Newspaper Collective When I met Stephen, I had no idea he was abusive. Handsome and witty, he was a proud 25 year-old gay man writing his Ph.D. thesis. He swam every day, wrote poetry and was a great kisser. None of those things spelled abuse to me. Honestly, the first time I kissed him I saw stars. We walked into his office at school, closed the door and embraced in a passionate kiss that left my head swimming. I was hooked. He was sweet, attentive and so much fun. We talked a lot and made love even more. He was a great partner. Unfortunately, that was only half the picture. Like most abusers, he kept reins on his violence until the relationship was secure. And his violence began slowly, gradually becoming more frequent and severe. The first abusive thing he did was grab me by the shoulders during an argument and shake me. I didn?t even think of that as violence then. But when I look back over all the incidents, I remember that argument when he crossed the line for the first time. I wish I?d known then to leave and never return. A couple months later, he punched me in the stomach. Then he dropped to his knees and wept. I had no idea why he was crying. I was mad he?d hit me, but mostly confused. ?Don?t worry,? I told him, ?we?ll work it out.? The violence got much worse. He punched, kicked and slapped me?always during arguments, always with the excuse ?you provoked me.? Once he shoved me into a wall so hard the wall broke. Another time he tore up my things: letter, pictures, even clothes. Now I was afraid of him, but unsure how to proceed. I knew getting away would not be easy, and I still hoped the violence would stop. I wanted him to become again the wonderful boyfriend he?d been at first. I held onto the illusion that the violence was caused by some external stress: an argument with me, financial woes, anything. I was wrong. The problem with violence was a problem with him, not any outside force. I left many times. But I was isolated and had nowhere to turn. When I left he?d track me down and beat me even worse. Leaving was more dangerous than staying. Finally I fled thousands of miles to San Francisco. I called to say I never wanted to see him again. But I underestimated him. He told me, calmly, he was coming to San Francisco, and I could either meet him at the airport or he would hunt me down and make my life hell. He threatened to hurt my brother and his wife, whom I was living with. He threatened to come to the restaurant where I worked and turn over every table. He threatened to break every bone in my body. I met him at the airport. There was no violence for months. But the day we signed the lease on our apartment he beat me senseless. The violence was now life threatening. I fought back a lot, but one punch from me meant a tornado of violence in return. He would choke me and bang my head into the floor. Once he tackled me on a sidewalk and pounded my head into the concrete. I thought I?d die there. There were sexual assaults and lots of psychological abuse. He criticized everything I did and said. Everything. I was bewildered, frightened and had no idea how to get away. ?If you try to leave me I?ll hunt you down and kill you,? he?d say. I knew he could. One day I saw a flyer: ?Does the hand that holds you in public strike you in private? Gay Domestic Violence.? I called for help. The counselor helped me make an escape plan, and the next day I escaped. When Steven attacked, I climbed out the living room window and ran down a fire escape. I ran for my life through the streets of San Francisco. I never went back. I hid in the apartment of an acquaintance for four months. I got a restraining order. I filed police reports. I began putting my life back together. Steven stalked me for three more years, but I was not deterred. I wrote a book about gay domestic violence, got a counseling degree and for ten years counseled victims of battering. I do not want anyone to go through what I did. Today I have a wonderful partner, and we?ve been together for four years. I?m amazed at what a gentle soul he is. Occasionally, I think I see Steven on the street: I get very still and ready to run. But he has not bothered me for years, and I believe the ordeal is over. Patrick Letellier is co-author of the book Men Who Beat The Men Who Love Them: Battered Gay Men and Domestic Violence. He lives in Soquel, and can be reached at PatrickGL@aol.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. From wires at the-alarm.com Thu Oct 17 22:44:32 2002 From: wires at the-alarm.com (The Alarm!Newswire) Date: Sun Feb 8 02:51:54 2004 Subject: [Dryerase] The Alarm!--INS officers arrested Message-ID: INS officers arrested in death of deportee By Michelle Stewart The Alarm! Newspaper Collective On Wednesday, September 24, 2002, three INS agents were arrested as they arrived at work in San Antonio, TX. The five-charge indictment was handed down in relation to the beating (and eventual death) of Serafin Olvera-Carrera who was arrested in March 2001. While held for deportation, Olvera-Carrera was allegedly beaten to the point of paralysis by officer Carlos Renya, 42, and then doused with pepperspray by officer Richard Henry Gonzales, 36. The indictment contends that these two officers along with Louis Rey Gomez, 36, violated Olvera-Carrera?s civil rights when they denied him access to medical treatment after the assault. Once allowed treatment Olvera-Carrera was hospitalized and placed on life support. He died in February 2002 after his family removed him from support. The family of the victim are reportedly unsatisfied with the charges, stating a charge of murder should be the outcome of the investigation. Relatives also plan to continue to pursue an investigation into the death, claiming there were more officers involved, and the case was initially covered up. The five indictments carry a maximum penalty of $250,000 and a ten-year prison sentence. INS has placed the three officers on suspension with pay. 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. From wires at the-alarm.com Thu Oct 17 22:44:35 2002 From: wires at the-alarm.com (The Alarm!Newswire) Date: Sun Feb 8 02:51:54 2004 Subject: [Dryerase] The Alarm!--Eye on the INS 10-18-02 Message-ID: Eye on the INS This is where we can start By Michelle Stewart The Alarm! Newspaper Collective Each week I sit down with a list of story ideas and decide which one I should profile in the column. Occasionally, I will write a smaller sidebar about an incident that I didn?t cover in my column. However, whether it is a column and a sidebar or just the column, there is never enough space to cover everything. There is always another horrible situation left unmentioned. Such is the nature of immigration policy both in the US and across the globe. We, as a global society, just can?t seem to deal with migration. This week I was all prepared to compare and contrast US and Canadian immigration policies. I was going to look at the fact that Canada is essentially begging for immigrants right now, while the US is reinforcing its border. As I was teasing out my angles and finding snippets of information about population stats and economic trends, I came across these two passages: In the first, Canada?s Federal Immigration Minister Denis Coderre stated, ?We have problems of either concentration or retention and that?s why we need to focus on these issues.? In the second, US-Mexico ambassador nominee Tony Garza said, ?[O]rderly, secured and legal [migration is needed that is] tied to our labor needs. It cannot be an amnesty program. It must be some sort of earned legalization.? Coderre?s references to retention and concentration sound as if he is discussing water levels, not human beings. For Garza, it is clear that first and foremost those who enter the US are only to be here when the US wantsthem to satisfy US needs. Never have I found two passages that sit side-by-side so comfortably to illustrate what is at the core of immigration policy. For whether you are examining immigration policy in the US or the EU, you will find that these nations share one common thought: migration is not people moving, but rather labor moving. The question is who will open their doors to this mobile labor pool. At this historic moment, Canada is one of the only major economies opening its doors to labor. Not that Canada is displaying its altruistic side with its ?open door? labor policy. Rather, Canada flings its doors wide open, because it hopes that, out of the thousands, perhaps just hundreds will suit its needs. Canada will be looking to bring in a target of 300,000 immigrants next year, not because it likes immigrants and craves diversity, but rather because it is desperate for skilled laborers. In fact, Canada is so desperate for skilled laborers that it is hoping to bring in even more people than last year, despite the fact that its three major urban centers are nearly buckling under pressure. Toronto alone assumes the burden of over 50% of the immigrants that arrive. After Toronto come Montreal and Vancouver. What is missing in Canada?s bid to gather up foreign, ?skilled? laborers and insert them into the Canadian economy is that once people arrive in Canada their professional credentials are often worthless. Flocking to urban centers, trained individuals find themselves employed with the unskilled because Canada has no system to ?honor? credentials from other countries. And instead of doing something, directly, to address this matter, Canada has turned its attention to the notion of concentration and retention. In response to the impacts felt in the major urban centers, Canada is contemplating a new program for immigrants wherby they must work for 3?5 years in remote locations in the country in order to gain permanent residency. Coupled with this policy would be the understanding that if an immigrant broke the ?contract? and left for the city, they would be subject to deportation. The combination of lack of respect for credentials, strange ideas in the immigration policy and other factors has led many immigrants to leave Canada just as quickly as they arrive. Canada identifies this problem as ?retention.? Yet with no concrete solutions or innovative ideas, it plows forward with the intent to draw in the equivalent of one percent of its population (in immigrants) next year. But what does this have to do with Garza?s comment? Well, in Garza?s comment we see the common theme of labor. Garza speaks loudly to what many Americans seem preoccupied with, which is the notion of secure borders and legal migration. However, he points to the fact that the US is reliant on outside labor sources. This discussion is fairly well known, so I won?t elaborate as I did with the Canadian situation. So, here we sit with two countries? policies in front of us, and we find we have the classic case of wanting to have your cake and eat it too. Both of these nations are the first to admit they need outside labor?both skilled and unskilled whether each nation will admit it or not. However, they wish to dictate all of the parameters of how this outside labor force is allowed to operate. In Canada, it may seem like an open door policy, but it has as many complications and series of manipulations as US policy. Indeed, both these nations treat migrating people as nothing more than components of a mega-machine (the economy). As such, they are interchangeable and without individuality and/or needs for consideration. Which takes me back to the opening of this column, where I discussed the complicated matter of dealing with such a large subject in such a short space and deciding who to give attention to. In this case, I swayed towards the matter of US and Canadian immigration policy. However, this is just scraping snippets of information. The matter needs more space and consideration, as do all of the stories I do (or don?t) cover in this column. The stories need more space, the people involved need to be recognized as individuals not components and the overarching issues need to be fully considered. For right now, the federal government is drafting and implementing a knee-jerk, reactionary policy and as a public we are responding (for those of us who respond) accordingly: we have knee-jerk reactions to individual situations and forget that the ?individual situation? is not actually isolated but rather a symptom of the many flaws within the system. We need to become more unified and try to understand the undertones and nuances of the matters at hand. It is no longer enough to say ?that is unfair? or ?that is a violation of human rights,? because the situation with which we are confronted with is actually global, not isolated. It has patterns and we must begin to recognize them as such. The ways in which economy, labor and xenophobia intersect with immigration are tangible and we need to acquire a trained eye to recognize the trends. One way to do so is to become part of the growing movement of people who are training their eyes and using their voices. I am often asked, ?what do you want people to do?? I get put off by the question and often flip the discussion to avoid an answer. But today, I think I can say with certainty, that I want people to begin to mind these matters, to consider them with patience and start talking to other people, start becoming familiar with those who are working on these issues. For you might believe that immigration has nothing to do with you if you are not an immigrant. I disagree. For each person who dies entering the US, because of programs like Operation Gatekeeper, you are implicated. You are implicated because the economy in which you participate in is one of the chief culprits. You may not be a policy maker, but as a participant in capitalism you rely on migration, and though you may wish to turn a blind eye to the effects of this system on various people, your hands are soiled. This is where we can start. 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. From wires at the-alarm.com Thu Oct 17 22:45:00 2002 From: wires at the-alarm.com (The Alarm!Newswire) Date: Sun Feb 8 02:51:55 2004 Subject: [Dryerase] The Alarm!--Highway 1 widening controversy Message-ID: Controversy Over Funding for Hwy 1 Widening By Rachel Showstack The Alarm! Newspaper Contributor Now that the California Transportation Commission (CTC) has refused to set aside extra State Transportation Improvement Program (STIP) funding for the controversial Highway 1 Widening Project, Santa Cruz County must look elsewhere for the $7 million needed for the project?s environmental review. The Regional Transportation Commission (RTC) expects to decide where that money will come from after a public hearing at its November 7 meeting. Several transportation commissioners have expressed interest in reprogramming funds from previously approved projects, including the $10 million set aside for the acquisition of the Union Pacific Railroad right-of-way from Santa Cruz to Watsonville, where the RTC plans to develop the Santa Cruz County Coastal Rail Trail. But on October 10 the RTC staff made a recommendation for the commission to consider programming new federal transportation money?Surface Transportation Program (STP) and/or Congestion Mitigation Air Quality (CMAQ) funds?toward the environmental review, as an alternative to reprogramming already promised funds. ?Taking money away from projects you?ve already promised money to sets a really bad precedent,? said Transportation Planner Rachel Moriconi. Reprogramming the funds set aside for the rail right-of-way would definitely stall acquisition, which would in turn postpone the project, she added. The RTC is currently in closed negotiations with Union Pacific to settle on a price for the purchase of the right-of-way. Let the voters decide Regardless of how the RTC decides to fund the Highway 1 Widening Project?s environmental review, it has yet to face the question of funding for the project, itself. The latest ?cost-escalated? budget estimate for widening the highway to six lanes from Morrisey to State Park Drive is $328 million. Some transportation commissioners have recently begun to express interest in widening the highway to eight lanes and extending the project to Larkin Valley Road, which would greatly increase the project cost. But the RTC has only committed to spending $46 million of its projected available funds. The remaining funds would have to come from other sources. The commission recently voted to place a sales tax measure to acquire funding for the project on the November 2004 ballot. For a sales tax measure to pass in Santa Cruz County, it must be approved by two thirds of the voters. According to County Supervisor and Transportation Commissioner Mardi Wormhoudt, it would be impossible to fund the project without a sales tax. Santa Cruz County will have to wait another two years to know whether it can afford to widen the highway. According to Micah Posner of People Power! and the Campaign for Sensible Transportation, programming any kind of funding toward the environmental review without voter approval of the sales tax would be undemocratic. ?They are trying to widen the highway before they know if the public will support it being widened,? he said. But Wormhoudt argued that the RTC should go through with the environmental review because she wants Santa Cruz residents to be able to make an informed decision on whether the Highway 1 Widening Project should happen. ?Its important that people know what the costs are, both economically and environmentally,? she explained. Where has all the money gone? Santa Cruz Mayor Christopher Krohn asked the CTC not to provide additional STIP funds for the highway-widening project because he was concerned that the development of other important transportation infrastructure could fall by the wayside. Instead of widening the highway, Krohn said the RTC should focus its resources on metering lights for highway on-ramps, a ?parking cash-out? program, which would encourage commuters to leave their cars outside of the city, additional funding for the Santa Cruz Metropolitan Transit District and the implementation of the county bike plan. Using new state or federal transportation funds or reprogramming existing funds toward the Highway 1 Widening Project?s environmental review would undoubtedly make less money available for other projects, according to Moriconi. In anticipation of the need for extra funds for the environmental review, the RTC voted in June to shift funding for three regional projects, including the $10 million it set aside for the acquisition of the railroad right-of-way, from fiscal year ?02??03 to fiscal year ?03??04. Acquiring the right-of-way is the first step in developing the Coastal Rail Trail, a twenty-mile bike lane along the railroad corridor. Wormhoudt, who voted against setting aside the rail funds, sees the acquisition of the right-of-way as a key element in creating a balanced countywide transportation system. ?The money earmarked for the purchase of the rail line is a really modest sum, and it?s all we?ve got toward providing some sort of alternative,? she said. ?I really hope there would not be an attempt to use that money.? If the RTC were to decide to use the rail money for a different purpose, it would have to get approval from the CTC. The Congestion Mitigation and Air Quality (CMAQ) Improvement Act, a potential source of new federal money for the environmental review, is dedicated to funding projects that improve air quality through mitigating traffic congestion. High Occupancy Vehicle (HOV) lanes, the favored option for the added lane, qualify for CMAQ because they are designed to reduce traffic. But Campaign for Sensible Transportation member Peter Scott argued that HOV lanes only work to relieve congestion under very specific conditions. ?You have to have at least ten percent HOV vehicles,? he explained. ?Otherwise, you don?t get optimum help adding HOV lanes.? Lanes that are originally designated as HOV lanes frequently become standard multi-flow lanes, Scott added. If STP and CMAQ funds are not programmed toward the environmental review, they could otherwise be used for projects like bike lanes and road improvements. High costs for what? At the October 10 RTC meeting, when Transportation Commissioner and County Supervisor Jan Beautz insisted that the environmental review should address the possibility of widening the highway to eight lanes instead of six, Wormhoudt questioned the project?s value as a cure-all solution to Santa Cruz?s transportation problems. ?This escalation of discussion of lanes is exactly why we can?t talk of using one transportation alternative to solve all of our transportation problems,? she said. ?It indicates the absurdity of the never-ending battle of trying to solve traffic congestion problems by adding freeway lanes.? According to Beautz, widening Highway 1 is more important than bicycle infrastructure because it would reduce congestion on neighborhood streets. ?The congestion on Highway 1 causes local residents to use surface streets to drive across the county,? she said. ?We need to keep our cross-country traffic on the highway and not put it off on local streets where people live.? But Wormhoudt argued that when the freeway reaches capacity people are likely to use alternative modes of transportation rather than taking local streets. ?People have decided it?s not worth it to make that commute at commute hours. They?ve arranged carpools, chosen to take the bus, or decided not to work so far from home,? Wormhoudt said. ?But once you?ve added lanes people go back to that mode.? An informed debate Last spring, the RTC considered placing a sales tax measure for the highway-widening project on this November?s ballot. But after conducting an extensive poll through Gene Bregman & Associates on voters? willingness to approve the sales tax, the commission decided to postpone the measure until 2004. Sixty-one percent of voters polled said there was a ?great need? to widen Highway 1 with carpool lanes in order to reduce traffic. However, only 43% of those polled said they would vote in favor of a ballot measure to provide funds for the project by instituting a one half cent sales tax throughout Santa Cruz County for a period of twenty years. A 20-year half-cent sales tax would raise about $400 million over the next twenty years, which would provide the funding needed for the project. The poll results did not indicate a high likelihood that two-thirds of Santa Cruz County voters would approve the measure. According to Posner, ?The reason the RTC did not put the measure on this cycle is because they?re not sure it?s going to pass,? he said. ?To pass a sales tax, you really have to get consensus among the public.? The public hearing on funding for the environmental review will be held at the Santa Cruz City Council Chambers (FC) on November 7. Those interested in learning more about transportation issues in Santa Cruz County are welcome to visit People Power! at the Santa Cruz Hub for Sustainable Transportation, 224 Walnut Ave., Santa Cruz, CA 95060 or call 425-0665. 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. From wires at the-alarm.com Thu Oct 17 22:45:02 2002 From: wires at the-alarm.com (The Alarm!Newswire) Date: Sun Feb 8 02:51:55 2004 Subject: [Dryerase] The Alarm!--Book Review Message-ID: Reviewing the Reviews: Finkelstein and The Holocaust Industry by Graham Parsons The Alarm! Newspaper Contributor When Norman Finkelstein?s latest book The Holocaust Industry: Reflections on the Exploitation of Jewish Suffering was first published two years ago, the major American and Israeli press took notice only to resoundingly condemn and dismiss it. Three examples are illustrative: Omer Bartov in The New York Times Book Review, Adam Bresnick in The Los Angeles Times Book Review, and Yair Sheleg in Haaretz Magazine. Each of these reviews offers at least one of the following two types of responses: The first type is personal attack of the author, Norman Finkelstein. Bartov calls Finkelstein ?sad,? ?smug,? ?paranoid,? ?indecent,? ?juvenile,? ?self-righteous,? ?arrogant,? ?stupid,? ?fanatic? and ?ruthless and reckless.? Sheleg describes him as a ?lone wolf,? and suggests that Finkelstein?s childhood in, as he describes it, ??a bitter and distrustful home? is the ?root cause? of some of the assertions in his book. Taking this attack further, both Bartov and Sheleg agree that Finkelstein lacks integrity because, while chastising those who use the Holocaust as a tool for personal and political gains, he is himself exploiting it in similar ways. ?As ironic and paradoxical as it may seem, Finkelstein is also sustained today by the Holocaust,? writes Sheleg. And Bartov adds that ??his sensational ?revelations? and outrageous accusations draw a great deal of public and media attention?? which ??serve[s] his own ends.? In fact, Finkelstein was released from his position at Hunter College of the City University of New York?where he taught political theory?-not long after the publication of The Holocaust Industry. The second type of response in the reviews is an association of the book with anti-Semitism. Bresnick opines that Finkelstein?s tone is ??often redolent of that used by virulent anti-Semites.? Bartov compares The Holocaust Industry with the standard anti-Semitic work?The Protocols of the Elders of Zion?and claims that the book will ??serve anti-Semites around the world.? Similarly, Sheleg remarks that, in Germany, Finkelstein is ??a darling of the extreme right (which only by dint of strict German law does not call itself by the more explicit term of ?neo-Nazis?).? Sheleg also quotes an array of intellectuals including journalist David Witztum (?The most conspicuous fact in the book is the hatred?), Professor Israel Guttman (?We should consider it nothing more than an anti-Semitic lampoon?) and Professor Hans Momsen (?a most trivial book, which appeals to easily aroused anti-Semitic prejudices?) to help make the attack against Finkelstein?s alleged anti-Semitism. One wonders how these authors find no noteworthy conflict in branding a Jewish scholar, himself the son of holocaust survivors, an anti-Semite. Aside from occasionally attacking statements peripheral to Finkelstein?s central arguments and questioning things like the book?s novelty, these reviewers do not take their criticisms much further. In fact, in the case of Bartov?s review, it is basically limited to the above accusations. Without knowing anything about Finkelstein?s book, except that it actually contains a central thesis and argument, what we should note after observing these responses is that the basic question, ?What do you think of the book???as opposed to the insignificant question ?What do you think of Finkelstein???remains not only unanswered, but unaddressed. The fact that these reviewers chose to express their fear and anger about Finkelstein suggests their inability to think critically about the matters presented in his book, and the fact that these hysterical reviews were the only comments published in these major resources of the American and Israeli print media suggests more ominous trends. So, allow me to respond to the standing question, ?What do you think of the book?? In my view, The Holocaust Industry is an intelligent, extraordinarily provocative, bitterly passionate critique of Jewish elites and organizations in the United States. Like Finkelstein?s previous three books?The Rise and Fall of Palestine, Image and Reality of the Israel-Palestine Conflict, and A Nation on Trial?it is erudite and delightfully iconoclastic literature. One of Finkelstein?s central contentions in The Holocaust Industry is that the Nazi holocaust?the actual historical event?is, for many, no longer an object of rational historical inquiry. It is now an ideological construction; it has become The Holocaust. For Finkelstein, The Holocaust can be identified by two claims: ?The Holocaust marks a categorically unique historical event,? and ?The Holocaust marks the climax of an irrational, eternal Gentile hatred of Jews.? With his typical combination of wryness and reason, Finkelstein convincingly argues that both of these dogmas are untenable, and therefore, The Holocaust is a bankrupt concept. A quick look at existing commentary demonstrates that The Holocaust is indeed regularly discussed as Finkelstein describes it, and, for serious scholars of the Nazi holocaust, his critique should be welcomed and relatively uncontroversial. The real debate ought to surround Finkelstein?s explanation for the existence of The Holocaust. Finkelstein claims that The Holocaust was created and persists today because of its utility. He notes that the above two tenets of The Holocaust are each crucial justifications of the Zionist enterprise, and that The Holocaust was not politically prominent in American Jewish life until after the 1967 Israel-Arab war, when Israel demonstrated its vast military superiority in the region, and hence became the recipient of wholehearted US support. It was at this time, Finkelstein argues, that American Jewish elites seized the opportunity to advance their project of assimilation by inventing and wielding The Holocaust. Thus they began to curry favor with American power by identifying themselves with Israel, the new US ally, and to deflect all criticism of the Jewish state with their ?indispensable ideological weapon,? The Holocaust. This is all certainly ambitious, but still fascinating and cogently presented. And there?s more. More recently, Finkelstein continues, Jewish elites have used The Holocaust as a weapon for extorting reparations from Switzerland, Germany and Poland. He alleges that with vicious spoken and published attacks, and threats of economic sanctions, the Jewish Claims Conference has extorted billions of dollars from these European countries. In the process, Finkelstein asserts, they distorted the number of living holocaust survivors in order to inflate the reparations sums, and later insisted on earmarking portions for their own agencies instead of providing for actual holocaust survivors. He also thoroughly demonstrates the glaring contradictions in the rhetoric employed by these organizations and the US government over the issue of reparations. Specifically, their simultaneous lack of concern over the American record of compensation for seized holocaust-era assets, and their expressed disregard for African-American claims to slave labor compensation. Finkelstein proposes, ?The Holocaust may yet turn out to be the ?greatest robbery in the history of mankind.?? At this point, we can begin to see the real reason why Finkelstein might be so disliked. He is merciless in his attacks of specific organizations and individuals. For example, he unremittingly lambasts the sanctimonious figure of holocaust survivor and author Elie Wiesel. ?Elie Wiesel is The Holocaust,? he writes, and, like it, his ??prominence is a function of his ideological utility.? Ultimately, I agree with historian Raul Hilberg, who has expressed his sympathy to central claims in The Holocaust Industry, but adds, ?I wish it were longer.? Indeed, some of Finkelstein?s judgements seem facile. For instance, in accounting for the existence of The Holocaust, he ignores the emergence of robust identity politics in American political discourse in recent decades. We have seen numerous minority groups, including women and homosexuals, view themselves as distinct social groups, identified by their shared victimization, and with their own ?unique? interests. Although Finkelstein pays it no attention, it is sensible to think that the persistence of The Holocaust within some circles of the American Jewish community ought to be viewed, at least partly, in the context of this broader sociopolitical development. Still, The Holocaust Industry is a wonderful polemic. If we treat it honestly, it should consolidate Finkelstein?s career as an astute critic of US-Israel relations. If, prior to reading this review, you had not yet heard the name Norman Finkelstein, I trust you will again soon. 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. From wires at the-alarm.com Thu Oct 17 22:45:05 2002 From: wires at the-alarm.com (The Alarm!Newswire) Date: Sun Feb 8 02:51:55 2004 Subject: [Dryerase] The Alarm!--Graffiti as social resistance Message-ID: Graffiti as social resistance/reclaiming public space By durt The Alarm! Newspaper Contributor Possibly the first time I ever went out spraypainting was when I was in high school in San Francisco when I was 15. A few friends and I went out to Ocean Beach at three in the morning or some such crazy hour. This was before the huge wall separating the street and the sand got painted over and there still was artwork and scrawlings from the 80s?and even some from the 70s?all up and down the beach. I don?t even remember what kind of paint or even what color it was, but I do remember the excitement and rush I got when I painted the first durt monster on the concrete wall. As far as graffiti art pieces go, it was messy and simplistic. It was a very clear moment for me, when I felt like a part of the long history of graffiti as an artform, and felt happy to be doing something a little bit different as a white queer gurl from the city. At the time, I had also just self-published my first zine called durt that had a lot of poetry and art from my friends. Graffiti became a way for me to advertise for it. This was the beginning of my participation in The Lost Tribe and Super Froot as a crew of kids (mostly punks), and the beginning of my passion for street art and graffiti as an artistic and political movement. In San Francisco, I spent quite a bit of time running around the city making art wherever and whenever I could. Today, I spend less time at it, but that?s mostly because I don?t have my crew down here with me. I know of a few graffiti writers in Santa Cruz (like Ideal and gerl), but other than that, I?ve been pretty cut off from other artists. I think this isolation has to do with the stigma around graffiti. No one really wants to speak out as graff artists because of the law. Ever since Proposition 21?California legislation that targeted youth by incarcerating them earlier and more often, and by allowing cops to do more surveillance on anyone suspected of being in a ?gang??was passed there have been increasing crackdowns on graffiti. In Santa Cruz there has been a fuss over strengthening the Graffiti Enforcement Team that investigates graffiti cases and teaches TAG (Talking About Graffiti) classes for cited ?vandals? and their parents. There have been suggestions that Santa Cruz should model its enforcement on San Jose?s method: first time offenders do 66 hours for a Weekend Paint Program, second time offenders do 132, third time is a felony, with additional penalties: fines, suspension of licenses and house arrest with an ankle monitor somewhere along the way. Somehow I?ve managed to skirt the cops, and whenever I get a chance I like drawing on the sidewalks of this town. Graffiti art is like most other art forms in terms of its messages, both personal and political. However, there is an element to graffiti wherein it is ultimately political because it is illegal. Graffiti has gotten a bad name. Many people think of it as defacement of property. Even more people probably object to graffiti on private property. Graffiti has gotten a bad name for other reasons as well, mostly because of territorial disputes and mopetitiion between crews and individual artists. The general public sees graffiti and thinks ?gangs.? I know that there is violence surrounding graffiti in some situations. But for me, graffiti is not about violence. It is about freedom of expression, and, if anything, is a release of emotion, truth and reality. I?m not interested in competing with anyone. I?m all about appreciating the beauty of other people?s art and writing as much as possible myself. Inspiration and Beautification I like to paint with spray cans, but I also like making stickers, stencils, using pens and shoe polish. In San Francisco, I pretty much like all the stuff my friends do: icide, special, eyesoar, disease. I also really like Superstar and Heart 101?s artwork. A lot of great art is in the Mission in San Francisco, including in the Pond Gallery and Mission Badlands/Balazo Gallery on 24th and Mission Streets. For me, guerrilla art/graffiti art has been an essential part of my life. When I see graffiti art that is beautiful and has a distinctive political/personal message, then my creative energy is restored. Mostly I think graffiti needs to encourage positive action and connection to community. I love seeing statements that keep me going and keep me excited about humanity. Like when you see a sticker and realize that someone else in the world/community actually cares! I think graffiti is a way for me to express feelings about humanity and political issues, and be able to reach a large audience. I hope to be able to reach people I wouldn?t usually get to talk to about issues of war, sexism or fatphobia. Being a gurl artist seems to complicate matters. Most of the graffiti artists I know are guys. I know there are a ton of women street artists out there. Let?s form a crew. Going out by yourself is a great way to prove you?re tough, but I?m more interested in having a good time with artists and friends. For me, there?s no need to prove myself as an artist. My style comes from a place of not really caring what other folks think of me. I don?t know sometimes if I can really call myself a graffiti artist because my style is pretty sloppy and unskilled. I just like drawing messy monsters and happy creatures all over the place. I also like drawing hearts with anarchy signs in them and writing things like ?no f**king war? and ?riots not diets.? I?m not really trying to be skilled at it, I?m just putting my own form of kind of simplistic expression into the world to try and make some people smile. I might even want to organize doing a mural somewhere in Santa Cruz legitimately (legally), like the artwork at the Teen Center and Motion Pacific by Elijah. A long term goal I have is to get as many gurls, trans folk and feminists as possible to get together and take over the boring grey freeway underpasses, telephone polls?anywhere there is public, blank, sterile concrete?and transform them into artistic expressions of resistance and revolutionary joy. ?Why do you do graffiti?? Its fun. I meet interesting people. It?s pretty liberating to be able to make a statement and beautify the place where you live. I always try to encourage people to express themselves artistically and some people don?t have access to art school. So why not paint beautiful murals and add some color to the concrete streets? I?m very much a fan of the Do It Yourself (DIY) ethic. That?s why I think you don?t need a lot of fancy art supplies or canvases to do art. That?s why I make zines and encourage any form of public/free art, spoken word and art that reaches out into the community where you live and inspires those around you. Graffiti, billboard modification and wheat-pasting are all great ways to get messages across. I hope more people will realize that it?s a form of art and expression that shouldn?t be criminalized but rather encouraged. Take a hint from groups like Precita Eyes in SF, where the art of youth is validated and taken seriously. Provide spaces for youth to display their talents and know that we?re not going to stop beautifying the world we live in. For more info on other organizations and groups see: www.artcrimes.com (HUGE source of graffiti art and links online), www.culturecache.com (net gallery for emerging artists), www.mucketymuck.org (Pond Gallery in SF), www.precitaeyes.org (Precita Eyes Mural Arts Center in SF), www.corporateswine.net (Coporate Swine) 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. From wires at the-alarm.com Thu Oct 17 22:45:04 2002 From: wires at the-alarm.com (The Alarm!Newswire) Date: Sun Feb 8 02:51:55 2004 Subject: [Dryerase] The Alarm!--CPRB takes comments on selective enforcement Message-ID: CPRB met with public to discuss selective enforcement and police harassment By Halie Johnson The Alarm! Newspaper Collective On Monday, October 14, the Citizens? Police Review Board (CPRB) met with the public to address the problem of police harassment and selective enforcement in the City of Santa Cruz. During the two hour meeting members of the public spoke about their concerns and experiences with Santa Cruz Police Department and public policies. Of those who stepped up to the microphone, a common complaint was the amount of harassment and surveillance people were suffering for free speech activities and some forms of political expression. Many also spoke of witnessing and experiencing police discrimination based on physical appearance. Among some of the constructive feedback the CPRB received, Sherri Conable spoke on behalf of ?People for a Free and Equal Downtown,? presenting a draft resolution and urging the CPRB to recommend that City Council vote the draft into public policy. The resolution called for an abolition of discrimination in the City ?in any form, against any group of people, based on race, color, religion, sexual orientation, age, economic status, appearance, lifestyle choices or any other class based category.? The resolution went on the say ?The City of Santa Cruz resolves that selective enforcement of the law (whether local, state or federal) against any such group of people will not be tolerated, nor will any city funds be spent to support such enforcement.? Mark Halfmoon, Chairperson of the CPRB, intends to bring the resolution to the table, as is, at the CPRB?s December meeting (Halfmoon and Vice Chairperson, Brent Fouse, will be at a convention for the National Association of Civilian Oversight of Law Enforcement, in Cambridge Massachusetts during the CPRB?s November 4 meeting). Halfmoon was pleased with the meeting?s turnout of up to 50 participants, comparing it to prior meetings where the City Chambers were visited by only two or three members of the public, on average. City Council Members Ed Porter and Emily Reilly even made appearances at the meeting. In the past Porter has expressed the desire to abolish the CPRB. Halfmoon explained that he had received pressure to postpone this meeting because of concerns about it affecting voters? support for Measure P on the November 2002 ballot. He disagreed, and said ?I believe that if Measure P passes, it?ll be the fault of City Council for not making it clear to the public that it won?t just be homeless service agencies, for example, that are affected negatively, but everybody is going to hurt from it. The police department and the fire department will be on the cutting block.? The CPRB will meet again on November 4 at Santa Cruz City Council Chambers. Members of the public are encouraged to attend and express their opinions on the agenda. To file a complaint about police misconduct contact the CPRB at 420-6295, or visit their office from Monday-Friday, 8 a.m. ? 12 p.m., at 915 Cedar St., SC. 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. From wires at the-alarm.com Thu Oct 17 22:45:12 2002 From: wires at the-alarm.com (The Alarm!Newswire) Date: Sun Feb 8 02:51:55 2004 Subject: [Dryerase] The Alarm!--H2O: Locals struggle against private water interests Message-ID: <01D2A0EF-E24C-11D6-AE6A-003065F4865E@the-alarm.com> Felton joins the fight against privatized water Residents, activists and decision-makers battle German conglomerate RWE-AG over acquisition of Felton?s water rights By Fhar Miess The Alarm! Newspaper Collective What does our own town of Felton have in common with Chattanooga, Tennessee, Lexington, Kentucky and Peoria, Illinois? All these cities, among many others, have engaged in struggles to reclaim their municipal water systems from private corporations and conglomerates. Felton is the latest to join the fight. Santa Cruz County Supervisor Jeff Almquist, whose district encompasses Felton and much of the rest of San Lorenzo Valley, recently discovered that a German multi-utility named Rheinisch-Westf?lisches Elektrizit?tswerk Aktiengesellschaft (say that ten times fast), or RWE-AG, has laid plans to purchase California-American Water Company (Cal-Am), which owns water rights and facilities that serve the Felton community. Unfortunately, notice of the acquisition and Public Utilities Commission (PUC) hearings to approve it went to the Santa Cruz County district attorney and county clerk, rather than the county counsel. According to Almquist, this mixup resulted in a delay that excluded Santa Cruz County from participation in the review of PUC proceedings. Almquist and his staff have been vocal in their opposition to this corporate merger, as well as rate hikes proposed by Cal-Am of 57% over the next three years, despite earlier company promises that rate hikes would be on hold until 2005 after the company acquired Citizens Utilities Company in 1999. It was first owned by a small, local company before being acquired by Citizens Utilities, based in Connecticut. Citizens bought a number of municipal water systems through the 90s and diversified into telecommunications with the deregulation of that industry. They subsequently sold their water utilities operations and management across the US to the various regional subsidiaries of American Water Works Company. In Felton, that meant the California-American Water Co. Throughout that time, Ginger recalls the same few people staffing the local office. While they were never particularly responsive to service requests, she claims that the various mergers have only served to add consecutive layers of bureaucracy to insulate them from their customers. RWE-AG RWE, founded in Germany at the end of the 19th century, is a multi-utility conglomerate of 848 wholly-owned companies. It is Germany?s second largest publicly-held corporation and the world?s third largest for-profit water provider, behind French companies Suez and Vivendi. After its acquisition of American Water Works through its Thames subsidiaries, RWE will be the largest investor-owned water utility company in the United States. For most of its history, RWE focussed on electricity production and delivery. It grew substantially during Hitler?s reign and even more so in the post-WWII period with the help of Allied powers and the Marshall Plan. It surpassed its peak war-time production levels within only a few years, despite the widespread destruction of its infrastructure near the end of the war. More recently, the company has focussed on acquisition of smaller utilities companies in electricity, waste management and water, using their existing customer base to expand profits from the sale of other services to those same customers. They have drawn upon the leverage given to large corporations by economic liberalization to expand this model globally. The company has come under fire from environmental groups for its practices of illegal dumping and storage of nuclear waste in Europe. Thames Water, Britain?s largest water utility, was recently acquired by RWE. US water systems will be organized under the control of this new RWE subsidiary pending regulatory approval. According to the Environment Agency of England and Wales, Thames Water was Britain?s worst offender of anti-pollution regulations two years running (in 1999 and 2000). RWE also recently acquired Azurix, the former water services division of Enron, in addition to hiring a number of mid-level power traders and structurers from the scandal-stricken energy giant. The poor safety record of RWE?s US coal-mining operations has likewise opened the corporation up to public criticism. American Water Works While many local communities, Felton included, have fought privatization of their most basic resource on the basis of wanting protection from the interests of a foreign conglomerate, American Water Works (AWW) is not much better. Executives at AWW have been thoroughly behind the acquisition by RWE/Thames. There is nothing hostile about this takeover. While J. James Barr, CEO of AWW, will be retiring after the acquisition is completed, Marilyn Ware, Chairperson of the company?s Board of Directors will be taking a high-level consulting position in RWE-AG. The economic model that led AWW to be the leading private water service provider in the US through mergers and acquisitions is perfectly in line with the profit-driven and expansionist model of RWE. AWW was bought by John H. Ware, Jr. in 1947 and has largely been in the control of the Ware family since then. Four of the company?s directors are members of the Ware family (according to Securities and Exchange Commission files, the occupation of one of those Ware family members is ?homemaker,? revealing some fairly serious nepotism). All-American family though they may be, they are by no means protectionist. Marilyn Ware is Chairperson of the Executive Committee of the Eisenhower Fellowships, an organization committed to promoting ?international understanding and productivity through the exchange of information, ideas and perspectives among emerging leaders throughout the world.? The Chairman of this organization is Henry Kissinger. The two men listed as ?Honorary Chairmen? are former presidents George Bush and Gerald Ford. Donald Rumsfeld is identified as ?Chairman Emeritus? of the Eisenhower Fellowships. Last month, President Bush appointed Marilyn Ware to the National Infrastructure Advisory Committee, charged with safeguarding the security of US banking and finance, transportation, energy, information technology and manufacturing infrastructures. Ms. Ware?s ties to the Bush family go deeper than this, though. She and other members of the Ware family have given over $100,000 to Bush election campaigns in addition to organizational support. The Bessemer Group, which manages investments for rich folks with at least $10 million to spare, invests millions of shares in American Water Works Company, giving it a 6.2% stake in the company in 2001. The Bessemer Group also manages the not-insignificant investment finances of George Bush, Sr. If the RWE acquisition survives regulatory scrutiny (as it likely will), the massive proceeds of the sale will not go primarily to faceless and feared German bureaucrats and investors, but to an all-American plutocrat whose mug we are all too familiar with. In our own back yard RWE executives, however, seem to have underestimated the anti-German sentiment that still lurks in American society. Communities across the country, already irked by rate hikes and poor service from American Water Works, are drawing the line at having their water rights owned and controlled by what they perceive as a foreign power hostile to us just decades ago and becoming increasingly antagonistic to our present federal administration on the question of Iraq. Through referenda, bond measures and eminent domain proceedings, communities as far flung as Chattanooga, Tennessee and as nearby as Montara, California (just north of Half Moon Bay) are kicking American Water Works and RWE out, often urged on by a fear of German economic invasion, shrouded in the language of ?security.? Of course, not all of the critiques of for-profit water service fall into the protectionist, nationalist (or regionalist) categories so often and so easily derided by ?liberal? economists. For instance, some of County Supervisor Jeff Almquist?s constituents have expressed frustration that he remained silent on continuing problems with the operation and management of Felton?s water system until a foreign conglomerate came into the picture. Residents of Felton and local activists are now calling for the seizure of the utility?s facilities in the area so that it can be merged with the neighboring San Lorenzo Valley Water District, a local, publicly-controlled utility. Aside from RWE?s poor environmental record in Europe, residents note the years of poor service under both Citizens Utility and California-American Water Company, which is only likely to get worse as management is taken over by RWE?s subsidiaries. Felton residents also point to exploitive rate hikes, which could be avoided by capitalizing and managing the water system locally. Adding insult to injury, according to residents, RWE is in negotiations with Arrowhead Water Company, now owned by Perrier Corporation of France, to export water from Felton. Arrowhead was caught stealing water from the area in 1989 and was fined $100,000 in what was at the time the largest land-use fine ever collected in the State of California. As municipal water systems have changed hands and for-profit providers have been unable to consistently deliver customer service or clean water, many communities became antsy but were often unable to develop the political will to reclaim their water systems in the face of mammoth public relations campaigns (American Water Works subsidiaries spent $6 million in the Peoria and Chattanooga fights alone, much of it going to the PR firm of Burson-Marsteller). But as French and German firms attempt to take over, the combination of a nationalism mirroring the unilateralism of the Bush administration and a still-burgeoning anti-globalization movement has begun to mount resistance to the expansion of privatization. A global struggle But all too often, the struggle in US communities against investor-owned water utilities remains isolated from the struggle of communities around the world facing similar threats. Water giants such as Suez, Vivendi, Perrier and RWE (that many of the largest companies are French is no accident?France was the first to privatize water on a large scale under Napoleon III), in combination with US firms such as Bechtel and Monsanto, are systematically divvying up the entirety of the planet?s fresh water resources. Much of this splitting of the spoils has been facilitated and encouraged by governments and international bodies such as the United Nations, which recently declared fresh water to be a ?need? rather than a ?right?, thereby sanctioning its commodification. The Water Investment Act of 2002, passed earlier this year by the US Congress, makes federal funding for municipal water projects contingent on the local government ?considering? selling its water systems to for-profit corporations. Most local jurisdictions lack the capital resources to fund improvements for water treatment and distribution facilities. These facilities are increasingly taxed by development pressures, more stringent quality standards and dwindling fresh water resources. The 2002 Water Investment Act puts considerable pressure on local communities in the US to privatize their water systems to fund these projects. The International Monetary Fund has several times made funding for debt relief contingent on a country?s privatization of its water supply in a similar way. In Bolivia, this stipulation led to massive revolt in the streets after San Francisco-based Bechtel Corporation raised water rates to levels that would impoverish many Bolivians. Street-level resistance eventually obliged power brokers to cancel the selling of the nation?s water. At the turn of the century, Fortune Magazine declared that water ?will be to the 21st century what oil was to the 20th.? In some cases, the comparison is directly evident. The Village Voice reports noises coming out of the Bush Administration of converting the existing oil-pipeline infrastructure in Canada?s Northern Provinces to pump water to the American Midwest. Under the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), Canada would have little recourse to prevent this expropriation, as attemts to do so would likely be considered ?barriers to trade?. As more of the world?s water is taken out of the public commons to be drilled, piped, bottled and delivered as corporate property, the environment will become degraded (as RWE/Thames has shown us in Britain), conservation will be deprioritized (when companies? revenues are tied to the amount of water sold, why conserve?), rates will be raised to pay shareholders? dividends and control over one of our most vital natural resources will be taken farther and farther from the source and from us. As decision-makers at all levels of government compete to deprive themselves and each other of recourse to thwart the profiteering of corporate entities, it falls upon the rest of us to develop viable alternatives and effective movements that will ensure that power flows from all of us and water flows to all of us. 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. From wires at the-alarm.com Thu Oct 17 22:45:20 2002 From: wires at the-alarm.com (The Alarm!Newswire) Date: Sun Feb 8 02:51:55 2004 Subject: [Dryerase] The Alarm!--H2O: Toxic Water Woes Message-ID: <063E3D06-E24C-11D6-AE6A-003065F4865E@the-alarm.com> Toxic Water Woes by Bruce Daniels The Alarm! Newspaper Contributor Maintaining pure, clean, fresh drinking water is a matter of life or death. World water experts say that water-borne diseases cause an average of about 25,000 deaths a day. This means about one water-related death every three seconds. While the majority of these deaths occur in the third world, it is still estimated that in the United States there are 4,000 water related deaths each year or eleven every day. Here in Santa Cruz County, we have many toxic threats to our own local water supplies. MTBE is a toxic gasoline additive that is a recognized potential human carcinogen in drinking water. The allowable limit of MTBE in drinking water is a very low five parts per billion (ppb). So even one gallon of spilled MTBE could pollute 200 million gallons of drinking water, enough to supply 600 families for a year. Santa Cruz County contains 55 documented MTBE spill sites. The mid-County area has some very significant MTBE threats. Although the City of Capitola is only about two square miles, it contains four identified MTBE leak sites. The immediately adjoining small town of Soquel contains three known MTBE leak sites. One of these Soquel leaks had MTBE concentrations of over 200,000 ppb in groundwater (40,000 times higher than the safe clean-up level). This site also leaked over 250 ppb of MTBE into Nobel Creek stream water, which drains into Soquel Creek and the Soquel Creek Lagoon. Clearly the potential for MTBE impact to our drinking water supplies is very clear and immediate. Chromium (VI) is a compound that can occur in drinking water and was the subject of the movie Erin Brockovich. The US EPA says that ?ingesting large amounts of Chromium (VI) can cause stomach upsets and ulcers, convulsions, kidney and liver damage and even death?. The US Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) has determined that certain chromium(VI) compounds are known to cause cancer in humans. Locally, Chromium (VI) has been found in drinking water wells from Aptos and La Selva Beach south into the Pajaro Valley and Watsonville. Detections of Chromium (VI) within the Soquel Creek Water District range from 6?38 ppb and Watsonville has reported concentrations up to 21 ppb. Since there is yet no official maximum contaminant level defined for Chromium (VI), neither agency has seen fit to abandon affected wells or even install treatment facilities. Arsenic is another toxic compound in water and is recognized as an extremely potent killer. The recent 2001 National Academy of Sciences ?Arsenic in Drinking Water? report presents some chilling statistics. According to their expert estimates, arsenic in drinking water will cause at least 200,000 deaths from lung, bladder, skin and kidney cancer in Bangladesh alone. Arsenic is also blamed for heart disease, skin problems, reproductive and development effects, neurological issues, respiratory effects, liver function, hematologic effects and diabetes. Locally, arsenic has been found in Soquel Creek Water District wells in Aptos. There is considerable management confusion over the amounts of arsenic actually in these Aptos wells. Initially the Water District reported levels of eight parts per billion (ppb). But after a local newspaper article was published, the District then decided to lower their report to five ppb. The year before they had reported six ppb. But even much lower levels of arsenic are still quite dangerous. As a recent US News & World Report said ?as little as three ppb of arsenic carries a far higher bladder and lung cancer risk than do other substances EPA regulates.? The EPA tries to set limits so there is no more than one death per million people, but for arsenic the expectation is several cancer cases per thousand people! In fact, even with the lowest Soquel Creek Water District arsenic level of five ppb, we would still expect 29 cancer cases here. The US Environmental Protection Agency has recently lowered the maximum allowable level of arsenic to ten ppb effective 2006. As a Director of the Water District, I requested at a Board meeting that we inform our customers of this change so they could make their own decisions about possible health threats. Surprisingly, the other Directors voted to keep this information secret. I also requested that budget funds be explicitly allocated to investigate possible treatments to reduce or eliminate arsenic from our drinking water, but this was also not done. Maintaining fresh drinking water demands constant vigilance. It is not a job for the lazy or complacent. It is not acceptable to relax even when drinking water is below the legal maximum contaminant levels, as there may still be considerable risk. The public needs to kept informed and should demand leaders who understand their concerns and are willing to perform the difficult task of delivering on their promises. Bruce Daniels is the Director of the Soquel Creek Water District and Vice Chair of the California Regional Water Quality Control Board. 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. From wires at the-alarm.com Thu Oct 17 22:45:25 2002 From: wires at the-alarm.com (The Alarm!Newswire) Date: Sun Feb 8 02:51:55 2004 Subject: [Dryerase] The Alarm!--Hetch Hetchy Message-ID: <098BEEDB-E24C-11D6-AE6A-003065F4865E@the-alarm.com> Hetch Hetchy, restore the valley or rebuild the dam by Halie Johnson The Alarm! Newspaper Collective In 1913 John Muir, the famed Sierra conservationist, lost a lengthy legal battle to save the Hetch Hetchy Valley in Yosemite National Park from being dammed. The City and County of San Francisco wanted the valley for a municipal water supply. The project to build the Hetch Hetchy reservoir on the Tuolomne River began in 1914 and took 20 years to complete. Today, water from Hetch Hetchy travels more than 160 miles to serve 2.4 million customers in San Francisco, San Mateo, Santa Clara and Alameda counties. On May 5, 2002, the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission (SFPUC) approved a $3.6 billion plan to rebuild the Hetch Hetchy water system. The plan includes 77 projects, of which 40 are local to San Francisco and 37 are regional. The projects are designed to repair and replace aging facilities, implement hydropower projects, provide safe water quality, seismically upgrade facilities and provide for additional water supply. The SFPUC voted to request that the Board of Supervisors place a project-funding measure (Proposition A) on the November 2002 San Francisco ballot. If Proposition A passes in November, it will allot over $1.6 billion to the plan, which is scheduled to begin in 2003 and be complete by 2016. SFPUC General Manager, Patricia Martel, has been instrumental in formulating the plan to rebuild Hetch Hetchy. To better insure that funds are available for the plan, Martel recommended that the SFPUC delay a proposal to upgrade San Francisco?s sewer system. This proposal included projects to enhance the facilities reliability and reduce odors. Instead of the $900 million sewage upgrade plan, Martel recommended the development of a citywide sewer master plan that includes the reduction of sewage sent to the Southeast treatment plant. According to the SFPUC ?The adoption of a long-term capitol plan for the rebuild of Hetch Hetchy and the local water system has been Martel?s number one priority since her appointment to the SFPUC in September.? Environmental groups see Proposition A as an opportunity to interject the option of restoring Hetch Hetchy to the valley John Muir lead the fight to preserve. Organizations including Restore Hetch Hetchy, Environmental Defense and the Planning and Conservation League are urging voters to vote no on Proposition A, saying: ?[Proposition A] would cause a large expansion of the water system without an unbiased feasibility study to demonstrate environmentally sound ways of restoring Yosemite National Park?s Hetch Hetchy Valley.? San Francisco supervisors claim they were pressed for time and could not conduct such a study. The environmental activists, attorneys and businesspeople who make up Restore Hetch Hetchy, have posed as a counter-option the expansion of the Calavares Reservoir (near Palo Alto). They said it would ?provide an opportunity to replace lost water storage capacity when the Hetch Hetchy Reservoir is drained and would increase the reliability of the current water delivery system for San Francisco Bay Area water users.? Restore Hetch Hetchy has set its goal for dam deconstruction as 2013 and say that it could take a century, more or less, to restore Hetch Hetchy to its pre-reservoir condition. ?Think of our children?s children. In the meantime, you will be witness to one of the the greatest wild lands restoration projects ever undertaken.? 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. From wires at the-alarm.com Thu Oct 17 22:45:24 2002 From: wires at the-alarm.com (The Alarm!Newswire) Date: Sun Feb 8 02:51:55 2004 Subject: [Dryerase] The Alarm!--War Notes 10-18-02 Message-ID: <089BD562-E24C-11D6-AE6A-003065F4865E@the-alarm.com> War Notes By sasha k The Alarm! Newspaper Columnist An argument for everyone The Bush administration?s two pronged approach for selling an attack on Iraq underscores the fact that they want to attack Iraq and remove Saddam Hussein?no matter the objection of critics and allies alike?and that its statements are pure rhetoric for public relations. In front of the UN, the United States is seeking a resolution calling for a tough inspection regime backed up by the threat of military force. At the same time, to a home audience, the administration has openly stated that inspections are not enough and that only a regime change will satisfy the US government. For other countries on the UN Security Council to go along with such a resolution, of course, demands that they willfully deny the blatantly cynical nature of this double talk. That the Bush administration can utilize such an obviously duplicitous maneuver is a sad comment on the state of our critical abilities. President Bush has already received a blank check from the US Congress to proceed with any military venture in Iraq that he sees fit. The Security Council is less likely to give the president a similar rubber stamp. The French proposal keeps the Security Council in control by first setting up a tough inspection regime and only later, if Iraq does not comply with it, authorizing military action. The question remains, however, whether the inspection regime set up by the UN will both allow Iraq a way to disarm without a regime change and satisfy the US government. When one looks at the actual conditions that the US wants to impose on Iraq, it is quite clear that the US is not interested in disarmament alone. Military hegemony Critics of the administration?s policy on Iraq all attempt to name the ?real? objective behind its machinations, and I have mentioned several in this column: control of oil; distraction from the very real economic problems the country is facing before the upcoming elections; hegemonic control over the Mideast region, especially Saudi Arabia; and world-wide military hegemony. Of course, none of these goals contradict; in fact, they reinforce each other. It is crises such as Iraq and Yugoslavia that offer the US an opportunity to reproduce its hegemonic position in the world. And we do well to remember that that position is produced in two ways: both in the actual military operations themselves and through the transformation of international norms and institutions governing such actions. Thus President Bush continually stresses that the fight to pass a UN resolution on Iraq is a fight for the true identity of the UN. In this week?s Al-Ahram, Mohamed Sid-Ahmed offers an interesting analysis of America?s drive to war with Iraq. Sid-Ahmed suggests that Iraq provides the US with a site to link its war on terrorism with its attempt to limit membership to the nuclear club. Terrorism has been a weapon of the world?s weak, and nuclear weapons have been a weapon of the world?s dominant powers. Yet, with the ?progress? of technology, nuclear weapons are becoming easier to produce or procure. This means, at the very moment the US has lost its traditional enemy?the Soviet Union?the US has to worry more and more about the proliferation of nuclear weapons. Iraq is a test site for US military hegemony. The Bush Doctrine, a document on national security published a couple of weeks ago, states that it is US policy to never again allow another state or group of states military parity with America. The US hopes to demand and produce its hegemony. Thus the Bush administration has given itself the right to preemptively intervene in countries that might be producing weapons of mass destruction, particularly nuclear weapons. In other words, the US has given itself a unilateral right to be the world?s policeman, and its enemies are now termed ?rogue states.? Under the Clinton administration, US hegemony as the world?s policeman was built through projects defined as humanitarian; the Bush administration?s argument for military hegemony is national security. But this is also an awkward moment for the US. Its attempts to change international norms allowing for preemptive strikes?its attempt to institutionalize itself as the worlds sole policeman?has collided with the multilateral world that many nations believed was coming into existence after the fall of the Soviet Union. The US has to sell its unilateralist policy under the guise of international respectability by strong-arming the UN Security Council into passing a resolution giving the US the pretext for attacking Iraq. Ironically, the US has had to argue that the doctrine of preemptive strike should be a new international norm. Other states have already threatened used this doctrine. I mentioned Russia?s attacks on Chechen rebels in Georgia in a previous column. And, thus, the doctrine has the potential to spread further, increasing the insecurity of states around the world, and increasing their desire to procure nuclear weapons. Moreover, US military hegemony has as its primary project the maintenance of US economic hegemony. Under the US-driven capitalist system, rich nations have continued to get richer, and poor nations poorer. This disparity creates the very precarious conditions?in which people resort to desperate attacks on Americans?that the Bush Doctrine purports to defend us against. Israel and war preparations Unlike the first Gulf War, when most Arab nations supported the coalition forces, Arab support is almost nonexistent this time around. Yet a few of the smaller states, including Qatar, Bahrain, Oman, the United Arab Emirates and even Kuwait, are offering their territory to the US war effort. So recent revelations in the Israeli newspaper Maariv that the US has been stockpiling weapons in Israel for the coming war comes as a surprise. Israel has also been an active participant in the US and British mission to persuade Russia to vote for the US resolution to the UN, with Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon even travelling to Moscow. According to Amr Moussa, the secretary General of the Arab League, such participation would ?open the Gates of Hell.? The first Bush administration was careful to avoid any involvement by Israel in order to hold the coalition together. This time the administration seems much less interested in maintaining good relations with Arab nations, and Arab nations are taking note. In the Arab world, the US drive to war is increasingly being seen as a regional strategy and not simply a policy on Iraq. This perception has many of them, especially traditional allies such as Egypt and Saudi Arabia, worried. The participation of Israel in the war effort and the one-sided US support for Israel in its conflict with the Palestinians is being taken as a sign by many of a new US strategy for the region: to build US and Israeli hegemony over the region and to let Arab regimes disintegrate, opening a new period of imperialism and occupation. 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. From wires at the-alarm.com Thu Oct 17 22:44:57 2002 From: wires at the-alarm.com (The Alarm!Newswire) Date: Sun Feb 8 02:51:55 2004 Subject: [Dryerase] The Alarm!--H2O: Water Conflict in the Middle East Message-ID: Water conflict in the Mideast By sasha k The Alarm! Newspaper Contributor For the first time in a decade the Palestinian leadership has said that they may be forced to ?re-evaluate? the two-state solution for the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. According to a document given last week to US officials by Palestinian Finance Minister Salam Fayad, ?Israel?s ultimate goal is to permit a Palestinian ?state? which would be in effect the Middle Eastern equivalent of a Native American Indian reservation.? Since the 1967 Mideast War, Israel has continually expanded the settlement of lands expropriated from Palestinians. But it is not just the seizure of land that is derailing Mideast peace: the document also stressed that Israeli control of water resources necessary for a viable Palestinian economy was a serious source of conflict. Conflicts over water have been around for centuries, yet because of the combination of a growing world population, increasing pollution and the technological ability to drill deep wells the world is rapidly incurring what Lester Brown calls ?a vast water deficit.? Worldwide water demand has tripled over the last 50 years, and water tables are dropping fast. In Yemen, for example, the water table is falling by around two meters a year. The water table at the capital, Sana?a, is falling even faster?-six meters a year?-and is likely to run dry within a decade. According to the UN, at our present rate of water consumption more than 2.7 billion people will be severely short of water by the year 2025, and another 2.5 billion people will live in regions where the water supply will not meet human needs. UN Secretary General Kofi Annan stated on World Water Day (March 22), ?Fierce national competition over water resources has prompted fears that water issues contain the seeds of violent conflict.? The Mideast and Africa, already unstable regions, are seen as the most likely sites for water wars in the coming century. According to a report of the UN Development Programme, the main conflicts in Africa in the next 25 years will likely be over water. Within 25 years, one in two Africans will be living in regions with not enough water for daily needs. The Nile River, which now arrives at the Mediterranean as a trickle, is one site of conflict. Egypt, Ethiopia and Sudan all take their cut of the Nile?s finite resource, and with the population explosion in the region set to add another 100 million people by the year 2025, conflict over Nile water is highly possible. The Southeast Anatolia Project, in which Turkey is diverting huge amounts of water from the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, is already causing conflict between Turkey and downstream countries Syria and Iraq. Turkey hopes the project will bring 1.7 million hectares of new land under cultivation and double the county?s electricity production. When the Ataturk Dam over the Euphrates was flooded in 1990, Turkey cut off the flow of the river completely for three weeks, causing blackouts in Syria. Syria has also dammed the Euphrates further down the river. In 1975, when the two countries began building their dams, Syria, Turkey and Iraq almost went to war. The highest current level of water conflict, however, is occurring around Israel. Ever since the Israeli state came into existence, the unilateral expropriation of water sources has been a central defense strategy. Since the 1967 occupation of the West Bank, Gaza Strip and the Golan Heights, Israel has commanded control over much of the water resources in the region. In 1965, Syria attempted to build dams in the Golan Heights, threatening to divert 35% of the water Israel could take from the Upper Jordan. Israel reacted by bombing the building sites. In 1967, Israel invaded and occupied the Golan Heights, and control over the region?s water is still a key issue blocking peace between Israel and Syria. The Jordan River, which flows between Jordan and Israel and the West Bank then into the Dead Sea, has been another source of conflict. Very little water from the Jordan ever reaches the Dead Sea, the height of which is falling by one meter a year. Recently, however, Jordan agreed to an Israeli plan to pipe water from the Red Sea to the Dead Sea. Yet the Palestinians see this as a rewriting of their border with Jordan. Many other Arab countries have criticized Jordan for the plan. After the 1967 war, water resources in the Palestinian occupied territories were no longer considered property of the inhabitants of the region, and instead were transferred to the Israeli Civil Administration. Israeli military commanders became responsible for existing and new water installations. Meters were placed on Palestinian wells and water usage was limited. In 1982, control over water was shifted to the Israeli water company, Mekorot. New Palestinian water installations were almost always refused, while Israeli settlers were given the right to dig deep wells, causing older Palestinian wells to dry up. In effect, Israel has been shifting its water shortage onto the Palestinians, crippling their agricultural economy and making daily life harsh. The two main aquifers under Gaza and the West Bank have been dropping fast, and the Gaza aquifer?the only source for drinking water for Gaza Palestinians?is becoming saline, with 80% of its water now unsuitable for human consumption. In recent weeks, Lebanon and Israel have come into conflict over water from the Hasbani and Wazzani rivers, which flow into the Jordan. Lebanon has begun work on diverting a small amount of water from the Wazzani to agricultural villages in Southern Lebanon. Yet the Israeli defense minister, Binyamin Ben Eliezer, said his country would not allow Lebanon to divert any water from the river, which provides ten percent of Israeli water. And Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon called Lebanon?s planned diversion a cause for war. The militant group Hezbollah stated it would resist the Israeli military with force if they tried to stop the project. Many Lebanese find it ironic that Israel is so adamant about the dispute; during its 22-year occupation of Southern Lebanon, which ended in 2000, Israel exploited the river?s water to irrigate its own land, leaving many Lebanese villages parched. The US has jumped to mediate the dispute, fearing that an Arab-Israeli war over water could jeopardize its planned war in Iraq. Southern Lebanon is one of the few places Israeli water strategy has not worked out. Yet, with the US entering to mediate, it is quite possible Israel will be able to minimize the water lost to Lebanon. However, water conflicts will surely increase in the future, and Israel?s unilateral military solution to the problem of scarce water resources is unlikely to go unchallenged. 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. From editors at agrnews.org Mon Oct 21 17:42:06 2002 From: editors at agrnews.org (Asheville Global Report) Date: Sun Feb 8 02:51:56 2004 Subject: [Dryerase] Asheville activists air civil liberties concerns Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.0.20021021184019.00a2dec0@buncombe.main.nc.us> Asheville activists air civil liberties concerns By Liz Allen Asheville, North Carolina, Oct. 8 (AGR)? On Oct. 7, people across the United States participated in local events to recognize First Monday, a day of action and resistance against the degradation of civil rights in this country since Sept. 11 and with the passage of the ?Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism?(USA PATRIOT) Act. Events were sponsored by the Alliance for Justice, with cosponsors including the National Education Association, the American Civil Liberties Union and Amnesty International. ?While it is important to support the legitimate national security needs of the country, these needs are not met through the elimination of the rights and liberties that are the foundation of America,? said a statement from Alliance for Justice. People across the US collected signatures for a subpoena to Attorney General John Ashcroft, demanding information as to why he refuses to give out the names of detainees who are held without evidence, and how his revisions of the Attorney General guidelines as well as increased surveillance of the everyday activities of citizens make the country safer. Rob Close, organizer for First Monday events at University of North Carolina-Asheville (UNCA), reported that on campus the subpoena collected between 40 and 50 signatures in a matter of two hours. Another petition, to NC Senator John Edwards asking him to say no to the war in Iraq, collected around 160 signatures. Participants in First Monday at UNCA expressed concern over the loss of student privacy, manifested in the use of the 1974 Family Education and Privacy Act?s exceptions that allow Universities to turn over specific information on students without university liability. They also criticized the abridgement of constitutional rights to free speech and freedom of association under the Patriot Act and Ashcroft?s policy revisions: civil disobedience can now be considered ?domestic terrorism;? non-citizen ?material witnesses? can be detained indefinitely if they are suspected of having a link to terrorists; and Ashcroft has powers of surveillance as extensive as those of J. Edgar Hoover. At UNCA, students and at least one professor wore masking tape over their mouths to bring attention to the issue. Clark Walker, Chairman of the Libertarian Party of Buncombe County, who was registering people to vote at the UNCA event, expressed concern that the government had too much power. ?The government?s business is to protect us, not to enlist us as helpers to spy on fellow citizens,? Walker commented. A film, produced by the Alliance for Justice, was also shown nationwide. The film, about 25 minutes in length, profiles people whose lives have been directly affected by the changes in governmental policy since Sept. 11 and the implications of those changes. From editors at agrnews.org Mon Oct 21 17:43:48 2002 From: editors at agrnews.org (Asheville Global Report) Date: Sun Feb 8 02:51:56 2004 Subject: [Dryerase] =?iso-8859-1?Q?=91Globalizing_Justice=92_tour_to_address_GM_?= products, free trade in Guatemala Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.0.20021021184241.00a2d320@buncombe.main.nc.us> 'Globalizing Justice' tour to address GM products, free trade in Guatemala By Willy Rosencrans Asheville, North Carolina, Oct. 16 (AGR)-- Guatemala, still reeling from the civil war which devastated its' people in the 70s and 80s, faces new threats today, including incursions by biotech giants and a new free trade initiative. On Wednesday, Oct. 23, 7pm, the Network in Solidarity with the People of Guatemala (NISGUA) will bring its fall tour, "Globalizing Justice," to address these issues at UNCA's Laurel Forum in Karpen Hall. Carlos Humberto Muralles, a Guatemalan agronomist, will speak at the tour. Muralles works with the Association for the Promotion and Development of the Community (CEIBA), which promotes participatory community development on the topics of health, agriculture, women's rights, and education. CEIBA works primarily in rural communities of the northwestern highlands which were affected by the Guatemalan civil war; much of the region is marked by extreme poverty and high infant mortality. CEIBA has long conducted field research on agricultural topics and has recently made transgenic products a primary focus. The UN World Food Program and the United States Agency for International Development distributed genetically modified corn to Guatemala in the form of international aid, including Aventis' Starlink corn (never approved for human consumption due to its genetic resemblance to known allergens). GM FlavrSavr tomatoes were grown in Guatemala without the knowledge of authorities and may have spread beyond test sites. CEIBA is also part of the growing movement to stop the Plan Puebla Panama (PPP). The PPP, a $10 billion development plan proposed by President Fox of Mexico, seeks to physically and commercially connect southern Mexico with the rest of Central America. It has the backing of all seven Central American countries, as well as the World Bank and the IMF. Establishment of the PPP would lay the groundwork for the US-backed Free Trade Area of the Americas, the focus of massive protests in Quebec in 2001. The PPP would open the natural resources of the northern Peten region to exploitation by the biotech industry. It calls for the construction of up to 5 dams on the Usumacinta River, which would flood 10-12 million square kilometers and lead to widespread displacement, and an oil pipeline through the protected Maya Biosphere. Half of Guatemala's 21,000 square miles of rainforest would be threatened by the PPP. In addition to environmental damage, the PPP would open the doors to social adversity already familiar to the people of Mexico, whose already low standard of living has declined steadily under NAFTA for the last 8 years. Land privatization is a key component of the PPP, facilitating the shift to a maquiladora model in which indigenous populations are displaced and their lands sold to multinational corporations. Deliberations about the PPP have, as in other neoliberal planning sessions, been closed to the public. This event is co-sponsored by UNCA Diversity and Multicultural Affairs, UNCA Presbyterian Campus Fellowship and Grace Covenant Presbyterian Church. For more information, call UNCA's Diversity and Multicultural Affairs Office at 828/232-5110. From editors at agrnews.org Mon Oct 21 17:44:44 2002 From: editors at agrnews.org (Asheville Global Report) Date: Sun Feb 8 02:51:56 2004 Subject: [Dryerase] =?iso-8859-1?Q?Victim=92s_parents_ordered_to_compensate_his_?= killer for =?iso-8859-1?Q?=91slanderous=92_remarks?= Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.0.20021021184353.00a30ec0@buncombe.main.nc.us> Victim?s parents ordered to compensate his killer for ?slanderous? remarks By Allie Morris Greensboro, North Carolina, Oct. 9 (AGR)? Superior Court Judge William Craig ruled that Jessie Barber and her husband Calvert ?Butch? Stewart, parents of Gil Barber, must undergo sanctions for their violation of a July mediation agreement between them and Guilford County Sheriff?s Deputy Thomas Gordy, who shot Barber to death on May 18, 2001. During the proceedings Gordy?s attorney William Hill pleaded, ?Judge, you can?t let [Barber and Stewart] get away with this.? The Judge responded by issuing a $500 fine and ordering that they pay Thomas Gordy for his share of the mediator?s fee, and the attorney fees that Gordy incurred in bringing this Motion of Sanctions to court. Gordy took Jessie Barber to court after she refused to discontinue public reference to the Deputy as a murderer. Judge Craig concluded that ?the Plaintiffs? contention that they were forced to sign the agreement under pressure or duress are meritless,? despite the mediation session?s extraordinary length, 8 hours, and the trying circumstances that Barber?s parents reported, not the least of which was sitting in the vicinity of the man who killed their son. Though Gordy does not deny killing Gil Barber the court ruled that Gil?s parents? use of the term ?murderer? to describe Gordy is not a right protected by the First Amendment and substituting the word ?killer? is ?a contrived and facile attempt to avoid calling the defendant Gordy a murderer, and in this Court?s view, were a reprehensible flouting of the mediated settlement agreement terms.? The judge went on to call Barber and Stewart?s language ?bad faith actions in this matter.? To date, Deputy Gordy has not been subject to sanctions within the department and remains on duty since shooting a naked, unarmed, and severely injured Gil Barber last year. From editors at agrnews.org Mon Oct 21 17:47:08 2002 From: editors at agrnews.org (Asheville Global Report) Date: Sun Feb 8 02:51:56 2004 Subject: [Dryerase] Citizen-Times finally notices global protests -sort of Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.0.20021021184634.00a305b0@buncombe.main.nc.us> Citizen-Times finally notices global protests -sort of By Nicholas Holt Asheville, North Carolina, Oct. 16 (AGR)? On Sun., Oct. 13, The Asheville Citizen-Times (AC-T) ran a short article on page A-3 titled ?5,000 march in Paris against Iraq invasion.? An article, accompanied by a photo, elaborated slightly on the headline, explaining a few of the reasons ?5,000 people took part in the protest, organized by human rights groups, trade unions, and leftist political parties? to urge France to use its power in the United Nations Security Council to block US moves towards war with Iraq. The article also noted that ?Smaller demonstrations were staged in some 30 cities across France? but that ?Though the protests were the biggest in France so far, turnout was low compared to the 150,000 people who marched through central London two weeks ago urging the United States and Britain not to invade Iraq.? This article would be the first time anyone who relies on Gannett?s AC-T for world news would have seen any reference to the by then more than two-weeks-old London protests. This move on the part of the AC-T has the dual effect of 1.) depriving the commercial newspaper?s readership of timely information on events of global significance and 2.) creates the illusion for the casual world news reader that the AC-T is in fact providing accurate and thorough coverage of world events, in this case, as relates to the nature of international opposition to President Bush?s war on Iraq. In fact, between Sept. 28 (the date of the London protests) and Oct. 13, the AC-T reported only on an unspecified number of protesters who ?outnumbered Bush supporters? in Denver, Colorado (9/28, front page) and ?More than a hundred activists? who marched in Asheville (9/29, front page). This would leave the reader ignorant of more than a million protesters who gathered across the world ? and in the US ? to voice their opposition to the war. The previously ignored London marchers, whose gathering constituted the largest United Kingdom anti-war rally in at least three decades, were not only reported on tardily, but had their numbers shorted, as organizers? (and Rupert Murdoch?s Sky TV?s) estimates put the total number of participants closer to 400,000 ? a figure much higher and of much greater news-worthiness than the AC-T?s belated total of 150,000. The AC-T also neglected to mention 1.5 million people who marched in cities across Italy and thousands more in Australia. And those Denver protesters ? who numbered between 2,000 and 4,000 ? were joined across the US by between at least 10,000 in New York, 5,000 in Portland, OR, 8,000 in San Francisco, 3,000 in Los Angeles, and hundreds more in other cities. The AC-T did not find these worthy of column space. However, in the issues of the AC-T published in the interim between the Sept. 28 protests and their reference on Oct. 13, there was enough space to publish stories on ?Mayor swears in husband as police chief? in Southgate, MI (10/1, A-5), ?Swine get to sit out this greased pig race? in Henderson County (10/5, frontpage), ?Alabama state quarter to depict Helen Keller? (10/8. A-5), and ?Man changes name to ?I Am who I am??(10/9, A-5). The readers of the AC-T ? who hopefully branch out in their materials ? must infer the meaning of such omissions (and inclusions) on their own. From newendland at yahoo.com Wed Oct 23 17:20:12 2002 From: newendland at yahoo.com (Commodor Stockton) Date: Sun Feb 8 02:51:56 2004 Subject: [Dryerase] Nor'easter Message-ID: <20021023222012.72012.qmail@web21005.mail.yahoo.com> Compiled by Dave P. The Bushes and bin Ladens: Men with Means 1942: Three firms with which Prescott Bush (father of George,Sr.) is associated are seized under the Trading with the Enemy Act. [Did business with Nazi Germany.] 1973: George Bush Sr. is named GOP national chair. Brings into the party the Heritage Groups Council, an organization with Nazi sympathizers. In one “Watergate” tape, Nixon decides to centralize his power. Says Nixon to John Erlichman: "Eliminate everyone, except George Bush. Bush will do anything for our cause." 1974: Bush is named special envoy to China. 1976: Jerry Ford names George Bush CIA director. early 1980: Osama bin Laden begins providing financial, organizational, and engineering aid for the mujaheddin in Afghanistan, with the advice and support of the Saudi royal family. [New Yorker, 11/5/01] Jan 1981: Ronald Reagan inaugurated President with George Bush, Sr. as V-P. US embassy hostage crises in Iran ends days before w/ release of hostages. 1988: A few days before the supposedly surprise arrest of five BCCI officials (international bank caught in “biggest banking scandal in history” involving drug lords, arms dealers, intelligence agencies, and many, many various governments’ officials), some of the world's most powerful drug dealers quietly withdraw millions of dollars from the bank. Some govt. investigators believe the dealers were tipped off by sources within the Reagan administration.[Boston Herald, 12/11/01] 1988: Bin Laden forms al-Qaeda this year (some versions claim 1989). [Forbes, 10/18/01] Jan 1989: Bush, Sr. inaugurated. Later in year, he claims executive privilege to avoid testifying in the Oliver North trial (Iran-Contra Affair), thus becoming first president to use this power to cover acts as vice president. Bush also signs a directive ordering closer ties with Iraq, which opens the way for $1 billion in new aid a little more than a year before the Gulf War. Jan 1990: Bahrain awards exclusive offshore drilling rights to George W. Bush’s (Jr) Harken Oil. This despite Harken’s very shaky financial condition and total lack of experience in international or undersea oil drilling. Wall Street Journal states in 1991 this "raises the question of ... an effort to cozy up to a presidential son." Two major investors into Bush's company during this time are Osama bin Laden's father and Khaled bin Mahfouz. [Salon, 11/19/01, Intelligence Newsletter, 3/2/00] Khaled bin Mahfouz is a Saudi banker with a 20% stake in BCCI. (see 1988) George W. sells two-thirds of his Harken Energy stock at the top of the market for a 200% profit, but makes no report to the SEC until March 1991. One week after Bush's sale, Harken reports an earnings plunge and its stock falls more than 60%. 1996: FBI investigators are prevented from carrying out an investigation into two relatives of bin Laden connected to the World Assembly of Muslim Youth [WAMY] - a “suspected terrorist organization." WAMY has their offices at 5613 Leesburg Pike. Four of the 9/11 hijackers are later listed as having lived here while the two bin Laden brothers were there. 1996: The Saudi Arabian government starts paying huge amounts of money to al-Qaeda, becoming its largest financial backer. They also give money to other extremist groups in throughout Asia.[New Yorker, 10/16/01] March 1996: The US pressures Sudan to do something about bin Laden, who is based in their country. Sudan readily agrees and soon offers to extradite bin Laden to anywhere he might stand trial. US officials turn down the offer.[Village Voice, 10/31/01, Washington Post, 10/3/01] Aug 7, 1998: Terrorists bomb the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania killing 224 people and injuring over 4,500. The attack is blamed on al-Qaeda. [PBS Frontline, 2001] April, 1999: A Saudi government audit shows that five of Saudi Arabia's billionaires have been giving tens of millions of dollars to al-Qaeda.[USA Today, 10/29/99, Boston Herald, 12/10/01] Jan 2000: Former President George Bush, Sr. meets with the bin Laden family and other Saudi businessmen on the behalf of the Carlyle Group($12 billion equity firm based in DC). [Wall Street Journal, 9/27/01, Guardian, 10/31/01] Oct 12, 2000: The U.S.S. Cole is bombed in the Aden, Yemen harbor by al-Qaeda terrorists. 17 US soldiers are killed. [ABC News, 10/13/00] Jan 2001: George W. Bush is inaugurated President after “election” in which he lost the popular vote. Decision in Supreme Court pivots on Florida where Bush’s brother Jeb was governor and evidence of disenfranchisment of minorities surfaced. Inauguration is accompanied by the largest number of protesters since Nixon. Numerous figures in Bush's administration are directly connected to the oil industry. Over 50 of Bush's new staff are later shown to have worked for Enron. [Salon, 11/30/01] July: Head of FBI anti-terrorism task force, John O’Neill, resigns over continuing obstructions of investigations involving Saudis. He later dies at new job in the World Trade Center (WTC). Sept 10: US officials later admit American agents had infiltrated al-Qaeda cells in the US, though how many and how long they had been in al-Qaeda remains a mystery. On this day, electronic intercepts connected to these undercover agents hear messages such as: "Watch the news" and "Tomorrow will be a great day for us." Officials call these leads "needles in a haystack." [USA Today, 6/4/02] At least until Feb 2002, the official story was that the "CIA failed to penetrate al-Qaeda with a single agent." [ABC News, 2/18/02] Sept 11: The 9/11 attack: four planes are hijacked, two crash into the WTC, one into the Pentagon, and one crashes into the Pennsylvania countryside. Attacks kill 3,047 people from 62 ountries. Wall Street closes down for trading. The FAA shuts down all flights in the US. President Bush addresses the nation on television citing Psalm 23 and declaring “permanent war on terrorism.” Sept 13: Osama bin Laden is identified as the primary suspect by Secretary of State Colin Powell. Members of bin Laden's family and important Saudis are flown out of the US during the no-fly ban leaving before they could be properly questioned. [Tampa Tribune, 10/5/01] Oct 27: The bin Laden family divests from the Carlyle Group around this time, in light of public controversy surrounding the family after the 9/11 attacks. [Washington Post, 10/27/01] Nov 5: A New Yorker article points to evidence that the bin Laden family has generally not ostracized itself from bin Laden, but retains close ties in some cases. The large bin Laden family owns and runs a $5 billion a year global corporation that includes the largest construction firm in the Islamic world.[New Yorker, 11/5/01] early Dec: Bush officials go to Saudi Arabia in a second attempt to get the Saudi government to cooperate with the 9/11 investigation. They have balked at freezing assets of organizations linked to bin Laden. Says an “expert” in Boston Herald, "If there weren't all these other arrangements - arms deals and oil deals and consultancies - I don't think the US would stand for this lack of cooperation." One Washington Post reporter claims that US companies spent $200 billion on Saudi Arabia's defenses alone, before 1993. [Boston Herald, 12/10/01, Boston Herald, 12/11/01, Frontline, 2/16/93] July 10: A briefing given by a RAND analyst to a top Pentagon advisory board states, "The Saudis are active at every level of the terror chain, from planners to financiers, from cadre to foot-soldier, from ideologist to cheerleader ...” The conclusion of the briefing: "Grand strategy for the Middle East: Iraq is the tactical pivot. Saudi Arabia the strategic pivot. Egypt the prize." [Slate, 8/7/02] Aug 15: More than 600 relatives of the Sept 11 attacks file a 15-count, $1 trillion lawsuit Thursday against various parties they accuse of financing al-Qaeda terror network and Taliban regime. The parties sued include the Binladin Group (the company run by Osama bin Laden's family), seven international banks, eight Islamic foundations and charities, individual terrorist financiers, three Saudi princes, and the government of Sudan. [CNN, 8/15/02] "The attorneys and investigators were able to obtain, through French intelligence, the translation of a secretly recorded meeting between representatives of bin Laden and three Saudi princes in which they sought to pay him hush money to keep him from attacking their enterprises in Saudi Arabia." [CNN, 8/15/02] They also accused the US Government of failing to pursue such investigations thoroughly enough because of lucrative oil interests. A number of rich Saudis respond by threatening to withdraw hundreds of billions of dollars in US investments if the lawsuit goes forward. [Telegraph, 8/20/02] Sources: The Progressive Review -www.prorev.com/bush2.htm and www.unansweredquestions.com __________________________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Y! Web Hosting - Let the expert host your web site http://webhosting.yahoo.com/ From newendland at yahoo.com Wed Oct 23 17:25:46 2002 From: newendland at yahoo.com (Commodor Stockton) Date: Sun Feb 8 02:51:56 2004 Subject: [Dryerase] Nor'easter Message-ID: <20021023222546.57148.qmail@web21003.mail.yahoo.com> By The Bull BUSH TO PLANET, REST OF WORLD: "FUCK OFF" SAVING THE EARTH NOT REALLY ANYTHING WE'RE INTERESTED IN RIGHT NOW COULDN'T THOSE POOR COUNTRIES TRY A LITTLE HARDER? In response to criticism that the U.S. Government is blocking international attempts to establish a world criminal court and take action to reverse ecological destruction, Administration spokesman Ari Fleisher asked what exactly was so confusing about the words "kiss my ass." On paper, the idea of a world criminal court that could prosecute military and government officials for war crimes seemed like a good idea. Such trials have historically been difficult to mount as mass murderers hide behind their robes of state. Well, that's great - but picture this: such a court could also prosecute American soldiers and politicians if they committed war crimes! Now do you see the problem? A compromise was suggested: tell you what, you go ahead and try any folks you want from other countries, but just, you know, count us out. As far as our own war crimes and being tried for those, we'd just as soon not. Well, fair enough. This new thinking has been inspired by a recent study by the Bland Corporation finding that, contrary to the folk "wisdom," what's good for the goose isn't, in fact, good for the gander, if the gander happens to be you, or in this case, the United States. A Bland spokesman explained. "See, what they were getting at with the whole waterfoul analogy is some sort of rough, frontier-style justice that modern nation states have gotten far beyond. That was eye for an eye stuff - you take yours, I'll take mine. The new paradigm, at least for the very rich, is: I'll take mine, and I'll take yours too. And it's surprisingly easy to translate that into international affairs. We'll let you have a court if we can't be tried in it; we'll let you make your little rules about water use and greenhouse gasses, but, come on, don't pretend that they apply to us." "When I see all these people in their colorful ethnic costumes making all sorts of "rules" and stuff in the UN and the Earth Summit, I mean, it's really cute. It's like my son driving his Fischer-Price car - he honks the horn, he turns the wheel - he really thinks he's driving! But, you know, and he knows, who big Daddy is." Again The Bull PROVIDENCE MOTORIST STOPS AT RED LIGHT CALMLY WAVES PEDESTRIANS ACROSS DOESN'T SHOUT EPITHETS AT CYCLIST Oh, forget it. Even as parody this story is too hard to believe. __________________________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Y! Web Hosting - Let the expert host your web site http://webhosting.yahoo.com/ From editors at agrnews.org Fri Oct 25 18:09:55 2002 From: editors at agrnews.org (Asheville Global Report) Date: Sun Feb 8 02:51:56 2004 Subject: [Dryerase] Teamsters Local 705 denounces war plans Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.0.20021025190539.02efa410@buncombe.main.nc.us> Teamsters Local 705 denounces war plans By Shawn Gaynor Asheville, North Carolina, Oct. 23 (AGR)? In a reflection of the clearly growing sentiment against war on Iraq, the country's second largest Teamsters local, based in Chicago, Illinois, denounced Bush?s plans for a war on Iraq. The resolution, passed Oct. 20, was brought by handlers from the CACH and Jeff St. UPS facilities, and states that ?Teamsters local 705 stands firmly against Bush?s drive for war.? The resolution was passed at a membership meeting attended by roughly 400 Teamsters, and was only discussed for about 10 minutes before passing with only one member casting a dissenting vote. ?There was not very much discussion on it because there was no dissent,? stated Paul Waterhouse, a 705 official, who added that there were many Vietnam veterans who had served in the US Army and Marine Corps present at the meeting. The Teamsters, whose transportation industry jobs are tied closely to oil prices state in the opening of the resolution: ?we value the lives of our sons and daughters, of our brothers and sisters more than Bush?s control of Middle East oil profits.? ?We have no quarrel with the ordinary working-class men, women, and children in Iraq who will suffer the most in any war,? the resolution continues. The measure raises concerns that the cost of the war will take away billions of dollar from social spending on schools, hospitals, housing, and social security. In a clause representing the union?s belief about the motives behind the proposed war, Local 705 states: ?Bush?s drive for war serves as a cover and distraction for the sinking economy, corporate corruption, lay-offs, and Taft-Hartley [used against the locked out ILWU longshoremen].? ?This is the start of doing anti-war work, not the finish,? said Kieran Knutson, a steward at the Jeff St. UPS who co-sponsored the resolution. ?Union resolutions, by themselves, don?t mean anything unless they are used by activists in the workplace to build sentiment and action against the war.? The 21,000 member union local intends to talk to other Teamsters locals in the area about their concerns about a possible war on Iraq. ?We hope this resolution encourages other workers to adopt similar resolutions and encourages the growth of anti-war activities in the labor movement,? concluded Knutson. To support Local 705 in its stance contact their office at 312-738-2800 From editors at agrnews.org Fri Oct 25 18:11:40 2002 From: editors at agrnews.org (Asheville Global Report) Date: Sun Feb 8 02:51:56 2004 Subject: [Dryerase] Dr. Helen Caldicott heads conference on nuclear radiation, health issues Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.0.20021025191008.02efdd80@buncombe.main.nc.us> Dr. Helen Caldicott heads conference on nuclear radiation, health issues By Liz Allen Asheville, North Carolina, Oct. 21 (AGR)? The Radiation and Health in the Nuclear Heartland Conference, held at the University of North Carolina-Asheville Oct. 11-12, focused on educating activists and the interested public on the issues, terminology and dangers affiliated with the use and proliferation of radioactive materials. ?I wanted the choir to come together to learn to sing better,? said Mary Fox Olsen, conference organizer and director of the Nuclear Information and Resource Service (NIRS) southeastern office. Her hope is that activists will now be better equipped to interpret technological jargon, directly refute officials when they present false or incomplete information, and to help the public realize that nuclear radiation is a health issue. Specifically, she is concerned about standards allowing the public to be exposed to ?safe? amounts of radiation. ?Those standards do not protect anybody but the adult male in the prime of his health it does not say a bloody thing about your infant child or grandchild everything that comes out of the government?s mouth is completely irrelevant towards most people and amounts to a lie,? Olsen explained. The conference included a keynote address on Friday evening by Dr. Helen Caldicott, author of several books about nuclear arms including Missile Envy and most recently, The New Nuclear Danger: George W. Bush?s Military -Industrial Complex. Caldicott, in an interview filmed at the conference for a documentary with the working name ?Warriors of Love,? says she first became concerned about nuclear weapons when she read On the Beach by Nevil Shute about a nuclear disaster occurring in Melbourne, Austria, where she lived at the time. Caldicott describes the current world situation as a ?Hot War and not a Cold War because no one knows that they can be vaporized every second of everyday,? and warns, ?If we continue in the direction the Cheney Administration is leading us, I predict we will have Nuclear War in three years.? She believes people living in a democracy need to ?educate themselves and have a revolution of sorts the media is determining the fate of the Earth.? Caldicott pointed out the irony that on the same day former US president Jimmy Carter won the Nobel Peace prize, Congress voted to go to war with Iraq. Caldicott believes ?The world is in the emergency room and may be terminally ill,? and a part of the solution is women taking over because right now it is men leading the world into disaster. To support her assertion she explained that when men get mad they produce more testosterone, the hormone for killing, and women get mad they have increased levels of oxytocin, the nurturing hormone that contracts the uterus in labor. She reminded everyone that ??The only way for evil to prevail is for good people to nothing,?? and ?You can be as powerful as the most powerful person who ever lived if you tap into that love in your belly and become a warrior.? Discussion sessions and presentations were held throughout the day on Saturday, with representatives from, among others: Carolina Peace Resource Center, Georgians for Nuclear Energy, Blue Ridge Environmental Defense League, the NIRS and Oak Ridge Environmental Peace Alliance. Issues covered ranged from the use of plutonium and mixed-oxide (MOX) fuel, nuclear weapons, to the ?recycling? of nuclear waste into consumer products. Weapons-grade plutonium, primarily made of plutonium?239, which has a half-life of 24,000 years and remains hazardous for 240,000 years, is not able to penetrate the skin but is highly carcinogenic. According to a report by the 1985 Nobel Peace Prize winners, Physicians for Social Responsibility, ?Most dangerous is inhalation of small particles of plutonium. Inhalation of as little as one-hundredth of an ounce of plutonium can cause lung cancer with nearly 100% probability.? Plutonium can cause mutations in future generations by disrupting reproductive cells and is highly flammable when exposed to air, with fire converting it into small airborne particles. This is most troubling for those concerned with accidents occurring during the transport of plutonium. Shipping high-level nuclear waste, ?spent fuel? like plutonium, to a waste repository like the proposed one in Yucca Mountain, Nevada will occur in barbell-like containers. The containers have been tested with hypothetical computer-generated situations, called the ?Modal Study,? to predict responses to accidents, but the casks have never been fully physically tested. Currently, with several nuclear sites within 100 miles, Asheville residents are affected by the transport of nuclear waste and can expect an increase in shipment and exposure. A recent article in the Mountain X-press reported that emergency response systems are not adequately prepared to deal with accidents involving radioactive materials and that radiation exposure sans an accident can equal the equivalent of one chest x-ray an hour within close proximity to a canister. There are two ways to deal with plutonium taken out of dismantled Cold-War-era nuclear weapons: immobilization or converting it into MOX fuel. Immobilization treats the plutonium, a few pounds of which can be made into a nuclear bomb, as waste. It is sealed in large canisters, mixed with other solid materials and buried underground below mounds of dirt for protection against exposure, theft or attack. The threat of terrorism has drawn attention to the vulnerability of nuclear sites and transport; the sites can be blown up or materials can be stolen and made into ?dirty bombs? (radioactive materials dispersed via conventional explosives) MOX is a weapons-grade fuel that contains more quantities of radioisotopes and releases more high-energy particles than uranium fuel, causing a higher rate of damage to primary reactor parts by increasing the core temperature. An accident at a MOX fuel nuclear reactor could cause 20-25% more deaths by cancer than an accident at a uranium reactor. A pilot MOX fabrication plant in Japan ?lost? enough plutonium for eight bombs and still had at least one bomb?s worth missing after a $100 million dollar cleanup. Plutonium pits or ?triggers? provide the catalyst fission explosion to create the thermonuclear explosion in nuclear weapons. The US government has plans to build pit production facilities in New Mexico at the Los Alamos National Laboratory, while the Savannah River Site in South Carolina is also under heavy consideration. Olsen says the Department of Energy (DoE) announced that the reason for new plutonium pit production is because the triggers in the old bombs are decaying. ?We know better, they are going to put them in new bombs at the Y-12 plant [in Oak Ridge, TN],? Olsen said. She described the production of the pits, the tritium, and the uranium enrichment as parts ?of a monster with many heads,? the monster being ?the Bush administration making new bombs,? with many presumably slated to be placed in outer space. Another major concern for the public is that radioactive materials are being ?released? and ?recycled? to make household products. The United Steelworkers of America Local 12106 in Minneapolis, MN passed a resolution calling on the Department of Energy not to allow radioactively contaminated material to be released into consumer goods. The resolution states that they are an unprotected labor force without hazardous duty pay and they feel ?Steelworkers should not be forced to choose between radioactive exposure and job security.? The conference was held in honor of Dr. Alice Stewart, a British epidemiologist, whose work exposed the health effects of low-level radiation as far more serious than officially admitted. She also linked an increase of childhood leukemia to mothers receiving x-rays while pregnant. In Britain she was subjected to professional isolation and deprived of research support although her views were gaining acceptance elsewhere. Stewart died in June at the age of 96. From editors at agrnews.org Thu Oct 31 13:20:11 2002 From: editors at agrnews.org (Asheville Global Report) Date: Sun Feb 8 02:51:56 2004 Subject: [Dryerase] AGR Local anti-war Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.0.20021031141238.00a3e1a0@buncombe.main.nc.us> Reprinting permitted by non profit organizations and members of the Dry-erase news wire Asheville Global Report www.agrnews.org Asheville protests in solidarity with international day of opposition to war By Shane Perlowin Asheville, North Carolina, Oct. 26 (AGR)? As hundreds of thousands of people took to the streets in cities around the world to oppose the Bush administration?s push towards a war with Iraq, dozens of Asheville citizens also raised their voices. Approximately 40 people took part in a Critical Mass bicycle ride that snaked its way through the streets of downtown for over two hours. Cyclists chanted, ?Ride your bikes more and more, no one wants this oil war!? They waved flags that read ?no oil war? and ?war is also terrorism.? Numerous bystanders and motorists cheered and honked their car horns in support of this spectacle of dissent. A moment of irony occurred as the protest passed by the Asheville Civic Center, where a gun show was taking place, and people were walking down the street with newly purchased rifles and machine guns in plain view. The ride ended at the Vance Monument, joining up with an anti-war rally that was already in progress. Traffic through Pack Square was briefly shut down as the riders circled through the intersection of Broadway-Biltmore Avenue and Patton Avenue. Asheville resident Karen Lore, who brought her 9-year-old son, Troy, and her 13-year-old son, Ronny, to the rally said, ?We want to encourage people to stand up and resist this war, and the illegitimate government we have in place. We want people to take to the streets.? When asked what they thought about participating in the protest, both youths replied, ?It?s awesome!? Explaining what brought him out on the streets, Tom Wells, carrying a placard that read ?No Blood For Oil?, said, ?I think this war is a really, really bad idea. It?s about oil. Rather than going and taking a precious resource, we should work on conserving it at our end.? Photographer Gary Hemsoth, 50, pointed out that, in addition to the conquest of oil, George W. Bush ?wants to avenge his daddy. Because Saddam embarrassed daddy, now we?ve got to go and make things right.? His comments were in reference to President Bush?s statement in early October, when, as a justification for invading of Iraq, he said of Saddam Hussein, ?This guy tried to kill my dad.? After about an hour of sign waving and chanting at Pack Square, a march formed that slowly made its way through downtown. The Black Lung Brass Band, consisting of tuba, trombone, two trumpets, French horn, clarinet, bass drum, snare drum, and kazoo, played New Orleans-style funeral dirges and marching tunes. An impromptu rally was held at Pritchard Park before the throng of marchers, cyclists, and musicians continued their trek, bystanders swelling their ranks as they moved through the city streets. Demonstrators symbolically smashed a pink plastic toy machine gun at the intersection of Haywood and Battery Park before heading back to Pack Square. The police were conspicuously absent during the day?s events, although undercover officers were seen taking photographs. The Bush administration continues to push for war in spite of significant domestic and international opposition to a ?preemptive? invasion of Iraq. From dr_broccoli at hotmail.com Thu Oct 31 14:45:07 2002 From: dr_broccoli at hotmail.com (Shawn G) Date: Sun Feb 8 02:51:56 2004 Subject: [Dryerase] Fwd: [Dryerase-d] AGR DC Anti-war protests Message-ID: Re-printing by non-profits and members of the dry-erase news wire permitted Asheville Global Report www.agrnews.org DC hosts largest anti-war protest in US since Vietnam By Celene DeLoach and Willy Rosencrans Asheville, North Carolina, Oct. 28 (AGR) – Hundreds of thousands gathered in streets across the US on Oct. 26, the one-year anniversary of the passage of the USA PATRIOT Act, to protest the Bush administration’s impending invasion of Iraq. International ANSWER, the group which called for the day of protests, said the numbers far exceeded their expectations. Between 150,000 and 200,000 people gathered in Washington, DC’s Constitution Gardens, making it DC’s largest anti-war demonstration since Vietnam. The demonstration culminated in a march that encompassed nearly 30 blocks before drawing to a close; when marchers at the front of the procession returned to Constitution Avenue on their way back, they had to wait to allow demonstrators at the tail of the march to pass. Police blocked protesters from approaching the White House; three arrests were made. Protesters voiced a variety of concerns about a US offensive against Iraq. Some felt that it drew attention from increasingly worsening economic woes at home. “This Iraq war is 100 percent bullshit,” said Martin Freed of No Nukes North in Fairbanks, AK. “It’s a political ploy to take people’s minds off the loss of social services and civil rights in our country and the failed ‘terror war.’” Tina Plummer, of Fayetteville, NC, agreed. “I haven’t met many people who are in favor of a military offensive. They’re more concerned about jobs. We’re in an economic slump.” Others focused on the international ramifications of an offensive. Suk Jong Hong, of the Korean community development group Nodutdol (Stepping Stone), came from New York with a group of Koreans and Korean-Americans to draw connections between the US occupation of Korea and the probable aftermath of a US invasion of Iraq. > “Korean civilians suffer from murder and rape committed with impunity by >US soldiers,” said Hong. “The Status of Forces Agreement permits the US to >have legal jurisdiction over all its bases. It also gives the US the use of >natural resources... It’s a colonial relationship.” >Maria Gnecco of Colombia saw similar motives behind US interventions in >Colombia and Iraq. “It’s all about oil. Colombia has oil, and the US has >set up protection for oil there. Colombia’s oil has been taken over by the >US. They don’t care about the people.” >Luis Cardoza, an organizer with Colombia’s SINALTRAINAL union who was once >kidnapped by paramilitaries allegedly working for Coca Cola, agreed. “It’s >all done for the resources and raw materials of the country.” >Rashid, a Syrian living in Baltimore, gave this message to Bush: “Start a >war with Israel if you want to fight countries with nuclear weapons.” >Osman, originally from Iraq but a resident of New Jersey for the past 18 >years, came with his wife and three children “because only innocent people >are killed in wars.” He remembered the hundreds of civilians killed in the >Amiriyah bunker in Iraq by a US “smart” bomb in 1991. >Many demonstrators had simpler, angrier messages. Santino, an Italian >living in New York, came with a sign bearing the likeness of George Bush >and the words “Guerra? Ma vavangulo, stronzo di merda!” [War? Go screw >yourself, you piece of shit!] >“Fuck you, bastard,” exclaimed Freed when asked if he had any words for the >president. >In San Francisco, demonstrators filled a mile-long stretch of city blocks >as they marched from the financial district to City Hall. At one point the >crowd numbered 42,000. >“I’m out here because I think this whole idea of bombing Iraq is >atrocious,” said Hilary Hann, a 43-year-old social worker. “Everybody >should be out here doing what I’m doing because it’s the only way we’re >going to have any voice.” >“What I see is blame, retaliation, vengeance and war, and it doesn’t help,” >said Scott Valentino. “It doesn’t do anything except cause more bloodshed >and endanger more Americans.” >The demonstration was peaceful, though a splinter group of about 600 broke >off, wandered through the financial district and stood briefly outside an >Army reserve office, according to police spokesman Dewayne Tully. They >spray-painted slogans on streets, but there was no other property damage >and no arrests. >In Taos, NM a crowd estimated at 2,500 marched to Donald Rumsfeld’s home in >El Prado, north of town, many wearing Halloween skull masks. At least 10 >state and federal agents stood guard. Protesters hung their placards along >a wooden fence lining the driveway. Some of the protesters staged a die-in >in front of the home. >“Taos is an international peace zone,” Mayor Peralta said. >Marvin Gladstone, 75, of Albuquerque, came dressed as Uncle Sam and wore a >sign on his chest that said: “I Want You to Die for Oil.” >In Des Moines, IA, police arrested 14 people for blocking the gates to an >Iowa National Guard base. The 14, watched by 75 supporters across the >street, had refused police orders to leave. They were handcuffed, taken to >jail and charged with criminal trespass. >In November, five planes and 200 members of the 132nd Fighter Wing will >leave from the base for a 30-day deployment to patrol the no-fly zones in >northern Iraq. Iowa National Guard Officer Ed Graybill said the November >patrol is routine and will be the sixth deployment in Iraq in six years. >“I felt that my conscience called me to do it,” said Eileen Hanson, 28, of >the action. It was the first time she has been arrested for protesting. >“I’ve tried to resist the war in Iraq within the boundaries of the law, but >now this is what I had to do.” >At a later gathering in Des Moines, more than 200 people assmbled to >demonstrate against a war on Iraq. >Around 10,500 rallied in St. Paul, MN and marched to the state Capitol. >“I haven’t personally seen this many people gathered for peace since >Vietnam,” said Pat McPeak, a St. Paul school nurse. >The peace themes of the rally highlighted what many viewed as conflicting >interests: corporations, oil companies, and the country’s wealthiest >citizens vs. education, health, and housing for the average taxpayer. >“I’m old enough to remember Vietnam, and what we learned then was that >sometimes our own government lies to us,” Fran Conklin said. >250 gathered in Durham, NC as police and private security guards stood by >to arrest any “trespassers” on private property. “I haven’t been to a >demonstration in 30 years!” exclaimed one protester. >There were some early unpleasantries with private security guards from the >Brightleaf Square shopping center. The security guards prevented ralliers >from parking in Brightleaf-operated lots under threat of towing, and >threatened to have any ralliers who “walked across the property” arrested >for trespassing. >A march in Montpelier, VT drew 1,100 people. Ten-year-old Ariel Goodman >took her turn at the podium to call on the government to spend more money >on schools — including her own century-old school building, which she said >badly needs repairs — and less on the defense budget. >“It’s really, really, really stupid that we can kill people for oil,” she >said. >“It’s crucially important that we tell the administration that we want no >part of their warmongering on the suffering people of Iraq or any other >country,” said Nancy Rice, 60. “I don’t think that we have any right to >change regimes of other countries. War puts the whole world in a very >vulnerable position.” >2,500 marched in Augusta, ME through a steady, cold rain to voice their >opposition. >“As a [Vietnam] veteran, I’m asking you to do all you can to ensure your >sons and daughters do not serve in this war,” Dud Hendrick urged the crowd. >Tom Jackson, an activist and filmmaker who produced Greetings from Missile >Street, a documentary showing Iraqi citizens struggling to survive under >economic sanctions, said modern warfare has the heaviest impact on >children. >“The children of Iraq and Afghanistan have just as much value as ours do >here in the United States,” Jackson said. He said people should consider >not paying federal taxes so their money can’t be used to support war. > >Additional information from Associated Press, Des Moines Register, Maine >Sunday Telegram, NC Indymedia, St. Paul Pioneer Press, > > >_______________________________________________ >Dryerase-d mailing list >Dryerase-d@lists.cu.groogroo.com >http://lists.cu.groogroo.com/cgi-bin/listinfo/dryerase-d _________________________________________________________________ Get faster connections -- switch to MSN Internet Access! http://resourcecenter.msn.com/access/plans/default.asp