From dr_broccoli at hotmail.com Wed Sep 4 13:14:26 2002 From: dr_broccoli at hotmail.com (Shawn G) Date: Sun Feb 8 02:51:49 2004 Subject: [Dryerase] AGR Portland protest Message-ID: Asheville Global Report www.AGRNews.org Bush gets money, protesters get pepper-spray By Sean Marquis Aug. 28 (AGR)— Police in Portland, Oregon used teargas, pepper spray, rubber bullets, and batons to disperse a crowd of protesters outside a hotel where president George W. Bush was attending a Republican party fund raising event last week. The demonstrators, numbering about 3,000 from various points around the Hilton hotel, were attempting to confront Bush and his donors and voice their opposition to many of his policies including his terror war, the invasion of Iraq, and Bush’s newly announced “Healthy Forests Initiative” -- a timber industry giveaway disguised as environmentalism. The mainstream local and national corporate media went into full spin control over the Aug. 22 protest after some had initially reported “thousands” of protesters, they later changed the estimates to “a few hundred,” and also did not challenge many police statements about the firing of rubber bullets. Bush’s Portland stop was aimed at raising money for the re-election of Oregon Senator Gordon Smith and the Republican Party in general.    According to a report by the Portland Tribune, “About 600 contributors paid $1,000 for a fund-raising reception. Others paid $5,000 each for a more exclusive meeting and still others paid $25,000 per couple to have their picture taken with Bush. Party officials say the various events could add as much as $1 million to Republican campaign accounts.” Thousands of protesters clogged the streets of Portland, blocking downtown traffic and bus services during rush hour chanting “Drop Bush, Not Bombs” and holding signs like “It’s the Economy, Stupid.” By many accounts, the police outside the hotel seemed completely unprepared for the size of the crowd -- likely the reason they quickly resorted to the use of force to break up the crowd. Pepper spraying lawyers and babies The following day, Aug. 23, Alan Graf, the Chair of the Portland Chapter of the National Lawyers Guild, held a press conference on the steps of city hall where he stated that he had personally been pepper sprayed the day before and demanded Mayor Vera Katz fire Portland police Chief Mark Kroeker. Graf said that when police attacked the crowd outside the Hilton it was an “aggressive and irresponsible” act and amounted to “gestapo like conduct,” that showed “complete disregard for the health and safety of the citizens of Portland.” He said the police declared a “state of emergency” and ordered the crowd away from the hotel. “About twenty seconds after their announcement the police proceeded to move around the barricades to the other side where the protesters were stationed and started to push and beat people with their nightsticks while spraying pepper spray in the faces of the crowd. “It was clear to me that the police could see that there were young children in strollers within the crowd, yet the police ignored that fact and continued to spray pepper spray indiscriminately so that the spray hit the children and their mothers,” said Graf. Graf noted the crowd was, “loud, noisy, exercising their First Amendment freedoms -- but never threatening.” He then pointed the finger at the police chain of command saying, “Whoever issued the orders yesterday is clearly out of touch with Portland, the fundamental principles of democracy, and their own humanity.” Graf also said that, “many of the officers involved in these actions did not wear name tags or I.D. numbers.” In a press release, Donald Joughin, father of a 10-month-old baby who was pepper-sprayed by the police, thanked fellow protesters who aided him and his family. Joughin said that when a police officer sprayed him and his family, other protesters “shielded us with their bodies…putting themselves in danger, to secure our safe passage through the cordon. Their actions stand in beautiful contrast to the savage inhumanity of the police.” Joughin said that he and his wife brought their children to what was a peaceful protest, but the situation changed rapidly when, according to Joughin and many other eyewitness accounts, the police began spraying and clubbing the crowd. He said he and his wife approached a police barricade and asked to be let through, “because we had three small children. He [the police officer] looked at me, and drew out his can from his hip and sprayed directly at me. “I was at an angle to him and the spray hit my right eye and our three year-old who I was holding in my right arm. In the same motion he turned the can on my wife who was holding our 10-month-old baby and doused both of their heads entirely from a distance of less than 3 feet. My six-year-old daughter was holding my left hand and was not hit directly.” He said that eventually one officer did let the family through the cordon and then, “I immediately called 911…I explained that a baby had been directly pepper sprayed and that I needed an ambulance. They informed me that they would not send one and that all protesters were to report to a first aid tent on the other side of the police lines.” According to Joughin, medical volunteers from the Black Cross, a street-medic organization, treated the family, and two staffers from a local radio station drove them to Emmanuel Emergency Room where, “The children were examined for respiratory problems and chemical burns. The pediatrician kept us a little longer so that she could call poison control to check for other recommended procedures as she had never in her career seen an infant pepper spray victim,” Joughin said. Of the Portland protest and the police reaction to it, William Rivers Pitt, a reporter for Truthout wrote, “Bush is protested wherever he goes these days…The streets of Portland were filled on Aug. 22 by average American citizens seeking to inform the President of their disfavor regarding the manner in which he is governing their country. “If America needed one more example of the cancer that has been chewing through the guts of our most basic freedoms since Mr. Bush assumed office, they can look to Portland. The right to freely assemble and petition the government for a redress of grievances has been rescinded at the point of a gun,” Pitt wrote. ‘Healthy Forests’ = No trees Many people attending the anti-bush protest were angry over Bush’s “Healthy Forest” Initiative, formally announced that morning. Bush made his announcement at a photo-op after touring swaths of recently burned Oregon forests. More than half of his speech focused on his terror war as he tried to make a link between timber industry jobs, an improved economy and fighting his terror war. The crux of his “Healthy Forests” initiative is to aggressively increase logging to thin out forests to prevent them from burning and to decrease the ability of citizens and environmental groups to use lawsuits to prevent destructive logging practices. According to Marty Bergoffen of the Southern Appalachian Biodiversity Project, Bush’s “Healthy Forest” plan is “nothing but a gift to Bush’s timber cronies, who gave millions to his election campaign and will reap billions in profits.” The plan will allow logging unregulated by public input or court oversight, in violation of the Constitution and democratic ideals. The most advanced scientific research available indicates that commercial logging will not prevent fires, but will, in fact, make them worse by removing large trees and leaving small diameter brush which easily desiccates and burns, Bergoffen said. In a press statement, the Cascadia Forest Alliance (CFA) said that, “Forest and fire ecology provide evidence that years of commercial logging of healthy older forests and aggressive fire suppression and drought are the key sources of insect, disease and wildfire outbreaks.” “Bush’s latest proposals to ‘streamline’ environmental laws such as the National Environmental Policy Act and to subsidize fuel reduction projects with logging mature and old forests will only increase fire risks while providing taxpayer subsidized logs to the timber industry,” added CFA volunteer Carrie Taylor. Bush reiterated his new forest policy two days later on Aug. 24 saying, “Forest policies have not focused on thinning, the clearing of the forest floor of built-up brush and densely packed trees that create the fuel for extremely large fires like those experienced this year.” “We need a different approach,” Bush said. “I have directed Secretary of Agriculture Ann Veneman and Secretary of the Interior Gale Norton to reduce bureaucracy and speed up the process of thinning on public lands.” According to a report by the Environmental News Service, “There is general agreement that decades of fire suppression in our forests have resulted in an unnatural buildup of dead wood that provides an ample fuel source for wildfires. Forests are designed to withstand regular fires that clear the ground and keep the impact of subsequent fires to a minimum…There is a difference between clearing small trees and underbrush to reduce fuels and the logging of large trees under the guise of fuels reduction.” Mike Dombeck, Retired US Forest Service Chief wrote in Fire Management Today, Winter 2001, that “Some argue that more commercial timber harvest is needed to remove small-diameter trees and brush that are fueling our worst wildland fires in the interior West,” but he said that commercial logging of taller, older trees led to a proliferation of smaller trees and underbrush, “precisely the small diameter materials that are causing our worst fire problems.” “In fact,” Dombeck added, “many large fires in 2000 burned in previously logged areas laced with roads. It seems unlikely that commercial timber harvest can solve our forest health problems.” Media spin Much of the corporate media reporting on the police attack outside the Hilton did say that police used batons and pepper spray to disperse the crowd, the same media for the most part gave the police-initiated violence little attention, such as CNN stating simply that “the protest turned violent with the arrival of police in riot gear.” The media focused instead on protesters banging on and “attacking” police cars, which prompted the police to fire rubber bullets and “Sage” baton guns at the protesters to back them off of the police cars. According to the police department, and corporate media accounts, the police were compelled to use those weapons to perform an “officer rescue” because the officers in the vehicles were “endangered” by the crowd. This account is only partly true. Eyewitness testimony, photographs, and video footage all posted to the Portland Independent Media Center’s web site showed another part of the story. The police cars were surrounded by protesters, but only because those vehicles became mired in the crowd when they attempted to drive through it, thus actually running into people and creating the situation they found themselves in. This is also backed up, in part, by a report in the Oregonian: “Things grew more tense when three police cars with reserve groups of officers tried to move through the crowd and inside the barricades to safeguard the cars from potential vandalism, [Assistant Chief Greg] Clark said. “But as they drove into the crowd -- which police recognize might not have been the smartest move -- some demonstrators leaped on top of one car and banged on its windows. And that’s when police started shooting,” according to the Oregonian. _________________________________________________________________ Chat with friends online, try MSN Messenger: http://messenger.msn.com From dr_broccoli at hotmail.com Wed Sep 4 13:16:13 2002 From: dr_broccoli at hotmail.com (Shawn G) Date: Sun Feb 8 02:51:49 2004 Subject: [Dryerase] AGR Nazi's protested in DC Message-ID: Asheville Global Report www.AGRNews.org 1,000 oppose Nazi march on Capitol Building By Shawn Gaynor Washington, DC, Aug. 25 (AGR)—On Saturday, about 800 neo-Nazis, accompanied by heavy DC Metro and Capital Police and Secret Service forces, marched from Union Station to the Capitol Building, “Seig-Heiling” and shouting a variety of white supremacist and anti-Semitic slogans. The event, sponsored by the National Alliance (NA) was met by an aggressive crowd of protesters estimated by the police at around 1,000, including a large Anti-Racist Action contingent. This gathering was the largest, public, white supremacist meeting since World War II in the United States. The National Alliance had come to Washington to protest US funding of Israel, and rant about the “Zionist conspiracy” to rule the world. Nazis chanted, “What do we want? Jews out! When do we want it? Now!” The march was led by the National Alliance deputy membership coordinator, Bill Roper. Roper was beaten with a crowbar last year at a National Alliance event in front of the German embassy. The head of the National Alliance, William Pierce, author of The Turner Diaries (a fictional account of a future race war), could not make the event as he died this month in his West Virginia compound. Earlier, anti-Nazi protesters blocked the parking deck entrance to Union Station preventing several National Alliance members from entering. In this area Nazi cars were turned away by a crowd of “black bloc” anarchists, while shoppers and travelers were permitted to enter. Metro police, unprepared for protests in this area, stood by for a half hour before asking protesters to disperse. As more police arrived, protesters relented and moved around to the front of Union Station, where the Nazi march was to begin. As the march from Union Station to the Capitol Building began, the crowd of counter-demonstrators became unruly. Despite a heavy presence, police were unable to contain counter-demonstrators, who repeatedly took the streets and boldly maneuvered through and around police lines. Despite this, government security forces maintained a buffer between the neo-Nazis and the protesters, though small groups of anti-Nazis confronted isolated National Alliance members. By mid-day police appeared exhausted in their heavy gear as temperatures climbed well into the 90s, and often responded slowly to crowd movements. After the event ended, small groups of anti-Nazis dispersed through the area, confronting the neo-Nazis as they left town. Several neo-Nazi stragglers were allegedly assaulted during and after the Washington march, though Assistant Police Chief Terrance Gainer of the US Capital Police said no injuries were reported. The only reported arrest of the day was that of a Chicago man for throwing rocks at the neo-Nazis. He was released after paying a $50 fine. According to Baltimore media, earlier in the day, Nazis were confronted by dozens of protesters at the Baltimore Travel Plaza. It is unclear how fighting began, but the ensuing melee, or “mini-riot” as characterized by Baltimore police, left several neo-Nazis bloodied, one hospitalized, and a disabled a charter bus, which had been slated to carry the Nazis to the demonstration in Washington, DC. Several sources reported that the bus tires were slashed, and the Baltimore Sun reported “either pepper stray, or camouflaging smoke” was discharged in the bus. Baltimore police arrested 26 anti-Nazi protesters and two members of a New Jersey Indymedia collective near the scene of the plaza. No Nazis were reported arrested or detained. The early morning protest prevented scores of neo-Nazis from traveling to the Washington, DC event. Neo-Nazi skinheads returned to the suburbs of Baltimore after the DC rally Saturday to hold a “white power” concert. The event was held at the White Marsh National Guard Armory, though no explanation could be given for the use of the armory as a white power venue. Several activists and local community residents rallied in front of the building to protest the event. Local police, FBI, and Secret Service agents stood by outside the concert to respond to any confrontation. It was unclear why the Secret Service was present, as their role typically revolves around the protection of the president and other federal elected officials. Though local media reported that a confrontation was expected, none developed. That evening, police raided and searched a Baltimore venue looking for anti-Nazi activists and attempted to gain entry to the Progressive Action Center (a local press center and library), but were turned away when they were unable to produce a warrant. Indymedia also reported that the raided venue, which was searched by police twice, was entered without a warrant. Police maintained a presence outside the Progressive Action Center, until a news helicopter arrived and network news crews began interviews with the building’s occupants. On Monday, the last of those arrested in Baltimore had been released on bail. Charges against the anti-Nazis varied, but included disorderly conduct, aggravated assault, rioting, and weapons possession charges. One local minor has been charged with an outlandish 23 counts of aggravated assault in connection with the conflict. A solidarity vigil of up to one hundred Baltimore residents spoke out for the arrested anti-Nazis, under the banner “Anti-Racists under Siege.” The vigil was ongoing for the two days between the arrests and the release of the last activist Monday evening. Baltimore activists say funds are urgently needed for the legal defense of those accused in the Travel Plaza incident, and are asking those concerned to donate to a local “Anti-Fascist Solidarity” Fund. Checks to the fund should be written out to Black Planet Books, with ‘Anti-fascist solidarity’ written in the ‘Memo’ line, and sent to the following address: Black Planet Books 1621 Fleet St. Baltimore, MD 21231. _________________________________________________________________ Send and receive Hotmail on your mobile device: http://mobile.msn.com From dr_broccoli at hotmail.com Wed Sep 4 13:17:42 2002 From: dr_broccoli at hotmail.com (Shawn G) Date: Sun Feb 8 02:51:49 2004 Subject: [Dryerase] AGR Ashcroft Camps Message-ID: Asheville Global Report www.AGRNews.org Ashcroft's detention camps for US citizens By Liz Allen Asheville, North Carolina, Aug. 27 (AGR)— US citizens now may be subject to being labeled “enemy combatants” and placed in detention camps. The new category created and defined by the executive branch would deny citizens labeled “enemy combatant” basic rights afforded an ordinary criminal defendant or a foreigner facing a military tribunal, such Fifth Amendment rights as well as rights to due process. A “high level” committee composed of the attorney general, secretary of defense and the director of the CIA would make recommendations to the president as to who gets the label. The Bush administration is laying the foundation to go beyond the system of checks and balances and allow only the executive branch, which includes the military, to have access to the detainees. Currently, a special wing is being prepared in Goose Creek, South Carolina to hold 20 US citizens labeled as combatants. Attorney General John Ashcroft has announced his desire to see camps built solely for the purpose of detaining this new category of criminals. In the camps “enemy combatants” would be subjected to indefinite incarceration. Part of the purpose, justified in terms of the war on terrorism, is to facilitate the extraction of information. Newsweek quoted an “administrative official” explaining the current incarceration of Jose Padilla by saying, “If this guy thinks he might be there for 20 years with no recourse, he might just say, ‘OK, let’s talk.’” Padilla has been held as an “enemy combatant” on the Consolidated Naval Brig in Charleston, South Carolina since May 8th and is one of the cases currently being used to set precedent for legally denying the prisoners right to counsel. The other case is that of Yaser Esam Hamdi who has been held at a Naval brig in Norfolk, VA since April 5. Hamdi’s case was heard earlier this month before Federal District Court Judge Robert G. Doumar to decide if Hamdi has the right to meet with his counsel. Throughout the trial the judge displayed overt disgust with the government’s position. Assistant to the solicitor general, Gregory Garre, told the judge Hamdi had been afforded regular meetings with a brig commander and a chaplain, to which Doumar snapped, “He just can’t meet with a lawyer.” Mr. Garre claimed that courts “have a role” in deciding what happens with the prisoners, but that role is more for the president. The government’s argument relied on a two page statement, written by Michael Mobbs, a special advisor to the Defense Department, known as the “the Mobbs declaration.” The document served as the basis for determining Hambi’s status as an “enemy combatant.” Finding the document vague and lacking in defining what criteria determines enemy combatant status; Judge Doumar explained, “I’m challenging everything in the Mobbs declaration. If you think I don’t understand the utilization of words, you are sadly mistaken.” The court decided in Hambi’s favor; however, the Bush administration has appealed it to the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals, a historically conservative court, where it is now awaiting reconsideration. Both Hamdi and Padilla are United States citizens and there is evidence of their innocence. Ashcroft claimed Padilla was involved in “an unfolding terrorist plot to attack the United States by exploding a radioactive dirty bomb,” but government officials who are close to the case now report there is no evidence a plot was under way. Hamdi’s father has petitioned Congress, asserting his son’s innocence and pointing out that he had been in Pakistan for less than two months prior to September 11, not long enough to receive any military training. The American Bar Association has put out a resolution and a preliminary report by the Task Force on the Treatment of Enemy Combatants, condemning the Bush administration’s “enemy combatant” policies. The ABA says the current policies are in violation of the right to judicial review and Act 4001 of the United States Criminal Code, which provides “no citizen shall be imprisoned or otherwise detained by the United States except pursuant to an Act of Congress. ” The ABA also condemns the action on the basis of international law, including the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the Body of Principles for the Protection of All Persons under Any Form of Detention or Imprisonment, which include the right to legal counsel. _________________________________________________________________ Join the world’s largest e-mail service with MSN Hotmail. http://www.hotmail.com From dr_broccoli at hotmail.com Wed Sep 4 13:22:44 2002 From: dr_broccoli at hotmail.com (Shawn G) Date: Sun Feb 8 02:51:49 2004 Subject: [Dryerase] AGR SOA watch Message-ID: Asheville Global Report www.AGRNews.org SOA Watch activists to serve their time in county jail By Melissa Fridlin Crisp County, Georgia, Aug. 27 (AGR)— Three School of the Americas Watch prisoners who were due to be transferred to a federal prison will be held in a county jail for the duration of their six-month sentence. The prisoners were among 10,000 who gathered last fall to call for the closure of the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation (WHISC), formerly known as the School of the Americas. They were charged with trespassing after peacefully crossing onto the property of Fort Benning, the site of the school, on November 18, 2001. The SOA/WHISC is a combat training school for Latin American soldiers that operates at Fort Benning, Georgia. Many human rights organizations have published reports that directly link graduates of the school to human rights abuses and atrocities. In December 2000 Congress passed legislation which created the WHISC to replace the SOA. The renaming of the school was widely viewed as an attempt to diffuse public criticism and to disassociate the school from its reputation. Critics say that the school has changed little of its notorious curriculum. On July 12th, 2002, a federal court in Georgia found 36 SOA Watch activists guilty and sentenced them for committing civil disobedience on the Fort Benning military reservation. Twenty-nine received prison terms ranging from three to the maximum of six months. Toni Flynn, 56, a Catholic Worker and mother of four from Valyermo, CA, Peter Gelderloos, 20, an activist from Harrisonburg, VA, and Father Jerry Zawada, 65, a Franciscan priest from Cedar Lake, IN refused the option to self-surrender at a later date. On the day of sentencing, they were taken to Crisp County Jail in Georgia. Based on previous experience, SOA Watch organizers and the three prisoners assumed that this was to be a brief stop in transit to a federal prison near their homes. However, the Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) has designated Crisp County Jail as the location where the three will serve the remainder of their six-month sentence. SOA Watch has charged that the Crisp County Jail does not comply with federal standards for the treatment of prisoners. Code of Federal Regulations sections 540.41 and 540.42 provide requirements for proper visitation facilities and visiting times for inmates, stating that “at a minimum, the Warden shall establish visiting hours at the institution on Saturdays, Sundays, and holidays.” It is also the policy of the BOP “to encourage visiting by family, friends, and community groups to maintain the morale of the inmate and to develop closer relationships between the inmate and family members or others in the community.” “The Crisp County Jail does not permit visits on weekends and the visitation facilities do not meet the BOP criteria,” said Jeff Winder of School of the Americas Watch. A BOP official said, however, that inmates are frequently placed in halfway houses or county jails when they are considered a low risk and have a short sentence. “The Bureau of Prisons has a joint contract with Crisp County Jail to house federal inmates when needed. Under this contract, visitation is conducted in accordance with county jail regulations, not federal regulations,” stated the official. “We can’t change their visiting hours around just because there are a few federal inmates there.” The three prisoners have also reported major concerns with the health and sanitation conditions in the Crisp County Jail, including a lack of access to health care. One inmate, Toni Flynn, wrote from the jail that “a woman in my cell block has for weeks complained of ‘sores and bugs’ on her body. The only response was to be given a can of Lice Spray for us to use on our bodies… the label says ‘dangerous for humans & animals’ and further instructs that it is toxic if inhaled or absorbed. Our cell was nonetheless sprayed & some women sprayed their bodies. The infected woman was isolated for one day and then returned, still infected. We are all at risk and the woman is as yet untreated or at best treated ineffectively.” The BOP says that “medical care is provided under our contract, and it is up to community standards.” Officials do plan to make a site visit to Crisp County this week to check conditions and investigate Flynn’s complaint. “If we find that conditions are not up to our contract specifications, the inmates will be placed in a Federal facility. However, it may take four to six weeks for a transfer,” the BOP official said. “We are still concerned about conditions in this county jail. Regardless of what happens with the SOA Watch prisoners, the situation at Crisp County Jail has to change for all prisoners,” Winder stated. _________________________________________________________________ MSN Photos is the easiest way to share and print your photos: http://photos.msn.com/support/worldwide.aspx From dr_broccoli at hotmail.com Thu Sep 5 14:49:55 2002 From: dr_broccoli at hotmail.com (Shawn G) Date: Sun Feb 8 02:51:49 2004 Subject: [Dryerase] AGR Green Wash Message-ID: Asheville Global Report www.agrnews.org Times Magazine's green wa$h century By Sean Marquis Sept. 4 (AGR)— In what amounts to 62 pages of pro-corporate green wash, Time Magazine turned the world on its head by claiming that environmentalists are to blame for the sorry ecological state of the planet and that capitalists, industry, and free marketeers have the solutions to global environmental woes. Introducing the “Green Century” issue (Aug. 26), Time’s Executive Editor, Adi Ignatius wrote that the answers for the world’s environmental problems include: “New technologies …market-based incentives…a new Industrial Revolution…high tech buildings…incentives to speed the switch to clean energy sources [and] fast and safe cars that don’t pollute.” Ignatius also encouraged readers to “take a look at Andrew Goldstein’s provocative indictment of the green movement …[environmentalists] Goldstein argues, are probably causing more harm than good.” The corporate sponsorship for such ideas is apparent in the advertising: six full-page ads for cars (Toyota four, Honda 2), two full pages for Beyond Petroleum (formerly known as British Petroleum, but still goes by “BP”) and two full pages for the Council for Biotechnology Information -- all touting their own role in helping to save the planet. It is no wonder then that in the article “Mean clean machines” Time has the gall to print: “Of course, the best way to conserve energy and reduce pollution would be to phase out cars in favor of mass transportation. But let’s face it: that’s not going to happen.” Five little words simply and quickly dismissed “the best way to conserve energy and reduce pollution.” The article then essentially turned into an ad for the auto industry, highlighting different makes and models of “green” cars and other techno-solutions for individual transportation. Auto industry ads translate into auto industry solutions. The biotech industry also received a reciprocal boost from Time in the section on food in the “Challenges we face” article. Time states that “agricultural policies now in place define the very idea of unsustainable development.” A true statement, but without addressing the culpability for this problem the statement becomes misleading. Time never says that these “agricultural policies now in place” were put into practice 50 years ago as part of the “Green Revolution” -- another industrialist/capitalist scheme that was going to feed the world, but which has become an abysmal failure for the poor and the hungry whom it was supposed to help. But this isn’t mentioned because there is a new industrial solution to remedy the ills of the last industrial solution: genetic engineering. According to Time, “better crop rotation and irrigation can help protect fields from exhaustion and erosion…But in a world that needs action fast, genetic engineering must still have a role.” There you have it. The beauty of advertising. It isn’t until 24 pages later that Indian environmentalist Vandana Shiva received a one-page highlight where organic farming is discussed. But the article here was more cautious, with no statements such as: “but organic farming must have a role.” Organic farming is presented as a limitedly successful cautionary tale, that tellingly, “agribusiness must show it can outperform.” While “highlighting” organic farming, Time’s article on Shiva still mangages to further the cause of big industry by stating, “the challenge for genetic engineers is to create seeds adapted to particular locales that enable farmers to reduce, not increase, the use of chemicals.” It would seem Time needs to check up on some of Shiva’s own writings (Biopiracy: The Plunder of Nature and Knowledge and Stolen Harvest: The Highjacking of the Global Food Supply) to see how for centuries farmers in India cultivated and saved seeds -- kinds which were particular to locales and water conditions and used no chemicals. The Green Revolution came and destroyed that practice for many farmers (who were put under pressure to grow crops for export and commodity value rather than for subsistence). But that side of the story is absent in Time. Indian peasant farmers don’t have the advertising clout of the biotech industry. Blame the environmentalists The bluntest piece in Time’s “Special Report” is Goldstein’s “Too green for their own good?”, in which he began with the question: “How come, at a time when the environmental movement is stronger and richer than ever, our most pressing ecological problems just get worse?” The premise Goldstein assumed is that money solves problems, which he then went on to re-emphasize, saying that US environmental groups have received donations of “$6.4 billion in 2001,” but the environment has not gotten any better, which lead him to the notion that “environmentalists [are] vulnerable to charges that green groups have prospered while the earth has not.” Goldstein’s advice to environmentalists: “Business is not the enemy” and “embrace the market.” Goldstein never explained his logic of just how money translates into a cleaner environment. Goldstein never said -- which would have been an interesting use of his own logic -- how much money polluting industries have at their disposal (hundreds and hundreds of billions of dollars), if its a money war environmentalists haven’t a chance. At least not in Time Magazine anyway. Goldstein continued the corporate-sponsorship line saying “the planet needs profitable, innovative businesses even more than it needs environmentalists.” Again technology is the answer. The world needs Monsanto and Ford now; Greenpeace and Earthfirst!, thanks for coming, but you’re just not needed. Goldstein employed a twisted little logic to say that environmental groups should not have attacked Ford Motor Co., “Detroit’s most environmentally friendly carmaker” -- according to Goldstein, when Ford lobbied Congress to not increase fuel efficiency standards. Attacking Ford, he argues, was an act of “conservation purity” and such acts only push away environmental “supporters” and keep polluting industries willing to keep polluting. So the pollution and global warming problems are the fault of the environmentalists, not the fault of the industries and corporations actually doing the polluting. The article also gives a leg up to its biotech advertisers by taking a few sentences to dismiss the inherent, and also the unknown, risks of genetically engineered crops and then presents these crops as the solution to the food shortage (more honestly, food distribution) and chemical intensive agriculture problems. As for those who don’t think that’s the proper solution, Goldstein writes: “But what’s needed now are not crop tramplers and lab burners,” and that environmentalists “should lobby hard for the resources of Big Agriculture to be plowed into discovering crop varieties that can handle drought and thrive on small-scale farms.” Big Agriculture, Big Industry, Big Money. Time Magazine has given the solution to the environmental question. Don’t ride the bus, buy a new “green” car instead. Don’t stop using chemicals in favor of organic farming, use copyright-protected genetically engineered seeds instead. And when all else fails, blame the environmentalists. The only “green” evident about Time’s “Green Century” issue is the amount of money Time’s advertisers paid for it. _________________________________________________________________ MSN Photos is the easiest way to share and print your photos: http://photos.msn.com/support/worldwide.aspx From dr_broccoli at hotmail.com Thu Sep 5 14:55:51 2002 From: dr_broccoli at hotmail.com (Shawn G) Date: Sun Feb 8 02:51:49 2004 Subject: [Dryerase] AGR Green Wash Message-ID: Asheville Global Report www.agrnews.org Start Worm Composting By Shawn Gaynor Asheville, North Carolina, Sept.4 (AGR)— By now it seems like most people know about recycling. This by now means is to say that everyone recycles everything that is recyclable, but rather that it is in the mass consciousness of our culture that recycling is generally a good idea and a benefit to the environment. It reduces the amount of garbage that ends up in landfills, reduces impact on forests and mines, and saves fuel by having to put less energy into processing raw materials. Likewise, composting seems to have largely entered the mass consciousness as a way to reduce waste. However many people, although they know that composting and building soils from your food waste, helps make the world more fertile, reduces our dependencies on the chemical industry (who provides ‘fertilizers’), and counters the massive top soil loss happening worldwide, still don’t do it. Of course they have all kinds of reasons; however, one that seems to come up often is that they have no space for a big pile of compost in their apartment, or small yard. Well, if you’re one of these people, worm composting is for you. In just a few easy steps that you can take on any evening of your life, you can begin worm composting. You’ll need a few things to start. First is a bin. It should have a lid that sits on it, but is not airtight. I recommend the retail shipping bin myself. It has a hinged lid and is about two feet by two and a half feet by one foot deep--the perfect size for an apartment worm compost. They are the milk crate of the new millennium. Plastic makes it easy to clean, and it needs only one major alteration—that a few dozen ¼ inch holes be drilled in the bottom for it to drain. Drain? Your worm compost is going to produce worm castings. As fertilizers go this is top notch. It should be diluted before using on your house or garden plants. To catch the castings, you will want to elevate the bin (with bricks, tin cans, other post-industrial ‘waste’) and have a tray beneath that catches the castings. A worn out Tupperware dish or baking sheet should work fine.Before adding your worms, the bin should have some starter soil (maybe an inch of it) in it and some bedding to regulate moisture. Old card board or newspapers shredded up works just fin. The bedding should go on top of the dirt and fill the bin more then halfway. Now time for the worms. Lots are better. Some sources say about two thousand for a box this size, but you can start with a couple of containers from the local bait shop. Red worms are the ones you’re looking for. They are common and voracious eaters. Adding new bedding every so often will keep the box from smelling. It can be kept beneath a sink for easy access, or in a garage, basement or other underutilized space. Now its time to feed the worms your garbage. Don’t put in dairy or meat, as these will attract pests, bugs, smell and a general aura of evil. A bin this size should be good for a household, however if you started with less worms, you need to let them multiply by feeding them steadily without filling up the bin. The food waste should be mixed in. One worm composter I know blends the waste for faster consumption by the worms. Worms like it between 40 and 80 degrees and moist but not wet, so make sure they’re getting what they want. For more information on worm composting visit look up worm composting on the Internet, or in your local library. The following Internet sites will be very useful: www.cityfarmer.org/wormcomp61.html, www.cfe.cornell.edu/compost/worms/basics.html, www.uky.edu/OtherOrgs/AppalFor/bins.html or your local library. Also the book Worms Eat My Compost by Mary Appelhof provides many helpful insights and facts. _________________________________________________________________ Join the world’s largest e-mail service with MSN Hotmail. http://www.hotmail.com From dr_broccoli at hotmail.com Thu Sep 5 15:01:44 2002 From: dr_broccoli at hotmail.com (Shawn G) Date: Sun Feb 8 02:51:49 2004 Subject: [Dryerase] AGR Hip Hop Peace Summit Message-ID: Asheville Global Report www.agrnews.org Hip Hop Peace Summit lands at Civic Center By Liz Allen Asheville, North Carolina, Sept. 3 (AGR)— “Party in Peace” was the theme last Saturday for the Hip Hop Peace Summit/Petey Pablo concert. The Petey Pablo concert had originally been scheduled for July 25, to be held at McCormick stadium during the Bele Chere festival. It was canceled at the last minute by the Asheville Parks and Recreation Department and Buncombe County, out of fear that urban entertainment sparks violence. Ray Mapp of Purpose Publications, who put on the event, said the concert was difficult to reschedule. The purpose of the Hip Hop Summit was to remove the fear, demonstrated in the sudden cancellation, through emphasizing the positive, nonviolent side of Hip Hop. “We came up with the ‘Party in Peace’ slogan for one reason,” explained PR person and MC for the event Michael Hayes, “that’s like, to come in, party your ass off and when you leave outta’ there you leave like this [holds up two fingers], throwing up the peace sign.” The summit included vendors who served to educate attendees on entrepreneurship as a positive outlet. Gene Eddison of Platinum T-shirt and Design said his two year old business doing screen printing and heat transfers grew out of his experience making T-shirts for different neighborhoods. Eddison said being African American can make finding start-up capital difficult, but he succeeded by seeking out other Black entrepreneurs who were interested in supporting him and his project. He tells young people “staying focused is the toughest thing….basically believe in yourself, don’t let others try and bring you down.” The Peace Summit included a talent show, which, according to Hayes, received an overwhelming response. The event included groups from the Asheville area as well as those from all over North Carolina, and was recorded to send to industry representatives. The winner of the talent competition was Shatura featuring YGB (Young, Gifted, and Black). Shatura, one of the handful of female artists performing, said at 16 she felt “blessed to be experiencing things” and that “people have been encouraging and respectful” of her efforts. Other artists included NWO (Nationwide Outlaws), a Goodie Mob-esque six piece group from different parts of the country who record their own beats and tracks at their studio in Hendersonville. Also included was the Assassins, whose style interlaced singing harmonies with rapping lyrics, a la Bone Thugs and Harmony, but with sweeter and prettier vocals. The artists who performed in the talent show also opened up later that night for Petey Pablo in front of an audience of almost a thousand. The talent show encountered difficulties when it began to run over the scheduled time of five o’clock. Civic Center employees said people had to clear out so they could set up for the concert -- an assertion refuted by Richard Ball, the lighting technician, who claimed that the stage changes involved “nothing really since everything [stage, lights, etc.] stays up,” but that the employees “have to close the doors so we can count how many people show up.” The Summit crew was told that they would have to wait for the arrival of the union workers who ran the equipment before the show could continue. Ball explained that the union was in charge of running the spotlight, an item that was not being used for that segment of the event. “Since we are paying for the lights, the stage, we should be able to do it how we should have it…if the Civic Center was having one of these heavy metal groups, these wrestling groups, they get to do what they want to, they pay for whatever. But the way I’m looking at it, it’s a black and white thing. If we were white we probably would be able to do it the way we want to,” explained Ali Beaird, who was filming the event. The response to being cut short was quickly running through shortened sets and Hayes leading a short call and response of “Can’t Stop Hip Hop.” Hip Hop has received a lot of negative press recently, being blamed in the Asheville Citizen-Times for causing the shooting deaths that occurred earlier this summer at the Patton Avenue Pub, a misconception re-emphasized in an article calling the summit a failure because it didn’t draw large crowds. Ray Mapp said Parks and Recreation and the City were responsible for the low turnout because they canceled the original concert. “[We] had a challenge to show it was really going to happen, it was an uphill battle.” He said the Civic Center manager, David Pisha, was very cooperative and reasonable, and even spoke to the police in an effort to get security reduced to a reasonable amount. According to Officer R.H. Lance, there were fourteen Asheville Police Department officers working the event, the same number usually present at a sold-out show. Mapp said there were others involved in hindering the success of the concert. For example, there are reports that the Civic Center told callers interested in tickets that the concert was sold out. However, there are more Hip Hop shows and Peace Summits planned for the future. Mapp says they hope to hold the summit annually. He believes that the summit was influential just by putting out the message “Party in Peace.” Summit organizers are now in the process of compiling information from a questionnaire handed out to students to see what can be done to ensure young people attend future events. Richard Cooper, also of Purpose Publications, plans on booking big Hip Hop shows twice a year in Asheville. Purpose Publications’ biggest seller is a poster listing over 200 inventions by Black inventors, and is currently part of the school curriculum in the Columbus, Ohio city school system. In business for several years, its focus is “on educating the public that unity is stronger than being separated.” This point was reinforced by the diversity of the crowd at the concert, which consisted of people of all ages, but had a large number of young people. Mapp also added that both the summit, the concert and the after party went on without a violent incident. Azariyah of Space Mountain, a group out of Morganton who performed that evening, said he felt the message got across and explained that with Space Mountain, as with other Hip Hop groups, “the essence of our message is positive.” _________________________________________________________________ Send and receive Hotmail on your mobile device: http://mobile.msn.com From dr_broccoli at hotmail.com Thu Sep 5 15:03:13 2002 From: dr_broccoli at hotmail.com (Shawn G) Date: Sun Feb 8 02:51:49 2004 Subject: [Dryerase] AGR Worm Composing Message-ID: Asheville Global Report www.agrnews.org Start Worm Composting By Shawn Gaynor Asheville, North Carolina, Sept.4 (AGR)— By now it seems like most people know about recycling. This by now means is to say that everyone recycles everything that is recyclable, but rather that it is in the mass consciousness of our culture that recycling is generally a good idea and a benefit to the environment. It reduces the amount of garbage that ends up in landfills, reduces impact on forests and mines, and saves fuel by having to put less energy into processing raw materials. Likewise, composting seems to have largely entered the mass consciousness as a way to reduce waste. However many people, although they know that composting and building soils from your food waste, helps make the world more fertile, reduces our dependencies on the chemical industry (who provides ‘fertilizers’), and counters the massive top soil loss happening worldwide, still don’t do it. Of course they have all kinds of reasons; however, one that seems to come up often is that they have no space for a big pile of compost in their apartment, or small yard. Well, if you’re one of these people, worm composting is for you. In just a few easy steps that you can take on any evening of your life, you can begin worm composting. You’ll need a few things to start. First is a bin. It should have a lid that sits on it, but is not airtight. I recommend the retail shipping bin myself. It has a hinged lid and is about two feet by two and a half feet by one foot deep--the perfect size for an apartment worm compost. They are the milk crate of the new millennium. Plastic makes it easy to clean, and it needs only one major alteration—that a few dozen ¼ inch holes be drilled in the bottom for it to drain. Drain? Your worm compost is going to produce worm castings. As fertilizers go this is top notch. It should be diluted before using on your house or garden plants. To catch the castings, you will want to elevate the bin (with bricks, tin cans, other post-industrial ‘waste’) and have a tray beneath that catches the castings. A worn out Tupperware dish or baking sheet should work fine.Before adding your worms, the bin should have some starter soil (maybe an inch of it) in it and some bedding to regulate moisture. Old card board or newspapers shredded up works just fin. The bedding should go on top of the dirt and fill the bin more then halfway. Now time for the worms. Lots are better. Some sources say about two thousand for a box this size, but you can start with a couple of containers from the local bait shop. Red worms are the ones you’re looking for. They are common and voracious eaters. Adding new bedding every so often will keep the box from smelling. It can be kept beneath a sink for easy access, or in a garage, basement or other underutilized space. Now its time to feed the worms your garbage. Don’t put in dairy or meat, as these will attract pests, bugs, smell and a general aura of evil. A bin this size should be good for a household, however if you started with less worms, you need to let them multiply by feeding them steadily without filling up the bin. The food waste should be mixed in. One worm composter I know blends the waste for faster consumption by the worms. Worms like it between 40 and 80 degrees and moist but not wet, so make sure they’re getting what they want. For more information on worm composting visit look up worm composting on the Internet, or in your local library. The following Internet sites will be very useful: www.cityfarmer.org/wormcomp61.html, www.cfe.cornell.edu/compost/worms/basics.html, www.uky.edu/OtherOrgs/AppalFor/bins.html or your local library. Also the book Worms Eat My Compost by Mary Appelhof provides many helpful insights and facts. _________________________________________________________________ Chat with friends online, try MSN Messenger: http://messenger.msn.com From dr_broccoli at hotmail.com Thu Sep 5 15:07:02 2002 From: dr_broccoli at hotmail.com (Shawn G) Date: Sun Feb 8 02:51:49 2004 Subject: [Dryerase] Asheville City Council Message-ID: Asheville Global Report www.agrnews.org Asheville City Council OKs Shiloh development By Beth Trigg Asheville, North Carolina, Aug. 20 (AGR)— About sixty residents of the Shiloh community attended Asheville City Council’s last regular meeting on Aug. 13 to voice concerns about a new development proposed for the neighborhood. Developer Ron Hubbard, who famously renovated the downtown Kress building, installing luxury condominiums that sell for upwards of $300,000, was seeking a conditional use permit and rezoning from Council for a 168-unit condo development in Shiloh. Shiloh, a historic working class Black neighborhood in South Asheville, has a strong Community Association which opposes the development. Jonnie Walker, the president of the Shiloh Community Association, has been a resident of Shiloh for sixty-seven years. She told council that the “density is so great that it will cause problems in our community.” Walker cited the City’s Unified Development Ordinance’s seven conditional use findings, much in the news in recent months in connection with opposition to the Sayles Bleachery Super Wal-Mart development. “The proposed buildings are not at all compatible with our neighborhood,” said Walker. Anita White-Carter, another lifelong resident of Shiloh, pointed to conditional use permit number seven, which prohibits development when it causes an undue traffic burden on the surrounding neighborhood. “Traffic is a huge problem,” echoed Georgia Allen. Sophie Dixon of the NAACP also spoke in opposition to the development, voicing her concern for “the safety of all of the residents of Shiloh” if this development were allowed into the neighborhood. Hubbard says the condos will sell for between $69,000 and $99,000, and called the project an “affordable housing development.” Hubbard told council that his development was “the right thing for the community,” despite the fact that neighborhood opponents had filed a protest petition. Pointing to a map of the neighborhood with the homes of people who had signed the protest petition marked with black squares, Hubbard implied that the large number of petition-signers in the Wilson Creek Habitat for Humanity development were ungrateful charity recipients who had no right to oppose his development. Calling the development “an oasis,” Hubbard suggested that his project would be an improvement to the neighborhood. Shiloh resident Charles Williams defended the neighborhood, saying: “There seems to be a misconception that Shiloh is some sort of ghetto. What Shiloh is a community of hard-working people.” The development, on the other hand, Williams called “neighborhood terrorism,” saying “terrorism in this country was not limited to 9/11/01.” About a dozen members of the Faith Tabernacle Christian Church, which occupies property which adjoins the proposed development, spoke in favor of the project. William Robinson, the church’s pastor, said, “We are confident that the development will be of benefit to the church and to the Shiloh community.” The issue was further complicated by the fact that the Affordable Housing Coalition of Asheville and Buncombe County (AHCABC) supported the development, with its board of directors passing a unanimous resolution in support of Hubbard’s plan. AHCABC interim director Judy Chaet pointed to the dire need for affordable housing in the city and the fact that density helps provide more housing within city limits. Frieda Nash, a resident of Shiloh, countered this assumption: “The developer says that density is the only way to get affordability. Density is the only way to get profitability. We are people living there. You want to make profits.” Norma Baines added, “To say that you have to buy a condo to have affordable housing is not true. There can be affordable single-family homes. There are no three story buildings in Shiloh. Shiloh wants single family affordable homes so the people of Shiloh can be proud, so that we can plant that special tree or flower — we want to leave our children homes, not another project.” Baines suggested that Council should examine the size and layout of the condos, suggesting that they were the size of “an efficiency apartment, not a home.” Other speakers brought up concerns about affordable housing in Asheville; Leon Williams spoke about searching for a home to buy with his wife, saying “there wasn’t anything to be found” within city limits that was within their budget, even though he and his wife each work two jobs. “We ended up moving to Leicester,” said Williams, who supported the development “and commuting.” The only common ground between opponents and proponents of the project seemed to be the dire need for more affordable housing. But former mayoral candidate Mickey Mahaffey says the situation is more complex than just whether or not council supports affordable housing: “Yes, there are affordable housing issues here, but above all this is a community issue. Although I might be in favor of density as a means to create affordable housing, communities have a right to decide their own fate. It’s patronizing to say politicians or developers know what’s best for a community better than community members do.” Adds community activist Allie Morris: “The Shiloh Community Association and the clear majority of residents don’t want this development. This is about community empowerment.” In the end, Council voted unanimously to approve the development and rezoning. Council member Terry Bellamy qualified her vote by saying: “The good far outweighs the negative,” and, “we have to take into consideration only the seven conditional use findings. It’s only fair to the developer to look only at these issues.” Mayor Charles Worley was even less apologetic: “We are a growing community, a growing state, a growing nation,” said Worley, “growth we can’t stop.” Council member Joe Dunn, not known as a supporter of affordable housing, voted in favor of the project as well. Jeff Kelly, of Community Supported Development (CSD), pointed out that Dunn had blocked a density bonus for an affordable housing development of much smaller scale earlier in the year, saying: “Dunn could not support 37 units or so of affordable housing in white, conservative Chunns Cove but his only concern with the Shiloh development was that the City was asking the developer for too much money per unit— $500 — to be set aside in an escrow account for traffic mitigation. How he and Mumpower were so put out by this, when this was the neighborhood’s biggest concern, is beyond me.” Gregory Payne of Shiloh summed up the frustration that was palpable in the crowd: “This complex will change the character of our neighborhood and it seems like we can’t do anything to stop this. Our hearts are burdened. I spoke to an elder in the neighborhood the other day and she told me that she felt like her hands were tied and her voice was not heard.” Payne implored council to allow community members to have some power in determining the direction of their own neighborhood, closing his statement with a passionate demand: “Loose the chains. Loose the shackles.” _________________________________________________________________ Chat with friends online, try MSN Messenger: http://messenger.msn.com From dr_broccoli at hotmail.com Thu Sep 5 15:08:41 2002 From: dr_broccoli at hotmail.com (Shawn G) Date: Sun Feb 8 02:51:50 2004 Subject: [Dryerase] AGR Vermont federal aid Message-ID: Asheville Global Report www.agrnews.org Vermont may reject federal aid By Liz Allen Asheville, North Carolina, Aug. 20 (AGR)— The state of Vermont may refuse $26 million offered through President Bush’s No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) in order to avoid having to comply with the Act’s requirements. The act, set to take effect the 2002-2003 school year, consists of mostly Title I money aimed at helping disadvantaged children and serves as the most comprehensive overhaul of secondary and elementary education since the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965. NCLB’s testing requirements state that schools receiving federal money must test all students in grades 3-8 annually for proficiency, and must make adequate yearly progress or face reprisals. Currently, Vermont tests students in grades 4, 8 and 10 but does not have sanctions for schools that do not meet certain standards. Vermont Governor Howard Dean, a Democrat considering running for president in 2004, has called the act “a terrible mistake on the national level,” and estimates the burden of implementation to cost local school boards and taxpayers as much as $60 million to implement. Dean also fears the act will create incentive to “dumb down” Vermont’s testing system in order for some schools to avoid being sanctioned. According to Dean some schools are not reaching proficiency standards because the standards were deliberately set high. But, by NCLB regulations , those schools could be labeled as “failing” and risk losing federal money if they do not improve, creating incentive to simply create easier tests Dean also has apprehensions over the act’s provisions allowing the military access to student databases and the promotion of “constitutionally protected” school prayer by requiring local school districts to report to the state education agency any programs that could be a hindrance to prayer. Although the NCLB is promoted as respecting state and local control over education Dean criticizes it as being “incredibly top down and intrusive.” The Act requires states to implement a single, statewide accountability system to ensure adequate yearly progress. The Act requires all students to meet proficiency standards by the 2013 – 2014 school year through meeting incremental yearly goals. Locally, Asheville City Schools Superintendent Robert Logan responded to the requirement saying, “Is that realistic? What is magical about the next 10 – 12 years?” He suggests the goal of 100% proficiency by 2013 is simply public policy, not based on projections that consider the fact that students learn in a different ways and take different amounts of time. Asheville City School students, who are currently tested annually in grades 3 – 8, have an average of 81.6% proficiency in reading and 84.6% in math, would be required to increase their proficiency by 1.5% and 1.4% respectively per annum. NCLB requires “students who are disadvantaged, students from major racial ethnic groups, students with disabilities, and students with limited English proficiency,” to have separate annual measurements and achievement goals in closing the achievement gap. Logan believes this aspect along with the mechanism necessitating higher teacher standards, “has the potential to have the greatest impact on public education since Brown v. Board of Education.” However, he does not believe there are going to be enough resources to close the gap. Ninety five percent of the students in each subgroup are to be assessed to find proficiency rates. Alternative assessments may be given to students who are considered to have “significant cognitive disabilities.” Presently, there is a proposal to limit the number of students who take the alternative assessment. Graduation rates are also a part of the adequate yearly progress measurement. If a school fails to meet annual goals for two consecutive years they must make available public school choice to all students enrolled in schools. After a third year they must offer supplemental education programs. Failing schools may be identified for improvement, corrective action, or restructuring. If identified for improvement the school must develop or revise a plan for improvement using “not less then 10%” of funding to incorporate “scientifically based strategies” to improve core academics and professional development. Other requirements are “extended learning time strategies” and promotion of “effective parental involvement.” Corrective action involves continuation of all requirements failing schools are held to plus at least one of the following: “replacing school staff, implementing a new curriculum, decreasing management authority at the school, appointing an outside expert to advise school, extending the school day or year, and reorganizing the school internally.” Schools identified for restructuring must also must meet requirements for failing schools as well as prepare a plan for an alternative governance arrangement. Alternative governance arrangements include “reopening the school as a public charter school, replacing all or most of the school staff, entering into a contract with a private management company to operate the school as a public school, turning over the operation of the school to the state education agency or any other major restructuring of a school’s governance arrangements.” If in the next year the identified school fails to make adequate yearly progress they must implement the alternative governance plan. Local education agencies that are identified by the state education agencies for improvement may face deferred programming or reduced administrative funds, the appointment of a trustee in place of the superintendent and school board, and/or the restructuring or abolishment of the local education agency. For Vermont, the final decision on whether to accept the money and the ensuing requirements lies in the hands of the state legislature who will discuss the subject in their next session beginning the first week of January 2003. The US Secretary of Education Rod Paige has accused Dean as being unwilling to test children and ignorant of how well the students of Vermont are achieving. Spokeswoman for the governor’s office, Susan Allen maintains, “[Although] Secretary Paige has implied the governor is not concerned about testing, the governor very much supports assessment. Vermont has a very stringent testing and assessment program. It goes much further than the federal law requires.” Vermont is so far the only state proposing to reject the money. According to Allen, rejection of the money would not be because the state does not care about needy children but rather because of the cost of overhauling its testing program. Allen stated, “We love our children. We hope we have the same goals as the secretary – improving education.” _________________________________________________________________ Join the world’s largest e-mail service with MSN Hotmail. http://www.hotmail.com From dr_broccoli at hotmail.com Thu Sep 5 15:10:49 2002 From: dr_broccoli at hotmail.com (Shawn G) Date: Sun Feb 8 02:51:50 2004 Subject: [Dryerase] AGR Hollywood 'bad guys' Message-ID: Asheville Global Report www.agrnews.org Hollywood debuts new 'bad guys' in XXX\ By Shawn Gaynor Hollywood has always strived to bring audiences in touch with the otherwise unbelievable. XXX, the new movie staring Vin Diesel as Xender Cage, delivers this. Never mind the 40 foot high motorcycle jump onto a barn roof, or the hero outrunning an avalanche on a snow board when everyone else (with a head start and on snowmobiles) gets crushed by a wall of ice. These are standard Hollywood spy movie fare. The really unbelievable part starts with the filthy rich Eastern European “anarchists”… yeah, that’s right, rich anarchists. Furthermore, these millionaire, boy’s club “anarchists,” instead of struggling for freedom and justice for the common person, spend their time in their mountain castle, bent on world destruction in the form of biological warfare. The film is (sometimes painfully) aimed at young Americans interested in counter culture. The music fits. The hero is tattooed, into extreme sports, and steals a senator’s car in the opening scene to dole out some justice in relation to something rather bad the senator did. The film is even named XXX despite its PG-13 flirtation, and is bound to draw adolescents. There’s no end of extras with blue hair, piercings, and mohawks. These are all things that young Americans seem to like the idea of. But how to twist it? How about the hero gets blackmailed, tricked, and forced into service by the government? All those expensive government-sponsored dinners and pleas to Hollywood ears to help with “the war effort” must have found their way into the hearts of Rob Cohen and his buddies at “revolution” studios. The movie plot reads more like a wish-list of right-wing foreign policy than an action film. The first of these comes when a National Security Agency (NSA) boss called Gibbson (Samuel L. Jackson) decides it is time to recruit some agents from a list of accomplished criminals. According to Gibbson, these agents will avoid detection because they don’t act trained (which they’re not) and are completely expendable, because nobody at the NSA, or presumably anywhere, really cares about these American boys overseas. This seems to mesh really well with the Bush administration’s post-Sept. 11 policy changes at the CIA for the need to work with “undesirables and criminal elements.” Use criminal elements for what, you ask? Well, the movie answers this clearly enough: to stop the spread of weapons of mass destruction, in this case a biological weapon that is set to destroy ten cities’ populations. But first these potential agents need to be tested, and where better to polish up some forces into fighting shape for a mission in the evil and scary former east bloc? Colombia, of course! Why not play the Colombians against each other to cause a shit-storm of explosions and killing in order to see if the agents have any kind of survival instinct? After that it’s off to Prague. Yes, that bastion of anarchist resistance, where the World Trade Orginization met the anti-globalization movement inside the convention center after protesters forced their way into the building. What are the dangerous Prague anarchists up to in the movie? Well, Washington will be happy to know that these fictional anarchists are planning to kill the whole city, including its tremendous counterculture. And where do these so-called “anarchists” come from? Not Prague, but the ex-Soviet Union. Yes, they gave up Russian democracy and/or communism, and their high positions in Russian intelligence and military, in favor of anarchism. Washington and Hollywood would like you to know that anarchists are really just communists that disliked the fall of the Soviet Union. What else these “anarchists” believe is up to the audience. The film never addresses it, presumably because the film makers know nothing about this. It could be speculated, though, that they do, and don’t want you to. Easier to have a mysterious, vaguely evil group of villains (led by an evil mastermind) than explain that some people believe deeply in direct democracy but really don’t like capitalism. On top of this, they are sexist. Sexist enough to pimp out their girlfriends, and to never let a woman into their inner circle. They even keep a veritable harem of women in their clubs and castle with the sole purpose of their sexual satisfaction after a long day of destroying civilization (back to the adolescent PG-13 fantasies). Despite all of this movies shortcomings, I like Xander as a character. Diesel’s presence on screen is believably self-assured, and willing to break the rules. He takes bold risks, and speaks like an ordinary person rather than a robotic Schwarzenegger. He fights to save the world, just like every young person wants to do. Just be careful who you’re doing it for and why, Vin. _________________________________________________________________ Send and receive Hotmail on your mobile device: http://mobile.msn.com From wires at the-alarm.com Fri Sep 6 22:45:04 2002 From: wires at the-alarm.com (The Alarm!Newswire) Date: Sun Feb 8 02:51:50 2004 Subject: [Dryerase] Alarm!--Camp X-Ray Message-ID: <3215FB4A-C214-11D6-86B6-003065F4865E@the-alarm.com> On a little island rests a big problem: Wards of the War on Terrorism By Michelle Stewart The Alarm! Newspaper Collective In late 2001, word came from the White House that detainees captured in the War on Terrorism would be kept for interrogation on a US Naval Base. These individuals would be held for questioning about events surrounding 9/11 and/or their association with the al-Qaeda network and/or the Taliban. Classified by the government as ?detainees,? not ?prisoners? (you be the judge on that one), these individuals were transported beginning in January to a remote location in Cuba. The place is Guantanamo Bay; the holding facilities were called Camp X-ray. Since January 12, 2002 the population at the Camp has swelled to nearly 600 and renovations are underway to create more space. The expected total capacity for the camp is approximately 2,000. What is perhaps most troubling is that, unlike other prisons, you do not need to be charged to be held at the Camp, and there is no guarantee you will ever be released. Perhaps it is time we begin to get to know this camp of the permanently detained. The Camps and the Arrivals On January 12, 2002, twenty al-Qaeda and Taliban prisoners arrived at a US Naval base located in Cuba?s Guantanamo Bay from a Khandahar airfield in Afghanistan. Dubbed Camp X-ray, the temporary facility housed detainees in kennel-like conditions with open-air cells. The wire/mesh cells were approximately two meters by two-and-a-half meters, with a cement floor and wood ceiling. Sprayed down with high-concentrate mosquito repellent, these open-air cells left these occupants susceptible to the elements twenty-four hours a day. Given two buckets on arrival, one for waste and another for water, inmates were placed in their cells with two blankets (one for warmth, another for prayer) and the Koran. No formal activities allowed them to be removed from their cells. In the opening months, visiting reporters said they could not see the detainees from their vantage point 100 feet away, save the occasional ?flash? of an orange jumpsuit. Left in their cells all day, every day, inmates would attempt to use their blankets as sun blocks to repel the hot Caribbean sun. Within a few months, Camp Delta opened its doors. Beginning to house captives on April 28, 2002, Delta boasts improved living conditions including running water, indoor toilets and intermittent air-conditioning?all the pleasantries needed for a permanent prison vs. temporary ?camp.? In Cuba? Fidel Castro would echo such a question considering US-Cuba relations and the history of the base. The base itself is approximately forty-five square miles located on a cliffy edge of the island, towering over the Caribbean Sea. The US acquired the land during the Spanish-American War and built a base in 1903 as part of treaty agreement. When Castro took Cuba in 1959, Eisenhower refused to turn the base over, citing the 1903 treaty, which gives the US the right to the land so long as it pays 2,000 gold coins annually (worth an estimated $4,000). Today, nearly 3,000 US military personnel and their families can be found on one side of the twenty-eight-mile long fence that separates the base from the rest of the island. It is a fittingly hostile environment to host these international wards of the War on Terror. The US federal government continues to pay the annual rent, now in checks, not gold coins. However, Castro reportedly has not cashed any of the checks. Where the Geneva Convention Does Not Apply A wave of controversy began in late 2001, when the detainees were being classified as ?illegal combatants.? The federal government refused to grant the detainees at Guantanamo Bay the status of prisoners of war?a classification that comes with a list of rights and guarantees under the Geneva Convention. According to Article Four of the Convention, the detainees likely fall into a category of military personnel, militia, volunteer corps, etc., including ?members of regular armed forces who profess allegiance to a government or an authority not recognized by the detaining power.? Despite these loose categories, the federal government would not classify the detainees as POWs. For some, the most troubling aspect of this disregard for classification is that the Convention goes on to say, ?should any doubt arise, [the prisoner(s)] shall enjoy the protection of the present convention [until such time that] their status has been determined by a competent tribunal.? (Article Five Geneva Convention). The abstract classification the US has chosen for the Guantanamo Bay detainees leaves them in a precarious position whereby they are not granted status as POWs, they are stripped of all their rights accordingly, they are not granted the same rights as US citizens (held in the judicial system) and they seem to be at the whim and mercy of the military court and/or tribunal. All proceedings, questions/interrogations, etc. are being held as classified information: all that goes on at Camp Delta is for military personnel to know and for others to wonder about. Images Spark Further Controversy In January, images released by the US government of new detainees arriving to Guantanamo Bay sparked a mixed reaction from the international community. Members of the public and government alike were concerned when the new arrivals were photographed kneeling on the ground with their hands restrained and their eyes and ears covered. The military responded by defending the use of eye goggles (covered with black tape), ear muffs, thick gloves, restrained hands and feet and surgical masks, commenting that each detainee to Camp X-ray was subject to the treatment. The US defended its use of these restraints, claiming a combination of security precautions and health factors. Individuals destined for the camp were also shaved upon leaving Afghanistan, an action many human right?s groups pointed out as a violation of detainees? religious beliefs. The federal government responded by saying that the shaving of beards and hair was to reduce a lice outbreak, that detainees were allowed to grow their beards back upon arrival at the Camp and that a copy of the Koran was provided to each new arrival as part of their personal package. Life at Guantanamo Bay Military personnel purposefully arrange the inmates so that they are in cells located where others do not speak their language. The nearly 600 inmates are representative of over thirty nations. According to Brigadier General Rick Baccaus of Task Force 160?the man dubbed the warden of Camp Delta?inmates spend the entire day in their cells including mealtime. Meals are taken in the cells on trays. Only twice a week are they allowed out individually for a shower and outside exercise. Red Cross monitors have been on the island since the opening weeks, serving as both human rights monitor and mail carriers. The Red Cross population has dropped from six to only two. Detainees are given a choice of the Red Cross or Camp Delta as a mail handler. The military is priding itself on what it calls the Camp Delta mail system whereby inmates can write mail and receive up to six packages per month. Of course writing is strictly monitored and many inmates have opted to not pen a letter home?after each ?writing session? inmates are relieved of both their letter (for inspection) as well as the pen (possible weapon). Rapidly increasing in population, the camp housed less than 300 in April, at which point it announced additional cells were to be built by the end of May. By August, the Camp housed 600 detainees, with an announcement from General James Hill that an additional 200 cells would be built by October. Hill stated that as the War on Terrorism grows, so too will the Camp?speculation of a total capacity of 2,000 has been cited by military sources. A Permanent Fixture Void of Conclusive Answers Although the Camp is visible in many late night TV jokes and is the occasional focus of a cable news report, it is losing visibility both in the media and in the public?s collective memory. However, as the ?Top Ten Benefits of Being Held at Camp Delta? jokes are fading so too is the question of the validity of holding these individuals without trial, without (shown) evidence, without explanation of their daily lives and conditions and, perhaps most importantly, without a set release date. The population grows each month at Guantanamo Bay and begins to feel like a permanent penal colony paying tribute to 9/11. All content Copyleft ? 2002 by The Alarm! Newspaper. Except where noted otherwise, this material may be copied and distributed freely in whole or in part by anyone except where used for commercial purposes or by government agencies. ----- The Alarm! Newspaper a local weekly newspaper for an engaged populace http://www.the-alarm.com/ info@the-alarm.com P.O. Box 1205, Santa Cruz, CA 95061 (831) 429-NEWS - office (831) 420-1498 - fax From wires at the-alarm.com Fri Sep 6 22:45:56 2002 From: wires at the-alarm.com (The Alarm!Newswire) Date: Sun Feb 8 02:51:50 2004 Subject: [Dryerase] Alarm!--USA PATRIOT Act Message-ID: <50F4AD97-C214-11D6-86B6-003065F4865E@the-alarm.com> One year under the USA PATRIOT Act, little sign of effects By Halie Johnson The Alarm! Newspaper Collective USA PATRIOT Act?So Much for Checks and Balances The Justice Department is giving Congress the brush-off in regards to how it has used its new anti-terrorist powers in the past year. Congress requested answers to fifty questions about new ?rover? surveillance, phone call tracking and interrogation of libraries, bookstores and newspaper records. According to The New York Times, some of the simpler questions regarding immigration on the Canadian border were answered; the Justice Department dodged the rest. On August 15, Adam Clymer of the New York Times reported: Probably the most complaints concern the Justice Department, with Republicans, including Rep. Dan Burton of Indiana and Sen. Charles Grassley of Iowa among its severest critics. The Senate Judiciary Committee has sent twenty-seven unanswered letters to the Justice Department seeking information on topics including the PATRIOT Act civil rights and corporate fraud. Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-VT, who is chairman of the panel, said in an interview, ?Since I?ve been here, I have never known an administration that is more difficult to get information from that the oversight committees are entitled to.? The Act makes changes to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act and the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996, altering over fifteen statutes in all. There is little to no information currently available explaining how and to what extent the powers extended to law enforcement, the FBI, the CIA and several other branches of government have been used. According to the Electronic Frontier Foundation there is no public information granted regarding use of the USA PATRIOT Act to make requests for surveillance, nor regarding what surveillance actually occurs, except for a raw annual report of number of requests made and number granted. In the past, certification was needed from the Attorney General that ?the purpose? of an order is the suspicion that the target is a foreign power or an agent of a foreign power. According to he Electronic Frontier Foundation, now the Attorney General is not required to report anything to the court about what it does. What exactly is the USA PATRIOT Act? September 24, 2001?The Bush administration submitted anti-terrorism legislation to Congress. Just over one month later; anti-terrorism legislation was written into law. October 26, 2001?Bush signed the ?Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism (USA PATRIOT) Act of 2001 into law. The bill was passed by a ninety-eight to one vote, with Senator Russ Feingold (D-WI) as the only dissenting member. The ACLU criticized the PATRIOT Act and said, ?Among the Act?s most troubling provisions are measures that: ? Allow for indefinite detention of non-citizens who are not terrorists on minor visa violations if they cannot be deported because they are stateless, their country of origin refuses to accept them or because they would face torture in their country of origin. ? Minimize judicial supervision of federal telephone and Internet surveillance by law enforcement authorities. ? Expand the ability of the government to conduct secret searches. ? Give the Attorney General and the Secretary of State the power to designate domestic groups as terrorist organizations and deport any non-citizen who belongs to them. ? Grant the FBI broad access to sensitive business records about individuals without having to show evidence of a crime. ? Lead to large-scale investigations of American citizens for ?intelligence? purposes.? Due to the suspension of standard procedural processes, the Act was passed only five weeks after it was introduced to Congress. It did not go through the standard inter-agency review, the normal committee and hearing processes or the thorough voting that is normally employed. Among the provisions that the Act allows, the FBI and CIA may now go from phone to phone, computer to computer without demonstrating that a suspect is using either. In addition, the bill grants authority for enforcement agencies to retrieve voicemail messages with only a search warrant. The PATRIOT Act also amends US Codes defining terrorism, raising concerns among groups like the Electronic Frontier Foundation about ?legitimate protest activity resulting in conviction on terrorism charges, especially if violence erupts.? Another significant change is an increase in information-sharing between domestic law enforcement and intelligence agencies. Where, in the past, wiretaps were granted only in cases where an agent could provide proof of ?probable cause,? the new laws do not call for ?probable cause,? but only suspicion that a person is an agent of a foreign government. The new law also adds samples of DNA to a database not only for convicted terrorists, but also for people convicted of ?any crime of violence.? Many officials have defended the new bill saying that it includes a sunshine provision so many of the changes will expire on December 31, 2005 unless renewed by Congress. However, the Electronic Frontier Federation notes that there is no way for Congress to review how several of the provisions have been implemented because there is no reporting required to Congress. The Electronic Frontier Federation stated that, ?Without the necessary information about how these new powers have been useD, Congress will be unable to evaluate whether they have been needed about how they have been used? The Electronic Frontier Federation added that Congress cannot make an informed decision about whether the changes should continue or whether they should be allowed to expire without renewal. To find out more on the Patriot Act see the ACLU?s analysis from last November at www.aclu.org/congress/l110101a.html or AlterNet?s story at www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=11854 or the Center for Constitutional Rights commentary at http://www.ccr-ny.org/whatsnew/usa_patriot_act.asp. The Electronic Frontier Foundation did a thorough analysis of the bill, which can be found at www.eff.org. The actual text of the bill can be found at http://thomas.loc.gov. Sidebar: A. The provisions that expire on December 31, 2005 (unless renewed by Congress include: ? Sec. 201. Authority to intercept wire, oral, and electronic communications relating to terrorism. ? Sec. 202. Authority to intercept wire, oral, and electronic communications relating to computer fraud and abuse offenses. ? Sec. 203(b), (d). Authority to share criminal investigative information. ? Sec. 206. Roving surveillance authority under the foreign intelligence surveillance act of 1978. ? Sec. 207. Duration of FISA surveillance of non-United States persons who are agents of a foreign power. ? Sec. 209. Seizure of voice-mail messages pursuant to warrants. ? Sec. 212. Emergency disclosure of electronic communications to protect life and limb. ? Sec. 214. Pen register and trap and trace authority under FISA. ? Sec. 215. Access to records and other items under the foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. ? Sec. 217. Interception of computer trespasser communications. ? Sec. 218. Foreign intelligence information. ? Sec. 220. Nationwide service of search warrants for electronic evidence. ? Sec. 223. Civil liability for certain unauthorized disclosures. B. The following provision do not expire: ? Sec. 203(a), (c): Grand jury sharing of information. ? Sec. 208. Designation of Judges: increases number of FISA judges. ? Sec. 210: ECPA scope of subpoenas for records of electronic communications--clearly allowing e-mails routing information. ? Sec. 211: ECPA Clarification of scope: privacy provisions of Cable Act overridden for communication services offered by cable providers (but not for records relating to cable viewing) . ? Sec. 213: Sneak & Peek: delay notification of execution of a warrant ? Sec. 216: Modification of pen/trap authorities: (in original PATRIOT, would have sunsetted). ? Sec. 219: Single jurisdiction search warrants for terrorism. ? Sec. 222 Assistance to law enforcement. ? Sec. 225. Immunity for compliance with FISA wiretap. Can continue all investigations active at the time of expiration.org. The actual text of the bill can be found sat http://thomas.loc.gov. Source: Electronic Frontier Foundation?s Analysis of the USA Patriot Act All content Copyleft ? 2002 by The Alarm! Newspaper. Except where noted otherwise, this material may be copied and distributed freely in whole or in part by anyone except where used for commercial purposes or by government agencies. ----- The Alarm! Newspaper a local weekly newspaper for an engaged populace http://www.the-alarm.com/ info@the-alarm.com P.O. Box 1205, Santa Cruz, CA 95061 (831) 429-NEWS - office (831) 420-1498 - fax From wires at the-alarm.com Fri Sep 6 22:46:49 2002 From: wires at the-alarm.com (The Alarm!Newswire) Date: Sun Feb 8 02:51:50 2004 Subject: [Dryerase] Alarm!--It's the Stupid Economy Message-ID: <708D45DC-C214-11D6-86B6-003065F4865E@the-alarm.com> ?It?s the stupid economy? US Labor and the Economy in the wake of September 11 By Fhar Miess The Alarm! Newspaper Collective We Americans like to think that everything changed on September 11, 2001. Obviously, things have changed, but when it comes to the US economy, the assumption that everything has changed can be a particularly dangerous one. The fact of the matter is that the economy began its precipitous decline months before September 11. When financial and commodity markets were closed for several days following the attacks on the World Trade Center towers, an economy on the brink of disaster was given a brief reprieve. It would be all too easy to blame the country?s poor economic performance on the malice of foreign terrorists rather than over-valued stocks, inflated derivatives markets and ?creative? accounting practices by domestic agents. The latter reasons are, however, closer to reality, and, if anything, the attacks on the World Trade Center towers provided a much-needed distraction and buffer from this reality. Within a week of the attacks, hawkish voices began appearing on the editorial pages of such publications as the Wall Street Journal, calling for a swift retaliation against the perpetrators of this direct attack on American military and economic might. The Bush Administration was more than obliging to these interests and the US military was deployed in Afghanistan within the month. When the markets reopened on the Monday following the attacks, prices and trading were relatively steady. Economists were quick to note the urge for a return to ?normalcy? by the consumer public. Shoppers went to the malls in droves. They flocked to the video stores to distract themselves with Hollywood schlock. They packed the bookstores in search of answers in the printed word. Sales of cell phones surged in the face of mounting anxieties about staying in touch with loved ones. Meanwhile the stock values of security staffing and equipment manufacturers skyrocketed in resonance with the saber-rattling emanating from the White House. Soon afterward, the Bush Administration engineered and rushed through a $15 billion bailout of the crisis-stricken airline industry. That industry responded to the vote of confidence from the government by laying off workers by the thousands. This pattern of bolstering big economic players while ignoring the interests and needs of working people continued unabated in the Administration. In the midst of ?economic stimulus? packages (which even by conservative economic standards have been characterized as something less than stimulating) and moves to privatize Social Security, employers laid off some 800,000 workers across almost all industries while housing and health care costs continued their upward climb. In addition, it has taken longer than usual for unemployed workers to find new employment. Still, Bush has maintained that the ?fundamentals of the economy? remain strong (although, in a moment of understated candor, he managed recently to admit that times are ?kind of tough? for American workers). But the Bush Administration has not simply ignored the working class; it has actively fought to thwart it at every turn. Citing the need for executive ?flexibility? in the war against terrorism, Bush declared in early January that all collective bargaining agreements of workers previously represented by the American Federation of Government Employees in five Department of Justice divisions would be henceforth null and void. More recently, the Administration has refused to budge in its insistence that workers transfered to the new Department of Homeland Security abandon union representation. This insistence was the major sticking point that prevented Senate Democrats from approving legislation formalizing the new department before the summer recess. Workers in the transportation sector have been hit particularly hard, especially in air transportation. Tens of thousands of security personnel and staff have been laid off since September 11 and the situation grows worse as time progresses. The Bush Administration has been less than supportive. In December, 15,000 Machinists at United Airlines threatened a strike if their demands for better pay were not met?demands they had put off for four years, waiting for United to get its financial ducks in a row. A ?Presidential Emergency Board,? appointed by G. W., banned the workers from striking on December 20, severely restricting what leverage they had. On June 4 of this year, Bush abruptly signed an executive order paving the way for the privatization of the nation?s Air Traffic Control system, contrary to the interests of the controllers themselves, not to mention logic and common sense. The air traffic controllers had proven themselves when they safely landed several hundred aircraft within minutes of the order to do so on September 11, and over 5,000 aircraft over the next couple of hours. Britain, Australia and Canada, the only other nations to have privatized their own air traffic control systems, have had to bail out those private companies to keep them solvent and functioning, calling into question their ability to maintain safety in the skies. Poor working conditions in those operations have been met with labor strikes. All of this comes at a time when the Administration is moving away from privatization and toward the federalization of many other security-sensitive aspects of air travel to ensure that well-trained and well-compensated federal workers get the job done right (all concerns about the repressiveness of a ?job well done? in this area put aside for the moment). Another mammoth struggle in transport is coming to a head between Boeing and the International Association of Machinists (IAM). The Machinists were set to go on strike starting Labor Day, but they heeded the call of federal mediators to return to the negotiating table. Boeing management was considerably less obliging, showing up to the meeting only to refuse further negotiation. Business pages are appearing spelling doom for the Machinists. Their leverage is significantly weakened by Boeing?s financial position. Orders for new commercial aircraft have been slow due to the financial failings of the airline industry since September 11, and the company is awaiting payment on orders already delivered. While management insists that a strike is not good for them either, they have a clear advantage at the moment, despite the not insignificant strike fund of the Machinists, which could keep them out with strike pay for months. Union officials, however, appear eager for federal mediation, as evidenced by the fact that they risked alienating their rank and file by interrupting the strike vote as ballots were being cast in order to take the federal mediators up on their offer. Still, Boeing does have orders to fulfill, including a recent order for sixteen military helicopters from the government of Kuwait, valued at around $2 billion, and this could work in the union?s favor. Boeing has taken a stronger role in the production of military aircraft since its absorption of McDonnell Douglas in August of 1997. These labor problems in the air travel industry are by no means limited to the United States. Staff at Australian airline Qantas have gone on strike twice in the month of August. The International Transport Workers? Federation (ITF) has noted that workers in sea and air transportation around the world are among the hardest hit by security clampdowns in the wake of September 11. Security personnel in civil aviation remain the worst paid in the industry while workers at sea are increasingly denied shore leave due to security concerns. Transport workers on terra firma are not doing so well, either. Consolidated Freightways, a trucking company based out of Vancouver, Washington, filed for Chapter 11 (bankruptcy) protection on Tuesday, and Monday (Labor Day) announced that it would be laying off over 15,000 unionized workers, effective immediately. Carlos Ramos, a spokesman for Teamsters Local 776 in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, is quoted as saying, ?that?s like telling your wife you?re getting divorced on Valentine?s Day.? The liquidation of Consolidated Freightways comes after revelations following federal audits that the company funneled assets into a non-union subsidiary, Conway. In addition, the company was one of sixteen large firms that failed to meet the Securities and Exchange Commission deadline of August 14 for financial certification. The SEC required the certification of the bookkeeping practices of 691 such businesses following the collapse of Enron, WorldCom and others due to ?aggressive? accounting practices that inflated their paper value. Outraged members of International Brotherhood of Teamsters Local 206 staged a protest and picket outside the company?s headquarters, across the Columbia River from Portland, Oregon, on Tuesday. But the pinnacle of this generalized labor strife is the brewing conflict between the Pacific Maritime Association (PMA), which represents shipping lines, and the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU). The ILWU is traditionally one of the strongest and most militant of mainstream unions in the United States, representing primarily workers at ports along the West Coast of the US. According to the PMA, those ports handled $260 billion worth of goods last year. The PMA has made virtually no concessions while the ILWU has already made compromises far beyond what they have been willing to accept in the past. Until Labor Day weekend, the parties had extended their existing contract since its expiration on July 1. On Sunday, September 1, talks broke down completely as the PMA reneged on previous agreements regarding the protection of union jobs as technology on the docks is introduced. This prompted the union not to renew the contract, paving the way to possible work slowdowns, which the union often uses to leverage its bargaining position. For its part, the PMA has pledged to lock out the union if it engages in work slowdowns. According to an ILWU press release, the PMA?s next move, after changing significant terms of the negotiations, was to call the Bush Administration. Over a month ago, the ILWU made it public that Director of Homeland Security Tom Ridge and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld had both pressured ILWU International President James Spinosa not to strike the West Coast ports in the interests of national security. According to the union, the Bush Administration has also suggested that it may invoke the Taft-Hartley Act to mandate an eighty-day ?cooling-off? period, ordering longshore workers back to the job. This mandate is among four possible courses of action unionists claim the Administration has indicated it may take. The other three include running the ports with Navy personnel, placing the docks under the restrictive Railroad Labor Act and breaking up the coastwise contract into separate negotiating units for each port. The Administration is taking clear steps to make good on those threats. According to Spinosa, ?the Bush administration has informed us that it has assembled in San Diego trained Navy dock workers from bases around the world and have them ready to move on us. In a time when we are supposed to be in a war against terrorism,? he said, ?why is Bush using the military against American workers involved in a legitimate labor dispute?? Word of this federal meddling has outraged members of the ILWU and unionists around globe. The union has also managed to garner the support of port authorities and legislators at all levels of government. Members and leadership of the Teamsters (IBT), the International Longshoreman?s Association (ILA, which represents dock workers on the East Coast) as well as the five million-member International Transport Workers Federation (ITF) pledged solidarity with the ILWU under the union?s motto: ?an injury to one is an injury to all.? The Docker?s Section of the ITF recently passed a strongly-worded resolution that suggested that unionized longshore workers worldwide (an unfortunately dwindling breed) may refuse to unload cargo loaded by non-union scab labor on the West Coast, returning the favor that the ILWU has done for them on many occasions. The West Coast Waterfront Coalition (WCWC), which represents a number of large importers and exporters (see sidebar), has urged the PMA to take a strong stance against the union and has lobbied the government to intervene in the event of labor actions. The WCWC has cited possible ILWU job actions as threats to national security. According to Friends of Labor, a group supporting harbor workers in Los Angeles, Robin Lanier, Executive Director of the WCWC, sent out emails Tuesday to its membership, spreading rumors (subsequently debunked and recanted) of job actions already taking place on the docks, apparently in an attempt to spur that membership into calling on the Bush Administration to intervene. With the threat of government intervention, the PMA has little incentive to budge from its position in negotiations, many of which revolve around security issues brought to the fore since September 11. Members of the ILWU, however, have accused the shipping lines of ?wrapping themselves in the flag? to get their demands met at the bargaining table. They point out that the ILWU was immediately forthcoming with suggestions to improve security the day after the World Trade Center towers were struck, and the union was met by the PMA with silence. For many years, the ILWU and maritime transport workers generally have complained about the ?Flag of Convenience? system that allows ship owners to register their vessels in any country, making it difficult to determine the true origins of ships, personnel and even cargo. The lack of sufficient documentation also makes it difficult to determine who may have handled cargo between its origin and its destination. The ILWU notes this with concern as a safety issue, particularly since shippers such as Maersk?which owns the Los Angeles dock facilities, the largest in the US?ships high volumes of goods from countries such as Libya and Iraq, countries that the US government labels ?state sponsors of international terrorism.? The ILWU has not taken the intransigence of the PMA sitting down. Rallies of thousands have been held in Oakland and Los Angeles, while smaller rallies took place in other ports along the West Coast, with several solidarity rallies on the East Coast. Nor has the ILWU, along with much of the labor movement, limited its activism to ?bread and butter? issues or to the shop floor. ILWU members were out in force on August 22 when several thousand people took to the streets to protest the Bush Administration in Portland. Besides criticizing Bush?s poor record of supporting labor, unionists protested the USA PATRIOT Act, which they see as a threat against union organizing, particularly among immigrant communities. This act?s vague and broad language could easily be interpreted to define even labor organizing as ?domestic terrorism?. The protesters were met by the Portland Police Department with tear gas, rubber bullets and pepper spray. On Labor Day, ILWU Local 5, representing Powell?s Bookstore workers, filed two suits with the Independent Police Review Board against the Portland Police Bureau and officers ?due to their mishandling of the August 22nd, 2002 demonstration and subsequent use of excessive force.? In other recent developments, the Washington State Labor Council voted overwhelmingly in late August to support a resolution condemning President Bush?s ?war on terrorism,? his administration?s attacks on civil liberties and the broad cuts to social services enacted in deference to expanded defense budgets and bailouts and subsidies for industry at the expense of workers. It is becoming more and more clear in the ranks of organized labor, as it should be becoming clear to all of us, that the attacks of September 11, horrific as they were, provided an excellent opportunity for the Bush Administration to delay an inevitable economic disaster by syphoning vast sums of money away from public services and into private industry, particularly the defense industry, all while using the pretext of a ?war on terrorism? to thwart the resistance that organized labor and progressive activists would surely mount. Unlike in most previous wars, labor is being offered no concillation prizes for its sacrifices. Instead, conditions grow worse for most of us every day, despite the rhetoric of economic recovery. Many of us are baffled by the insane logic that drives the present Administration, but there is something of a rationale behind it. ?It?s the stupid economy.? We are engaged in an economic system that makes no sense for anyone but a very small elite. And we must resist the explanation that the recent turn of events is simply a ?correction? to an economy that remains fundamentally sound. Any economy that requires a permanent war, an oppressed populace and inexhaustible resources to maintain its health is not worth investing in. There are options, and we must learn to build and use them. Sidebar: CONSUMER ALERT: While the ILWU has not officially called for a boycott, the union?s supporters might consider where they put their consumer dollars based on the following list of importers, exporters and retailers backing the PMA. West Coast Waterfront Coalition Membership (also see http://www.friendsoflabor.com/thelist.htm) ? 3M ? Agilent Technologies ? Agriculture Ocean Transportation Coalition ? Best Buy Co., Inc. ? Burlington Coat Factory Warehouse Corp. ? Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railroad ? C.H. Powell Company ? California Cartage Company ? Chiquita Brands International ? Columbia Sportswear Company ? ContainerFreight EIT, LLC ? Del Monte Foods ? Don Breazeale and Associates, Inc. ? DPI ? DSL Integrated Logistics, Inc. ? Ernest & Julio Gallo Winery ? Evergreen America Corporation ? Expeditors International of Washington, Inc. ? Family Dollar Stores, Inc. ? Footwear Distributors and Retailers of America ? Gap Inc. ? Great Western Steamship Co. ? Hewlett Packard ? Intermodal West, Inc. ? International Mass Retail Association ? JCP Logistics L.P. ? Kellogg Company ? Kurt Orban Partners LLC ? Limited Logistics Services, Inc. ? MAERSK Pacific ? Marine Exchange of San Francisco Bay Region ? Mattel ? Mega Toys ? National Retail Federation ? Otis McAllister, Inc. ? Pacer Stack Train ? Pacific Maritime Association ? Pacific Merchant Shippers Association ? Panasonic Logistics Company of America ? Payless Shoesource, Inc. ? Rail Delivery Services, Inc. ? Target Stores ? The Home Depot ? Toy Shipping Association ? Toyota ? TransSolve, LLC ? U.S. Association of Importers of Textiles and Apparel ? WAL-MART Stores, Inc. ? Yamaha Corporation of America All content Copyleft ? 2002 by The Alarm! Newspaper. Except where noted otherwise, this material may be copied and distributed freely in whole or in part by anyone except where used for commercial purposes or by government agencies. ----- The Alarm! Newspaper a local weekly newspaper for an engaged populace http://www.the-alarm.com/ info@the-alarm.com P.O. Box 1205, Santa Cruz, CA 95061 (831) 429-NEWS - office (831) 420-1498 - fax From wires at the-alarm.com Fri Sep 6 22:47:34 2002 From: wires at the-alarm.com (The Alarm!Newswire) Date: Sun Feb 8 02:51:50 2004 Subject: [Dryerase] Alarm!--Eye on the INS Message-ID: <8B4F276C-C214-11D6-86B6-003065F4865E@the-alarm.com> Eye on the INS It?s been 1 year?it?s been 50 years By Michelle Stewart The Alarm! Newspaper Collective It is entirely discouraging to look back over the past year from the position of immigration and immigrants? rights. In the wake of the 9/11 event, many rights of noncitizens in the US were stripped, and in turn, the rights of those entering the US were reduced. In the past year, we have seen the Department of Justice explicitly state the need to racially profile visitors and immigrants entering and those in the US, as well as those already here. We have seen over 1,000 people detained in the name of the War on Terrorism. Many of these detainees vanished without a trace until their release. Many are still detained, with their names withheld from the public. We have to ask ourselves: do the ends justify the means, or for that matter what are the ends? It would be a rather tedious expedition to set out and systematically refer to each moment the INS/Department of Justice took aim at immigrants? rights in the past year. It would simply show good research skills. All of that information is out on the web and at your fingertips if you want it. In drafting a year in review since 9/11, I am stumped on what to say, for indeed there is too much to say. We cannot forget that while immigrants? rights have been squashed over the last year during the 9/11 crackdowns, programs like Operation Gatekeeper prove that the INS?s failures don?t begin and end with 9/11. The INS is being restructured: it is losing its latest director, it is being separated into two agencies and it is bolstered financially by an increased attention to border security. Many things can slip through the cracks of scrutiny when looking at this aging behemoth of an agency that dwells both in flawed policy and dated understandings of geopolitics. So, what then of the last year? What is the thing to focus on? It would be simple to compare the current detainments of noncitizens with the WWII detainment and relocation of Japanese, Italian and German immigrants. The parallels are rather apparent. We need to recognize that the larger catastrophe is that the lesson of history has not kept us from repeating our earlier mistake(s). Better technology allowed the government to seize up the last wave of detainees with relative secrecy. These detainees will not be released to find themselves landless, homeless or otherwise robbed by their opportunistic neighbors. Unfortunately, many of these recently detained face deportation for minor immigration infractions or assumed associations. So, the newer version of the ethnic target-and-detain game is, perhaps, more bittersweet. But if it is appropriate to compare, what purpose does that serve? It?s hard to look back on the last year and not be cynical. Those with an ear on INS policy and practice have become deafened by stories of families being torn apart. Of mothers being called in for ?interviews,? and, assuming their citizenship is coming up, they attend and are deported after being torn from their children?s arms. Their children are US citizens born in this country, their husbands are US citizens sponsoring their application, they are noncitizens who made a mistake on their forms or filings. They are deported and restricted from re-entry for five to ten years. How many of these stories need to be told-?when a single one should be enough to illustrate a flaw in the system? Our collective fear of another tower crumbling, of another day like September 11, 2001 has allowed us to wonder if the ends justify the means. Is it worth it for one mother to be deported in favor of stricter laws to keep terrorists out? I am afraid to answer that the laws are not going to guarantee we avoid another 9/11. The INS cannot safeguard the continental US period?why do we continue to permit the INS to strip the rights of others for an unattainable goal? At the end of the day, the alleged hijackers entered legally, and received clearance for training some eight months after the attack. Nearly every other week the INS, the Department of Justice or the Office of Homeland Security makes yet another statement that should shock our sensibilities. Instead, there is a small response that says, ?No, ethnic profiling is wrong.? These small voices are largely drowned out by a complacent general public that begins to wonder if it?s ?OK? to racially profile all men ages 18-35 from predominantly Muslim countries. How could that be OK? Is it just easier to assume that everyone of Middle-Eastern descent is a possible enemy than it is to lead a targeted investigation? I guess it is, especially when the general public does not rise up and speak out. The level of ethnic animosity is being covered up, as hate crimes against people of Arab descent (or apparent Arab descent) continue to occur, as the government targets young men who are visiting the US, as the government seizes the funds of aid agencies associated with the Afghan region, etc., etc. A year has passed and we are not out of the woods. When the WTC was car-bombed in 1993,the stage was set for immigration reform. One of the results was the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996. At the time, this sweeping legislation took immigrants (and immigration lawyers) by storm, stripping rights, increasing penalties and generally raising the stakes for those seeking to immigrate. Although these laws were confusing and often contradictory, they were at least explicitly on the books, giving people time to respond and strategize their actions. In the current INS environment, the ideas of yesterday are policy today, and you must have a finger on the pulse of the agency to keep up with the rate of change. The current environment slaps down the maximum penalty for each rather modest infraction. From change of address forms to assumed associations, today?s immigrant needs to devote time each week to keeping up with the INS. Thus comes one of the most obvious and least talked about problems with the INS. There is no system of dissemination. The INS disseminates through the media. But who has the time to read the paper each and every day to see what is changing in one agency, and, in turn, who guarantees that each newspaper will cover every change at the INS? We live in a world that guarantees nothing but death and taxes, yet we can penalize someone who did not respond to the information they were not given? Today?s immigrant is expected to know every law that applies to their status, yet there isn?t a centralized means to gather all of that information and distribute it. Until we solve this basic problem we will continue to read stories that make our heads ache with anger. But this leads to a false conclusion that a better bureaucracy will make for better immigration politics and policy. This is not the case. Last year, the Twin Towers were hit, over 1,000 people were placed in detention (their names were withheld), there is talk of the INS building larger detainment centers, the agency is receiving a larger budget and continuing to revise its rules and guidelines for students and visitors entering the US. That is the sound-bite overview of the last year. A more personal note might read: last year when the Twin Towers crumbled, dozens or perhaps hundreds of undocumented workers died and they will not receive federal funds for their families and their names are not mentioned as ?victims;? in the first six months of 2002, 167 immigrants died trying to enter the US, 117 of whom were Mexican; on an average day the INS is detaining 16,000 people, and by the end of 2002 it is estimated they will be detaining 23,000 people, with an annual budget of $1 billion dollars devoted to detention and detainment. In short, the last year has been dismal, with little immediate hope for recovery. So long as the US general public is complacent in these matters, people will continue to be held in detention, killed in the desert and subject to scrutiny and persecution based solely on their perceived ethnicity. The whole of the Muslim world did not attack the US on 9/11/01, just as each person from another country should not be subjected to possible death for entering the US ?illegally.? We need to stop and take notice of these laws we support through political apathy. The government efficiently has many members of the public swept up in its endless game of crying wolf at every country, every person, and all things Muslim. And if that is not offensive enough it is setting its sights on larger and larger targets. For the past year we have weathered the storm of paranoia and confusion following 9/11, many of the ill-deeds cannot be undone and will not be forgotten. That does not mean we need to remain complacent. The second year of the War on Terrorism is upon us?perhaps one year was enough, and the time has come to reinstate rather than further strip people of their rights. We cannot apply Machiavellian theory to the rights of immigrants and visitors in this country. The simplest of reasons is that we are unsure of what the ?ends? truly are in this high stakes game of cat-and-mouse dubbed the War on Terrorism. Endnote: Carlos Armenta will continue with the second part of his series on the Five Myths of Immigration in the next issue of the paper. Each week the paper plans to present both Michelle Stewart and Carlos Armenta?s views on immigration policy and practice in facing columns. Your comments are welcomed at michelle@the-alarm.com All content Copyleft ? 2002 by The Alarm! Newspaper. Except where noted otherwise, this material may be copied and distributed freely in whole or in part by anyone except where used for commercial purposes or by government agencies. ----- The Alarm! Newspaper a local weekly newspaper for an engaged populace http://www.the-alarm.com/ info@the-alarm.com P.O. Box 1205, Santa Cruz, CA 95061 (831) 429-NEWS - office (831) 420-1498 - fax From wires at the-alarm.com Fri Sep 6 22:48:21 2002 From: wires at the-alarm.com (The Alarm!Newswire) Date: Sun Feb 8 02:51:50 2004 Subject: [Dryerase] Alarm!--Book Review: History of Iraq Message-ID: Review of Charles Tripp?s A History of Iraq by Graham Parsons The Alarm! Newspaper Contributor ?...those who are seeking to develop a new narrative for the history of Iraq must recognize the powerful legacies at work in the country if they do not want to succumb to their logic.? It has become clear that Iraq and Saddam Hussein will be the most likely focus of the next intense, sustained US military operation. In a recent article, New York Times correspondents Thom Shanker and David E. Sanger noted that the Bush administration is ?developing a potential approach for toppling President Saddam Hussein of Iraq.? The article makes it clear that the administration?s debate over policy towards Iraq is currently limited to practical questions like ?when? and ?how,? having moved beyond broader questions like ?if? or ?should? we forcibly remove Hussein and his regime. For many of Bush?s policy makers?despite growing international and domestic opposition, even among some senior Republicans?the issue of a military intervention in Iraq seems to be settled, and a US-led invasion appears to be imminent. For those who are interested in gaining a basic understanding of the significance of such an event, an examination of Iraq?s distinctive political and social nature is certainly necessary. In this pursuit, Charles Tripp?s book A History of Iraq is a valuable resource (Cambridge, 2002). A History of Iraq provides a comprehensive account of the Iraqi state from the collapse of the Ottoman Empire and the British Mandate to the rule of Saddam Hussein in the post-Gulf war. It traces the ascendancy of a series of repressive, totalitarian regimes that have come in various political manifestations?first a monarchy, then a republic and then Saddam Hussein himself?and in the process, informs us of the extraordinary violence that has shaped Iraq?s political history. It is Tripp?s account of the concerns that have motivated this violence, however, that rewards the reader with knowledge of the more prominent themes in the story of Iraq. One such theme is the relevance of tribal and ethnic affiliations to Iraqi politics, exemplified by the conflict between the perpetually ruling Sunni minority and the majority Shi?a groups. Despite relentless attempts on the part of the Shi?a community to organize effective political opposition, the Sunni elites succeeded in thwarting their efforts, often by means of ruthless violence. This adversarial relationship has made the hold on power of all of Iraq?s Sunni-dominated regimes precarious and largely unpopular. Nevertheless, throughout Iraq?s history, and despite the numerous coup d?tat, successive governments have managed to maintain a Sunni character. Another example of the significance of ethnicity in Iraq is the question of the Kurds. Historically, this question has been solved by Iraq?s rulers with little less than brutal repression and marginalization. The horrific massacres that the armed forces have carried out on the Kurdish population are appalling. Both Shi?as and Sunnis alike view the Kurds as ethnic outsiders and are unwilling to grant them even elementary rights of citizenship. The treatment of the Kurds, as well as the Sunni-Shi?a conflict, illustrate some of the real interests of power in Iraqi politics. To his credit, Tripp maintains a purely descriptive tone throughout, and tells of these upsetting relations with a steady objectivity. There are, of course, other prominent themes in the story of Iraq. The systems of patronage on which the power of Iraq?s political elites have traditionally been based have simply reinforced the ethnic and tribal lines that mark divisions of power. This patronage system has made it exceedingly difficult for those left outside the patrimonial framework to enter the political arena and urge their interests, and led to the further proliferation of violence as a means of effecting the policies of those in power. Tripp?s insights into the increased importance of oil to the political economy are also interesting and illuminating. A dramatic increase in oil revenues has merely solidified the positions of those in power by making their systems of patronage more effective and left the conventional use of violence unchallenged. The final chapter on the rise of Saddam Hussein is where the above mentioned themes coalesce and find their most marked expression. Nepotism, patronage, oil and violence are integral components of the narrative of Hussein in Iraq. Helped by the income from Iraq?s healthy nationalized oil industry, which he made sure to have effective control over, Hussein has established expansive networks of economic dependents that completely rely on his position as dictator. He has used these networks?as well as violence?so efficiently, that during the near thirty years of his rule he has managed to contain repeated Kurdish and Shi?a revolts, as well as survive eight years of war with Iran, a devastating war over Kuwait and a decade of near-total economic strangulation. Indeed, the generation that has come of age under Hussein?s rule has seen Iraq?s most troubled and bleak times. Although clearly illustrating Hussein?s culpability, Tripp does not believe Hussein is solely to blame for the plight of the Iraqi people. Specifically, Tripp is critical of the sanctions imposed and maintained by outside powers (principally the United States and the United Kingdom) following Iraq?s invasion of Kuwait. He notes the ?cruel paradox? that exists between the official justification of the use of sanctions ?as leading to a weakening of Hussein?s hold on power and, in turn, allowing opposition to begin to operate and flourish?and their actual consequences, which have been to strengthen Hussein?s position and contribute significantly to the widespread suffering of the population. Tripp also brings to light the direct support Hussein received from the US prior to his invasion of Kuwait, and the virtual US-Iraq alliance that formed during the war with Iran. These points call into question the ostensibly benevolent intentions of United States policy towards Iraq, and raise deep concerns about the goals of the forthcoming invasion. The dramatic nature of Iraq?s history on its own makes Tripp?s book engaging, and its relevance to currently unfolding events make the story terrifically compelling. This, combined with Tripp?s intelligence and keen analytical style, makes A History of Iraq required reading for those who want to understand America?s next war. All content Copyleft ? 2002 by The Alarm! Newspaper. Except where noted otherwise, this material may be copied and distributed freely in whole or in part by anyone except where used for commercial purposes or by government agencies. ----- The Alarm! Newspaper a local weekly newspaper for an engaged populace http://www.the-alarm.com/ info@the-alarm.com P.O. Box 1205, Santa Cruz, CA 95061 (831) 429-NEWS - office (831) 420-1498 - fax From wires at the-alarm.com Fri Sep 6 22:48:53 2002 From: wires at the-alarm.com (The Alarm!Newswire) Date: Sun Feb 8 02:51:50 2004 Subject: [Dryerase] Alarm!--Volunteerism Message-ID: Volunteerism will save America? By Chris Kortright The Alarm! Newspaper Contributor EDITOR?S NOTE: In surfing the internet recently, contributor Chris Kortright came across the Citizen?s Corp website hosted by the US government. These were his thoughts on that discovery. Your country has never needed you more. ?John Ashcroft from the Citizen Corps? Citizens? Preparedness Guidebook George W. Bush has told the American public that volunteerism is one of the many answers to the terrorist threats we presently face. In his speeches and diatribes, we hear a ringing resemblance to John F. Kennedy?s ?Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country.? So then, what exactly are we asked to do for this country? How is one to volunteer for this great nation? Well, according to the government web site there is a whole list of chores that daddy federal government wants us to do. Under ?Help Your Country,? we are told that the first thing we can do is Invest in America. And no surprise to the local skeptic, we are asked to buy Patriot Bonds. But let?s say that, like me, you are not a wealthy person. Is there a way to support the ?War on Terrorism? and our government?s ?Homeland Security?? Lucky for us there is, and it is a practice that most of us working class people are very used to doing ?Work for the USA. Work for the USA? Isn?t that what I do every day when I go to work? I certainly don?t work for myself. So, what kind of jobs are out there for those of us who desire to work for the good ol? US of A? Just a quick scan down the list of ?jobs? shows that all the opportunities are military and law enforcement related. The list is quite long and diverse if you have authoritarian or militaristic instincts: Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines. But the list doesn?t stop there, there are so many ?job? options: work for the INS, the Federal Air Marshals, the FBI or even the National Guard. If working isn?t your thing or maybe you are already too busy working, you can still help your country. There are still a few more chores that need to be done?. First, you can be a snitch. You know one of those people in prison who gets out early for telling the guards what they heard during pillow talk, or who is smuggling in drugs. Or if you relate to movies more, the gangster who kills seven people and then walks free because he tattletales to the federal government what his bigger brother did over the past four years. You could become one of them. There are all sorts of hotlines and mug shots that we the public have access to (you can even earn up to $2.5 million being a snitch). Second, you can Fly the American Flag. The government recommends ?Printable American Flag Images? or ?Design a Pentagon Memorial,? but I bet they would be just as happy with an old-fashioned cotton flag. There is still one more option?the Citizen Corps. What are they, you ask? They are an organization of volunteers; actually they are THE organization of volunteers according to Bush. Volunteer you say? Like feeding the homeless, taking care of children or the elderly? Well, this organization is a bit different than the local soup kitchen. But, you say, I?ve volunteered before and loved it. It?s right up my alley, the whole militarism and snitching thing isn?t for me. So you ask, what is the Citizen Corps all about? The Citizen Corps was set up right after 9/11. It is a ?network of volunteer efforts? that will ?harness the power of the American people by relying on their individual skills and interests to prepare local communities to effectively prevent and respond to the threats of terrorism, crime, or any kind of disaster.? So, how does this network ?harness the power of the American people?? They have established volunteer programs for you to plug into: Community Emergency Response Teams, Neighborhood Watch Program, Volunteers in the Police Service, Medical Reserve or Operation TIPS. ?In the aftermath of September 11, 2001, the need for strengthening and securing our communities has become more critical.? So, enter the Neighborhood Watch Program. The Neighborhood Watch Program is where community residents will be provided with information so they can ?recognize signs of potential terrorist activity??like the young Arab man outside of Chicago who had the cops called on him as he sat in his car in front of the house he had lived in for eight years. The Citizen Corps makes sure you understand that the Neighborhood Watch Program is not ?vigilantism.? If this sounds a little too renegade for you, you can just volunteer directly to the Police Services, where you would do the same things just with the cops looking over your shoulder. If Work for the USA and the Citizen Corps sounds like the same program, you?re right. To work for your country in the Bush sense, you need to become a cop or a snitch. None of these jobs help the people of this country, or people in other countries for that matter. They help the government in its attempts to control its own citizens and the citizens of other countries. Which is a problem for me, and I hope you as well. But there is a way to help people who live in this country and abroad. Volunteer to challenge the permanent war our government is engaged in, fight against the economic system the keeps those of us in the US and abroad in bondage, or work in solidarity with individuals who are under racist attacks within your community. There is a way that volunteering can made the individuals of this country safe?volunteer against the economic and social system that represses us all. All content Copyleft ? 2002 by The Alarm! Newspaper. Except where noted otherwise, this material may be copied and distributed freely in whole or in part by anyone except where used for commercial purposes or by government agencies. ----- The Alarm! Newspaper a local weekly newspaper for an engaged populace http://www.the-alarm.com/ info@the-alarm.com P.O. Box 1205, Santa Cruz, CA 95061 (831) 429-NEWS - office (831) 420-1498 - fax From wires at the-alarm.com Fri Sep 6 22:49:22 2002 From: wires at the-alarm.com (The Alarm!Newswire) Date: Sun Feb 8 02:51:50 2004 Subject: [Dryerase] Alarm!--War Notes Message-ID: War Notes by sasha k The Alarm! Newspaper contributor Losing Steam? After months of feeding the media ?frenzy??as Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld likes to call it?with war talk, Bush is now claiming to be a ?patient man? when it comes to dealing with Iraq and Saddam Hussein. Ari Fleischer, the White House spokesperson, went so far as to argue that there is ?no one beating a war drum.? Is the spectacular power that the Bush Administration?particularly its hawks like Rumsfeld and Vice President Dick Cheney?gained from 9/11 finally wearing off? In the international arena it certainly is. Even Britain, the sole power still wholeheartedly supporting the US, is beginning to change its tune. Removing Saddam Hussein ?is not an object of British foreign policy,? said British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw on August 22. The resumption of UN weapon inspections, on the other hand, is the center piece of British policy. This shift from complete to qualified support is a significant change of stance, or at least of marketing, and it comes as Prime Minister Tony Blair is facing mounting opposition from within his own Labour Party. Even in the domestic arena Bush, or rather Rumsfeld and Cheney, seem to be losing their touch, and the most serious questioning has come from members of the Republican Party. Of course, few of these recent critics are against the war per se, it is more a question of how the war is packaged. The first serious shot?and, of the Republicans, probably the most inimical to the war in Iraq?came from Brent Scowcroft, former National Security Advisor for Bush senior. Scowcroft argued that war with Iraq would seriously disrupt the international war on terrorism because it does not command sufficient international support. None other than Henry Kissinger has also questioned the way the war is being packaged, stating, ?The notion of justified pre-emption runs counter to modern international law, which sanctions the use of force in self-defense only against actual?not potential?threats.? James Baker III, secretary of state from 1989 to 1992, stated in a New York Times op-ed that, ?although the United States could certainly succeed, we should try our best not to have to go it alone, and the president should reject the advice of those who counsel doing so. The costs in all areas will be much greater, as will the political risks, both domestic and international, if we end up going it alone or with only one or two other countries.? Therefore, Baker argued, the US should push for a new UN Security Council resolution requiring Iraq to allow weapons inspections. This move would build international support for an attack if and when Iraq failed to allow inspectors full access, according to Baker. It is interesting that the Democrats have actually been making less noise against the war than many prominent Republicans. In this election year the Democrats are looking to be seen as patriotically pro-war, though in a more responsible way than the White House hawks. First and foremost, they are asking that the president seek Congressional approval before the war is launched. In addition, they want the president to gain more international support and to explain the costs of the war. The telling phrase most often heard in Congress, however, is that the president must ?make the case.? Again, with the Democrats as with the Republicans, it is the matter of PR and salesmanship that counts the most. Making the Case In a world where image is all important, the hawks, of course, have been hitting back. Condoleeza Rice was the first to return fire in a moralistic August 15 speech, the argument of which?in typical Bush language?can be summed up as, ?Saddam is EVIL.? But as we move further away from 9/11, ?evil? alone no longer seems a very convincing argument. Increasingly, there is a demand for evidence of real present danger. With Bush returning to Washington from his month-long vacation, Rumsfeld and Cheney have hit the road making speeches intended to shore up the hawk?s position. No new details emerged in their war rantings. In fact, vagueness itself was offered as as evidence of evil: ?the absence of evidence is not the evidence of absence,? said Rumsfeld to support the charge that Iraq has a significant arsenal of weapons of mass destruction. The administration has also tried to claim that Iraq is harboring al Qaeda members, failing to mention that they are based in Kurdish-controlled regions, not in areas Hussein?s army dominates. So why are we about to go to war? What are we going to war for? (scenario two): The hawks are not the only ones working in the public relations business. The government of Saudi Arabia, stung by recent suggestions that it is the real enemy of the US, has started its own advertising campaign that included a trip by Saudi ambassador Prince Bandar bin Sultan down to the Texas ranch. US-Saudi relations are worse than ever. Differences over Bush?s desire for war in Iraq and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict have strained relations. And it hasn?t helped that fifteen of the nineteen September 11 hijackers were Saudi citizens. This has prompted a $3 trillion dollar lawsuit against the Saudis by victims of the attacks in Washington, New York and Pennsylvania. Worse still, a report made to the influential Defense Policy Board by the private RAND Corporation called the Saudis an emerging enemy, and urged the US to target Saudi oil fields and financial assets if the Saudis didn?t stop funding Islamic fundamentalism. (Can you imagine if the Saudis claimed they were going to attack Texas oil fields if American conservatives didn?t stop funding Christian fundamentalists?) The report, leaked to the Washington Post, went as far as stating that ?Saudi [Arabia] is the kernel of evil, the prime mover, the most dangerous opponent in the Middle East.? The Bush administration was quick to distance itself from the report, stating the importance of the Saudi-US relationship. But perhaps there is more to the strained relationship than we would like to admit. And, no matter the protests and public relations campaigns, even many Saudis are are beginning to ask hard questions. ?It is necessary to hold a national dialogue on the future of our ties with the United States because we are getting repeated signals from Washington that they no longer see our relations in the same way,? according to an editorial in the conservative Riyadh daily newspaper. Yet, maybe it isn?t the US that needs to worry, but the Saudis. The Saudi-US relationship is built on a rather simple deal: the US will protect the Saudis in return for a stable and relatively cheap supply of oil. The US is continually looking for a way out of this deal, but with the Saudis controlling the world?s largest oil reserves the US hasn?t found much room to maneuver. But if the US took control of Iraq through a US-managed regime change, neighboring Saudi Arabia would be in a much weaker position. Not only would the US control the Iraqi oil supply (with which it could flood the market in order to control the Saudis), but it would be able to base a huge military force in Iraq, poised on the Saudi border. A US puppet in Iraq is the best scenario for the US to change the balance of power with the Saudis, so it is no wonder that the Saudis are against the war. Luckily for the Saudis, almost no other country seems willing to go along with the US plan. However, hawks like Rumsfeld, Cheney and, increasingly, Bush himself might just be crazy enough to go it alone after all. All content Copyleft ? 2002 by The Alarm! Newspaper. Except where noted otherwise, this material may be copied and distributed freely in whole or in part by anyone except where used for commercial purposes or by government agencies. ----- The Alarm! Newspaper a local weekly newspaper for an engaged populace http://www.the-alarm.com/ info@the-alarm.com P.O. Box 1205, Santa Cruz, CA 95061 (831) 429-NEWS - office (831) 420-1498 - fax From wires at the-alarm.com Fri Sep 6 22:50:32 2002 From: wires at the-alarm.com (The Alarm!Newswire) Date: Sun Feb 8 02:51:50 2004 Subject: [Dryerase] Alarm!--Detention & aid Message-ID: Detention and aid An examination of Israel and Egypt By Chris Kortright The Alarm! Newspaper Contributor When looking at the effects of 9/11 on the Middle East, I have decided to focus on the policies of detainment practiced by Israel and Egypt. While we are assaulted daily with information regarding the major conflicts in the region, and especially with TV images of the violence in Israel and Palestine, this information is only a partial picture of what is going on. Israel and Egypt?s detainment policies are a more hidden indicator of the status of conflict in the region. Egypt and Israel used detainment and military trials before 9/11. The governments of both countries have used detainment of dissidents as a tactic to maintain their power. However, the reasoning used to justify detainment has shifted since 9/11. Since the creation of the State of Israel, the government has detained Palestinians who resisted Israeli occupation. It has violated every international agreement on human rights in order to maintain its security and its possession of the occupied territories. The US has turned a blind eye to most of Israel?s practices, but since 9/11 and the ?War on Terrorism,? the US has wholeheartedly supported Israel?s actions to put down the new Intifada. 9/11 has given Israel the excuse to exercise all might necessary in its attempt to crush Palestinian resistance, and the US has applauded its actions. Egypt?s practices of detainment are no different than those of Israel, but Egypt has a different historical relationship to the US. Egypt has a long history of banning and imprisoning opposition movements. Since the success of the 1952 revolution, the Egyptian government has outlawed Islamists and communist organizations and arrested their membership. After 9/11, Egypt has increased its detainment of Islamists (specifically those from the Muslim Brotherhood). The practice has benefitted Egypt two-fold. First, it maintains its power and stops opposition. Second, this practice strengthens the relationship between the US and Egypt because, in the process, Egypt becomes an ally in the US?s ?War on Terrorism.? Even in the wake of 9/11, the US has a double standard towards these two key allies. This double standard can be seen in the US?s reaction to these two governments? policies towards detainment. It becomes particularly clear when we look at the detainment of US citizens by each country. Israel Israel claims that it has detained 4,250 to 5,000 Palestinians in the current ongoing campaign. Although not all of these individuals have been detained since 9/11, the US has given Israel free reign regarding detainment if they do so under the name of the ?War on Terrorism.? Israel gladly uses the ?War on Terrorism? to justify its current actions. Both Palestinian and Israeli human rights groups have been up in arms over the conditions that the detainees have been living under. Al-Haq, a Palestinian human rights advocacy group, reported that Ofra-Batil detention center (the same detention center where the military courts are located) is divided into four sections, each section housing 250 tents. The tents are designed to hold twenty individuals, but each tent presently holds twice as many detainees. Detainees are given boards to sleep on, but there are no mattresses. They are given one blanket for every two people even though the temperature can fall below freezing at night. Daily food is rationed to one tomato shared between every four detainees and one pot of yogurt between eight. Detainees are not allowed to move out of the tents. On April 5, Al-haq and two Israeli human rights groups, Hamoked and B?tselem, lodged a case with the Israeli High Court alleging that the detainees at Ofra have had their fingers, toes and other bones broken during interrogation. Prisoners, aged from thirteen to seventy, have their wrists bound for long periods with plastic cuffs and their identity papers confiscated, making it difficult and dangerous to travel if or when they are released. Israel is not just detaining Palestinians, they are also detaining aid workers who are helping Palestinians. Dr. Riad Abdel-Karim, a 34-year-old American born Palestinian, was working for the International Medical Corps in Palestine when he was detained by Israeli soldiers on May 5. He was boarding his flight home from Ben Gurion Airport near Tel Aviv when arrested. The Israelis accused Abdel-Karim of transferring money to sponsor suicide bombings, but they furnished no evidence to support the claim. After an eighteen-hour interrogation session at the airport, Abdel-Karim was transferred to a police station near Petach Tikva where he was held in a four by three meter cell with twelve other inmates. After he complained about the inhumane conditions the police transferred him to the ?dungeon,? which is a two by two-and-a -half meter room with no windows, poor ventilation and a hole that serves as a toilet. After his release, Abdel-Karim claimed that his arrest was part of a deliberate campaign on the part of Israel to block humanitarian assistance to Palestinian civilians, particularly aid from American charity and relief organizations. Abdel-Karim is one of many American aid workers who have been unlawfully detained by Israel in direct violation of their human rights and with little intervention by the US government. Abdel-Karim said that though US consular officials visited several times to check on him and tried to obtain medication for him, he said their main purpose was to ensure that he was being treated ?in accordance with Israeli law.? Abdel-Karim?s response to this was, ?If I were an American citizen detained wrongfully in any other country in the world, I would have found my government working to secure my release. But in Israel, where my country and my tax dollars provide so much assistance each year, my government is reduced to the role of begging my jailers to give me my medication. How very sad.? Egypt The Egyptian government has used the events of 9/11as a reason to detain and try, in military court, members of both leftist and Islamist opposition groups. Islamist organizations have been hit the hardest, with the Muslim Brotherhood bearing the burden of this repression. On December 26, the Supreme Military Court started the trial of twenty-two prominent members of the Muslim Brotherhood who were accused of ?seeking to make use of current events in the Arab and Islamic world to incite the public against the government in order to take over.? The defendants included nine university professors and eight doctors. The rest were engineers and businessmen. All were well known activists in the eighty-three-year-old political Islamic organization, which has been banned since 1954. Adel Adbel-Maqsoud, a spokesperson for the fifty-member defense team (which is made up of lawyers belonging to various political groups including liberals, leftists, Christians and women), said the latest clampdown ?clearly was aimed at a carefully selected group of Brotherhood leaders in order to send a message that the government will not tolerate any protests after the September 11 attacks in America.? He went on to say, ?It was not a coincident that the arrests took place almost at the same time the United States decided to expand its crackdown on Islamic groups to include the Brotherhood.? On August 1, the Supreme Military Court announced their ruling, sentencing sixteen of the Brotherhood members. Five defendants were charged with having leading roles in the organization and were each given five years in prison. Another eleven were each given three years in prison for being members of the Brotherhood. Six defendants were acquitted. Between May and August of this year, 300 Brotherhood members have been arrested; they all face similar charges and trials as those above. During another military trial of suspected Islamists, a police officer said, ?Now they [the US and Britain] are praising what we are doing. But even our military trials are better then those held in the United States. The trials in the US will be secret, while ours are open?because we have nothing to be ashamed of.? Egypt is not only cracking down on Islamists, they are also cracking down on leftists. This can be seen in the Saabeddin Ibrahim case. Ibrahim was a sociology professor at the American University in Cairo and a NGO activist. He is 62 years old and both an Egyptian and American citizen. Ibrahim is the founder and director of the Ibn Khaldun Center for Development Studies, which was closed after his arrest. The government charged Ibrahim and twenty-seven other people connected to the Center with several crimes, including accepting foreign funds without government approval. The foreign donor in question was the European Union, which provided money to promote political awareness and participation in Egypt?s general election. Other charges included compiling false reports about the status of Copts in Egypt, attempting to embezzle money and making plans to bribe radio and television officials to broadcast programs about the Ibn Khaldun Center. The State Security Court made a decision on May 21 that Sasdeddin Ibrahim would serve seven years in prison. Battle for Aid President George W. Bush opposed new aid to Egypt in protest against the sentencing of Saadeddin Ibrahim. On August 15, the White House announced that its decision will not affect existing aid programs to Egypt, which equal almost $2 billion a year in economic and military assistance. The decision by Bush will prevent Egypt from receiving the extra $130 million it had been seeking to compliment an Israeli request for $200 million to fight terrorism. Egypt traditionally receives aid that equals about two-thirds of any new aid the US gives to Israel. Secretary General of the Egyptian Organization for Human Rights Hafez Abu-Sae?da (Saadeddin Ibrahim?s good friend and one of his most vocal supporters) told Al-Ahram Weekly that he denounces international pressure when there is a ?double standard? in its application. He emphasized that while the US has a right to defend Saadeddin Ibrahim as an American citizen, it should not use aid as a tool to pressure countries, ?especially since Israel enjoys the support and assistance of the US despite its flagrant violations of international human rights laws.? The different responces evoked by the cases of Dr. Riad Abdel-Karim and Saabeddin Ibrahim are a clear example of this double standard. With the US supporting repressive governments throughout the Arab world in the name of the ?War on Terrorism,? the double standard in aid support is telling. The US will always give an endless supply of economic aid to Israel even when they detain American citizens. The ?War on Terrorism? has promoted the repression of dissidents the world over. As Bahieddin Hassan, the head of the Cairo Center for Human Rights studies, said, ?In the aftermath of the September 11th attacks, the US?s ?War on Terrorism? has come at the expense of civil liberties, leading to a set back in democracy world wide. Thus, it is impossible for any human rights activist to accept the US as an advocate of democracy.? All content Copyleft ? 2002 by The Alarm! Newspaper. Except where noted otherwise, this material may be copied and distributed freely in whole or in part by anyone except where used for commercial purposes or by government agencies. ----- The Alarm! Newspaper a local weekly newspaper for an engaged populace http://www.the-alarm.com/ info@the-alarm.com P.O. Box 1205, Santa Cruz, CA 95061 (831) 429-NEWS - office (831) 420-1498 - fax From wires at the-alarm.com Fri Sep 6 22:52:00 2002 From: wires at the-alarm.com (The Alarm!Newswire) Date: Sun Feb 8 02:51:51 2004 Subject: [Dryerase] Alarm!--Interview with Peter Werbe Message-ID: <29A15B21-C215-11D6-86B6-003065F4865E@the-alarm.com> By Fhar Miess The Alarm! Newspaper Collective What follows is a recent interview with Peter Werbe, a radical left talk show host whose show was terminated at Santa Cruz radio station KOMY on October 6, 2001. He has since moved to Detroit, where he now broadcasts his show. Alarm!: According to KOMY, why was it that you were fired? Peter Werbe: The Mom & Son show got on the air and said that they apologized to the people of Santa Cruz for allowing me to broadcast my criticisms after September 11 and that they were no longer going to make their radio station a medium for my criticisms of Bush?at one point they may have even called it pro-Taliban, which is of course ridiculous. It?s just typical of (although that?s Mom & Son) ?mom & pop? stations across the country. There?s two facets to control of the media by conservatives and corporations. One is obvious: big corporate control by the Clear Channels and Infinities and what have you. They have their national powerhouses that they put on their local stations. But then there?s also this range of very conservative individual owner-entrepreneurs who have this lock?very frequently?on sectors of the country that aren?t served by any other station. Some of them, they?re the one station in town. It?s ridiculous to have a station in Santa Cruz that has no left-of-center programming given the politics of that city and how liberal that city is. But it?s no different in Detroit where I broadcast from. There?s no liberal talk show host in a city like Detroit. The city of Detroit proper voted ninety-five percent for Al Gore and the surrounding three counties voted the majority for Al Gore, and I?m just talking about liberal Democrats. So, it actually is a testimony to people?s capacity to think independently with this complete strangle-hold that the Right and corporations have on the media, that people still?to use voting as one index, which isn?t the greatest one to me?but still, Bush still loses. No matter what kind of kid gloves the media use toward Bush?I mean they knew that he had lied about serving in the Air National Guard, that he was AWOL for a year, which is really desertion. They knew, they had tips about his girlfriend having an abortion, about the drug use and all that and they just kept hands off and they allowed him to define himself as a uniter and a centrist when obviously, as we?ve seen since he got in, he?s far right wing. But even with all that, whenever you take a poll, people generally come up with what I?d call social democratic, progressive views of tolerance, generosity and what have you. And the reason they have to keep people like me off [the air] is that, God, their whole house of cards would collapse if the Left got an equal shot at speaking to the American people. A!: How much do you think the political climate had to do with it? Do you think you would have gotten the same treatment if the attacks on the World Trade Center hadn?t just happened? PW: Oh no. He [owner Michael Zwerling] was OK with it [the show]. And one of the things that was so weird, on the one hand it was all ideological that they couldn?t let an extreme leftist on the air. On the other hand, he said that my show never had any advertisers. Of course, this little station doesn?t have an advertising department, and shows in radio don?t have advertisers, stations have what they call ?run of the station? ads. In other words, if you wanted to advertise The Alarm! on KOMY [fat chance, ed.], you?d get one in the morning, two in the midday, two in the afternoon, two at night. That?s what you?d pay for. People can specify. But, apparently, all of his patriotism would have completely evaporated if I could have bought him. Essentially, he runs it like a tyrant. He?s known for getting people to work for free. He has all sorts of complaints lodged against him with the State of California Wage and Hours Board. A!: How have you been received since then? PW: Oh, good. One thing that does happen in syndication is that stations come and go for any number of reasons. Half the time you never even find out. They just say, ?we?re not taking your show anymore.? You say, ?Why?? They say, ?Well, we just decided, goodbye.? They?ve gone country & western, they?ve replaced you with somebody else, they?ve cut some other deal. In some regard it?s not that unusual. There were a number of cases after September 11th where editorial writers were canned, a couple of them in small towns, but in the main, people have been able to express themselves I think fairly well. I don?t want to make it a rosy picture because a lot of people were subjected to threats and what have you in the academic community. Dick Cheney?s wife and some little academic group started naming names like it was Joe MacCarthy. But the Right?this was a God-send to the Right. You may know that Bush as it was?lucky me, I hit the trifecta?Bush is the only person in America that personally benefitted from September 11th, but in a sense, the whole Republican party did. They were down the drain probably by November of 2001. I mean, Bush?s popularity was plummeting, and people caught on to him real quickly. Now, everything is submerged behind the imperial war machine and this fight against terrorism. And they?re having difficulty because these pesky terrorists?they just won?t strike again! And they can?t find Osama bin Laden. So, like in Orwell?s 1984 they had the three-minute hate where they?d project the photograph of Big Brother?s enemy, so Osama bin Laden?remember how many times we used to see his face on television, if you watch television? I don?t even watch television and I must?ve seen it 250 times. So, I think if you do, you must?ve seen it 2,500 times. And now, when?s the last time you saw a photograph of Osama bin Laden? Now it?s ?Target: Saddam!? It?s repulsive, but I think that there?s a critical mass growing. People are so dissatisfied with life in Bush?s America. You know, he?s wrecked the economy, they stumble from one crisis to the next. They?re gonna catch Osama bin Laden dead or alive? Where?s he? Now another major war. Corporate criminals? You know, he [Bush] and Cheney are corporate criminals. And in all of this, he?s just hoping to keep one step ahead by rattling everybody?s cage so that we don?t think about all of those things. Endnote: Peter Werbe?s nationally syndicated radio show can be heard from 9a.m. to Noon, Pacific Time, at i.e. America Radio Network: http://www.ieamericaradio.com/ or Sundays from 11 pm to 2 am Eastern on WRIF in Detroit: http://www.wrif.com/ All content Copyleft ? 2002 by The Alarm! Newspaper. Except where noted otherwise, this material may be copied and distributed freely in whole or in part by anyone except where used for commercial purposes or by government agencies. ----- The Alarm! Newspaper a local weekly newspaper for an engaged populace http://www.the-alarm.com/ info@the-alarm.com P.O. Box 1205, Santa Cruz, CA 95061 (831) 429-NEWS - office (831) 420-1498 - fax From wires at the-alarm.com Mon Sep 9 16:01:38 2002 From: wires at the-alarm.com (The Alarm!Newswire) Date: Sun Feb 8 02:51:51 2004 Subject: [Dryerase] Alarm!--Anti-immigrant racism & gov't repression Message-ID: <5515AB48-C437-11D6-B7B1-003065F4865E@the-alarm.com> Anti-immigrant racism and government repression By Michael Novick The Alarm! Newspaper Contributor On August 24, the latest in a series of nazi rallies in DC drew over 500 swastika-clad marchers protesting Jews and immigrants to the steps of the US Capitol building, protected by thousands of DC and US police. The rally by the West Virginia-based National Alliance?the fastest growing and most influential racist group in the US?followed on the heels of a wave of anti-immigrant and anti-Semitic violence across the southeast. Hate crimes have increased four-fold in Fairfax County, Virginia since last September 11. Similarly, hate incidents jumped seventy-six percent in Montgomery County, Maryland. ?Since September 11, the majority of hate violence and terrorism within this country has been committed against people of color and religious minorities by white racists,? says Douglas Calvin, Executive Director of the Youth Leadership Support Network in the DC area. In July, a Beckley, West Virginia anti-immigration rally was sponsored by David Duke?s National Association for the Advancement of White People (NAAWP). In Martinsville, Virginia the Rebel Brigade of the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan held their second cross-burning and white unity rally of the year. In Herndon, Virginia the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community Center suffered repeated vandalism, while anti-Semitic flyers promoting the neo-nazi National Alliance were distributed after an event at Beth Emeth Synagogue. In Alexandria Virginia, a man was charged with a hate crime after he tossed a brick through the window of an Afghan man?s car, striking a passenger. The World Church of the Creator led an anti-immigrant march in rural Georgia earlier in the summer. Such attacks have not been limited to the southeast. In June in Tulsa, Oklahoma, a homeless Black man was chained to a fence and set on fire by a man with white supremacist tattoos. In July, two white supremacists were found guilty of plotting to blow up Jewish and Black landmarks around Boston in what prosecutors said was a scheme to foment ?racial holy war.? In the San Francisco Bay Area in May, arson fires struck both an Oakland synagogue that had received an anti-Semitic letter, and the Antiochian Orthodox Church, which serves a largely Arab American congregation. In Joliet, Illinois, three white supremacists were charged with arson and a hate crime in connection with the torching of a garage and two vehicles belonging to a predominantly black church. Attacks on Jewish synagogues and racial profiling of Arabs are signs of a resurgence of racism worldwide, according to a July report by the UN Commission on Human Rights. The UN report attributes this resurgence to the rise of nationalist parties calling for reduced immigration, the September 11 attacks and rising tensions in the Middle East. The report did not identify any countries by name, but referred to frequent instances of racial profiling at airports and more than 200 racist propaganda internet sites as other examples of discrimination. ?Combined with the security measures designed to combat terrorism, the measures against immigration now give the impression that an iron curtain is falling between the North and the South of the planet,? the report said. The US context for such bigoted violence has been established by the repressive actions of the government directed against immigrants and people of color. Consider that in August 2001, police accountability activists had forced the issue of racial profiling onto the front burner politically and forced police departments across the country to acknowledge the problem and begin to propose solutions. At the same time, immigrants rights advocates and organized labor were pressing for a new amnesty, and even the right wing Bush administration was considering legalization for millions of undocumented Mexicans. After 9/11, the situation changed dramatically in the direction of anti-immigrant governmental racism and repression. Peter Kirsanow, a Bush appointee to the US Civil Rights Commission, raised the possibility in July of internment camps for the mass detention of Arab Americans. Kirsanow told a Commission hearing in Detroit on July 19 that if there was another terrorist attack on the United States ?and they come from the same ethnic group that attacked the World Trade Center, you can forget about civil rights.? He said that ?not too many people will be crying in their beer if there are more detentions, more stops, more profiling, there will be a groundswell of public opinion to banish civil rights.? Meanwhile Attorney General John Ashcroft is pressing not only for making mass internment a practical possibility, but also for incorporating all local police forces in immigration enforcement. Anti-immigrant groups have seized on such government rhetoric and measures to push their agenda. The Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) has seized on the post 9/11 security situation to call for greater cooperation between local police and federal immigration. ?It is critical that federal immigration authorities enlist the assistance of tens of thousands of local police departments who are in the best position to spot illegal or suspicious behavior in their own communities.? The State of Florida and the Justice Department agreed July 2 that thirty-five ?experienced, seasoned law enforcement personnel? could receive formal training from the INS on various aspects of federal immigration laws and the enforcement of those laws. After completion of that training, which began July 9, the officers will be assigned to seven regional ?domestic security? task forces across Florida. Rules for using police to enforce federal immigration laws in certain situations went into effect August 23. The rule defining when local police agencies would be asked to enforce immigration laws, which refers to a ?mass influx of aliens,? has intentionally been left vague, according to Ronald W. Dodson, a supervisory special agent with the INS. This was to allow local and federal authorities the flexibility to respond to an immigration emergency, not ?the routine traffic across the southern border by those people trying to enter without inspection,? he said. Another way local agencies have been incorporated into stepped up anti-immigrant repression is in incarceration. According to Alisa Johnson, writing for the Village Voice, the INS is desperate for more cells for its ever-expanding population of detainees. Nearly 900 facilities around the country provide ?beds? for the INS, and in interviews over the years, according to Johnson, several county sheriffs and wardens have described such detainees as a ?cash crop.? The number of INS detainees?people being held administratively as they await the outcome of deportation proceedings?tripled since 1994, from an average daily population of 5532 to nearly 20,000 last year. The proposed $6.3 billion INS budget for fiscal 2003 slates more than $50 million for the ?construction of detention facilities.? This new wave of detainees is in addition to people prosecuted, convicted and sent to federal prison for breaking immigration laws. Last week the Justice Department?s Bureau of Justice Statistics announced that the number of people prosecuted for immigration offenses in federal courts more than doubled from 1996 to 2000, growing from 6605 defendants to 15,613. Yet this ?routine? mass incarceration may be supplanted by something more drastic. The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) was charged by President Reagan to practice for the imposition of martial law and the internment of so-called aliens and radicals. Bush has returned FEMA (headed by former campaign manager Joe Allbaugh) to the forefront of national security, in May 2001 designating it as the agency in charge of terrorism response. Bush?s ?National Strategy for Homeland Security? places FEMA under the Office of Homeland Security. In August, the Los Angeles Times reported Attorney General John Ashcroft?s announced desire to create ?camps for US citizens he deems to be ?enemy combatants??. According to Ritt Goldstein in the Sydney Morning Herald, a right wing web-site, NewsMax.com, has reported that FEMA is pursuing a ?crash effort? to build ?temporary cities to handle millions,? supposedly those fleeing weapons of mass destruction. It added that FEMA had been given a deadline of having the cities ?ready to go by January 2003.?? And in a subsequent posting to the NewsMax.com website, a copy of FEMA?s project particulars noted that those contractors seeking to participate in the program ``must demonstrate capability of establishing group housing developments (designing, developing, constructing, and acquisition of property) and maintenance of complex(es) for periods exceeding two years.? Such threats must be taken seriously because the government has been abandoning the rule of law and judicial oversight in its anti-immigrant and anti-terrorist actions. In June, responding to a court order requesting the figures, the Justice Department admitted it is still holding at least 147 people rounded up as part of the investigation into the September 11 terrorist attacks, and that eighteen are not represented by lawyers. The government did not reveal how many people had been detained or are still being held without being charged. A Justice Department official said the government can hold people as material witnesses to a crime without ever charging them with an offense. In July, the Justice Department inspector general?s office reported that 458 complaints had been received under the USA PATRIOT Act in which the sender suggested a connection to possible civil rights abuses. Eighty-seven of the complaints were judged to be under the office?s jurisdiction. Of these, the Inspector General opened only nine formal investigations. The case of US citizen Jos? Padilla, the suspect in an alleged radioactive ?dirty bomb? plot, shows that such extra-judicial measures are not restricted to immigrants. ?The last time I looked at the Constitution, he still had constitutional rights,? his court-appointed attorney Donna Newman told CNN. The Padilla case should be a ?constitutional concern for everybody,? Newman said. ?He was taken and will now be detained in a military prison.? While US District Court Judge Michael Mukasey said he would consider Newman?s motion, it was unclear what jurisdiction, if any, the court has in the case now that Padilla is in the custody of the US military. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said that Padilla?who also goes by the name of Abdullah Al Muhajir?may never face trial. ?Our interest is not in trying him and punishing him,? Rumsfeld said. ?Our interest is in finding out what he knows.? In a meeting in his Cabinet room, Bush said, ?This guy Padilla?s one of many who we?ve arrested?. The coalition we?ve put together has hauled in 2,400 people. And you can call it 2,401 now. There?s just a full-scale manhunt on?. We will run down every lead, every hint. This guy Padilla?s a bad guy and he is where he needs to be: detained.? If Bush succeeds in launching a full-scale war on Iraq, such repressive acts, as well as racist attacks against immigrants, are certain to increase, as they did dramatically during his father?s Gulf War, when attacks against Jews, Arabs, and those mistaken for them, were widespread. The need for an assertive defense of immigrant rights, civil liberties and peace has never been greater. Endnote: Michael Novick is author of White Lies, White Power (http://www.commoncouragepress.com/novick_white.html link for website) and publisher of Turning the Tide, a periodical magazine of People Against Racist Terror in Culver City, California. He is also a member of Los Angeles Anti-Racist Action, Anti-Racist Action is an international movement of people committed to exposing, opposing and confronting racism, sexism, homophobia and other forms of bigotry. To find an ARA chapter near you, visit http://www.antiracistaction.ca/contactinfo.html. All content Copyleft ? 2002 by The Alarm! Newspaper. Except where noted otherwise, this material may be copied and distributed freely in whole or in part by anyone except where used for commercial purposes or by government agencies. ----- The Alarm! Newspaper a local weekly newspaper for an engaged populace http://www.the-alarm.com/ info@the-alarm.com P.O. Box 1205, Santa Cruz, CA 95061 (831) 429-NEWS - office (831) 420-1498 - fax From wires at the-alarm.com Mon Sep 9 15:36:24 2002 From: wires at the-alarm.com (The Alarm!Newswire) Date: Sun Feb 8 02:51:51 2004 Subject: [Dryerase] Alarm!--anti-immigrant violence and gov't repression Message-ID: Anti-immigrant racism and government repression By Michael Novick The Alarm! Newspaper Contributor On August 24, the latest in a series of nazi rallies in DC drew over 500 swastika-clad marchers protesting Jews and immigrants to the steps of the US Capitol building, protected by thousands of DC and US police. The rally by the West Virginia-based National Alliance?the fastest growing and most influential racist group in the US?followed on the heels of a wave of anti-immigrant and anti-Semitic violence across the southeast. Hate crimes have increased four-fold in Fairfax County, Virginia since last September 11. Similarly, hate incidents jumped seventy-six percent in Montgomery County, Maryland. ?Since September 11, the majority of hate violence and terrorism within this country has been committed against people of color and religious minorities by white racists,? says Douglas Calvin, Executive Director of the Youth Leadership Support Network in the DC area. In July, a Beckley, West Virginia anti-immigration rally was sponsored by David Duke?s National Association for the Advancement of White People (NAAWP). In Martinsville, Virginia the Rebel Brigade of the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan held their second cross-burning and white unity rally of the year. In Herndon, Virginia the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community Center suffered repeated vandalism, while anti-Semitic flyers promoting the neo-nazi National Alliance were distributed after an event at Beth Emeth Synagogue. In Alexandria Virginia, a man was charged with a hate crime after he tossed a brick through the window of an Afghan man?s car, striking a passenger. The World Church of the Creator led an anti-immigrant march in rural Georgia earlier in the summer. Such attacks have not been limited to the southeast. In June in Tulsa, Oklahoma, a homeless Black man was chained to a fence and set on fire by a man with white supremacist tattoos. In July, two white supremacists were found guilty of plotting to blow up Jewish and Black landmarks around Boston in what prosecutors said was a scheme to foment ?racial holy war.? In the San Francisco Bay Area in May, arson fires struck both an Oakland synagogue that had received an anti-Semitic letter, and the Antiochian Orthodox Church, which serves a largely Arab American congregation. In Joliet, Illinois, three white supremacists were charged with arson and a hate crime in connection with the torching of a garage and two vehicles belonging to a predominantly black church. Attacks on Jewish synagogues and racial profiling of Arabs are signs of a resurgence of racism worldwide, according to a July report by the UN Commission on Human Rights. The UN report attributes this resurgence to the rise of nationalist parties calling for reduced immigration, the September 11 attacks and rising tensions in the Middle East. The report did not identify any countries by name, but referred to frequent instances of racial profiling at airports and more than 200 racist propaganda internet sites as other examples of discrimination. ?Combined with the security measures designed to combat terrorism, the measures against immigration now give the impression that an iron curtain is falling between the North and the South of the planet,? the report said. The US context for such bigoted violence has been established by the repressive actions of the government directed against immigrants and people of color. Consider that in August 2001, police accountability activists had forced the issue of racial profiling onto the front burner politically and forced police departments across the country to acknowledge the problem and begin to propose solutions. At the same time, immigrants rights advocates and organized labor were pressing for a new amnesty, and even the right wing Bush administration was considering legalization for millions of undocumented Mexicans. After 9/11, the situation changed dramatically in the direction of anti-immigrant governmental racism and repression. Peter Kirsanow, a Bush appointee to the US Civil Rights Commission, raised the possibility in July of internment camps for the mass detention of Arab Americans. Kirsanow told a Commission hearing in Detroit on July 19 that if there was another terrorist attack on the United States ?and they come from the same ethnic group that attacked the World Trade Center, you can forget about civil rights.? He said that ?not too many people will be crying in their beer if there are more detentions, more stops, more profiling, there will be a groundswell of public opinion to banish civil rights.? Meanwhile Attorney General John Ashcroft is pressing not only for making mass internment a practical possibility, but also for incorporating all local police forces in immigration enforcement. Anti-immigrant groups have seized on such government rhetoric and measures to push their agenda. The Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) has seized on the post 9/11 security situation to call for greater cooperation between local police and federal immigration. ?It is critical that federal immigration authorities enlist the assistance of tens of thousands of local police departments who are in the best position to spot illegal or suspicious behavior in their own communities.? The State of Florida and the Justice Department agreed July 2 that thirty-five ?experienced, seasoned law enforcement personnel? could receive formal training from the INS on various aspects of federal immigration laws and the enforcement of those laws. After completion of that training, which began July 9, the officers will be assigned to seven regional ?domestic security? task forces across Florida. Rules for using police to enforce federal immigration laws in certain situations went into effect August 23. The rule defining when local police agencies would be asked to enforce immigration laws, which refers to a ?mass influx of aliens,? has intentionally been left vague, according to Ronald W. Dodson, a supervisory special agent with the INS. This was to allow local and federal authorities the flexibility to respond to an immigration emergency, not ?the routine traffic across the southern border by those people trying to enter without inspection,? he said. Another way local agencies have been incorporated into stepped up anti-immigrant repression is in incarceration. According to Alisa Johnson, writing for the Village Voice, the INS is desperate for more cells for its ever-expanding population of detainees. Nearly 900 facilities around the country provide ?beds? for the INS, and in interviews over the years, according to Johnson, several county sheriffs and wardens have described such detainees as a ?cash crop.? The number of INS detainees?people being held administratively as they await the outcome of deportation proceedings?tripled since 1994, from an average daily population of 5532 to nearly 20,000 last year. The proposed $6.3 billion INS budget for fiscal 2003 slates more than $50 million for the ?construction of detention facilities.? This new wave of detainees is in addition to people prosecuted, convicted and sent to federal prison for breaking immigration laws. Last week the Justice Department?s Bureau of Justice Statistics announced that the number of people prosecuted for immigration offenses in federal courts more than doubled from 1996 to 2000, growing from 6605 defendants to 15,613. Yet this ?routine? mass incarceration may be supplanted by something more drastic. The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) was charged by President Reagan to practice for the imposition of martial law and the internment of so-called aliens and radicals. Bush has returned FEMA (headed by former campaign manager Joe Allbaugh) to the forefront of national security, in May 2001 designating it as the agency in charge of terrorism response. Bush?s ?National Strategy for Homeland Security? places FEMA under the Office of Homeland Security. In August, the Los Angeles Times reported Attorney General John Ashcroft?s announced desire to create ?camps for US citizens he deems to be ?enemy combatants??. According to Ritt Goldstein in the Sydney Morning Herald, a right wing web-site, NewsMax.com, has reported that FEMA is pursuing a ?crash effort? to build ?temporary cities to handle millions,? supposedly those fleeing weapons of mass destruction. It added that FEMA had been given a deadline of having the cities ?ready to go by January 2003.?? And in a subsequent posting to the NewsMax.com website, a copy of FEMA?s project particulars noted that those contractors seeking to participate in the program ``must demonstrate capability of establishing group housing developments (designing, developing, constructing, and acquisition of property) and maintenance of complex(es) for periods exceeding two years.? Such threats must be taken seriously because the government has been abandoning the rule of law and judicial oversight in its anti-immigrant and anti-terrorist actions. In June, responding to a court order requesting the figures, the Justice Department admitted it is still holding at least 147 people rounded up as part of the investigation into the September 11 terrorist attacks, and that eighteen are not represented by lawyers. The government did not reveal how many people had been detained or are still being held without being charged. A Justice Department official said the government can hold people as material witnesses to a crime without ever charging them with an offense. In July, the Justice Department inspector general?s office reported that 458 complaints had been received under the USA PATRIOT Act in which the sender suggested a connection to possible civil rights abuses. Eighty-seven of the complaints were judged to be under the office?s jurisdiction. Of these, the Inspector General opened only nine formal investigations. The case of US citizen Jos? Padilla, the suspect in an alleged radioactive ?dirty bomb? plot, shows that such extra-judicial measures are not restricted to immigrants. ?The last time I looked at the Constitution, he still had constitutional rights,? his court-appointed attorney Donna Newman told CNN. The Padilla case should be a ?constitutional concern for everybody,? Newman said. ?He was taken and will now be detained in a military prison.? While US District Court Judge Michael Mukasey said he would consider Newman?s motion, it was unclear what jurisdiction, if any, the court has in the case now that Padilla is in the custody of the US military. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said that Padilla?who also goes by the name of Abdullah Al Muhajir?may never face trial. ?Our interest is not in trying him and punishing him,? Rumsfeld said. ?Our interest is in finding out what he knows.? In a meeting in his Cabinet room, Bush said, ?This guy Padilla?s one of many who we?ve arrested?. The coalition we?ve put together has hauled in 2,400 people. And you can call it 2,401 now. There?s just a full-scale manhunt on?. We will run down every lead, every hint. This guy Padilla?s a bad guy and he is where he needs to be: detained.? If Bush succeeds in launching a full-scale war on Iraq, such repressive acts, as well as racist attacks against immigrants, are certain to increase, as they did dramatically during his father?s Gulf War, when attacks against Jews, Arabs, and those mistaken for them, were widespread. The need for an assertive defense of immigrant rights, civil liberties and peace has never been greater. Endnote: Michael Novick is author of White Lies, White Power (http://www.commoncouragepress.com/novick_white.html link for website) and publisher of Turning the Tide, a periodical magazine of People Against Racist Terror in Culver City, California. He is also a member of Los Angeles Anti-Racist Action, Anti-Racist Action is an international movement of people committed to exposing, opposing and confronting racism, sexism, homophobia and other forms of bigotry. To find an ARA chapter near you, visit http://www.antiracistaction.ca/contactinfo.html. All content Copyleft ? 2002 by The Alarm! Newspaper. Except where noted otherwise, this material may be copied and distributed freely in whole or in part by anyone except where used for commercial purposes or by government agencies. ----- The Alarm! Newspaper a local weekly newspaper for an engaged populace http://www.the-alarm.com/ info@the-alarm.com P.O. Box 1205, Santa Cruz, CA 95061 (831) 429-NEWS - office (831) 420-1498 - fax From dr_broccoli at hotmail.com Sun Sep 15 18:09:19 2002 From: dr_broccoli at hotmail.com (Shawn G) Date: Sun Feb 8 02:51:51 2004 Subject: [Dryerase] MIT Super Soldier Message-ID: Asheville Global Report www.agrnews.org reprinting permitted for non-profit use, and for members of the Dry-erase news wire. MIT's super soldier design swiped from small press comic book By Nicholas Holt Sept. 10. (AGR)— When the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) proudly announced its $50 million contract with the US Army to design new technologies for the super-soldier of the future, analogies with science fiction stories and comic book heroes were apparently irresistible. References to the sci-fi film Starship Troopers and soldiers able to “leap buildings in a single bound” and the proud pronouncement that “The picture is very futuristic,” appeared in MIT’s Technology Review Magazine in the spring of 2002 in an article announcing the creation of what would be called the Institute for Soldier Nanotechnologies (AGR 170). The parallels are closer to science fiction than it first seemed. Accompanying the article was an illustration of the proposed super-soldier, who stood in a futuristic cityscape in her robotic green armor, pointing a powerful looking weapon at the viewer. As it turns out, the image was stolen from a small press comic book called Radix, in which the heroine wears a suite of armor identical to that of MIT’s “soldier of the future.” MIT “had a press release using that artwork and giving it out to all the newspapers,” says Ray Lai, who, along with his brother Ben, created Radix. “We had fans from California calling us up, saying they found the newspapers [and] it’s an exact copy of what we did.” MIT’s first announced the creation of the IST, and used the illustration in March. The image continued to appear on MIT’s website as recently as Aug. 28, according to a report by USAToday. On Aug. 30, MIT Professor Edwin L. Thomas, IST’s director, issued a press release, stating “MIT strongly supports the rights of creators and greatly regrets using the image without permission or credit.” According to Thomas, the confusion started when he requested his daughter provide the illustration of a super-soldier but he was not made aware that the image was appropriated from Radix. “What people need to understand is that I sent a letter complaining about this back in April. For them to come out now is more for them to please the public rather than to please us,” says Lai, who complains that MIT never issued a retraction to the newspapers it distributed the image to. “They used [our] image and they put someone else’s name on it and they put it all over the newspapers,” he says, contrasting the small circulation of Horizon Comics, the independent press that publishes Radix, with the massive circulation of USA Today, the Los Angeles Times, and the other major newspapers that carried the MIT picture. “The main goal for us is to [make clear] the fact the image is not theirs. I don’t want any confusion. It appeared in all the newspapers. I don’t want anyone calling us a cheater two or three years down the line because they’ve seen what MIT did and then say were copying them.” _________________________________________________________________ Join the world’s largest e-mail service with MSN Hotmail. http://www.hotmail.com From dr_broccoli at hotmail.com Thu Sep 19 11:25:22 2002 From: dr_broccoli at hotmail.com (Shawn G) Date: Sun Feb 8 02:51:51 2004 Subject: [Dryerase] Vieques Message-ID: Asheville Global Report www.AGRnews.org Reprinting permitted for not profit organizations, and the Dry-Erase News Wire US Navy bombs Vieques as resistance, arrests continue By Clare Hanrahan Asheville, North Carolina, Sept. 17(AGR) -- The tiny Caribbean island of Vieques has been bombarded for sixty years with every weapon in the US arsenal of death –from Agent Orange and Napalm to depleted uranium. On Sept. 3, Navy destroyers returned to begin three weeks of bombing and war games at the Atlantic Fleet Weapons Training Facility, despite promises from President Bush that the Navy would leave Vieques by May, 2003. By the first ten days of maneuvers, twenty-eight persons had been arrested. Resisters entered into military-controlled lands to act as human shields to halt the assault on the Viequense people and the delicate ecosystem of their homeland. A study commissioned by the US Navy and reported in July 2001 in the Fayetteville Observer said Fort Bragg and other military facilities in North Carolina, including Camp Lejeune, Cherry Point, and ranges in Dare County could be part of a “promising alternative” to Navy training on Vieques. La Isla Nena, or “the little sister,” as Vieques is affectionately known, is a sparsely developed island of about 33,000 acres situated eight miles off the southeastern coast of the big island of Puerto Rico. It is twenty-one miles long and four miles wide. There are more horses than residents on Vieques, people say, adding to the wild beauty of this Caribbean island. Vieques is home to 9,311 people, rare birds, turtles, bioluminescent bays, coral reefs, and miles of undeveloped beaches—all endangered natural treasures. Flamboyant trees grace the eye with vivid yellow, orange, and purple blooms, while fruit trees yield a contaminated abundance. The island’s water is unsafe to drink. With an island of such rare magnificence, it is criminal madness that the US Navy occupies, controls, and bombards Vieques with arrogance and impunity and continues to poison and terrorize the residents. Opponents to the bombing arrive daily at the Peace and Justice Camp, across a two-lane road from the US Navy’s Camp Garcia, to stand in solidarity with the people of Vieques in the nonviolent people’s movement known as the Committee for the Rescue and Development of Vieques. I traveled to Vieques with Darcel Eddins and Sharon Martin, both envrionmental and social justice activists, and Elizabeth Eames Roebling, a member of the Asheville Friends Meeting. Roebling was arrested for civil disobedience at the bombing range in 2001. Her deep concern for the people of Vieques and their struggle has been the focus of her work for several years. In the 1940s the Navy seized 26,000 acres of Vieques from its 12,000 inhabitants in the name of national defense. Residents were offered no option. They received as little as 24 hours notice to vacate and only $50 in compensation for their homes. Whole villages were abandoned and destroyed. Until 1999 the residents were subjected to as many as 270 days a year of bombardment—the constant noise and earth-shaking assaults cause continual anxiety, particularly among the children. That was the same year that two live bombs missed their target killing civilian security guard David Sanes. This catalyzed a resurgence of resistance and a renewed call for an end to the military occupation and bombing. As many as fourteen protest camps were set up inside the Navy base. For over a year, these peaceful warriors held their ground and halted the bombing until hundreds of US federal marshals, FBI agents and military police moved in to remove them. The US Navy retains ownership of one-third of the 52 square mile island and has conducted live fire training there since 1941. As a result of massive and sustained civil disobedience, US Navy lands on the west have been turned over in various pieces to the Department of Interior, the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, and the Island of Vieques. Seventeen contaminated areas in these reclaimed lands remain fenced off as superfund sites. Hundreds of concrete bunkers built to store and conceal an obscene quantity of ammunition and weapons now sit empty, like massive burial vaults. Over the years plant life on the island has absorbed heavy metals, such as lead, cobalt, nickel and manganese, which are concentrating and moving up the island’s food chain, according to biologists Arturo Massol and Elba Diaz, who analyzed plants in the Vieques impact area in February and March last year. Vieques has at least a 27% higher rate of cancer in adults and a rate 50% higher in children than the rest of Puerto Rico, and 45% of the Viequenses examined by the College of Physicians and Surgeons showed toxic levels of mercury. A large percentage of residents are also contaminated with lead, cadmium, and aluminum, and cancer has invaded nearly every island family. “The activities of the Navy in Vieques have had a damaging and unrelenting effect on the environment, ecology, unique archaeological sites, natural resources, and surrounding waters,” a Governor’s Special Commission on Vieques concluded in 1999. Each time bombing occurs, even with the “inert” bombs now being used, dust from that bombing, and previous bombs is stirred up, raising toxins with it, including depleted uranium. Trade winds blowing from the east to the west carry the contaminants over the populated area. The Navy admitted recently to an “accidental” bombing with depleted uranium shells, a radioactive contaminant with a half life of 4,500 million years. A disciplined and creative grassroots movement of nonviolent civil disobedience has brought the plight of this little island to the attention of the world. Over 1500 peaceful demonstrators have been arrested. Hundreds have been imprisoned for misdemeanor trespass and have served sentences up to one year, including “Mayors, legislators, lawyers, doctors, religious leaders, artists, workers, and students,” according to the Committee for the Rescue and Development of Vieques. In July, 2001, close to 70 percent of the Vieques electorate voted in a government referendum for the “immediate and permanent termination of military practices in Vieques.” This mandate led to the promise by President Bush that the bombing will cease and the Navy will leave by May, 2003. The people of Vieques are skeptical. They have been lied to again and again. Puerto Rico’s governor Sila Calderon is a vocal opponent of the bombardments, and Vieques’ Mayor Damaso Serrano Lopez, a Viet Nam veteran, spent four months in prison for occupying the bombing range. At a recent International Peace Conference the Mayor declared, “I tell you now that if by the first of May, 2003, the Navy hasn’t packed its bags, its machine guns, and the rest of its trash, as promised by President Bush, I’m prepared to go back to jail again, to clamor from inside prison walls, for the right of my people of Vieques—to live in peace.” Along the two-lane paved road, known locally as Calle Militar, the Puerto Rican police began gathering on Labor Day to reinforce the guard on the perimeter fence at Camp Garcia. Resisters regularly cut through the fence to gain access to the target areas. The police guard, clustered under the mango and quenepa trees and in makeshift shelters all along the fence line, lean on wooden saw-horse barricades chatting and laughing. As many as one hundred and twenty young men and women in the Puerto Rico Police force, dressed in long-sleeved black shirts and pants, keep a round-the-clock watch on activities in the resistance camps, where training in civil disobedience is offered and direct action strategies are discussed. “In this camp we have no secrets. Everybody knows what we do,” one activist said. “We call them ‘black cats,’ another says as we pass the line of police along the road to Camp Dona Luisa Guadalupe, the headquarters for various forays into the bombing range where resisters risk arrest and the hazards of unexploded ordinance. “We play hide and seek inside the camp,” our guide explained. The resistance camp has suffered repeated tear gas attacks and rubber bullets have been fired at the protesters who assemble there. Numerous spent gas canisters were lying about the campgrounds. “We just leave them where they fall,” he said. Just over the fence US military personnel sit at tables inside a large canvas tent monitoring activities with electronic devices, nearby a camera is mounted on a telephone pole. Camp Dona Luisa Guadalupe is under continual surveillance. Resisters attempt to deter military and police intruders with home-grown defenses. The pods of a plant, called pica pica, are hung strategically in the branches of trees around the camp. When brushed against it releases seeds that cause intense itching. Other plants with sharp edges are used in the underbrush to discourage unwelcome intrusions. Back at the Peace and Justice Camp, school teacher and activist Nilda Medina, takes a rare break at the large table beneath the tin-roofed, open-sided shelter in the compound. Nilda has a focused and determined presence as she directs the activities in the camp. Throughout our five-day visit she worked steadily in the office and on the phones preparing for the press conference and for the arrival of the many delegations of supporters. She welcomed us warmly; as she has welcomed delegation after delegation, including the Dalai Lama, Rigoberta Menchu Tum, Oscar Arias Sanchez, and other notable and ordinary citizens from throughout the world. Nilda’s husband and colleague, Robert Rabin, has been held in solitary confinement in Guaynabo Prison in Puerto Rico on a six month sentence for trespass onto the bombing range last April. “He is in the hole,” she told us. “They won’t allow telephone calls or visits.” As we sat together around the common table in the outside shelter, island residents arrived one after the other to share their stories and concerns. The balmy breeze carried the roosters’ crows from every direction, and bronze-skinned young men galloped past on fleet-footed Taino horses, the rhythmic clomping of hooves marking their swift passage. As we talked, other horses meandered throughout camp with the abandon and freedom of neighborhood cats, their grace and stature adding a primal feeling to the scene. Ninety-two year old Nazario Cruz Viera, wearing a wide-brimmed black hat and a full and flowing white beard, drove into the camp bringing a cardboard box filled with island fruits. Despite the likely contamination we shared the sweet gift with gratitude. Nazario talked about Vieques in the years before the military occupation, before vast stretches of land were fenced off and out of bounds to island residents, before the island and her people were poisoned. Tourists from the big island stopped to photograph the roadside murals, and to have a look at the scores of white crosses commemorating the many who have died as a result of the Navy presence. Maria Guadalupe’s cross is just one of more than fifty planted outside the gates of Camp Garcia. Her great nephew, Tato Guadalupe told her story: “I was born and raised on Vieques,” he said. “My family was thrown out from their lands, as a lot of families were thrown out. But my mother taught us the truth about how we lived before the Navy came. Maria Guadalupe was my father’s maiden aunt,” he continued. “In 1940 she lived alone on about five acres in the Western lands. When the Navy came to give her the papers, they told her she had just 48 hours to leave. She told my father, ‘You can go if you want, but I am staying here. It is my land.’” Maria Guadalupe refused to move. The next morning she was found dead. “She practiced the highest form of civil disobedience,” Tato said, a sadness and pride in his voice. “Thirteen members of my family have been arrested and accused by the Navy,” he added. Such is the cost of this people’s struggle in Vieques. Nilda approached the tourists who had stopped to sightsee along the road to the reopened Western beaches. “If they stop, they are going to have to hear the truth,” she says, “I tell them about the contamination and the bombing,” she added. “Sometimes they listen. Sometimes they shake their head and walk away.” Paul O’Leary, a tall, thin man wearing paint-splotched jeans, walked in from his home in the reclaimed area known as Monte Carmello. O’Leary is the artist of many of the murals that hang on the perimeter fence enclosing Camp Garcia. He spent 17 days in prison for trespass onto the Navy bombing range during the last exercises. “I feel like it is my duty as an American to be here defending democracy and the dignity of the people,” he said. “I’m an American. I see this as an American problem. American democracy is in danger here.” “Focus on the struggle of the people,” Ismael Gaudalupe advised as I sat with pad in hand to listen to the stories of these brave and gentle warriors. Ismael is a retired drama teacher in the local schools, and a former union organizer with the Federation of Teachers. He showed great patience with my very limited understanding of the Spanish language. “Speaking in English comes with the struggle,” he said as he made the effort to answer the many questions we “United Staters” asked. Ismael is one of the many heroes’ of the movement to free Vieques. He has been a vital part of the struggle for decades. “When I was a university student in 1964 I organized a march from the plaza,” he recalled. The Navy wanted to take more land but the whole southern coast of Vieques, including the vicinities of Esperanza and Puerto Real were saved when the people organized a militant campaign to halt the process. Ismael has been imprisoned in Atlanta, Georgia, and Lewisburg, Pennsylvania, as well as the prison at Guaynamo for his civil disobedience on behalf of Vieques. He realizes that force will not work to defend Vieques against such a formidable opponent as the US Navy. Civil disobedience in the tradition of Gandhi, King, and Chavez is the method of this people’s movement Benito Reinosa, over seventy years old, brings an almost maternal spirit of nurturing love to his volunteer work at the Peace and Justice Camp. He comes by ferry from his home on the big island to attend to the many needs of visiting delegations — cooking, cleaning, and even carefully removing a splinter from a visitor’s foot. “I do what I can to help,” he says. “I love America. The United States is a great country. They believe in peace. But what kind of peace do they show here? The whole world is hungry for peace. If they are going to leave, why do they keep destroying and contaminating? For sixty years people have been dying. They keep bombing. They keep killing people. If the Navy does not leave in May, this man will go in there,” he promised. “Everyone will go in, whole families and our animals.” “I am already contaminated,” Andres Nieves said, putting down his video camera to talk. He pulled back the collar of his shirt to reveal a long scar. “I have a thyroid tumor,” he said. Nieves is a retired filmmaker from New York. He has been documenting the struggle in Vieques since his return to his homeland to bury an old friend. “I am here because of the struggle, because my friend died. I want to stop the bombing.” He calls his video project Cry of Vieques. “It is done with the heart,” he said. “My budget is zero.” Nieves is looking for assistance obtaining the equipment he needs to edit and duplicate his video productions for a wider distribution so he can tell the story of Vieques to the world. Nestor Torres, a nineteen-year-old student of Political Science at the University of Puerto Rico, joined our Asheville delegation for a swim in the magical waters of the bioluminescent bay the night before the scheduled bombings. He is a quiet, polite young man with a strong conviction. “You can speak in English,” he said, as I attempted to communicate in my limited Spanish during an interview at the camp. “I saw the movie Gandhi and read about what Martin Luther King did in the US for black people,” he told me. “I wanted Puerto Rico to be free. That feeling in me got bigger and stronger. I came to Vieques the summer of 1999. I felt I wanted to help, but I was too young. It wasn’t my moment to be involved in civil disobedience then, but I went to all the conferences. When the September bombings were announced this year, I knew it was my time.” I asked him how he felt about the risk of going into the bombing range and the likelihood of being gassed and imprisoned. “It is a hard decision for me. I left my studies to come here. A lot of lawyers involved in this struggle warned me about the sentences. Six months is a long time,” he paused. “I am prepared to take the risk. My family and friends support me. My teachers support me.” Jaime Peralta, a single father and artist, worked as a security guard inside Camp Garcia with Ready Responsibility Security, Inc. “I worked as a substitute,” he said. “I worked all over the base, anywhere they sent me.” Jaime knew David Sanes, the security guard that was killed by the off-target bomb. “The Navy keeps quiet about how many have died,” he said. “Everything is secret.” He refused to sign a form indicating he had read a document he never received about the danger in working around the ROTHR radar installation on the island. When he expressed his concerns regarding the contamination he was dismissed from his $9.90 an hour position. “The bombing is just one part of the struggle,” Manuel Silva said as he took a place at the table at the Peace and Justice Camp. “After the Navy leaves it will be one big planet of cancer.” Silva is a Vieques poet, historian, and musician. He played his steel drums for us on the top of Monte Carmello as he told the stories of the people’s struggle to reclaim that land. “When I was a boy,” he recalled, “there was no property selfishness, no fences—my father gave away half of his land.” Silva is especially concerned about development after the Navy leaves. “The only plan I know is a bunch of greedy butchers trying to make as much money as they can.” In the early 1970s Silva became involved in the struggle to free the small neighboring island of Culebra. He went there to play his steel drums in a band and to work as a writer for the island press. Culebra was also used as a Navy bombing range until the people rose to evict the military. “That was a war. They fought wildly because they had been so abused,” Silva recalled. “People were throwing bottles and rocks and screaming, ‘Navy Out, Navy out!’ I was shocked. So I asked people about the struggle. Ismael Guadalupe gave me books. He changed my life. He is part of my process of becoming conscious of Vieques and our entire society.” Andres Nieve began to film as Manuel Silva continued his story of how he and as few as 14 others walked up a high hillside inside the US Navy boundaries and reclaimed a piece of land, known now as Monte Carmello. “It was the only time in Puerto Rican history that people have taken back the land. It was only 600 acres, but it is like a planet. “I was afraid many times. We had old women, pregnant women and children…but within two weeks more than one hundred had come.” Mount Carmello looks out over the gentle hills of Vieques and the blue Caribbean waters that surround the island. It is a high vantage point for the long view of the poets, and dreamers, warriors and musicians of this people’s struggle who hope to someday see a free Vieques. “When the Navy leaves and they clean the land,” Silva says, “I want to come to the party and laugh and dance and sing and maybe go onto the ground like a snake with the joy.” For information: Committee for the Rescue and Development of Vieques, Apartado 1424, Vieques, Puerto Rico 00765; bieke@prorescatevieques.org Websites: www.prorescatevieques.org/ and www.viequeslibre.org To contact Andres Nieves regarding help with the “Cry of Vieques” project and to assist with needed equipment (Mac SG4 double processor and Final cut III): P.O. Box 849, Vieques, P.R. 00765-0849; viequense@webtv.net You may contact the author at chanrahan@ncpress.net _________________________________________________________________ Chat with friends online, try MSN Messenger: http://messenger.msn.com From dr_broccoli at hotmail.com Thu Sep 19 11:27:13 2002 From: dr_broccoli at hotmail.com (Shawn G) Date: Sun Feb 8 02:51:51 2004 Subject: [Dryerase] anti-war Message-ID: Asheville Global Report www.AGRnews.org Reprinting permitted for not profit organizations, and the Dry-Erase News Wire Asheville citizens question Gulf War hawk on Iraq By Eamon Martin Asheville, North Carolina, Sept. 18 (AGR)— A standing-room-only crowd of nearly 300 people packed University of North Carolina’s Owen Conference Center on Monday night to hear retired Air Force Brigadier General C. Jerome Jones put forth his informed views about the “War Against Iraq – Who Will Decide? Who Will Fight? Who Will Win?” Jones is distinct in that he’s not only Buncombe County assistant manager and tax department director, but also the former deputy director for strategy and policy to the US Joint Chiefs of Staff of the Defense Department during the Persian Gulf War. During his presentation, the retired general clearly enjoyed taking credit for helping design what he called “the first post-Cold war military strategy,” serving under then-Joint Chiefs chairman, Colin Powell. The tenor of the crowd’s overwhelming concerns and suspicions about the launching of the US invasion of Iraq was made perfectly clear when Jones broke into his presentation with an upbeat pop poll. “If the president has to go to war without the United Nations or without the majority of our allies, and without a resolution of Congress, how many of you would support that? Should we do that?” Jones asked. The entire audience — of whom, over 80 percent were senior citizens — immediately responded with a resounding: “No.” When asked again if they’d support the invasion in the event those conditions were turned around, the house majority repeated their refusal. “Well, these are decisions that, fortunately, most of us won’t have to make,” consoled the old hawk. Indeed, much of Jones’ talk seemed like a motivational attempt to allay public fears with confidence-building reassurances that, ultimately, the American people are in good hands, and in fact, are merely a tactical consideration in the affairs of state and “Republic.” “The NSA is a very powerful organization,” he announced. “The good news is, for the most part — and I’m serious about this – staffers are very smart people.” At times, the former top brass official seemed to display a certain, almost studied, public relations panache as he bobbed and weaved the audience members’ often challenging questions. “You referred to the folks on the National Security Council as intelligent people,” pointed out audience member Dave MacDonovich. “At least the first three people [in the chain of command] have extreme interests in oil production and get paid for it. [National Security Adviser] Condoleeza Rice with Chevron, [Vice President Dick] Cheney with Halliburton, the whole Bush family – how can they make unbiased decisions?” “I hope I did not say that they were not biased,” answered Jones. But, he assured the audience, “the military folks” on the National Security Council staff “are about as apolitical as you can be.” “We have tens of thousands of our sons and daughters all over the world tonight, who are putting themselves in harms way, and they’re doing that so you and I can have this forum tonight,” Jones said with pride. This statement provoked one audience member to retort: “They’re doing that so we can drive our cars.” Jones suggested that the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11 were as much economically motivated as they were “psycho-socially.” “The economy has lost over a trillion dollars since Sept. 11,” Jones said. “A lot of folks say that would have happened anyway – that didn’t cause it. But nevertheless, a lot of 401Ks aren’t as lucrative as they were. And a lot of folks are working a little, extra longer because they can’t retire now.” Jones also suggested that Saddam Hussein would hold the US public hostage by withholding oil and by using “the instruments” of diplomacy “against us,” in order to defend his country. “We don’t want to use those instruments,” the ex-general enthused. “We want to use the military instrument because it is hard and we can win with it.” Other times Jones appeared to be caught off guard and made some remarkably frank admissions. One UNCA student asked, “If Iraq wasn’t in such a position to siphon off the United States’ supply of oil, would we really care what kind of government they have and would we care how authoritarian or tyrannical that government might be?” “I think it’s a great question,” he replied, and much to many people’s astonishment, Jones answered, “I think the answer is probably we wouldn’t care as much.” Jones ended his presentation by pleasantly asserting that, from the military perspective, he thinks, “we’ll win,” and by urging the audience to “remember that it might be the right thing to do.” World Affairs Council organizer Linda Cornet explained that this program was “really spontaneously arrived at” on the part of her group, the United Nations Association, and the International Studies department on the campus when they collectively discovered that “things are happening very fast. And we need to have a program where we can bring some expertise to this issue.” _________________________________________________________________ Join the world’s largest e-mail service with MSN Hotmail. http://www.hotmail.com From dr_broccoli at hotmail.com Thu Sep 19 11:29:22 2002 From: dr_broccoli at hotmail.com (Shawn G) Date: Sun Feb 8 02:51:51 2004 Subject: [Dryerase] Housing aid Message-ID: Asheville Global Report www.AGRnews.org Reprinting permitted for not profit organizations, and the Dry-Erase News Wire Criminal background checks now required for housing aid By Elizabeth Allen Asheville, North Carolina, Sept. 17 (AGR)— Families receiving Section 8 housing vouchers are now required by federal law to have criminal background checks done by the local public housing authority (PHA) or the owner of the residence they are attempting to rent. The screening process is to prevent a family from receiving aid if any member of their family has a history of either drug-related or violent criminal activity. The PHA can decide if the record or incident warrants assistance, denial or eviction. According to Housing and Urban Development (HUD) regulations eviction can occur if the “preponderance of evidence indicates that a family member has engaged in such activity, regardless of whether the family member has been arrested.” Section 8 housing vouchers are a type of federal assistance given to eligible needy families to allow them to rent a private residence and pay about 30% of their income, with the remainder being paid by the PHA. Criminal records checks raise concerns over the rights of those who are seeking housing assistance. The right to privacy is an issue because the histories of the families seeking assistance are brought to the attention of the property owners, the police and the PHA for no reason other than they have asked for help. In Tucson, Arizona, consumer advocate Willy Bils feared that search warrants will be easier to obtain and individuals easier to profile. Locally, homeowners considering renting to Section 8 families are encouraged to conduct home visits and to require a credit check, a criminal check, and landlord references. Homeless families are of first priority for receiving aid, but may be denied due to previous criminal records. In 1987 a study conducted by the Urban Institute demonstrated that one third of the homeless population had spent time in alcohol or drug treatment and 29% of single homeless men had spent time in prison. Although dated, the study demonstrates that a large quantity of the homeless population has problems with drugs or has a criminal record. Also significant is that the study only showed how many homeless people had received treatment for drug problems, not the percentage that were dealing with drug problems. In order for people with histories of drug problems to qualify for Section 8 housing, they must be able to prove that they were addicted to a substance and have recovered, and may be required to prove they have been involved in a treatment program. Angel, a homeless resident of Asheville commented, “By doing criminal background checks they are denying people who want to change their life … and then they end up in jail. I just think it’s dumb man, they are denying people who need it.” John Smith, who is disabled and sleeps in a car, continued, “Hillcrest has fifty or more apartments empty, and they [the residents] are getting put out for no reason, minor things…. Too many people out here living in the streets when they should be living in a place.” Cheri Honkala of the Kensington Welfare Rights Union (KWRU), based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, said the drug screening has become a major obstacle for families trying to obtain housing. She pointed out that entire families are rejected and forever ineligible because one of the family members has chosen to sell drugs out of necessity, it being the highest paying job available and a particular temptation for youth. In his book Down and Out in America: the Origins of Homelessness, Peter Rossi describes the loss of industrialized, unionized employment in the US in the 1980s as leading to increasing numbers of individuals and families unable to afford housing. The KWRU is dealing with the problem by putting families in abandoned “hot” houses, where they are living day by day. For Honkala, lack of access to housing rather than invasion of privacy is the most pressing issue. “For poor people, our lives are about nothing but scrutiny, we are really used to constant invasion of privacy,” she said. Her statement is reflected in the surveys conducted in 1969, 1980, and 1990 by James Klugel and Elliot Smith, which showed the overwhelming majority of US citizens polled as holding individualistic explanations for poverty such as poor morals, work skills, or lack of effort or ability as opposed to structural explanations like lack of adequate schooling, low wages or lack of jobs. “As a result,” explained French social scientist Robert Castel in 1978, “the politics of welfare center around the management of individual deficiencies.” In other words, rather than dealing with the causes of drug addiction, individual families are refused housing as punishment for drug-related activity. This denial of housing contradicts the statement found in the Asheville Housing Authority’s Tennant Handbook, which claims: “As a US resident you are entitled by law to safe and decent housing.” The policy of evicting tenants whose family members or guests participated in “drug-related criminal activity” was challenged by four residents of public housing in Oakland, California who where evicted when their children, grandchildren, or hired caretakers where caught with drugs. They claimed they had no knowledge of the activity and asked if the statute requiring eviction included an “innocent owner” defense and if it does not, then it is an unconstitutional violation of Due Process rights. The statute in question was the Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1988 which states that each “public housing agency shall utilize leases… provid[ing] that any drug related criminal activity on or off [federally assisted low-income housing] premises, engaged in by a public housing tenant, any member of the tenant’s household, or any guest or other person under the tenant’s control, shall be cause of the termination of tenancy.” After state court eviction proceedings, the cases were appealed to the 9th Circuit District Court of Appeals which decided that the “innocent owner” defense was part of congressional intent and the tenants where entitled to housing. The cases were then appealed to the Supreme Court and decided in March of 2002 in HUD v. Rucker. The Court opinion was delivered by Chief Justice Rehnquist, which all other members joined with the exception of Justice Breyer who took no part in the consideration or decision of the case. The Court overturned the 9th Circuit Court’s decision saying that the inclusion of the word “any” in the statue meant all drug-related activity “regardless of whether the tenant knew, or had reason to know, of that activity,” is grounds for eviction. They went on to state that the statute is not a violation of Due Process; unjustly depriving a person of their property, because the government is acting as a landlord, invoking a clause in a lease which Congress has required and to which both parties agreed. In addition it’s “not attempting to criminally punish or civilly regulate respondents as members of the general populace.” This statute and decision has laid the groundwork for the legality of background checks and Section 8 housing regulations. Locally, Section 8 applicants are put on a twelve- to eighteen-month-long waiting list to receive assistance and the background checks ensue once their name comes up. About 2 to 3 percent are rejected due to drugs, according to Section 8 caseworker Marjorie Scavella. The wait itself hurts applicants because of the sheer length of time it takes. An Asheville resident, who didn’t want his name disclosed, explained that people with children in Department of Social Services custody are depending on housing in order to get their children back, and subsequently end up having to wait over a year just to get off the waiting list. Homeless applicants also have to deal with the wait while living on the street or in shelters. Another homeless Asheville resident who wished to remain anonymous told about an incident with the Salvation Army shelter, which charges $60 a week. “After I paid they told me to take a drug test, and when I wouldn’t they kept the $60 and kicked me out. I went to Wal-Mart and bought a tent and sleeping bag and am staying in them. At least nobody can kick me out.” _________________________________________________________________ Chat with friends online, try MSN Messenger: http://messenger.msn.com From dr_broccoli at hotmail.com Thu Sep 19 11:30:58 2002 From: dr_broccoli at hotmail.com (Shawn G) Date: Sun Feb 8 02:51:51 2004 Subject: [Dryerase] Legal action aginast Wal-Mart Message-ID: Asheville Global Report www.AGRnews.org Reprinting permitted for not profit organizations, and the Dry-Erase News Wire Citizens take legal action to stop Wal-Mart development By Beth Trigg Asheville, North Carolina, Sept. 17 (AGR)— On Monday, five community organizations and over 100 Asheville residents filed an appeal of the City of Asheville’s decision to approve a conditional use permit and a rezoning petition for the proposed Riverbend Marketplace development on the Swannanoa River at the Sayles Bleachery site. The complaint alleges that Asheville city officials violated the City’s Unified Development Ordinance (UDO), and petitions the court to reverse the actions of City Council, revoke the conditional use permit, and nullify the rezoning of the property. The Oakley Community Association, the Beverly Hills Homeowners Association, the Redwood Forest Homeowners Association, the Biltmore Merchants Association, Community Supported Development, and individual members of each of these groups are the plaintiffs in the appeal. The action is intended to stop Riverbend Development Partners from moving forward with their plans for a Wal-Mart Supercenter and other development on the site, and to hold city officials accountable to their own development guidelines. “The city seemed to ignore their own rules,” said Ned Guttman, a member of the Redwood Forest community group. “This process was flawed from the start. The city needs to rescind the permit.” The community groups held a press conference announcing the legal action Monday afternoon, and were joined by supporters and neighbors of the Sayles site. According to the complaint, City Council based its findings on insufficient evidence, committed “grave procedural errors” and ignored evidence showing that the development could not satisfy the requirements for a conditional use permit. Says Sharon Martin of CSD, “The Wal-Mart plan will create public safety risks and traffic nightmares, and will damage the unique quality of life and community character that we in Asheville enjoy. We believe that the city acted in an arbitrary and capricious manner in approving this mega-development. We will continue to fight in court to force city officials to follow the rules in our zoning ordinance.” Taking on city government, the retail giant, and local development moguls in court is an expensive endeavor, however. CSD continues in its grassroots fundraising to pay for the legal battle, and will be hosting a spaghetti dinner on Sept. 29 at 6pm at the Unitarian Church to raise money for legal expenses. Advance tickets are available from Christopher Fielden at 277-3640. Small, independent businesses are also pitching in: Corine Kurzmann, owner of Diggin Art, is challenging other local business owners to donate a percentage of profits to the fight. “We’re donating five percent. I challenge other businesses to do the same,” Kurzman says. The grassroots organizing effort to challenge Wal-Mart on the Sayles site has spanned several years and cost thousands of dollars already. The City of Asheville has 30 days to respond to the appeal; then the case will be heard by a judge in Superior Court. Wal-Mart Corporation, Horne Properties (a national development corporation involved in the project), or Riverbend Development Partners could petition during that time to intervene in the case on the grounds that they would be affected by the outcome, in which case they would also be involved in the court battle. Betty Lawrence, the local attorney who filed the appeal, says she is “very confident,” adding, “the record is clear.” Citizens have spoken out against the development throughout the City’s review process, citing concerns about groundwater pollutants, runoff, traffic, air and noise pollution, property devaluation, and neighborhood destruction, and asserting that the proposal would violate all seven of Asheville’s conditional use permit findings. In the end, opponents of the development hope to prove that the City’s decision was a “political approval,” sidestepping proper procedure, violating the law, and disregarding due process rights for Asheville residents. Ned Guttman summarizes: “This lawsuit is about inappropriate development, a flawed process, and the integrity of City government.” More information is available at www.main.nc.us/csd. _________________________________________________________________ MSN Photos is the easiest way to share and print your photos: http://photos.msn.com/support/worldwide.aspx From wires at the-alarm.com Sat Sep 21 14:06:52 2002 From: wires at the-alarm.com (The Alarm!Newswire) Date: Sun Feb 8 02:51:51 2004 Subject: [Dryerase] The Alarm!--Bilingual Education Message-ID: <498C70D9-CD95-11D6-AF02-003065F4865E@the-alarm.com> Bilingual Education in Santa Cruz Schools lack resources for English-learning students By Rachel Showstack The Alarm! Newspaper Contributor ?There was a general feeling of gloom among teachers at Starlight School when California passed Proposition 227,? said Eric Gross, a bilingual teacher at Starlight Elementary School in Watsonville. ?Nobody knew what the measure would actually do to bilingual education.? Approved in 1998, Proposition 227 makes it illegal for public schools to teach classes on the basic state subject curriculum in Spanish unless all of the students in the class have waivers signed by their parents and the school. Before the vote, teachers and students across the state of California organized large demonstrations to protest against the proposed legislation. Many teachers were very worried about how the law would affect children?s education. They were afraid that students who did not speak English would not be able to keep up with the curriculum if they were assigned to classes taught exclusively in English. Palo Alto businessman Ron Unz, who proposed the measure, argued that students who enter bilingual programs with minimal English skills learn to read and write in their native language and not in English. Unz, along with his advocacy group ?English for the Children,? maintains that the only way to teach kids English is with total English immersion. But according to Bilingual Teacher Betsy Hamilton of Santa Cruz City Schools, Unz?s interpretation of bilingual education is flawed. ?The goal of all bilingual education is the academic achievement in English,? she said. ?Ineffective programs have produced students that don?t acquire English skills, but effective programs ensure that they do.? Four years after the implementation of Prop. 227, teachers in Santa Cruz County are still trying to figure out the best way to teach the State?s base curriculum to students who are learning English. But some say the debate about ?English-only? programs does not focus on the worst problems facing English-learners. Regardless of the teaching method, minority students, who often come from poor areas, lack general educational resources and receive little community support. Parent-teacher Communication The first year that Prop. 227 was implemented, teachers didn?t know how to interpret it. A rumor even circulated among the bilingual teachers at Starlight that they would loose their jobs if they were to talk with the parents about the new legislation. The waivers were not available in the district office when the school year began, according to Gross. On the second day, there were some waivers, but only in English. The waivers in Spanish finally arrived on the third day, but by the fourth day, the parents were no longer accompanying their kids to school. Thus many parents never got waivers. Gross, who was the Bilingual Resource Teacher at Starlight that year, took great pains to contact parents and explain the students? educational options. But he said it was difficult to include parents in the decisions about their children?s education. ?The parents, especially the undocumented, were afraid of bureaucracy,? Gross said. Since there was no system of parent-teacher communication in the district, the teachers had to create a new one. Some teachers stayed at school until the evening so they could talk with the parents after they finished working in the fields. Others even went to the families? homes on the weekends. This year, Santa Cruz classroom teachers are still trying to inform parents about the options for students learning English. According to Darlene Wilcox, the Bilingual Resource Teacher at Salsipuedes Elementary School in Watsonville, some parents still don?t understand the options. ?If there were more money in the schools, we could hire a full-time social worker,? she said. She also suggested the possibility of hiring an interpreter. But with the schools? limited resources it?s only possible to make baby steps. ?We should keep inviting parents to participate in informational meetings, school site council meetings and also individual meetings with teachers,? Wilcox added. The Programs Alianza (a private school) and Starlight are the only schools in Watsonville that still offer ?dual-language immersion? programs. In these programs, the kids who speak Spanish start with classes only in Spanish, and later they move to bilingual classes. The goal of dual-language immersion is that the students speak, read, write and learn well in both languages. These programs are what some teachers call ?true bilingual education,? because both languages are valued equally. Bilingual Teacher Hamilton pointed out that dual-language immersion programs present a message of cultural equality between English-learners and native English speakers, in addition to allowing the English-learners equal access to the general subject curriculum. ?The development of bilingual education has its roots in issues of equality and access,? she said. ?It was developed for students who did not have equality and access in public schools, based on [their] language.? Hamilton argued that Prop. 227 makes it difficult to provide English-learners with equality and access in education. Alianza and Starlight are located about two blocks apart from each other, and they are in a relatively affluent part of Watsonville. Wilcox says that although Prop. 227 indicates that the students have the right to go to another school in order to participate in a certain alternative program, many students don?t have the option of studying so far from home. Thus, the dual language immersion program is not available for most Watsonville students. The same problem exists in Santa Cruz, but the options for bilingual classes are fewer and farther between, according to Hamilton. Prop. 227 reduced the number of bilingual classes in Santa Cruz City Schools from twelve to five. In order to get a new bilingual class, the measure requires that the parents of twenty students sign waivers to request a class for a given grade level at a given site. But in areas like the city of Santa Cruz, where English-learners are a minority, many schools have only a few English-learners per grade level and it is impossible to provide the option of a bilingual program. At Salsipuedes Elementary in Watsonville, where most of the students speak Spanish as their first language, parents can choose between an ?English immersion? program or a ?transitional program.? In the transitional program, students are taught primarily in Spanish until they are prepared to follow classes in English. Parents of more than half of the kindergarteners at Salsipuedes have signed waivers so that their children would be assigned to a transitional program. Twenty of the students with waivers are in Geneva Garcia?s bilingual class. Garcia teaches the reading and writing lessons in Spanish every day, but with the other subjects she alternates between Spanish and English. She instructs the class primarily in Spanish for a few days, and then she teaches mainly in English for a few days. On a day that she teaches primarily in English, after doing the reading and writing lesson in Spanish, Garcia changes the sign on the wall that says ?Espa?ol? to the other side that reads ?English.? ?Now I am going to ask you to put on your English hat,? she says very slowly in English. ?In my hands I have a book that we already read in Spanish. Now we?re going to read it in English.? According to Eugene Bush, the Bilingual Resource Teacher for Santa Cruz City Schools, the opportunity to learn to read and write in the first language helps many students. ?[For the children that are learning how to read], it is difficult to get the relationship between the symbols and sounds and words,? he said. ?If the kids are learning how to read in their own language, the relationship between sounds and meaning is direct. If they are learning in a second language, maybe it isn?t so clear.? All of the kindergarten students at Salsipuedes whose parents did not request an alternative program are in classes instructed primarily in English. Linda Pate, who speaks very little Spanish, teaches one of the English immersion kindergarten classes. Some of her students speak very little English. ?The kids that speak both [languages] help me a lot; they translate what I say to Spanish all the time,? she said. The teaching method that Pate uses is called Specially Designed Academic Instruction in English; she is careful to present the lesson in a way that English-learners would understand. Pate speaks slowly and clearly, avoids the use of idiomatic expressions and uses props like pictures and words written in big letters. The other method for teaching classes in English for students who are learning the language is called Sheltered English Immersion (SEI). In SEI classes, the primary instruction has to be in English, while the teacher can explain as much as s/he needs to in Spanish so that the students will understand the lesson. The lessons are often introduced in the students? primary language and then reviewed in the same language at the end. According to Kindergarten Teacher Diana Dugan of Natural Bridges Elementary School in Santa Cruz, the pitfall of English-only programs is that they encourage racism among students. Bilingual programs create a venue for multi-cultural education that English-only programs don?t, she said. ?The [bilingual] system encouraged English speakers to learn Spanish, and helped them value the Spanish-speakers and see them as equals,? she explained. Dugan noticed a sharp change in her students? attitudes toward minorities in the first two years of 227?s implementation. ?Now many English-speakers say the Spanish-speakers are dumb. The new system breeds that kind of contempt,? Dugan said. Educational Resources When the family of a student requests a waiver to be in a bilingual program, the school can approve it or deny it. Almost all the waivers requested for kindergarten students at Salsipuedes have been approved. But according to Wilcox, there wasn?t enough space in the bilingual classes for all of the children with waivers. Therefore some students with waivers marked as approved are still in the SEI classes and have to go to special reading and writing classes based on their reading level in Spanish. ?Now I ask myself why we say these waivers were approved,? Wilcox said. ?Its another example of our lack of resources.? According to Wilcox, the statistics don?t show that one program works better than the other. ?Prop. 227 didn?t change much,? she said. ?The big problem is that the schools that have a lot of students who are learning English don?t have the resources they need to provide a satisfactory education.? The textbook that Wilcox uses in her reading class includes mostly fictional stories. ?How are they going to have time to learn the themes of science and social studies if they don?t learn them while they study reading and writing?? she asked. ?We need better materials to be able to teach everything with so little time.? Wilcox explained that the reading and writing materials should follow the state-required base curriculum for the students? grade level. This ends up being especially difficult in Salsipuedes and other schools with students whose first language is not English, because there are students in third, fourth and fifth grade who read and write at a second grade level. ?We don?t have a program that assures us that we will meet the state standards,? she said. ?I, as a teacher in a little school, should not be developing the program; this is the work of the State.? All content Copyleft ? 2002 by The Alarm! Newspaper. Except where noted otherwise, this material may be copied and distributed freely in whole or in part by anyone except where used for commercial purposes or by government agencies. ----- The Alarm! Newspaper a local weekly newspaper for an engaged populace http://www.the-alarm.com/ info@the-alarm.com P.O. Box 1205, Santa Cruz, CA 95061 (831) 429-NEWS - office (831) 420-1498 - fax From wires at the-alarm.com Sat Sep 21 14:07:46 2002 From: wires at the-alarm.com (The Alarm!Newswire) Date: Sun Feb 8 02:51:51 2004 Subject: [Dryerase] =?ISO-8859-1?Q?=A1La_Alarma!--Educacci=F3n_biling=FCe?= Message-ID: <69EA36CD-CD95-11D6-AF02-003065F4865E@the-alarm.com> Educaci?n biling?e en Santa Cruz Las escuelas carecen recursos para los estudiantes que est?n aprendiendo el ingl?s Por Rachel Showstack Colectivo del Peri?dico ?La Alarma! ?Hab?a una sensaci?n general de pesimismo entre los maestros de Starlight cuando California aprob? la Proposici?n 227,? dijo Eric Gross, maestro biling?e de la escuela primaria Starlight en Watsonville. ?Nadie sab?a que har?a la ley a la educaci?n biling?e.? Aprobada por votaci?n en 1998, la Proposici?n 227 prohibe a las escuelas publicas ensenar en espa?ol clases del curr?culo basico del estado, salvo que todos los estudiantes de la clase cuenten con renuncias a la ley firmadas por sus padres y la escuela. Antes del voto, maestros y estudiantes a lo largo del estado de California organizaron grandes demostraciones de protesta contra la legislaci?n propuesta. Muchos maestros estaban muy preocupados por la forma como ser?a afectada la educaci?n de los ni?os. Tem?an que aquellos ni?os que no hablaran ingl?s no podr?an mantenerse al paso del curr?culo si se les asignaran a clases impartidas exclusivamente en ingl?s. El hombre de negocios de Palo Alto Ron Unz, quien propuso la ley, argument? que los estudiantes que entran a los programas biling?es con habilidades m?nimas de ingl?s aprenden a leer y escribir en su idioma nativo y no en el ingl?s. Unz, con su grupo de apoyo ?Ingl?s para los ni?os? insiste que la ?nica manera de ense?ar el ingl?s a los ni?os es con la inmersi?n total en este idioma. Pero seg?n la maestra biling?e de Santa Cruz City Schools Betsy Hamilton, la interpretaci?n que hace Unz de la educaci?n biling?e es incorrecta. ?La meta de la educaci?n biling?e es el ?xito acad?mico en ingl?s,? dijo. ?Programas ineficaces han producido estudiantes que no adquieren las habilidades de ingl?s, pero los programas eficaces aseguran que si las adquieran.? Cuatro a?os despu?s de la implementaci?n de la Prop. 227, los maestros en el Condado de Santa Cruz todav?a est?n buscando la mejor forma de ense?ar el curr?culo b?sico del estado a los estudiantes que est?n aprendiendo el ingl?s. Pero algunos dicen que el debate sobre los programas ?solamente-ingl?s? no se enfoca en los problemas m?s graves de los estudiantes. Mas bien, sin importar el m?todo de ense?anza, los estudiantes de grupos minoritarios, provenientes de regiones pobres, carecen de recursos educativos y gozan de poco apoyo de la comunidad. Comunicaci?n entre padres y maestros En el primer a?o que se implement? la Prop. 227, los maestros no sab?an como deb?an interpretarla. Incluso circul? un rumor entre los maestros biling?es de Starlight en el sentido que si hablaran con los padres sobre la legislaci?n nueva perder?an sus trabajos. Las solicitudes de renuncia no estaban disponibles en la oficina del distrito cuando empez? el a?o escolar, seg?n Gross. En el segundo d?a, hab?an algunas solicitudes, pero solo en ingl?s. Las solicitudes en espa?ol por fin llegaron en el tercer d?a, pero para el cuarto d?a, los padres ya no acompa?aban a sus ni?os a la escuela. De esta manera muchos padres nunca recogieron las solicitudes. Gross, que en aquel a?o era el maestro de recursos biling?es de Starlight, hizo muchos esfuerzos para contactar a los padres y explicarles las opciones educacionales de los estudiantes. Pero dijo que era dif?cil de incluir a los padres en las decisiones sobre la educaci?n de sus ni?os. ?Los padres, sobretodo los no documentados, tem?an a la burocracia,? dijo Gross. Como no exist?a sistema de comunicaci?n con los padres en el distrito, los maestros tuvieron que crear uno nuevo. Algunos maestros se quedaban en la escuela hasta la noche para poder hablar con los padres despu?s de que terminaran de trabajar en el campo. Otros incluso fueron hasta las casas de los padres en los fines de semana. Este a?o, los maestros de Santa Cruz siguen intentado informar a los padres sobre las opciones que tienen los estudiantes que est?n aprendiendo ingl?s. Seg?n Darlene Wilcox, la maestra de recursos biling?es de la escuela primaria Salsipuedes en Watsonville, algunos padres a?n no entienden las opciones existentes. ?Si hubiera m?s dinero en las escuelas, podr?amos contratar un asistente social de tiempo completo,? dijo. Tambi?n sugiri? la posibilidad de contratar un int?rprete. Pero con los recursos limitados de la escuela, solo se avanza en pasos peque?os. ?Debemos seguir invitando a los padres a participar en las reuniones de informaci?n, las reuniones con la administraci?n de la escuela, as? como a reuniones particulares con los maestros,? Wilcox a?adi?. Los programas Alianza (una escuela privada) y Starlight son las ?nicas escuelas en Watsonville que todav?a ofrecen programas de ?inmersi?n en dos lenguas.? En esos programas, los ni?os que hablan espa?ol empiezan con clases solamente en espa?ol, y luego se trasladan a clases biling?es. La meta de inmersi?n en dos lenguas es que los estudiantes hablen, lean, escriban y aprendan bien en ambos idiomas. Esos programas son lo que algunos maestros llaman ?educaci?n biling?e verdadera,? porque se les da la misma importancia a los dos lenguajes. La maestra biling?e Hamilton indic? que los programas de inmersi?n en dos lenguas presentan un mensaje de igualdad cultural entre los estudiantes que est?n aprendiendo el ingl?s y los hablantes nativos de ingl?s, adem?s de dar a los estudiantes que est?n aprendiendo el ingl?s acceso igual al temario general del curr?culo. ?El desarrollo de educaci?n biling?e tiene sus ra?ces en igualdad y acceso,? dijo. ?Fue desarrollado para los estudiantes que no ten?an igualdad y acceso en las escuelas publicas a causa de su idioma.? Hamilton argument? que la Prop. 227 hace dif?cil de proveer con igualdad y acceso a la educaci?n a los estudiantes que hablan poco ingl?s. Alianza y Starlight se encuentran m?s o menos a dos cuadradas uno del otro, y est?n en una ?rea de Watsonville relativamente bien acomodada en terminos economicos. Wilcox dijo que, aunque la Prop. 227 indica que los estudiantes tienen el derecho de ir a otra escuela para poder estar en cierto programa alternativo, estudiar tan lejos de casa no es una opci?n para muchos estudiantes. Por eso, el programa de inmersi?n en dos lenguas no est? disponible para la mayor?a de los estudiantes de Watsonville. El mismo problema existe en Santa Cruz, pero hay menos opciones para las clases biling?es, seg?n Hamilton. La Prop. 227 redujo de doce a cinco el n?mero de clases biling?es en las escuelas publicas de la ciudad de Santa Cruz. Para conseguir una clase biling?e nueva, la Prop. 227 requiere que los padres de veinte estudiantes entreguen renuncias para solicitar una clase para un cierto a?o en un lugar dado. Pero en ?reas como la ciudad de Santa Cruz, donde los estudiantes que est?n aprendiendo ingl?s son la minoria, muchas escuelas tienen pocos de estos estudiantes en cada grado, y es imposible proveer la opci?n de un programa biling?e. En la escuela primaria Salsipuedes, donde la mayor?a de los estudiantes hablan el espa?ol como primer idioma, los padres pueden elegir entre un programa de inmersi?n en ingl?s o un programa biling?e ?de transici?n.? En el programa de transici?n, se ense?a a los estudiantes principalmente en espa?ol hasta que est?n preparados para poder seguir el paso en clases ens?nadas en ingl?s. Los padres de m?s de la mitad de los estudiantes de kinder en Salsipuedes han firmado solicitudes de renuncia para que sus hijos sean asignados a un programa de transici?n. Veinte de los estudiantes con renuncias est?n en la clase biling?e de la Maestra Geneva Garcia. Garcia ense?a diario las lecciones de lectura y escritura en espa?ol, pero con los otros temas va cambiando entre espa?ol e ingl?s. Imparte la clase unos cuantos d?as primordialmente en espa?ol, y luego otros tantors en ingl?s. En un d?a que ense?a principalmente en ingl?s, despu?s de dar la lecci?n de lectura y escritura en espa?ol, Garcia cambia el cartel en la pared que dice ?Espa?ol? al otro lado, el cual dice ?English.? ?Ahora les voy a pedir que se pongan su sombrero de ingl?s. (Now I am going to ask you to put on your English hat),? dice muy despacio en ingl?s. ?En mis manos tengo un libro que ya le?mos en espa?ol. Ahora lo vamos a leer en ingl?s. (In my hands I have a book that we already read in Spanish. Now we?re going to read it in English.)? Seg?n Eugene Bush, el maestro de recursos biling?es de Santa Cruz City Schools, la oportunidad de aprender a leer y escribir en la lengua materna ayuda a muchos estudiantes. ?Para los ni?os que est?n aprendiendo a leer, es dif?cil de comprender la relaci?n entre s?mbolos y sonidos y palabras,? dijo. ?Si los ni?os est?n aprendiendo a leer en su propio idioma, la relaci?n entre sonidos y significado es directa. Si est?n aprendiendo en su segundo idioma, la relaci?n quiz? no est? tan clara.? Todos los estudiantes de kinder cuyos padres no han solicitado un programa alternativo est?n en clases impartidas principalmente en ingl?s. La maestra Linda Pate, que habla muy poco espa?ol, ense?a una clase de kinder de inmersi?n en ingl?s. Algunos de sus estudiantes hablan muy poco ingl?s. ?Los ni?os que hablan los dos [idiomas] me ayudan mucho; frecuentemente traducen lo que digo al espa?ol,? dijo. El m?todo de ense?aza que usa Pate se llama Specially Designed Academic Instruction in English; ella se cuida presentar la lecci?n de manera que los estudiantes que est?n aprendiendo el ingl?s comprendan. Habla despacio y claro, intenta no usar las expresiones idiom?ticas, y usa sostenes como dibujos y palabras escritas en letras grandes. El otro m?todo de ense?anza para los estudiantes que est?n aprendiendo ingl?s se llama Sheltered English Immersion (SEI). En SEI clases, la instrucci?n principal tiene que estar en ingl?s, mientras que la maestra puede explicar tanto como necesita explicar en espa?ol, para que los estudiantes entiendan la lecci?n. Se suele introducir las lecciones en el primer idioma de los estudiantes y luego dar un repaso en el mismo idioma al final. Seg?n Diana Dugan, maestra de kinder de la escuela primaria Natural Bridges en Santa Cruz, el peligro de los programas ense?ados mayoritariamente en ingl?s es que fomentan el racismo entre los estudiantes. Programas biling?es crean un lugar para la educaci?n multicultural que los otros programas no ofrecen, dijo. ?El sistema [biling?e] anim? a los estudiantes anglohablantes a aprender el Espa?ol, y los ayud? a valorar los hispanohablantes y verlos como iguales,? explic?. Dugan se fij? en un cambio grave en las actitudes de sus estudiantes hac?a los grupos minoritarios en los primeros cuatro a?os de la implementaci?n de 227. ?Ahora muchos anglohablantes dicen que los hispanohablantes son est?pidos. El sistema nuevo crea ese tipo de odio,? dijo. Recursos educativos Cuando la familia de un estudiante pide una solicitud de renuncia para estar en un programa biling?e, la escuela puede o aprobarla o negarla. Casi todas las solicitudes de renuncia de los estudiantes de kinder en Salsipuedes han sido aprobadas. Pero Seg?n Wilcox, no hab?a bastante espacio en las clases biling?es para todos los ni?os con renuncias. Por esta razon algunos estudiantes con renuncias marcadas como aprobadas aun se encuentran en las clases de SEI, y van a clases de lectura y escritura especiales basados en su nivel de lectura en espa?ol. ?Ahora me pregunto porque decimos que estas renuncias fueron aprobadas,? coment? Wilcox. ?Es otro ejemplo de nuestra falta de recursos.? Seg?n Wilcox, las estad?sticas no muestran que un programa funciona mejor que otro. ?La Prop. 227 no cambi? mucho,? dijo. ?El gran problema es que las escuelas que tienen muchos estudiantes que est?n aprendiendo ingl?s no tienen los recursos que necesitan para proveer una educaci?n suficiente.? El libro de texto que usa Wilcox en su clase de lectura incluye sobretodo cuentos de ficci?n. ?Como van a tener tiempo de aprender los temas de ciencia y estudios sociales si no los aprendan mientras estudian la lectura y escritura?? pregunt?. En su clase, los estudiantes aprenden a leer en ingl?s por la ma?ana, y por la tarde deben estudiar otros temas. ?No hay bastante tiempo en el d?a,? me dijo. ?Necesitamos mejores materiales para ense?arlo todo con tan poco tiempo.? Wilcox explic? que los materiales de lectura y escritura deben seguir el curr?culo tem?tico del a?o de estudios de los estudiantes requerido por el estado. Eso resulta especialmente dif?cil en Salsipuedes y otras escuelas con estudiantes cuyo primer idioma no es el ingl?s, porque hay estudiantes de tercer, cuarto y quinto a?o que su nivel de lectura y escritura apenas alcanza el segundo grado. ?No tenemos un programa que nos asegure alcanzar los est?ndares del estado,? dijo. ?Yo, como una maestra de una escuela peque?a, no debo estar desarrollando el programa; esto es en trabajo del estado.? All content Copyleft ? 2002 by The Alarm! Newspaper. Except where noted otherwise, this material may be copied and distributed freely in whole or in part by anyone except where used for commercial purposes or by government agencies. ----- The Alarm! Newspaper a local weekly newspaper for an engaged populace http://www.the-alarm.com/ info@the-alarm.com P.O. Box 1205, Santa Cruz, CA 95061 (831) 429-NEWS - office (831) 420-1498 - fax From wires at the-alarm.com Sat Sep 21 14:08:46 2002 From: wires at the-alarm.com (The Alarm!Newswire) Date: Sun Feb 8 02:51:52 2004 Subject: [Dryerase] The Alarm!--Eye on the INS--Eavesdropping Message-ID: <8DA19696-CD95-11D6-AF02-003065F4865E@the-alarm.com> Eye on the INS A forum addressing the INS and immigration policy Welcome to Shoney?s. Our Special Today is American Pie. Would You Like the Eavesdropping or the Non-Eavesdropping Section? By Michelle Stewart The Alarm! Newspaper Collective Welcome to the new America, where security is the bottom-line and the ends always justifies the means?in fact, the means create ?National Heroes.? An America where you might find yourself sitting beside Eunice Stone or someone who thinks like her. Where a breakfast stop on a roadtrip might find you pulled over the next day, detained for 17 hours and made a national spectacle. An America where the hearsay of one woman in a restaurant might cost you your job. You see, for Eunice Stone, President Bush?s speeches about Homeland Security, the Citizen?s Corp and TIPS (Terrorism Information and Prevention System) resonated and she believed it her duty to stay alert, always taking due notice of things that seem out of place. And things were decidedly out of place for her when she went to a Shoney?s Restaurant in Georgia on September 12, 2002. Just one day after the anniversary of 9/11, perhaps Eunice?s ears were a wee bit too pricked as she honed in on a discussion at a neighboring table that hosted three men of apparent Arab descent. According to Eunice she felt compelled to call 9-1-1 after she heard them utter statements like, ?they think they were sad on 9/11, wait until 9/13,? and ?do you think we have enough to bring it down?? Convinced she was dining with al-Qaeda, she immediately called the police despite the comment by her own son that perhaps the men were pulling her leg. After calling the police and reporting her eavesdropping, Eunice went about her day, as the authorities began a manhunt for the two vehicles carrying the three men. At 1 a.m., Florida police pulled over the two vehicles and took the men into custody?thus beginning the melodrama in Alligator Alley, a stretch of I-75 in southern Florida. Cop car after cop car descended upon the scene as the men were detained, police dogs reportedly sniffed for explosives, the ?suspects? emphasized they were medical students, the bomb squad came out, the media jumped on the story, the men continued to demand what they were being charged with, police reported the plates on the car were stolen and the men were uncooperative, the family of one man held an impromtu press conference demanding the release of their relative, the police bomb robot came up empty-clawed and the news continued to run live coverage of the men?s cars being systematically dismantled in search of bombs or other devices. For 17 hours this went on. Eunice Stone became a celebrity as people called her a national hero for saving us from the three suspicious Muslims?as the men were held in detention with no evidence of wrong-doing. But the next day, Eunice was quick to note to Fox News reporters that she doesn?t have a ?habit? of eavesdropping?great to know, thanks Eunice! As Eunice was being interviewed on shows like Fox News, calls and emails began to flood into Larkin Community Hospital, the institution that confirmed the three men were signed up for the nine-week course. On Saturday, as Eunice?s face and voice began to fade from cable news shows, Dr. Jack Michel, the president of Larkin Community Hospital stepped up to prove the story could become more ludicrous. Stating that the hospital had received over 200 ?threatening, ethnic, racial emails directed at Muslim-Americans,? the good doctor announced the school is asking the three men to transfer to another hospital. Saying it would be in the ?best interest? of the students to move on to another hospital, Michel noted he was concerned about the health and safety of the staff and patients of his hospital after receiving the threatening emails and phone calls. So, from a roadtrip that began in Chicago bound to a hospital in Florida, it takes but one phone call from a worried citizen to cause three men to be detained for nearly a full day, to be demonized on national TV and lose their jobs by the end of the weekend. Fairly impressive, this new America we live in. As Ayman Gheith points out, ?how many other people witnessed this event that supposedly took place?? But what does he know, he was just one of the three men in question. Although some phone calls have come into Larkin Community Hospital in support of the men, very few people are going to bat for Ayman Gheith, Kambiz Butt and Omar Choudhary. Very few people care if the careers of these future medical professionals are forever altered because one woman chose to make a phone call. Perhaps fewer people are wondering if Eunice Stone?s intentions were in the right place when she picked up the phone?did she think, hmmm, this could get me on TV? That the men involved say she fabricated the whole story seems to be lost both in the news and in the minds of a majority of news viewers. Do we look around the restaurant and choose a booth based on who we think won?t listen in on our conversations, or better yet, do we look around a restaurant and chose a booth based on who we think has the best ?listening skills?? Eunice was quick to tell us all that she isn?t a professional eavesdropper. Maybe things would be a lot different for three medical students today if she were. This is the America we are asked to embrace. Where TIPS guarantees you the right to point at your neighbor and cry foul, where the Citizen?s Corps asks you to become more familiar with police policy and volunteer to assist, where the Office of Homeland Security joins hands with the Justice Department to hide hundreds of people in detainment for the sake of national security. What ever happened to the days when we made fun of the weird lady who spied on people and eavesdropped?where she was socially marginalized for being a snoop? All I know is that she has been replaced with the same model, but we call her a national hero. Why would someone call Eunice Stone a national hero? What did she save us from, as a nation? Will she be turned into a stamp to commemorate her actions? I hope so, then we can officially regard her as a National Reminder of how ludicrous and troubling these times truly are. I will lick Eunice and plop her on my letters and think about how backwards we, as a nation, can get. And as I mail Eunice off, years from now (since it takes a while, and you must be dead, to become a stamp) I will reflect on Ayman Gheith?s statement to the press when he was released. ?I have one message, I think it?s time for us as Americans to put down our big sticks and pick up our books and read about other people and read about what they believe before we jump to conclusions.? Indeed, there was something suspicious lurking about in that restaurant last Thursday, but between you and me, I don?t think it was three medical students?I think it was one woman with an overactive imagination, coupled with a wee bit of?well, you fill in the rest. All content Copyleft ? 2002 by The Alarm! Newspaper. Except where noted otherwise, this material may be copied and distributed freely in whole or in part by anyone except where used for commercial purposes or by government agencies. ----- The Alarm! Newspaper a local weekly newspaper for an engaged populace http://www.the-alarm.com/ info@the-alarm.com P.O. Box 1205, Santa Cruz, CA 95061 (831) 429-NEWS - office (831) 420-1498 - fax From wires at the-alarm.com Sat Sep 21 14:09:55 2002 From: wires at the-alarm.com (The Alarm!Newswire) Date: Sun Feb 8 02:51:52 2004 Subject: [Dryerase] =?ISO-8859-1?Q?=A1La_Alarma!--Ojo_en_el_INS--2_de_5_mitos?= Message-ID: Ojo en el INS Un enfoque en el INS y la pol?tica inmigratoria Segundo mito sobre la inmigraci?n: (parte 2 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 ?l llama ?los cinco mitos sobre la inmigraci?n en Espa?a.? El presente art?culo (segundo de una serie de cinco) analiza el segundo mito dentro del contexto de la inmigraci?n en los Estados Unidos. El mito La inmigraci?n entra en competencia con la mano de obra nacional y ejerce una presi?n a la baja sobre los salarios. Tal aseveraci?n ha sido utilizada por muchas organizaciones anti-inmigraci?n (e inclusive algunos sindicatos) en los Estados Unidos para apoyar su posici?n. Sin embargo, algunos sindicatos, por citar un ejemplo, han optado ?ltimamente por tratar de engrosar sus filas?y aumentar su poder de negociaci?n?mediante esfuerzos para organizar a trabajadores indocumentados. Los sindicatos se han dado cuenta de que oponerse a la inmigraci?n no es la mejor manera de lograr mejores condiciones de trabajo para sus representados. La fuerza de cualquier movimiento laboral se encuentra en sus n?meros, y los trabajadores indocumentados representan una gran parte de los asalariados peor pagados. Dichos trabajadores indocumentados no son, por otro lado, los culpables de los bajos salarios, sino sus primeras v?ctimas. Las mujeres, por ejemplo (indocumentadas o no), reciben, en general, salarios m?s bajos que los hombres en todos los niveles de la escala salarial. Si el segundo mito aqui analizado tuviera algo de validez, tambien se podria a culpar a las mujeres de ejercer una presi?n a la baja sobre los salarios, y cabria entonces implementar leyes que prohiban que las mujeres trabajen, lo cual es, a todas luces, una idea por dem?s rid?cula. La misma l?gica se podria aplicar a otros grupos de la poblaci?n que perciben los salarios m?s bajos, como son los j?venes y los trabajadores no calificados. Se calcula que, al contrario de lo que ocurr?a en las d?cadas de los 50s y 60s?cuando el salario de una sola persona, en promedio, era suficiente para mantener a una familia de cinco en los EEUU?ahora se requiere del salario de 2.4 personas para mantener a una familia de las mismas caracter?sticas. Dicho c?lculo no toma en cuenta los salarios percibidos por los trabajadores indocumentados (cuando se les paga). Pero el verdadero culpable de la baja de los salarios reales no es la inmigraci?n, sino un movimiento globalizador que promueve un reparto de la riqueza que favorece al capital y a los pocos asalariados que influyen directamente sobre las decisiones que afectan al capital (como son los ejecutivos y directores de empresas). Basta observar la gran diferencia que existe entre los salarios que perciben, por un lado, los directores y ejecutivos y, por otro lado, los empleados u obreros de la misma empresa. Tal diferencia crece al mismo ritmo que el movimiento de globalizaci?n. As? las cosas, los inmigrantes indocumentados se convierten en las primeras v?ctimas (no en los culpables) de una estructura salarial que no es igualitaria. Dichos trabajadores indocumentados se ven en la necesidad de incorporarse, debido a su ilegalidad, a la parte m?s baja de la estructura salarial. La idea del ?melting pot? norteamericano se torna entonces en la de un ?frying pan,? en la que los que se encuentran en la parte m?s baja del contenido de la sarten son los que resultan quemados si no hay alguien que le baje al fuego, el cual queda representado por el movimiento de globalizaci?n. Uno de los principales combustibles para dicho fuego lo proveen las operaciones anti-inmigraci?n implementadas, en el caso de los EEUU, por el Servicio de Inmigraci?n y Naturalizaci?n (INS). Aunque el INS ofrece al p?blico la fachada de regulador del flujo migratorio y guardi?n de las fronteras, salvaguardando as? la seguridad nacional, dicha agencia gubernamental trata, en realidad, de asegurar un flujo de mano de obra barata (inmigrantes ilegales) para aquellos sectores de la econom?a norteamericana que as? lo requieran. Las leyes migratorias implementadas por el INS no tienen como objetivo el detener el flujo de inmigraci?n indocumentada, sino el garantizar la existencia de personas ilegales en el pa?s, los cuales, debido precisamente a esa condici?n de ilegalidad, son v?ctimas de abusos. A menudo poco calificados, disponibles para trabajos que ya no quieren realizar los ciudadanos del pa?s de acogida, los inmigrantes aceptan, a falta de leyes protectoras, lo que les proponen los patrones. Por otro lado, muchos de los que deciden quedarse en sus paises de origen tienen que soportar condiciones de trabajo, tambi?n inhumanas, por parte de empleadores transnacionales que disfrutan de la protecci?n de los gobiernos de dichos paises de origen. Si los Estados Unidos necesitan de la mano de obra inmigrante, entonces el estado tiene la obligaci?n de proteger a dichos trabajadores, estableciendo leyes que garanticen el derecho de todos los trabajadores (inmigrantes o no) a organizarse, o leyes que establezcan un salario m?nimo. Sobre todo, se necesitan leyes que eviten la tragedia de inmigrantes que mueren al tratar de cruzar la frontera en busca de trabajo. ?Ya basta de culpar a las v?ctimas! ?Ya basta de culpar a los inmigrantes de ejercer una presi?n a la baja sobre los salarios! All content Copyleft ? 2002 by The Alarm! Newspaper. Except where noted otherwise, this material may be copied and distributed freely in whole or in part by anyone except where used for commercial purposes or by government agencies. ----- The Alarm! Newspaper a local weekly newspaper for an engaged populace http://www.the-alarm.com/ info@the-alarm.com P.O. Box 1205, Santa Cruz, CA 95061 (831) 429-NEWS - office (831) 420-1498 - fax From wires at the-alarm.com Sat Sep 21 14:10:30 2002 From: wires at the-alarm.com (The Alarm!Newswire) Date: Sun Feb 8 02:51:52 2004 Subject: [Dryerase] The Alarm!--Makah Whaling pt. 3 Message-ID: Troubled Waters in Neah Bay By Michelle Stewart The Alarm! Newspaper Collective The following is the last in a three part series looking at Pacific whaling in the US. The first installment discussed, specifically, the recent ruling of Judge Franklin Burgess in favor of the Makah Indian tribe of Washington State allowing the tribe to whale in the Olympic Penninsula. The second installment in the series addressed the history of the Pacific gray whale (California gray whale) industry 1800?1920. The final installment links the history of the anti-whaling movement to the current issues facing the Makah Indian tribe. For there are troubled waters when an Indian tribe evokes its historical treaty right to whale in the face of today?s save-the-whale mentality. ?While the court is sensitive to plaintiffs? concern, these concerns are outweighed by the Makah Tribe?s rights under the Treaty of Neah Bay.? These were the words that concluded US District Judge Franklin Burgess? judgment against the plaintiffs in their case seeking to halt Makah whaling, thus opening the doors once again for the Makah tribe to resume whaling in the Olympic Penninsula. The judge?s sharp statement made on August 8, 2002, may serve as the final word of support for the Makah Indian tribe of Washington State. For the past seven years, the Makah whaling issue has been hotly debated?often taken to court, never yet truly settled?and protesters have illustrated that when they don?t win in the courts they?ll protest the hunt on the water. From 1946-1997: When the Endangered Recover Commercial whaling in the late 19th century took a heavy toll on the Pacific gray whale. The whales were most heavily targeted in their breeding grounds in Baja. Estimates placed the total population size over 40,000 in the late 1800s. By the turn of the century, the population had been cut to approximately 4,000. When the International Whaling Commission (IWC) was formed in 1946, the Pacific gray whale was a primary species of concern. The IWC was formed as, and continues to be, the primary international management agency for whaling, managing commercial, aboriginal (subsistence) and scientific hunting. In essence, the IWC is the managing group for the international stocks of all whales. In 1946, the IWC banned the taking (harvesting) of eastern stock of the Pacific gray whales with the exception of aboriginal hunting, to which it allocated an annual take of 140 whales. This protection of the Pacific gray whale, unfortunately, put stress on other whale species populations. However, the protection allowed the Pacific grays to begin recovering from near decimation. A second bout of protection came in 1970, when the US government listed the Pacific gray whale as endangered under the Endangered Species Conservation Act of 1969. From this listing, through the height of the save-the-whales movement of the 1970s and 1980s, the Pacific gray whale became the poster child for whale conservation. The Pacific gray whale fed the imagination of a public that wondered about the intelligence of these sentient beings. Enormous, measuring in at 35?50 feet long and weighing 15?45 tons, this great whale also engages in one of the longest migrations recorded, traveling from the Arctic to Baja and back. These creatures began to be characterized as gentle leviathans by whale-watching guides, and the public imagination was further focused on the majesty and need for protection of the Pacific gray whale. Whale-watching guides brought in their revenues by finding these migrating giants and having tourists ?pet them? as ocean activists or anti-whaling activists used the images of the Pacific gray whale and other species to win public support to halt all whaling. From paid Greenpeace activists to soccer moms, the save-the-whales mindset was the dominant psyche?creating an attitude against whaling of any sort. As bumper stickers and activists told people to ?save the whales,? officials at the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) and the US Fish and Wildlife Service (USFW) were implementing a series of recovery strategies for the Pacific gray whale. Each species listed on the Endangered Species Act (ESA) list?the law passed in 1973 that replaced the Endangered Species Conservation Act of 1969?must be monitored and have a drafted and implemented recovery plan that seeks to remove the species from the ESA via a ?recovery? of the species population and distribution. By 1991, the Pacific gray whale was demonstrating its remarkable resiliency and showed substantial population recovery. At the same time, groups including the Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission began petitioning the federal government to delist the whale. In January 1993, NMFS announced its intention to support a delisting of the Pacific gray whale from the ESA. In June 1994, USFW followed suit and the whale was officially delisted with an estimated population of 23, 000. That same year, NMFS drafted a five-year monitoring program that would be a check-and-balance to insure the whale was continuing to recover and that the delisting was a wise choice. In 1995, the Makah Indian tribe sent a letter to NFMS stating their interest in resuming whaling. In recognition of their 1855 treaty rights, NFMS stated support for the plan and began work on a management agreement with the Makah; this agreement included a request by NMFS for the Makah seek IWC approval. The Makah agreed to go through the IWC process to become an internationally-sanctioned hunt. In 1996, the Makah sent representatives to the annual IWC meeting where their request to whale was rejected. As the Makah continued to work with the federal government on a means to be approved, the Fund for Animals (along with other groups and individuals) petitioned NMFS to do an Environmental Assessment (EA) as required by the National Environmental Protection Act (NEPA). Under threat of suit, NMFS agreed to draft an EA. NFMS received the petition in June of 1997, and released a draft EA in August of 1997. After the public comment period ended for the draft EA, NFMS released a finding of No Significant Impact in October 1997 and began a new management agreement with the Makah one day before the annual IWC meeting. That year the IWC granted the Makah an aboriginal permit to take up to five whales annually. The combination of events and dates left the animal rights and anti-whaling activists livid. Seven Years Permitted and Protested With IWC sanction came a five-year permit that authorized the Makah to harvest a total of 20 whales over a period of five years with a maximum annual take of five whales. Being a traditional whaling society, the Makah took their historical tools for hunting and had them modified. Those associated with the hunt said that traditional tools for hunting could appear inhumane, and the commission of large caliber guns would allow for a cleaner take of the whale. To this claim, many protesters cried foul, claiming that if the hunt was ?traditional? and classified as ?aboriginal? the Makah must use only traditional tools. From the planning of the hunt (EAs) all the way to the execution of the hunt (the equipment), the anti-whaling faction would not see eye-to-eye with either federal and international managers or the Makah whalers. This fundamental disagreement led to a series of battles fought both in the courts and on the water. In 1998, when the Makah first took to the water seeking a whale, protesters set up shop in Neah Bay and went out after them, causing a ruckus when whalers were present. The wave of protests provoked federal authorities to create a 500-yard ?exclusionary zone? around the hunting vessel. Citing the possible threat of injury from either the 50-caliber weapon or a struck whale, authorities threatened six years and/or a $250,000 fine for those who violated the zone. In 1999, NMFS concluded its five-year evaluation of the Pacific gray whales recovery after being delisted. The agency concluded the species was continuing to recover, the choice to delist was satisfactory and the classification of non-threatened still applied. The same year, the Makah took their first whale. However, this victory would be short-lived. Be Careful What You Ask For In June of 2000, an appellate court halted the hunt until NMFS completed a new EA, in response to a claim by anti-whaling protesters that NMFS acted in bad faith when it prepared management plans with the tribe before and/or concurrent to the preparation of an EA as required by NEPA. In a moment of bitter irony for protesters, the new EA, released in July of 2001, actually extends the range and frequency in which the hunt could occur?after further consideration biologists opened up larger areas to the hunt and removed seasonal restrictions. The most recent ruling by Burgess last month was in response to a case filed by animal rights advocates protesting this new EA. Burgess stated that the case filed by whale advocates lacked ?substantial likelihood? of success if it went to court. However, often lost in the narrative of protests and court rooms is the fact that the Makah are simply invoking a treaty right guaranteed to them. Commercial whaling stripped the sea of Pacific gray whales in the 1800s, the Makah?a century later?are simply picking up where they left off. Over the screams of animal rights advocates we must too be willing to hear the need for cultural respect and autonomy. For it can?t simply be Indian vs. whale?to reduce it to such is to be blind to the scope of this battle taking place in the Pacific Northwest. Unfortunately, the battle has often overshadowed significant events. Protesters Hit Whale, Get Run Over In 1999, just before the Makah took their first whale, anti-whaling protesters were in the water using a combination of sea vessels and jetskis to try and distract the whalers and/or scare away the whales. All of the controversy often filled the skies with camera crews in helicopters following the Makah and the protesters to capture the action. Unfortunately for the protesters, one camera crew caught the protesters violating the Marine Mammal Protection Act (MMPA) which makes it illegal to harass, harm, or take a marine mammal without federal authority. The footage caught the protesters inadvertently crossing the path of a whale (or as some might say, running a whale over). The footage prompted the US Coast Guard to seize two of the boats and charge the owners with violating the rights of the very animals the protesters claimed they wanted to protect. In 2000, the Coast Guard contends it gave out the notice to disperse on megaphone, then tried to intercept a protester who was disrupting the hunt. As the Makah tried to hunt a whale from their hand-carved canoe, a protester zooming around on a jetski was struck by a Coast Guard vessel and had to be airlifted to a local hospital. The protester recovered from her injuries and was charged with violating the exclusionary zone. Weathering the Storm: From Potlach to District Court In May of 1999, the Makah took their first and only whale to date. Killed in less than eight minutes, the healthy, three-year old female was towed to shore and received by a cheering crowd. The Makah dressed the whale on the beach and then hosted an enormous potlach in which 1,000 people attended to celebrate the first whale taken in nearly 70 years. Participants from as far way as Alaska, Fiji and Africa attended the event where the menu included the recently caught whale. Manifesting the primary motivation for the hunt, the Makah brought forth their historical position as skilled whalers of the Northwest. Considering the significance of this event, it may not be such a shocking coincidence that the whaler who struck the first blow to the whale in 1999 was none other than Theron Parker, great-grandson to famously-photographed Makah whaler, Wilson Parker. Two generations separate these whalers, but a cultural bond unites them through action nearly 80 years later. Considering the wealth of events, names, places and agencies, I decided to handle this last installment much the same way I delivered the second part in the series. Often lost in the discussion about Makah whaling is the voice of the Makah themselves, who don?t actively do as much ?press? as protesters (nor should they be expected to). I purposely steered clear of quotable quotes and chose to deliver my understanding of the situation in the Pacific Northwest as someone who has been following this issue since 1994 and seen it from the side of the protester to the side of the someone who supports the Makah?s treaty right to whale. I don?t claim to represent the voices of the Makah any more than I claim to deliver the absolute sentiment of the protesters. I encourage you to visit the following sites and begin to navigate this issue personally, as I and others have. Information on the hunt: www.makah.com, www.nwifc.wa.gov/whaling, www.cnie.org/nae/cases/makah. Anti-whaling info: http://www.fund.org/library/documentViewer.asp?ID=348&table=documents, www.seashepherd.org, www.oceandefense.org. All content Copyleft ? 2002 by The Alarm! Newspaper. Except where noted otherwise, this material may be copied and distributed freely in whole or in part by anyone except where used for commercial purposes or by government agencies. ----- The Alarm! Newspaper a local weekly newspaper for an engaged populace http://www.the-alarm.com/ info@the-alarm.com P.O. Box 1205, Santa Cruz, CA 95061 (831) 429-NEWS - office (831) 420-1498 - fax From wires at the-alarm.com Sat Sep 21 14:11:57 2002 From: wires at the-alarm.com (The Alarm!Newswire) Date: Sun Feb 8 02:51:52 2004 Subject: [Dryerase] The Alarm!--Book Review Message-ID: The Last Great Revolution: Turmoil and Transformation in Iran by Graham Parsons The Alarm! Newspaper Contributor ?...the [Iranian] revolution is one of the century?s seminal turning points. For the Mideast, only two events have had comparable impact: the creation of the state of Israel and the Ottoman Empire?s collapse after five centuries...? When I saw Ahmed Rashid?author of several books on the Middle East and Central Asia including his latest Jihad: The Rise of Militant Islam in Central Asia?speak in Berkeley last March, he made one sardonic, yet important statement: referring to President Bush?s categorization of Iran as a member of an ?axis of evil,? he said simply, and to much laughter from the audience, ?We need a more nuanced policy than this.? While humorous, this comment is significant because of what it implies. Rashid was trying to point out that modern Iran?s story is much more subtle than a single unsophisticated word like ?evil? can tenably encapsulate, and therefore any policy based on such an inadequate assessment is fundamentally misguided. Although more complex images of Iran are exceedingly rare in popular commentary, there is at least one refreshing, and more realistic account of modern Iran. Robin Wright?s The Last Great Revolution: Turmoil and Transformation in Iran, describes a rich, turbulent, economically, socially and philosophically various Iranian society. Wright covered Iranian affairs as a journalist for almost 30 years, and has produced two books on the country. Her familiarity with the nation and its culture give her the requisite credentials to tell Iran?s story as few other Americans could. And the story she weaves is remarkable. Beginning with some intelligent reflections on the nature of the 1979 Islamic revolution and its relationship to the other major revolutions of the twentieth century, Wright spends the remaining chapters describing the revolution?s product?Islamic Iran?and how it has transformed over the past two decades. Through interviews with numerous prominent Iranians, including a dissident philosopher, several women locked in the struggle for gender equality, leading film directors, editors of radical newspapers and magazines, conservative and reformist social activists and even some religious clerics, Wright brings modern Iran to life. In addition to her powerful descriptions of Iranian society, Wrights?s more theoretical analyses present some interestingly controversial claims. For example, she boldly calls Iran?s revolution the ?Modern Era?s last great revolution.? According to her, this is because, like other seminal revolutions of the twentieth century, Iran?s revolution was fundamentally about ?empowerment? or ?the spread of political, economic and social rights to the earth?s farthest corners.? The quest for empowerment, Wright claims, is the ?singular political theme of the Modern Era.? What sets Iran?s revolution apart, however, is not its basic goals, but its use of distinctively Islamic ideals to pursue those goals. Establishing Islam as a means of observing rights, and, in turn, successfully introducing the global drive for empowerment to the Islamic bloc, makes Iran?s revolution the ?last great revolution? of its kind. Perhaps to avoid directly facing all of the complex issues she introduces with this characterization of the revolution, Wright lets ?Iran?s leading philosopher,? Abdul Karim Soroush, address the obvious questions about the compatibility of Islamic governance with empowerment. ?Ah, Islam and democracy are not only compatible,? he says. ?Their association is inevitable. In Muslim society, one without the other is not perfect?. An ideal religious society can?t have anything but a democratic government.? Radical thoughts such as these have made Soroush the voice of Iran?s emerging ?Islamic reformation,? and the story of his personal struggle makes him the single most fascinating character Wright introduces. Although he has gained a substantial body of support, mainly from Iran?s burgeoning population of educated young people, hard-liners have made Soroush the target of both verbal and physical attacks for his reform-minded views. In 1996, he was forced into exile after being beaten up more than once and threatened on numerous occasions by conservative thugs. Soroush?s struggle underlines the difficulties the reformist agenda faces in Iran. These difficulties were manifest in the summer of 1999, when for nearly a week Tehran and other major cities were the scenes of massive protests against the religious zealotry that many citizens saw expressed in extreme government policies. In the end, after violent interventions by police, 1400 were arrested. These stories, which Wright recounts with intelligence and grace, inform us of the real turmoil in contemporary Iran, and give us a picture of a nation at a crossroads. I finished The Last Great Revolution with a sense of hope for Iran?s future. This hope has dwindled some, however, following President Bush?s ?axis of evil? comment, which Ahmed Rashid observed has merely pushed many of Iran?s moderates over toward its hard-liners, and served to strengthen the conservative?s hold on power. Despite all of these successes, The Last Great Revolution still has some glaring omissions. There is far too little commentary on Iran?s economic policies. Wright hardly alludes to, and certainly never attempts to outline, the significance of oil to the nation?s economy and its effect on the interests and policies of those who control it, which has surely been a critical theme in the recent history of Iran. Nevertheless, with Wright?s seasoned reporting and sharp analysis, the book remains enjoyable, as well as useful for understanding the wrong-headedness of current U.S. policies toward Iran. All content Copyleft ? 2002 by The Alarm! Newspaper. Except where noted otherwise, this material may be copied and distributed freely in whole or in part by anyone except where used for commercial purposes or by government agencies. ----- The Alarm! Newspaper a local weekly newspaper for an engaged populace http://www.the-alarm.com/ info@the-alarm.com P.O. Box 1205, Santa Cruz, CA 95061 (831) 429-NEWS - office (831) 420-1498 - fax From wires at the-alarm.com Sat Sep 21 14:12:45 2002 From: wires at the-alarm.com (The Alarm!Newswire) Date: Sun Feb 8 02:51:52 2004 Subject: [Dryerase] The Alarm!--Sans-Papiers (english) Message-ID: <1C25C116-CD96-11D6-AF02-003065F4865E@the-alarm.com> Sans-Papiers in France By Michelle Lee The Alarm! Newspaper Contributor On September 7, 2002, around 10,000 immigrants, concerned citizens and left-leaning political parties (from communists to anti-racism organizations to anarcho-affiliates) gathered at the Place de Clichy in Paris, to fight for the social and/or legal rights of the sans-papiers. Sans-papiers literally means ?without papers,? and refers to people who have emmigrated from economically-depressed nations to live and/or work in France, but who have not received the legal right to live there. This demonstration was particularly well attended because September marks the rentr?e sociale, when most of Parisians come back from vacation and confront new laws put into place during their absence. The march consisted mainly of North African, West African and Chinese immigrants of all ages, from babies in carriages to older generations. The French right-wing government claims that these unwanted immigrants pose a threat to France?s economic stability and the legitimized French citizen?s ability to maintain a steady job. At the same time the governments of the liberal-left have not fulfilled their promises to grant citizenship to all sans-papiers. Since his appointment to the presidency in June, conservative French President Jacques Chirac has been increasing control over immigrant populations and the border. The new presidency has granted more authority to police surveillance that is targeted at catching possible illegal immigrants. Since 1974?the beginning of a national economic crisis and a government mandate (?immigration zero?) to secure the border?an increasing percentage of people (predominantly of North African descent) are being stopped on the street to have their ?papers? checked, and then are released or deported, depending on the situation. Before this economic crisis, the government looked to Morocco and Algeria to bring in cheap and practically slave labor of exploitable immigrants. The current penalization of these workers merely continues the exploitation of immigrants: now that economic and political interests have shifted, the formerly welcomed immigrants are criminalized. Since state surveillance and brutality remains on the increase and the presence of labor exploitation is virtually unacknowledged by the government, there has been a wave of movements in France demanding the legalized status of all sans-papiers residents. Starting in 1997, sans-papier collectives started organizing on a grass-roots level to struggle for legal change of uncompromising and racist laws against immigrant populations. Their two primary goals began are: the r?gularisation (legalization) for a ten-year period of all sans-papiers living in France and an end to all discriminatory laws. Needless to say, the government has not ceded to either one of these requests. So in the mean time, many collectives have been organizing lists of sans-papiers that the organizations turn over to the government and demand be legalized. In the past few years, there have been some minor successes at gaining temporary citizenship for a few of these lists. However, by no means have even the majority of immigrants become legalized. There are still about 80,000 immigrants working and living in France under the threat of deportation. The struggle for the legal status of immigrant laborers as well as a a more generous opening of the French border continues today. All content Copyleft ? 2002 by The Alarm! Newspaper. Except where noted otherwise, this material may be copied and distributed freely in whole or in part by anyone except where used for commercial purposes or by government agencies. ----- The Alarm! Newspaper a local weekly newspaper for an engaged populace http://www.the-alarm.com/ info@the-alarm.com P.O. Box 1205, Santa Cruz, CA 95061 (831) 429-NEWS - office (831) 420-1498 - fax From wires at the-alarm.com Sat Sep 21 14:11:17 2002 From: wires at the-alarm.com (The Alarm!Newswire) Date: Sun Feb 8 02:51:52 2004 Subject: [Dryerase] The Alarm!--Palestinian refugees Message-ID: The Palestinian refugees of today are reminders of the effects of 1948 By Chris Kortright The Alarm! Newspaper Contributor The Palestinian/Israeli conflict continues to shape the political events of the Middle East. The Palestinians are supported not only by millions of Arabs but also by an increasing number of Europeans and Americans who are starting to show solidarity. Central to the conflict is the issue of lands taken from Palestinians and the removal of Palestinians by the Israeli State. To have a better understanding of this conflict we must look back at what has occurred since 1947; we must reexamine the issues of removal and settlement. Refugees Today, 88% of the Palestinian refugees live in Palestine and surrounding areas: 46% in what was known as the British Mandate Palestine, 42% in Jordan, Syria and Lebanon. (which are all within 100 miles of Israel). Only twelve percent reside further away, equally divided between Arab countries. The total population, according to 1998 figures, is 4.9 million, of which only 3.6 million are registered with the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, the official body set up to care for refugees. Getting rid of the native inhabitants of Palestine has long been a priority of Zionism. It was clearly spelled out by Yosef Weitz, the head of the Transfer Committee and the chief of land-confiscation operations. As early as 1940, he proposed: ?The only solution is to transfer the Arabs from here to neighboring countries. Not a single village or a single tribe must be left.? Settlement and Removal The systematic elimination of Palestinian lands in 1948 took the following forms: 1) Military Plans As early as January 1948, four months before the official war, the Zionists prepared plans for the settlement of 1.5 million new immigrants over and above the existing 600,000, two-thirds of whom were themselves recent immigrants under the British Mandate. During the Jewish military operations that followed the UN partition resolution of November 1947 and before the end of the British Mandate, more than half the Palestinian population was expelled. The settlement agencies headed by the Jewish National Fund (JNF) directed the military attacks to acquire land, such as the villages of Indur, Qumiya, Ma?lul, Mujaidil and Buteimat in Galilee, which were destroyed primarily to grab the land. 2) Destruction of Villages Village destruction took place in the immediate aftermath of military assaults, especially in cities such as Haifa, Jaffa, Lydda and Jerusalem. According to the June 1996 issue of Annals of the Association of American Geographers, there was a massive campaign of destruction, which lasted over 15 years in which 53% of the 418 villages surveyed were totally destroyed, 32% were substantially destroyed and twelve percent partially destroyed (three percent were inaccessible to survey). The clear aim of this destruction was to prevent the return of the refugees. 3) Political Action Soon after the State of Israel was declared (May 14, 1948), and following the protest of the UN mediator?Count Folke Bernadotte?who witnessed, by June 1948, the expulsion of about 500,000 refugees the Provisional Government of Israel said it could not allow any refugees to return before a peace treaty was signed, on the pretext that these refugees would be a ?security threat.? 4) Legal Confiscation Before, during and after the 1948 war, Israel resorted to many legal devices to organize and justify the confiscation of 18,700 square kilometers (92% of Israel) of Palestinian land, in addition to the property found in 530 depopulated towns and villages. The property was held by the Custodian of the Absentee Property and transferred later to the Development Authority. All such land, as well as JNF holdings, is now administered by the Israel Land Administration (ILW). In simple terms, the ?Absentee? is a Palestinian refugee unable to return. The term also applies to Palestinian citizens of Israel, who are ?Absent,? hence dubbed ?Present Absentees.? Much of their land has also been confiscated. Internally Displaced More than one fourth of the 156,000 Palestinians remaining within the Jewish state in Palestine after the 1948 war were either pushed out of villages and towns besieged by Zionist forces or fled as a result of the warfare carried out against strategically selected villages such as Dayr Yasin, Duwayima and Tantura. The State of Israel destroyed those and more than 400 other villages depopulated during 1948?1949. The internally displaced are a living testimony to the fact that Israel?s transfer and forced removal of Palestinians during war times was not the evacuation of civilians away from the hazards of armed conflict, but rather transfers with the purpose of confiscating Palestinian properties and preventing their restitution. As with the properties of all Palestinian refugees, the lands, homes and other structures of the internally displaced became the spoils of Israel?s independence war. To ensure legality to this process, the new Israeli Knesset enacted the Basic Law: Law of Absentee Property (1950), which retroactively and prospectively allowed the State of Israel to confiscate properties from anyone identified as an ?absentee.? By Law of Absentee Property criterion, those who were away from their property in the general area of any form of war action?whether engaged in the fighting or not?during the period of the 1948 war would have their properties confiscated, which the JNF then would administer for the benefit of Jewish immigrants. It also provided for the legal dispossession of those who never left the borders of the newly created state or those who were reabsorbed into Israel as a result of the armistice agreement and not counted as ?international refugees.? These Palestinians are known as ?present absentees.? Perhaps the most famous case of the internally displaced involves the inhabitants of three villages near the Lebanese border?Iqrit, Mansura and Kafr Bir?im. In October 1948, the inhabitants were ?temporarily? evicted by the Israeli Defense Forces. They were trucked to new locations and never allowed to return. The State of Israel expropriated their homes and the lands under the Absentee Property Law. Unrecognized Villages While the internally displaced phenomenon dates to 1948, the unrecognized villages are a post-statehood phenomenon. The internally displaced were dispossessed during the events of 1948, while the unrecognized villages are under continuous processes of dispossession and internal displacement. The unrecognized villages are further distinguished by peacetime context in which the efforts of evict them are carried out. The status of ?unrecognized? villages was born with the Building and Construction Law of 1965. Under this law, Jewish planning councils issued the first ?district outline plans? and identified existing and projected built-up areas. These included 123 existing Arab villages but ignored the rural Arab villages. This omission was repeated under subsequent planning cycles, and the villages never became known as recognized. The lands on which these villages were built were classified in the law as ?agricultural,? a planing category where no residences or other structures are permitted. This makes any dwelling already there automatically illegal. Article 157A of the 1965 Building and Construction Law prohibits a municipality from connecting water, electricity or telephone networks to unlicensed buildings. This prohibition gave statutory grounds to deny services to Arabs living in unrecognized villages. The 1965 Building and Construction Law gave Zionist planners a tactical response to the undesirable presence of the Arab population. The establishment of a lawful planning criteria that necessitated Palestinian removal from their land meant that the removal was administrative this time?not militarily carried out. The Palestinian/Israeli conflict, like most colonial conflicts, is over land and autonomy not religious dogma. The issue of the landless is a global issue. The dispossession of peoples from their lands by governments and capitalism is the cornerstone of many world conflicts. The return of Palestinian lands and Palestinian autonomy is a first step to resolving the conflict in Palistine?but we must keep in mind the same is true in Zimbabwe, South Africa, the United States, Brazil, Mexico, Northern Ireland, etc. Land and autonomy from capital and government are necessary if a people are to live free. All content Copyleft ? 2002 by The Alarm! Newspaper. Except where noted otherwise, this material may be copied and distributed freely in whole or in part by anyone except where used for commercial purposes or by government agencies. ----- The Alarm! Newspaper a local weekly newspaper for an engaged populace http://www.the-alarm.com/ info@the-alarm.com P.O. Box 1205, Santa Cruz, CA 95061 (831) 429-NEWS - office (831) 420-1498 - fax From wires at the-alarm.com Sat Sep 21 14:13:25 2002 From: wires at the-alarm.com (The Alarm!Newswire) Date: Sun Feb 8 02:51:52 2004 Subject: [Dryerase] =?ISO-8859-1?Q?=A1La_Alarma!--Los_Sans-Papiers?= Message-ID: <3434163C-CD96-11D6-AF02-003065F4865E@the-alarm.com> Los Sans-Papiers en France Por Michelle Lee traducido por alfonso tovar Colaborador del Semanario ?La Alarma! El 7 de septiembre del 2002 cerca de 10,000 inmigrantes, ciudadanos conscientes y organizaciones de filiaci?n izquierdista (desde comunistas hasta organizaciones anti-racistas y anarquistas) se reunieron en la Place de Clichy en Paris para luchar por los derechos legales y sociales de los sans-papiers. Sans-papiers literalmente significa ?sin papeles,? y se refiere a la gente que ha emigrado de pa?ses con econom?as deprimidas a vivir y trabajar en Francia, pero que no han recibido el derecho legal de vivir all?. Esta manifestaci?n fue particularmente tumultosa porque septiembre marca la rentr?e sociale, cuando la mayor?a de los parisinos regresan de vacaciones y enfrentan nuevas leyes sancionadas durante su ausencia. La marcha consisti? en su mayor?a de migrantes del Norte y Oeste de Africa, y Chinos de todas las edades, desde beb?s en carriolas hasta ancianas y ancianos. El gobierno franc?s de derecha asegura que estos inmigrantes no deseados representan una amenaza a la estabilidad econ?mica de Francia y a la capacidad de los ciudadanos franceses de mantener un trabajo fijo. Al mismo tiempo, en donde la izquierda liberal gobierna, ?sta no ha concretado la promesa de otorgar la ciudadan?a a los sans-papiers. Desde su investidura como presidente en junio, el conservador presidente franc?s Jacques Chirac ha incrementado el control sobre las poblaciones inmigrantes y sobre la frontera. El nuevo presidente ha otorgado mas libertades a la vigilancia policiaca que se dedica a la captura de potenciales inmigrantes ilegales. Desde 1974?el inicio de una crisis econ?mica nacional y una orden de gobierno de ?inmigracion cero? para asegurar la frontera?un porcentaje creciente de gente (predominantemente de origen Nor-africano) son detenidos en las calles para revisar sus ?papeles? y se les deja continuar o son deportados, dependiendo de su situaci?n. Antes de la crisis econ?mica, el gobierno buscaba inmigrantes en Marruecos o Algeria para llevar mano de obra barata, que practicamente eran convertidos en esclavos. La actual penalizaci?n de estos trabajadores refuerza la explotaci?n de los inmigrantes: ahora que los intereses pol?ticos han virado, los anteriormente ?bienvenidos? trabajadores, son ahora criminalizados. Mientras la vigilancia estatal y la brutalidad permanece y la presencia de sobre-explotaci?n laboral es virtualmente ignorada por el gobierno, ha resurgido una ola de movimientos en Francia que demanda la legalizaci?n de todos los residentes sans-papiers. Desde 1997 colectivos sans-papier empezaron a organizarse desde la base para luchar por un cambio legal para desarticular leyes racistas contra las comunidades inmigrantes. Sus dos objetivos principales son la: legalizaci?n por un periodo de diez a?os para todos los sans-papiers viviendo en Francia y fin a todas las leyes discriminatorias. No es necesario decir que el gobierno no ha cedido a ninguna de ?stas demandas. Asi que mientras tanto, varios grupos han elaborado listas de sans-papiers que las organizaciones entregan al gobierno para demandar su legalizaci?n. En los ?ltimos a?os ha habido algunos ?xitos menores al ganar ciudadan?a temporal para algunos de esas listas. Sin embargo, de ninguna manera ha sido la mayor?a de los inmigrantes legalizados. A?n hay alrededor de 80,000 inmigrantes trabajando y vivendo en Francia bajo la amenaza de deportaci?n. La batalla para obtenre el estatus legal para los trabajadores inmigrantes asi como tambien una apertura m?s generosa de la frontera francesa a?n continua. All content Copyleft ? 2002 by The Alarm! Newspaper. Except where noted otherwise, this material may be copied and distributed freely in whole or in part by anyone except where used for commercial purposes or by government agencies. ----- The Alarm! Newspaper a local weekly newspaper for an engaged populace http://www.the-alarm.com/ info@the-alarm.com P.O. Box 1205, Santa Cruz, CA 95061 (831) 429-NEWS - office (831) 420-1498 - fax From wires at the-alarm.com Sat Sep 21 14:14:06 2002 From: wires at the-alarm.com (The Alarm!Newswire) Date: Sun Feb 8 02:51:52 2004 Subject: [Dryerase] The Alarm!--War Notes Message-ID: <4C4439B2-CD96-11D6-AF02-003065F4865E@the-alarm.com> War Notes A column following the developments of our new permanent war, the war on terrorism By Sasha k The Alarm! Newspaper Columnist Selling war A day after the first anniversary of the September 11 attacks, President George Bush made a major speech to the UN General Assembly pressing for war in Iraq?from tears on September 11 to drumming for war on September 12. The two, unfortunately, have gone hand and hand for the last year. But Bush?s speech was also an about face in his advertising campaign for war. The Bush administration seemed to be losing in its fight to push towards war, largely because it was seen to be too unilateral and flaunting international norms. Bush has had to now turn to the UN and to act like a good multi-lateralist, with a little arm-twisting, of course. Bush began his speech proclaiming the US war in Afghanistan a success. But US overseas interventions have a way of multiplying problems, not solving them. The US-backed (-created?) leader, Hamid Karzai, is only safe with US bodyguards; the various factions of the Afghan government are assassinating one another; and the country has been cut up into fiefdoms by warlords and bandits. A permanent, western military occupation is the only way there is a government of Afghanistan at all. After a war in Iraq the problems will be on a much larger scale. And over time we will see that more terrorists were produced in the war than were captured or killed. All this reminds me of an answer given by former CIA Director Stansfield Turner, who served in the Carter administration, during a mid-80s debate with John Stockwell, an ex-CIA officer turned critic. When Turner was asked if he could name any CIA covert operations that were long-term successes, he answered ?Afghanistan.? Of course, that was when Osama bin Laden was called Usama bin Laden and was on our side. It was only after September 11, 2001 that the US government officially changed the way his name was transliterated, in order to help us forget that the Soviets called bin Laden ?USAman.? But as Tariq Ali noted in this week?s Al-Ahram Weekly, ?The leaders of the United States wish to be judged by their choice of enemies rather than the actual state of the world, leave alone the concrete results of the ?war on terrorism.?? Although the speech was billed as offering conclusive reasons for an attack on Iraq, little new evidence of Iraqi offences was brought forth. Along with the often repeated, vague list of Iraqi crimes?a hypocritical laundry list stuffed with the most unrelated of events?Bush even included the Iraqi war with Iran, a war in which the US supported Iraq. Of course, the hypocrisy of Bush or US foreign policy is nothing new. Left-wing and progressive commentators spend most of their time exposing it. Yet in doing so conservative politicians are often made to seem as aberrations, as if some less hypocritical politics or US foreign policy were possible, while in reality this is exactly how politics now works. In fact, politicians these days unabashedly admit that much of what they say is about creating a certain image or spin on events; it is all a matter of advertising, selling the policy, not about its real substance or reasoning. In fact, one day after his UN speech, Bush made clear that he didn?t think Iraq would submit to his requirements?for him, they are a pretext to build legitimacy for an attack on Iraq and nothing more. Again, this is not only the way of conservative politicians: President Bill Clinton did the same in Yugoslavia. The February, 1999 negotiations in Rambouillet, France with the Yugoslav government over Kosovo was rigged from the beginning by the US so that the Serbs couldn?t agree, thus giving war in Yugoslavia a veneer of legitimacy. Yugoslavia had no choice but to say no in Rambouillet, and it is likely that the US will make sure that Iraq has no chance of following the requirements set down. On September 11, 2001, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld was already planning to use the attacks of that day as a pretext for multiple wars. CBS?s David Martin recently disclosed notes that Rumsfled?s aides took quoting him commanding them to get the ?best info fast. Judge whether good enough hit S.H.?--Saddam Hussein??at same time. Not only UBL??Usama bin Laden. ?Go massive,? the notes continued. ?Sweep it all up. Things related and not.? And that is just what Bush and crew are putting into practice. It doesn?t matter that no connection has been made between Iraq and the September 11 attacks. Those attacks have become an excuse to go massive with war. Russia and Georgia Russia is again threatening to attack the former Soviet republic of Georgia, claiming that ?terrorists? based there are attacking the Russian republic of Chechnya. Russian President Vladimir Putin spoke on September 11, and linked the proposed action to the US ?war on terrorism.? The US had criticized Russia after it bombed some Georgian towns on August 23. The US has been largely silent, however, about Putin?s recent statement. The silence is likely due to the fact that the US needs to keep Russia from vetoing any UN Security Council resolutions it tries to pass against Iraq. In another instance of the diplomatic horse trading the US is taking part in to head off Security Council vetoes, the US recently named several Islamic groups in the Chinese province of Xinjiang ?terrorist.? The Chinese government has used the pretext of the ?war on terrorism? to crack down on the Uyghur minority of Xinjiang. Preparations continue In November, the United States Central Command will send 600 of its officers to Qatar, in the Persian Gulf. The staff, under the command of Gen. Tommy Franks, will take part in a war game, but will remain in the Gulf state afterwards to prepare for a possible war in Iraq. Shortly before the 1990 war on Iraq a similar war game was held. All content Copyleft ? 2002 by The Alarm! Newspaper. Except where noted otherwise, this material may be copied and distributed freely in whole or in part by anyone except where used for commercial purposes or by government agencies. ----- The Alarm! Newspaper a local weekly newspaper for an engaged populace http://www.the-alarm.com/ info@the-alarm.com P.O. Box 1205, Santa Cruz, CA 95061 (831) 429-NEWS - office (831) 420-1498 - fax From dr_broccoli at hotmail.com Thu Sep 26 13:01:01 2002 From: dr_broccoli at hotmail.com (Shawn G) Date: Sun Feb 8 02:51:52 2004 Subject: [Dryerase] AGR New National Guard Unit Message-ID: Asheville Global Report www.agrnews.org Reprinting permitted for non-profit use, and for the members of the Dry-erase news wire. By Liz Allen Asheville, North Carolina, Sept. 24 (AGR)— A new National Guard Battalion, the 105th Military Police Battalion, is opening up in Asheville, replacing the 730th Quartermaster Battalion, which is being moved to the eastern part of the state. The 105th battalion differs from the old battalion in that it is comprised of military police and “... is designed to run enemy-of-war facilities,” explained Officer in Charge Captain Jerry Baird. “We run prisons, while they did security,” he said. But they secure federal posts as well; “MPs do everything from the Pentagon to the CIA,” Baird added. The new battalion has been created because the old battalion never had a “war trace,” an exact definition of who they are to take orders from in a time of war. The 105th is prepared to serve both state and federal missions, and directly assist in a time of war. Capt. Baird explained that being in the Guard is similar to being in the reserves and that 60% of United States’ fighting force is reserve. A possible mission for which they are currently being considered is going to Charleston, SC, to run a prison camp for military prisoners, including those in the military who have been court-martialed as well as citizens identified as enemy combatants. One such person, who Baird describes as having “a weird name,” is currently being held “more for their protection, to keep people away from them” who may want to injure them in the regular prison system. The Guard will be available for a wide spectrum of duties, from disaster relief and decontamination to crowd control. Baird explained that they use a consolidated display of force which is effective in taming situations such as riots and looting. He gave the example of when Hurricane Hugo hit Charlotte. Local police forces were ineffective in stopping looting, but once the National Guard came in the “chaos” was put to a halt. Military police require similar qualifications to regular military enlistment, like having a clean records check and standard height and weight requirements. Baird says most of those enlisted have previously served active duty. They are currently required to serve one weekend a month and two weeks a year overseas. However, the governor can activate the Guard unit or the president can activate the reserve for fighting. Although according to Baird, “they try and deputize us every time we help out,” the average military police solider can only detain persons until local authorities make an arrest and cannot make arrests themselves, unless they are on a military post. However, most of those in the battalion make their living as law enforcement officers, and if something happens in the state then they have the authority to make arrests. The only other scenario in which members of the National Guard can make arrests is if martial law is declared, whereby the local police forces would not have power to arrest and only military forces could. Baird said that is a worst-case scenario because “it would mean a lot of other bad things would have had to have happened to get to that point.” Because the Guard operates on both federal and state levels, money from both federal and state funds are used. To pay the actual paychecks, the funds are taken from the same fund as the state highway patrol, but the money for building a new armory in Buncombe County comes out of federal funds, while money for the land comes from state and country taxes. According to Baird, a new armory building is something that the local police and fire department support because they would be able to hold trainings there. When asked if the battalion is being used to prepare for war in Iraq, Baird replied, “We’re always preparing. We get about 30 days notice [for a mission] and it all comes down confidential.” He also emphasized, “Nobody hates war more than a soldier. We just do our job. There’s other people up there making all the decisions on where to go.” _________________________________________________________________ Join the world’s largest e-mail service with MSN Hotmail. http://www.hotmail.com From dr_broccoli at hotmail.com Thu Sep 26 13:02:16 2002 From: dr_broccoli at hotmail.com (Shawn G) Date: Sun Feb 8 02:51:52 2004 Subject: [Dryerase] AGR IMF, World Bank Message-ID: Asheville Global Report www.agrnews.org Reprinting permitted for non-profit use, and for the members of the Dry-erase news wire. IMF, World Bank--Year in Review Analysis by Shawn Gaynor Asheville, NC, Sept. 25 (AGR)— Last fall, in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank canceled their annual fall meetings in Washington, DC. The world’s largest lending institutions, with a combined portfolio of over $300 billion, had been embattled in the “developed” world for three years, after a upswing in the anti-corporate globalization movement in the wake of the 1999 Seattle protests against the World Trade Organization. Their meeting, scheduled to take place in Barcelona, Spain in June 2001, had been canceled for fear of massive protests and unrest. No one can know what would have taken place if the meetings had not been canceled, but it was clear the Bank’s opponents had geared up for a massive demonstration, that may well have eclipsed, in both scale and outrage, the previous anti-corporate globalization protests in North America. The IMF and World Bank were created in 1946 during the post-World War II era. Though they where conceived as institutions for the rebuilding of post-war Europe, the massive Marshal Plan filled this financial niche, and the newly-created Bretton Woods institutions looked to the poor nations of the world to promote the new Truman “development model,” and to act as a project to soften the harsh effects of industrial capitalism on these nations in order to counter the Soviet model of economics. This new development model held that, through loans and aid, underdeveloped nations could overcome the trappings of colonial economics and industrialize. Furthermore, it sought through this industrialization a general rise in the standard of living throughout the impoverished areas of the world. This model produced modest success in some of the countries receiving loan and aid, especially in cases where a developing nation combined foreign help with market protections through tariffs. However, by the early 1980s a new model of global economics was emerging — Neo-Liberalism. This model held that rather then foreign aid, the future profits of exports alone would lift the Third World from poverty. This would be accomplished with a worldwide reduction of tariffs, which would encourage product export around the world. It is unclear whether this shift in economic policy was due to an honest belief in its ability to succeed, or was a way to ratchet up profits and cut foreign aid now that the Soviet model threat to capitalism had passed. What is clear, though, is that many World Bank-funded projects, through scale, mismanagement, or corruption, have failed to generate the future projected profits on which the credit was extended. This caused a deep crisis in the nations with large loan payments, and created a dilemma: default on loan payments and face the abandonment of First World investors, or raise more funds toward the debt payments. With budgets already tight in these impoverished nations, funds could only be raised in two primary ways; cut social spending in health, education and welfare, and/or sell (privatize) state-owned ventures like schools, water, rail lines, and power. As these waves of financial crises spread, the IMF stepped in to make the choice for the Third World debtor nations. In order to receive the capital with which to ease the financial crisis — and make loan payments — the IMF demanded as a stipulation of emergency loans (to be used for interest payments on World Bank development loans), that programs of “structural adjustment” be enacted. The structural adjustments favor privatization, and prohibit or reduce spending on domestic social programs. While the Bank’s opponents in the US have spent a year trying to integrate anti-globalization and anti-war messages, without shattering the coalitions that made the anti-globalization movement possible, the IMF and World Bank have continued unimpeded in their domination of Third World economics. What follows is a summary of some examples of World Bank and IMF actions since their missed meeting last year, and international reaction to these policies. Oil The main investor in, and therefore influence upon, the World Bank and IMF is the US. With the current ruling party deeply dependent on the energy lobby, oil exploration and pipelines have been at the forefront of some large World Bank programs this year. In Ecuador, the OCP pipeline which will carry heavy crude from the Amazon region to the coast has been the cause of much friction between the people of Ecuador, their government, and the IMF. IMF negotiators, who will fund the project, have demanded that all revenues from the new pipeline go toward servicing that nation’s foreign debt. However, the Ecuadorian Congress has stipulated that 10 percent of revenues must go toward social spending. This small demand has held up funding of the project, which is reportedly between $240 and $900 million. Bank officials, who this spring stated that the 10 percent social spending was the major obstacle of the project, have now turned down the project over “environmental and social concerns.” Oil has also been on the top of the World Bank’s agenda in the Sudan, Chad, and Nigeria, where tensions between poor populations and wealthy investment banks have run high. In Sudan, a vast de-population campaign has been underway to forcibly remove residents from oil exploration areas to clear the way for development. Water Increasing pressures on the world’s supply of fresh and unpolluted water have caused massive competition for the dwindling resource. The IMF, through it’s structural adjustment programs, has encouraged and in some cases forced privatization of water. According to Vandana Shiva’s book Water Wars, “out of 40 IMF loans… in 2000, 12 had requirements for partial or full privatization of water supplies.” Multinationals such as the US-based Bechtel and Monsanto have invested heavily in the privatization of water, seeing it as a vast new area of revenue. As water rights have fallen out of municipal and national hands, and into the hands of large multinationals, water prices in these countries have soared. In Bolivia, which was forced by the IMF to privatize its water in 2000, water was re-nationalized this year. Massive unrest had followed the privatization, as water costs had increased to 1/5 of a person’s average earnings, and a general strike followed. The International Center for the Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID), a branch of the World Bank, has ruled that Bolivia (one of the world’s poorest countries) must pay $25 million in damages for breaching its 40 year water contract. In Ghana, water privatization plans under the World Bank are being developed. The plan calls for the country to be divided into two water regions, with the water rights to be sold to the highest bidder. This would eliminate the current government process of charging wealthy families more for water, in order to subsidize water to poor districts. The plan also calls for the Ghanaian government to take responsibility for subsidizing the water companies if they raise prices beyond what poor customers can afford, jeopardizing any financial gains in selling the rights. It is estimated that water prices could climb 300 percent due to the deal. International consulting firms that have endorsed the deal are all being paid by the World Bank, with the poor nation of Ghana unable to hire their own consultants. Africa For several years activists in Africa and in the First World have been calling for debt relief, mainly the cancellation of World Bank loan repayment, for the nations of sub-Saharan Africa. Though the principals of the loans to these nations have largely been repaid, interest payments on the loans continue to cripple Africa’s ability to deal with massive issues of poverty and hunger. The annual interest payments on foreign debt in sub-Saharan Africa is currently estimated at just under $15 billion per year. While in the first world this is not viewed as very much money (the 2003 US defense budget increases spending by $24 billion), in these countries payment of the debts has had a crippling effect on agriculture and health. The main crisis faced in sub-Saharan Africa is AIDS. Many countries in that region now have adult AIDS rates at over 1/3 of the adult population. Maintenance on their World Bank debts has prevented these countries from addressing the epidemic, because Structural Adjustment Programs have gutted national health care budgets thoughout the region. Many of these countries have seen agricultural exports of cash crops as a major method in meeting dept payments over the years. Instead of competing with First World (particularly US) subsidized grains and staple foods, these nations have encouraged the planting of coffee, chocolate, cotton and other cash crops, in their most fertile land. Two major problems have ensued from this choice. The first is that the projected profits of these crops have not been realized, due largely to overproduction and falling worldwide prices. The second impact has been a reduction in these nations’ abilities to feed their populations. In the 1980s, during the great famine that took place in Ethiopia, land that had traditionally been planted for food was instead growing cash crops. Much more than drought, these choices starved the Ethiopian people, as cotton exports continued to expand even throughout the worst of the famine. This year has seen a return of these problems, as worldwide coffee prices plummeted, leaving Africa both hungry and poor. This year a startling new proposal has emerged — even among some of the world’s most conservative economists — that African nations unilaterally default on their debt. Economist Jeffrey D. Sachs has said, “If you try to collect the debt, you are killing millions of people. If the countries pay their debt, they can’t meet their development needs … If there is not international understanding, many countries in duress in history have taken a unilateral action. That is important for African leaders to understand.” The Heritage Foundation, a Washington-based economic think tank, has also recommended that African leaders default. Many African nations remain unwilling to do so, however, out of fear that this will leave them completely abandoned by international investors. Public pressure Massive public pressure has continued to be expressed against the institutions of the IMF and World Bank in the last year. In April of this year over 100,000 protesters converged on Washington, DC during the spring meetings of the IMF and World Bank. World Bank Bonds, a favored investment worldwide, are the driving economic force behind the Bank’s portfolio. Campaigns for divestment in the World Bank through bond boycotts have grown in popularity in the last year, as a way to pressure the Bank to reform. This year the city of Milwaukee, WI, along with the city of Cambridge, MA, and five other US cities joined in boycotting World Bank bonds. Several unions, including the Wisconsin AFL-CIO, the SEIU, Steel Workers local 1304, and Teamsters local 85 have also joined the boycott this year. Though they represent a small percentage of total World Bank bond buyers, these campaigns hold the possibility of forcing concessions from the Bank by starving it of new funds. In addition, protests in the Third World have remained consistently strong. In Brazil, Venezuela, Argentina, Equador, and Nigeria, it appears that governments are on the verge of relenting to citizens’ demands that these institutions, and the others that represent the neo-liberal model, be abandoned. The outstanding question in these areas, however, is: “Abandoned in favor of what?” Though Venezuela and Nigeria may have the natural resources (mainly oil) to weather the international investor fallout over unilateral debt default, many nations that desire to abandon the Bank loan interest cycle have been unable to find a realistic economic alternative that can alleviate poverty. It is impossible to calculate with accuracy the human toll that these economic policies have had. Clearly, 5,000 avertable deaths each day from hunger, lack of health care, and lack of potable water is a very conservative estimate. Resistance has had its price also. According to the report “States of Unrest II,” release in April of this year, 76 IMF/World Bank protesters have been documented as having died due to state repression, with injuries and arrests running into the thousands. Yet people worldwide continue to risk resistance and voice their opposition to economic reductionism. _________________________________________________________________ Send and receive Hotmail on your mobile device: http://mobile.msn.com