[Peace] aware meeting minutes 7-28-02

[marina manetti]

The meeting began with poet William Gillespie reading "Fit for Fit the Beaver's Lesson," a poem on the British empire,  from the Hunting of the Snark (?). 

Last week's news events were reported by Carol and Sandra:
Sandra reported:

House approved the Homeland Security bill-a huge governmental restructuring event (one of the biggest) involving the coast guard, customs, secret security, federal emergency management service, and part of the immigration and naturalization service.

House approved to further curtail the rights of the unions and labor.
S
tate and local grant making authority will now be changed since they currently have no stipulations regarding terrorism.

Terrorism Information and Prevention System (Operation TIPS) is now in place.  The postal service refused to be part of the porgram which would have entailed postal officers turning people in for "having posters in their house that looked "unpatriotic," or "critical," or "suspicious," etc.  Calls for TIPS go to the FBI and CIA since there is currently no agency equipped to collect such "tips."  

In the 1870's there was a posse comitatus law legislated that made it illegal for the military to be involved in civilian policing.  Bush now wants to do away with this legislation and reintroduce the military in civilian affairs.

Carol reported:
There was a bombing in Israel on Tuesday. Twenty-four hours before the bombing, Hamas had pledged to stop suicide bombing if Israel agreed to get out of the occupied territories.  In the Gaza strip a one ton bomb was dropped murdering fifteen and injuring one hundred forty.  

The Red Crescent reported a total of 1,656 deaths and 19,776 injuries.  Te source for this was The Electronic Intifada website by Ali Abunimah, a Palestinian living in Chicago.

In Fort Bragg (?) N. Carolina four military wives have been murdered by their husbands, recently returned servicemen from Afghanistan. Lots of people have been sent from Fort Bragg to Afghanistan in the last few weeks.  Before Carol was librarian she was a social worker and she sees the murders by and military service training of these men as not unrelated.  aside: The Ku Klux Klan does a lot of recruitment around Fort Bragg.

Sandra reported:

on the corporate scandal news of Enron and World Com.  The House and Senate are meeting in secret about the accounting reform legislation.

on Free Trade Agreement. Bush said he had to have Fast Track and he got it.  Fast Track got approved through the House.  The IMC's Peter Miller gives a good recap of this.  Congress can now reject or accept a Free Trade Agreement bill, but it can not modify it.

on Iraq.  Kath Kelly's Voice in the Wilderness reported that in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee discussions on the invasion of Iraq only pro-invasion of Iraq guest speakers were invited to speak.  Kelly recommends that all of us call Illinois senator Durban to express disapproval of the invasion.  The U.S. does not have Europe's support on it.

Mentioned was Bin Laden: The Forbidden Truth by Guillaume Dasquie and Jen-Charles Brisand (not yet translated into English), a book that reports on pre-September 11 events.  Fifteen of the nineteen highjakcers involved in the September 11 attack had been denied VISA's to the U.S. by Saudi Arabian intelligence agencies and these denials were reversed and VISA's were granted to them only at the insistent intervention of CIA officials.  Upon entry into the U.S. the highjackers then carried out the 9-11 events. (possibly related to this see: "Joel Mowbray" in Carl Estabrook's [Peace] News notes for July 21 ~p.4-5/9)

Recap of what happened this week in Urbana:
Videos shown at IMC on Thursady on Occupied territories were reported on by Marina.

Future AWARE projects 

Sept. 14 is the National and International Day of Action.
Maybe some protest can be organized against Catepillar given how utilized catepillar bulldozers are in the Israeli repression of Palestinians.

Rob announced intentions of composing a "Clowning the Bill of Rights" Performance incorporating information about domestic warfare.

Sandra proposed to make press packets in advance of 9-11.  If we march to the FBI office on 9-11 the packets would contain news clippings of recent civil rights curtailments, abuses, restrictions, etc.

Danielle and Kim Kronic (?) are planning to take a trip next year with Global Exchange.  They might go to Afghanistan or Vietnam or some other place affected by the U.S. global war policy.  They want to do this next year as members of AWARE.  They would do fundraising at a table/booth at the Farmer's market in our name while handing our AWARE information, U.S. policy info, and Global exchange info.  This request was officially approved by the AWARE group. A folder left by Danielle for AWARE of website sloganny printouts on issues AWARE has addressed in the past was passed around.

Carl Estabrook will be having an open house for people for Estabrook for Congress at his new Champaign office on first and Green from 2-4:50. At 4:50 all will promptly leave for the 5:00 AWARE meeting.

An AWARE t.v. flyer on "An Israeli Refusenik Speaks Out!"  was passed around.  This will be aired on Thursday August 1 at 8 pm Urbana Cable Channel 6.

Labor Day parade will happen this year.  MissInformation can get out again.

Manni Brun was interviewed by a Berlin Left Wing Journal about AWARE the meetings she witnessed/participated in this Spring here in Urbana.  The journalists inquired as to what Americans were doing in resistence to current global U.S. perpetrated disasters.

Direct Action Group report

Robert came up with a "not good idea" for Direct Action on Sept. 11.  march to the FBI office in Champaign at the old train station building an perform a TIPS initiation ceremony?

We will have as a theme: What is happening to Civil Rights?  We will make answers to this question as concrete as possible.  We will go en masse to the office and annouce: "Bush said are you for or against?" We will answer "We are aginst." And we will turn ourselves in.  We should all register with the TIPS website (which is already in place) and trun people in.  People have already signed up.  Andy and Robert have.  Rickie will interview them (?).

Report on the Teaching Experience Event
There will be a late morning 11-2 panel discusssion with a relative of a 9-11 victim on the panel.  There will be a fcilitated discussion afterwards. In the evening the relative of the 9-11 victim will speak.

This Friday night at 8:15 the speeakers at the mosque discussion will be Carol and Al Kagan. 

Sharon asked that we all write down initial reactions to the images of the twin tower buildings falling on 9-11 and bring them to her. 

We broke into separate groups.

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