[Peace] Anti-war calendar and minutes of 5/4/03 AWARE meeting

Tue May 6 01:16:02 CDT 2003

Anti-War Calendar:

May 3 (Saturday): AWARE's long-established "Prospect for Peace"
demonstration at Prospect and Marketview (2-4PM).

May 4 (Sunday): AWARE's weekly meeting 5-7PM at the IMC (Independent Media
Center - 218 W. Main, Urbana).

June 6-8 (Friday-Sunday) United for Peace and Justice Nationwide Anti-War
Conference in Chicago. AWARE may attend.

October 7 (Tuesday): Noam Chomsky apparently coming to Illinois at ISU. More
info later.
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meeting minutes:

attendance: 20

presentation: Dave Johnson of the Carpenter's Union

Dave promoted the idea of opposing anticipated anti-union, anti-worker
developments in Iraq as part of the larger opposition to the US occupation.
He pointed out it's only reasonable to expect the administration will
attempt to create a country-wide "free-trade" zone favorable to US corporate
interests and quash worker rights and organization as a result.

Dave talked about Harry Kelber, who has spent his entire adult life (he is
now 90) in the service of the labor movement. Kelber is the editor and
founder of the newsletter "The Labor Educator" (
http://www.laboreducator.org ). Kelber is a major proponent of actively
opposing anti-worker/anti-union developments in Iraq.

handout: Harry Kelber article: "American Labor Can Play an Important Role as
Defender of Rights of Iraqi Workers"

Dave noted that job site workers seemed to be about evenly divided
pro/anti-war. He noted that those who used the Internet to access news and
information were significantly more likely to be anti-war.

He noted that the prospect of attacking Syria caused concern even among
pro-war workers.

He described how once he informs workers of current developments regarding
the huge sweetheart contracts being doled out to anti-worker/anti-union
Bush-friendly/Bush-connected corporations such as Kellogg, Brown & Root and
Stevedoring, even pro-war workers became more skeptical of what's happening
in Iraq.

During discussion, Dave made note of the fact that while many workers are
aware of and upset about NAFTA, many are uninformed about issues such as
GATT and WTO and the larger pattern of "free-trade" globalization.
---------------------------------------------
news of the week (sadly, without Carl)

Lisa: Good article in Sunday New York Times: "A Classicist's Legacy: New
Empire Builders" by James Atlas tracing back neo-conservative roots to the
late classicist and political philosopher Leo Strauss.  (ed. note: here is a
link to the article:

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/05/04/weekinreview/04ATLA.html

Charlotte: Israel has explicitly announced they are cracking down on
International Solidarity Movement non-violent activists (members of ISM were
in town recently for the Palestinian Truth Tour). (ed. note: From May 3 New
York Times article: "Britain Holds 6th Person in Tel Aviv Blast":

"Lt. Gen. Moshe Yaalon, the chief of staff for the Israeli Army, announced
last month on army radio that he had given an order to remove the activists
from the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, where they have acted as human
shields to prevent military operations against the Palestinians, such as
house demolitions."

(ed.note: for more information, also see:

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/story.jsp?story=402676

Matt: British cameraman James Miller was killed by Israeli Defense Forces,
though he was unmistakably and actively identifying himself as a journalist
(even carrying a white flag). (ed. note: News article covering this from the
British Independent is at:

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/story.jsp?story=402956

Lisa: Noted that WMD is yet to be found and mentioned she had read that the
US Administration may be planning to target "enemy" regimes directly
(assassination, essentially) in the future.

Linda: Listened to Bob McChesney's WILL AM 580 show "Media Matters" (Sundays
1PM) and heard an interview with the editor of "The Progressive", Matthew
Rothschild, during which an incident was recounted from 2001 in which
Chicago police and a Federal postal inspector were called to question Voices
in the Wilderness because they chose not to buy stamps that depicted the US
flag. (ed. note: Details at:

http://www.progressive.org/webex/wxmc120801.html

Mort: Mentioned there was an unusual, good article in Sunday's News-Gazette
on the rife disinformation in the media regarding the war.

Ricky:  Hawaii passed a state resolution which opposes the Patriot Act and
encourages resistance against it within the state.
(ed. note: An article from Hawaii indymedia is at:

http://hawaii.indymedia.org/news/2003/04/2164.php

also, see:

http://www.hawaiinews.com/archives/politics/000133.shtml

David H: Says he learned of a recent assassination of a Pro-U.S Shia cleric.
(ed. note: It was unclear whether David was referring to the killing of
pro-western cleric Abdul Majid al-Khoei in Najaf on April 10 (he had
returned from exile in London). Much detail on the al-Khoei killing is at:

http://www.observer.co.uk/islam/story/0,1442,936060,00.html

Jeff: Says he learned Iraqi oil experts and executives were refusing to
cooperate with US. He also mentioned a Guardian article that described how a
single family was decimated during the firing of US troops at protestors in
Fallujah. (ed. note: The article is at:

http://www.observer.co.uk/international/story/0,6903,949043,00.html

Ricky: Added that Agence France Presse (AFP) reported that medical staff
were fired on during the first Fallujah shooting.

Mort: Said that a United Nations humanitarian relief flight was not allowed
to land at Basra. He said it's not the first time this happened. Someone
else added the same thing happened with a CARE flight in northern Iraq.

Peter: Added that some magnate or celebrity was allowed to land their relief
flight in Baghdad.

Franklin Graham's (Billy Graham's son) mission to convert Iraqis to
Christianity was mentioned. (ed. note: An interesting article on this is at:

http://www.counterpunch.org/cajee04112003.html

David G: Noted that Democracy Now did an excellent piece last Friday on the
Carlyle group (ed. note - Carlyle is a secretive, powerful business
investment firm including a half-brother of Osama Bin Laden, both Bushes,
Frank Carlucci, Dick Cheney, James Baker, Colin Powell, John Major and
others. There is a new book exposing Carlyle - "The Iron Triangle". The
Democracy Now piece is an interview of the author, Dan Briody, by Amy
Goodman. Link to the audio interview at:

http://stream.realimpact.net/rihurl.ram?file=webactive/demnow/dn20030502.ra&
start=27:35.4

Jeff: Chimed in that Bush had a speech at United Defense in Silicon Valley
during his trip to the aircraft-carrier photo-op last week. United Defense
is owned by Carlyle.
---------------------------------------------
events of the past week:

Mike: Mentioned the last two sessions of the Chancellor's campus forum on
the war. He specifically referenced the last session and what Robert McKim
had to say. He like much of what McKim presented, including his taking
evangelicals to task for not opposing the war strongly.

Mort: Chimed in on the forum sessions, saying attendance was 25-45.
Described the sessions as stimulating, but mostly comprised of sterile
academic discourse followed by more interesting discussion with the
audience.

Ken: Attended a talk given by former president of Zambia, Kenneth Kaunda on
the role of Zambia in the liberation of South Africa. Kaunda is blamed for
mismanagement of Zambia since he came to power in 1964 and forcing
dictatorial one-party rule in 1972. These culminated in violent riots in
1990, which ultimately forced him to allow a multi-party system which
resulted in his ouster in 1991. Ken noted how curious it was that dictators
like Kaunda somehow get recycled into lecture circuits.

Randall: Attended a weekly Progressive Resource/Action Cooperative (PRC)
meeting to discuss the idea (touched on last week by Carl and Robert) of a
Sept. 6 anti-war conference bringing together anti-war and progressive
groups. Found there was solid enthusiasm for such an idea within PRC and
they encouraged it to go forward. Randall will help to move the idea
forward.
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Working group reports:

Farmer's Market: Farmer's Market at Lincoln Square starts next Saturday. A
working group headed by Jeff was formed to get a table out with literature,
signs, etc. Many agreed that tabling at Farmer's Market was very important.
The working group had their first meeting immediately after the main
meeting.

CO: (Mike) Anti-militarism tabling event at Urbana High School went very
well. This proves that more tabling should be done at Urbana High and also
in Champaign, if possible. To find an inroad into Champaign, though, we may
need a parent of a Champaign high school student or a member of a high
school's faculty to help out (ed. note: can anyone out there help?). Other
future actions are also called for, such as leafleting students about their
opt-out rights under the "No Child Left Behind" rider which otherwise allows
the US to obtain student information from schools for recruitment purposes.

P4P: (Ricky) Attendance was up at P4P this week. Attendance was down at Neil
St., though (and they wound up coming to Prospect). Due to lack of
attendance, there will no longer be an organized Neil St. component
(especially since the counter-demonstrators should be gone next week). There
were new signs. New literature was passed out (about 100 copies).

  Incident: The "pro-war" van often seen circling around heckling us (and
this week, even flashing us) was pulled over by the cops and subsequently
disappeared.

  Incident: A couple minutes before 4PM, as things were winding down, a
couple pro-war bikers apparently decided to go down our entire line, one of
them (a woman) taking individual close-up photos of people and verbally
attacking some. It was provocative harassment, though not violent and not
illegal. Lori asked the woman not to take a photo of her and then
unfortunately let her emotions get the best of her when she did. Lori
grabbed the camera and tried to destroy it (though she says she grabbed the
camera without actually touching the photographer). The cops came running
and one of them tackled Lori from behind, pinning her to the ground with a
knee in her back and then cuffed her. All our witnesses agreed that the cops
were unnecessarily violent with Lori. The photographer did not press charges
and Lori was not arrested. Lori was released on-site, but charged with
resisting arrest and has a court date. She plans to plead not guilty and
fight the charge. We got together a list of witnesses and asked them to
write down exactly what they saw as soon as possible. If Lori is fined, a
collection will be taken to help her out. As of Sunday, Kim Kranich was
setting up a meeting with Lieutenant Gallo to address this issue. Lesson
learned: don't let our guard down, even when all seems stable. This incident
could very well have been avoided if we had enforced the buffer zone by
protesting the crossover when it happened, appealing to the pro-war
organizers and the police as necessary. Luckily, this was the last week of
organized counter-protest.

Ricky put forth the idea of winding down P4P during May and quitting at the
end of the month for the summer.

He also suggested refreshments next week at P4P.

Town Meeting: (Mort) Mark Thompson backed out from participating, so this
working group is reconsidering/re-evaluating the next step.

Speaker's Bureau: (Linda) New meeting of speaker's bureau working group took
place immediately after main meeting.

Literature: Mort and Ricky each have their new documents and continue to
revise them. It was suggested we have final versions ready to go for
Farmer's Market next week.

Finances: Gabe reports a balance of $2073.51. Gabe will order buttons and
bumper stickers (for Farmer's Market among other things).

Party 4 Peace: Lisa's place, Saturday May 17th. Lisa will post more
information later.
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Upcoming Events/Miscellaneous

RSO status: Mike pointed out that the semester is almost over and we need to
renew RSO status and request a table for Quad day NOW.

Lisa: Wondered aloud whether we should try to have closer ties with and/or
enlist the support of prominent progressive/anti-war voices such as Bob
McChesney and Francis Boyle.

Ricky: Alan Dershowitz (the legal scholar/celebrity who advocates torture in
some circumstances) is apparently speaking on Monday, May 5 at Foellinger
(ed. note - I couldn't find any reference to this presentation on any UIUC
web site, but it's Monday night already, so I guess it's moot).

Lisa: Looking for socially responsible consumer tips to include in an
article for the Public I. Please forward them to her.

Randall: United for Peace and Justice is conducting a national anti-war
conference in Chicago June 6-8 and offers funds to pay for travel and
conference attendance (possibly contingent on joining UFPJ as an affiliated
group). Randall is interested in going, is looking into this and will report
next week.