[Peace] Re: **ISO Events This Week**
C. G. Estabrook
galliher at uiuc.edu
Mon Aug 6 20:34:44 CDT 2007
Glad to see you feature the important letter by AWARE's Roger Epperson.
State and Revolution is an interesting and important text, but Lenin
himself took a rather different view once he became the state. --CGE
ISO Champaign wrote:
> International Socialist Organization Upcoming Events
>
> 1. Upcoming Mtg.: Study and discussion of Lenin's State and Revolution,
> Aug. 8 at 7pm, Pekara Bistro and Grill at 116 N. Neil St.
> 2. VICTORY! COKE IS KICKED OFF CAMPUS!!!
> 3. Separate and Unequal: articles on segregation in Iraq
> 4. Blackwater Contract Scandal at UIUC
> ***************************************
> 1.
> hey everyone!
>
> You won't want to miss our upcoming ISO Meeting. We will be having our
> last gathering for the summer at Pekara Bistro & Grill on Wed., August
> 8, at 7pm.
>
> We plan to discuss Lenin's State and Revolution, a classic revolutionary
> text!
>
> Second only the Communist Manifesto in importance for the socialist
> movement, in it, Lenin argues with wit and biting prose that the state
> is a reflection of class interests. As such, what strategies socialists
> and revolutionaries devise must grasp that in order to change the
> economic and social order, one must also change the nature of the state.
> Put simply, we must "Smash the State," not merely reform it.
>
> State and Revolution can be read online here:
> http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1917/staterev/
> <https://ms5.express.cites.uiuc.edu/wm/mail/fetch.html?urlid=42539be75f188adfef9a080c7fae5d9c5&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.marxists.org%2Farchive%2Flenin%2Fworks%2F1917%2Fstaterev%2F>
>
>
> OR YOU can purchase a copy from Ryan for $5.00--just shoot him and email
> to meet at: convention+iso at gmail.com <mailto:convention+iso at gmail.com>
>
> in solidarity!
>
> ************************************************
> 2.
> Coke is out!
>
> After 2 years of intensive and sustained effort, the University of
> Illinois, Urbana Champaign is no longer an exclusive Coca-Cola campus!
> In a recent decision, the State of Illinois has granted pouring rights
> to Pepsi, and the Urbana Champaign campus has agreed to join this
> contract. Further, the University has declared that certain retail shops
> on campus will be outside the contract where drinks may be purchased
> from multiple vendors. For more details, please read our press release
> available at http://caccuc.blogspot.com/
>
> The effort to hold Coca-Cola accountable for its egregious practices
> around the world would not have succeeded without your continued and
> over-whelming support. Every phone call, letter, petition and personal
> boycotts have helped toward making this campus coke-free. Thank you!
>
> While we welcome the non-renewal of the contract with Coca-Cola, we
> would like to continue to highlight and mobilize around corporatization
> of higher education on our campus. We invite you to join us for a
> debriefing dialog on August 29, 2007. Please look out for meeting
> updates on our website [http://caccuc.blogspot.com/].
>
> Please share this information widely. If you and/or your group would be
> interested in participating in the afore-mentioned dialog, please rsvp
> by August 20th to cokeactiongroup at riseup.net
> <http://us.f537.mail.yahoo.com/ym/Compose?To=cokeactiongroup@riseup.net>.
>
> In Solidarity,
> Coalition Against Coke Contracts (CACC)
> http://caccuc.blogspot.com/
>
> ***********************************************
> 3.
> At US Base, Iraqis Must Use Separate Latrine
> http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/080607C.shtml
> <http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/080607C.shtml>
> Mike Drummond reports for McClatchy Newspapers: "It's been nearly 60
> years since President Harry Truman ended racial segregation in the US
> military. But at Forward Operating Base Warhorse it's alive and well,
> perhaps the only US military facility with such rules, Iraqi
> interpreters here say."
>
> Segregation: The American Experience
> http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/080607G.shtml
> In Le Monde, sociologist, teacher and researcher Eric Fassin elucidates
> the lessons for the desegregation movement in the US and in France from
> the US Supreme Court decision in Parents v. Seattle.
>
> Amy R. Gershkoff | Saving Soldiers' Jobs
> http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/080607E.shtml
> Amy R. Gershkoff writes for The Washington Post: "Thousands of the brave
> men and women lucky enough to return safely from Iraq are being left
> without jobs, without hope and without recourse. The government has
> failed to protect these reservists and has covered up the evidence. It
> is time for Americans to protect those who protect us by demanding
> thorough oversight of the Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment
> Rights Act."
>
> ****************************************************
> 4.
> a. letter to editor in News-Gazette:
>
> Need investigation of UI's Blackwater link
>
>
> Sunday August 5, 2007
>
> In an exclusive story, the Chicago Tribune reported on July 31 of an
> investigation involving the director of the prestigious University of
> Illinois Police Training Institute and Blackwater U.S.A., the
> controversial private paramilitary Iraq contractor. Blackwater USA is
> the world's largest paramilitary organization with over 20,000 soldiers
> and its own air force.
>
> It is not only that The News Gazette was scooped by the Chicago Tribune,
> but to this reader's knowledge no local reporting of the Blackwater USA
> and police training institute connection, including even a press release
> from the police-training institute itself has appeared in print, even
> though Blackwater and the institute signed a collaboration agreement in
> May 2007.
>
> Lack of local reporting about Blackwater USA, allegedly involved in the
> torture at Abu Ghraib prison, and other paramilitary groups including
> Triple Canopy, another private contractor that signed an agreement early
> in 2007 with the police-training institute, has created an informational
> vacuum.
>
> Hopefully, the UI will undertake to thoroughly investigate the
> relationships between Blackwater, Triple Canopy and other potential
> paramilitary connections to the institute, and The News-Gazette and
> other media will report on how these relationships with paramilitary
> groups may adversely affect the quality of law enforcement training in
> Illinois.
>
> Do we really want global policing organizations involved in the training
> of Illinois law enforcement and to depart from the 50-year-old tradition
> of a local program that trains Illinois police to protect and serve?
>
> ROGER EPPERSON
>
> Urbana
>
> --------------
>
> b. Chicago Tribune's article:
>
> http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chi-blackwater31jul31,1,366933.story?ctrack=1&cset=true
> <https://ms5.express.cites.uiuc.edu/wm/mail/fetch.html?urlid=41f1fb72a85237f97dd6d0503f8af345f&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.chicagotribune.com%2Fnews%2Flocal%2Fchi-blackwater31jul31%2C1%2C366933.story%3Fctrack%3D1%26cset%3Dtrue>
> TRIBUNE EXCLUSIVE
> Blackwater-U. of I. tie
>
> Tom Dempsey is under scrutiny for a link to military trainers
>
> By E.A. Torriero and Jodi S. Cohen | Tribune staff reporters
> 10:03 AM CDT, July 31, 2007
>
> The University of Illinois is investigating potential conflicts of
> interest involving the director of the school's prestigious
> police-training institute and Blackwater U.S.A., the military contractor.
>
> The institute's director, Tom Dempsey, signed an agreement in May
> allowing the state facility and private contractor to exchange staff and
> students and share facilities. The pact could give Blackwater a foothold
> in training candidates for sworn law-enforcement positions in Illinois.
>
> Even as he represented the institute, Dempsey has also been working as a
> Blackwater consultant in his spare time, top university officials
> confirmed Monday in response to questions from the Tribune. On July 19,
> two months after Dempsey signed the institute's partnership agreement
> with Blackwater, he submitted a written request for time off to consult
> for Blackwater.
>
> University administrators who were unaware of the partnership agreement
> agreed to the 30-day leave of absence, which Dempsey requested so he
> could travel to Afghanistan to work for the North Carolina-based company
> in anti-drug-trafficking and police training of Afghan forces, according
> to university provost Linda Katehi.
>
> Dempsey, 58, a former Marine and director of the institute since 2002,
> did not respond to several Tribune requests for comment last week and
> Monday. He is paid $118,178 annually by the university.
>
> Sources at the university, who believe Dempsey is currently in
> Afghanistan, said he has corresponded with the university by e-mail in
> recent days. Officials plan to speak with him by phone this week about
> the potential conflict of interest.
>
> The university's conflict policy requires employees to disclose whether,
> through an outside venture, they are receiving $10,000 or more from a
> company doing business with the university.
>
> Katehi said that in most cases, if an individual notes a potential
> conflict on disclosure forms, those forms are not accepted without a
> thorough investigation.
>
> She said the university is now trying to find out whether Dempsey was
> employed by Blackwater when he signed the partnership, and why any work
> he is doing for Blackwater is not spelled out in the partnership agreement.
>
> The probe comes as Blackwater, a security firm whose most-publicized
> business is providing private paramilitary personnel for America's war
> on terror, is already facing controversy surrounding a training facility
> opened last spring in far northwestern Illinois.
>
> The university's institute, located in Champaign, is one of the largest
> in the nation. It trains would-be law-enforcement and corrections officers.
>
> By aligning with the institute, Blackwater could then receive approval
> from the Illinois Law Enforcement Training and Standards Board to become
> part of the primary training process for law enforcement, state
> officials said, possibly opening up future contracts for Blackwater.
> Only five facilities in Illinois are fully certified by the board to
> train candidates for sworn law-enforcement positions.
>
> Board officials said they have not received an application from
> Blackwater to align with the university.
>
> Now university officials say they will evaluate whether it is
> appropriate for the state's largest and most visible education facility
> to be aligned with Blackwater.
>
> "We are trying to reconsider that and get more information about what
> their intention was and to make sure there is an alignment between the
> mission of Blackwater and the mission of the campus," Katehi said. "We
> don't want our name associated with a firm that is controversial."
>
> A Blackwater spokeswoman said it is against company policy to discuss
> employees in sensitive positions overseas. She said the university
> agreement, however, involves only domestic law-enforcement training and
> not military support efforts.
>
> The agreement does not call for money to change hands, according to a
> copy obtained by the Tribune. Cooperation would be developed "as deemed
> beneficial by the two parties."
>
> "It's an exchange of services," said Anne Tyrrell, the Blackwater
> spokeswoman.
>
> Thus far, Blackwater has not been involved in training at the institute,
> according to Blackwater and university officials. How the two
> organizations would work together is unclear.
>
> Formed in 1997, Blackwater tumbled into the American consciousness when
> four of its workers were killed and their bodies mutilated in Fallujah,
> Iraq, in 2004.
>
> In addition to Blackwater's sprawling 7,000-acre North Carolina campus,
> used for paramilitary and law-enforcement training, Blackwater North in
> Mt. Carroll, Ill., has trained some 200 people from 40 law-enforcement
> agencies from as far away as New York and California, company officials
> said.
>
> Since opening last spring 150 miles west of Chicago, Blackwater North
> has endured criticism and questions regarding its operation from
> neighbors and peace groups protesting "America's private army."
>
> It is unlikely that any of the training ventures with the university
> would take place at Blackwater North, Tyrrell said.
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>
> *******************************************************
> ISO Resources:
> internationalsocialist.org <http://internationalsocialist.org>
> haymarketbooks.org <http://haymarketbooks.org>
> socialistworker.org <http://socialistworker.org>
> isreview.org <http://isreview.org>
>
> Weekly ISO Tabling/Socialist Worker Sale
> Summer Sessions:
> Mondays, 12:30pm-1:30pm, UIUC Quad
> stop by and pick up the latest SW!
> *******************************************************
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