voicesrising

Happy Birthday MLK

2009-01-15T13:12:00.000-08:00

Attacking the Organizers

2008-09-09T08:55:00.000-07:00

Attacking the Organizers, Progress Illinois

Archpundit's response:

"...You also don’t get Ted Stevens getting earmarks for you. You make $12,000 instead of $64,000 a year. You work on issues like removal of asbestos instead of what time the bars close or whether to ban books at the library.

"Community organizing is what ordinary people do in order to clean up messes made by politicians and their failed policies. ..."

Taking back the farm!

2008-08-25T11:46:00.000-07:00

South Central Farmers are trying to buy back their community farm!

The City of LA sold the land, but South Central Farmers are trying to buy it back: www.southcentralfarmers.org

More about their story here

Celebrating a life of standing one's ground

2008-06-20T16:30:00.000-07:00

Edith Macefield, 1921-2008: Ballard woman held her ground as change closed in around her

Kathy Mulady,
Seattle P-I

"Edith Macefield died at home, just the way she wanted. ...

"The Ballard woman who captured hearts and admirers around the world when she stubbornly turned down $1 million to sell her home to make way for a commercial development died Sunday of pancreatic cancer. She was 86.

" 'I don't want to move. I don't need the money. Money doesn't mean anything,' she told the Seattle P-I in October.

"She continued living in the little old house in the 1400 block of Northwest 46th Street even after concrete walls rose around her, coming within a few feet of her kitchen window. Cranes towered over her roof. Macefield turned up the television or her favorite opera music a little louder and stayed put.

" 'I went through World War II, the noise doesn't bother me,' she said in October. 'They'll get it done someday.' ..."

Read the whole article

Political deaths reach 60 in Zimbabwe

2008-06-19T12:05:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, reports came out that Abigail Chiroto, 27, the wife of the recently elected mayor of Harare who had been abducted recently from her home, was found brutally beaten to death.

A profile of Tonderai Ndira, MDC organizer killed in March:

"It is clear that the change we were waiting for is here.
If we do not get it, the people must rise up and fight for their victory." Tonderai (BBC)

Sokwanele!

I would like to help you in your efforts to achieve democracy in Zimbabwe

"Great Lakes Danger Zones?"

2008-02-23T10:50:00.000-08:00

I just tuned in to the tail end of This is Hell on the radio:

Their guest, Sheila Kaplan, from the Center from Public Integrity, has unearthed a study blocked from release from the CDC about the harmful levels of toxicity in the Great Lakes that all residents near the Great Lakes should be aware of...

From the article:

The Center for Public Integrity has obtained the study, which warns that more than nine million people who live in the more than two dozen “areas of concern”—including such major metropolitan areas as Chicago, Cleveland, Detroit, and Milwaukee—may face elevated health risks from being exposed to dioxin, PCBs, pesticides, lead, mercury, or six other hazardous pollutants.

In many of the geographic areas studied, researchers found low birth weights, elevated rates of infant mortality and premature births, and elevated death rates from breast cancer, colon cancer, and lung cancer.

finally a blueprint.

2008-02-06T22:26:00.001-08:00

http://www.barackobama.com/pdf/ObamaBlueprintForChange.pdf

Yes, We Can

2008-02-04T19:50:00.000-08:00

It was a creed written into the founding documents that declared the destiny of a nation.

Yes we can.

It was whispered by slaves and abolitionists as they blazed a trail toward freedom.

Yes we can.

It was sung by immigrants as they struck out from distant shores and pioneers who pushed westward against an unforgiving wilderness.

Yes we can.

It was the call of workers who organized; women who reached for the ballots; a President who chose the moon as our new frontier; and a King who took us to the mountaintop and pointed the way to the Promised Land.

Yes we can to justice and equality.

Yes we can to opportunity and prosperity.

Yes we can heal this nation.

Yes we can repair this world.

Yes we can.

We know the battle ahead will be long, but always remember that no matter what obstacles stand in our way, nothing can stand in the way of the power of millions of voices calling for change.

We have been told we cannot do this by a chorus of cynics... they will only grow louder and more dissonant........... We've been asked to pause for a reality check. We've been warned against offering the people of this nation false hope.

But in the unlikely story that is America, there has never been anything false about hope.

Now the hopes of the little girl who goes to a crumbling school in Dillon are the same as the dreams of the boy who learns on the streets of LA; we will remember that there is something happening in America; that we are not as divided as our politics suggests; that we are one people; we are one nation; and together, we will begin the next great chapter in the American story with three words that will ring from coast to coast; from sea to shining sea --

Yes. We. Can.

hope for those rooted deep in community change

2008-01-26T21:12:00.001-08:00

The Chicago Reader's 1995 article about a first time state senate candidate from the south side of Chicago...

What Makes Obama Run?
by Hank De Zutter
http://www.chicagoreader.com/obama/951208/

"... It's time for politicians and other leaders to take the next step and to see voters, residents, or citizens as producers of this change. The thrust of our organizing must be on how to make them productive, how to make them employable, how to build our human capital, how to create businesses, institutions, banks, safe public spaces--the whole agenda of creating productive communities. That is where our future lies.

"The right wing talks about this but they keep appealing to that old individualistic bootstrap myth: get a job, get rich, and get out. Instead of investing in our neighborhoods, that's what has always happened. Our goal must be to help people get a sense of building something larger.

"The political debate is now so skewed, so limited, so distorted," said Obama. "People are hungry for community; they miss it. They are hungry for change.

"What if a politician were to see his job as that of an organizer," he wondered, "as part teacher and part advocate, one who does not sell voters short but who educates them about the real choices before them? As an elected public official, for instance, I could bring church and community leaders together easier than I could as a community organizer or lawyer. We would come together to form concrete economic development strategies, take advantage of existing laws and structures, and create bridges and bonds within all sectors of the community. We must form grass-root structures that would hold me and other elected officials more accountable for their actions.

"The right wing, the Christian right, has done a good job of building these organizations of accountability, much better than the left or progressive forces have. But it's always easier to organize around intolerance, narrow-mindedness, and false nostalgia. And they also have hijacked the higher moral ground with this language of family values and moral responsibility.

"Now we have to take this same language--these same values that are encouraged within our families--of looking out for one another, of sharing, of sacrificing for each other--and apply them to a larger society. Let's talk about creating a society, not just individual families, based on these values. Right now we have a society that talks about the irresponsibility of teens getting pregnant, not the irresponsibility of a society that fails to educate them to aspire for more."

...

Silencing the Right to Speak

2007-10-03T20:59:00.000-07:00

Silencing the Right to speak, is Taking away Citizenship
S'bu Zikode

Sunday 30 September 2007

Not only as a leader of the Movement of Abahlali, but also as an ordinary South African Citizen, as a parent, as a father and mostly a human being I am extremely hurt. My heart is torn apart when in my own country, in a broad daylight like on Friday the 28 September 2007 it is made so clear that the poor are not Citizens. When they try to sweep up us out of the cities it is clear that we are not citizens. When they beat us to stop us speaking it is clear that we are not citizens.

It is of a great concern that thousands of Abahlali baseMjondolo members have marched peacefully to the eThekwini municipal mayor Obed Mlaba and have been received with such violence. We marched to demand no power, no position no fame, nothing from his family. We only marched for the Right to life of the shack dwellers, the farm dwellers and thousands of forgotten citizens of this country in the name of democracy, in the name of a better life for all.

What a life without shame, without conscience, without respect for vulnerable groups in our society the elderly women and children. The presence of church leaders amongst the poor has had a far-reaching reason to those in need of a church. The biggest curse is that while praying, the innocents were started to be flooded with heavy forces of water, the strong church leaders stood very firm to shield the innocents. The heavy armed members of the SAPS started assaulting the church leaders, throwing teargas, beating helpless women, shooting old women and men at the back while running to their homes.

This event took place at about 12:15pm when the innocent marchers were still waiting for the mayor to receive the memorandum of demands as arranged with him. The march had complied with the Gathering Act of SA. Without any provocation or unruliness the police decided to act on the instructions of the Mayor of non compliance with the South African Law, because he thinks being at that position means being the law unto himself.

The incident took place in my presence. I had offered myself to represent the helpless so that they may see many more, so that they may not be alone while taking their pain for as long as they still believe that we all have all the Right to life. I think this is a difficult leadership style one needs to adopt to save so many lives. Thus I think it is enough that many of us are born and die in shack fires in jondolos, that we die through various diseases associated with unhygienic conditions from the poisonous air we breath in the jondolos, that we live and die with TB and HIV/AIDS as the research confirms that the shack settlements have the highest infection of the virus. People die because of crime, floods and storms; they die while trying to find toilets in the night. We are seeing no future to our children except to the children of those in authority like Mayor Mlaba. Some of us die while trying to speak truth to power, as we get shot while marching.

After a long shooting I had received a call from the Municipality saying that a representative is on his way to receive the memorandum. But already fourteen members were arrested, four were heavily shot and two were badly wounded. This was quite disturbing. Who was going to hand over the memorandum as the police under the command Sydenham Glen Nayager had already chased everyone? In the next ten minutes I received a call saying that I must bring the Memorandum in Baig's office as the official was very scared to come out. Then I said he must come out as most comrades have fled, wounded and harmless, and most police were gone still chasing people away down the roads. I had remained with a small group of less than one hundred with elderly people and pregnant women you couldn't flee.

Then we had no other choice but to face the remaining police and I read the memorandum loudly to Mr. Mzi Magubane who described himself as a senior Manager from the Dept. of Housing in eThekwini municipality. Magubane has been described by System Cele as another old liar. She said that when she was still a child 'this man used to deceive my father when he was still alive working in the Kennedy Road Committee, today he has come to bluff me.' So Bahlali your message was sent with another dishonest man with a history of lies.

Today we have to take care of our comrades who for no reasons were imprisoned; today we have to look for money to pay bail and lawyers to represent them in court for nothing. Today like other days we have to run around doctors and hospitals to try and support the shot and hurt comrades. Today like any other day we have stood together and planned an alternative, as we shall not allow any forces to force us silent. So as long as Amandla belongs to us we shall not fear. As long as democracy is used to further the political scores of the minority and as long as there is great inequality in our society Abahlali will stand together for the dawn of true democracy where everyone matters.

As challenges increase every day for the Movement one is for us to seek for justice to take its course. I will soon be writing to the Amnesty International for a wide range of legal support on this dirty behavior of SAPS. But all of this will not compromise any demands. We will make a follow up and engage the city in a progressive manner that seeks to see a remarkable social change for all. Our city and our country still need true leaders that do not run away from their responsibility like Mlaba. We need leaders that will act, as servants of the public not expect to be masters over the public like eThekwini mayor Obed Mlaba.

S'bu Zikode
Abahlali baseMjondolo Movement SA.

more at www.abahlali.org

Read the full list of Abahlali baseMjondolo demands to Mayor Mlaba

Article on the march and arrests by Carvin Goldstone of the Mercury

"poverty and elite deal making... sees no international boundaries"

2007-08-28T20:34:00.000-07:00

Solidarity with Zimbabwe
Another side to the xenophobia story… by Koni Benson

Z magazine

The dominant story in the mainstream press these days is that the South African poor act out of desperation when migrants and refugees are violently attacked. That the 'problem' is competition for scarce resources and that SA must first get its house in order, and solve the poverty crisis, and then desperate South Africans will stop lashing out at desperate asylum seekers.

This story of displaced frustration and resentment does not fairly represent the range of opinions, and even more importantly, organized actions of the poor and working class in South Africa who invest precious resources in directly supporting refugees and migrants, especially in the case of Zimbabweans right now. ...

South African movements of the working class have mobilized around the politics playing out in Zimbabwe right now. In fact, the issue of Zimbabwe has captured the attention and has been prioritized by grassroots activists in South Africa. These are groups of people many of whom are unemployed and cannot often find taxi fare to meet, and struggle with the challenge of solidarity within the same neighborhoods and same city to fight for basic survival like water, housing, electricity, and health care. Yet, they are taking a stand on Zimbabwe. Why?

This support is not only forthcoming out of sympathy for the hardships inflicted by the power wars of Mugabe and the like, but rooted in the belie[f] that like during repression of activism during the liberation struggle in South Africa, international solidarity is decisive right now for Zimbabweans who are resisting an 'elite transition' which will not change the structures of inequality in any meaningful way for the poor. At the recent Towards an Africa Without Borders Conference in Durban, one Bulawayo debt cancellation activist argued for solidarity between the poor in South Africa and in Zimbabwe because our interests are in the same pot.

South African activists at the conference likewise argued that "we see our problem as rooted in poverty and elite deal making, which sees no international boundaries." In this view, President Mbeki and his SADC counterparts will not act against the Mugabe regime in defense of the Zimbabwean people- rather, they are angling for an ‘elite transition’ similar to the ones in South Africa, Namibia, Nigeria and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) where those who have the backing of the rich and powerful, work out among themselves how to divide the power and money. From this perspective, the majority of the people are excluded from the process and inevitably the resulting system leaves them at the mercy of the oppressors and exploiters and trapped in the associated poverty and social crises.

With this motivation to mobilize, over 2,500 people come out in protest in Durban to criticize the Mugabe regime. Abahlali baseMjondolo has hosted members of the Combined Harare Residents' Association (CHRA) in shack settlements, worked with the Zimbabwe Crisis Coalition, and written comparisons of Murambatsvina and shack demolitions in South Africa. In Cape Town, People Against Suppression and Oppression of People (PASSOP) have held regular pickets. The TAC and the Social Movements Indaba have appointed Africa desks to better address the issues. These movements have an impressively clearly defined 'enemy' so to speak- and it is not displaced Zimbabweans crossing the border in search of survival.

In Cape Town for example, women from a range of grassroots organizations from seasonal women farm workers, to refugee women, to anti-eviction activists, to unionists, to wellness centers organizers came together after the March 11th violent attacks on women activists in Zimbabwe to analyze the relationship between state and domestic violence and speak out on the way elite politics were being played out across women's bodies.

They argued that: “We see no distinction between domestic and state violence, or between Zimbabwe and South Africa when it comes to responding to the attack on our sisters… the violent the victimisation of everyday women through demolition of houses and businesses in Operation Murambatsvina, and as political and feminist activists has a specific dynamic where women are hardest hit, and attacked on multiple levels at once.” They collectively wrote a solidarity statement and in April held a picket on the days the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU) convened a stay away. “We write this statement to acknowledge and listen to the pain of Zimbabwean women and to support their quest to become full citizens which we in South Africa are also fighting for. We recognise that in the context of poverty, displacement, violence, and exclusion state oppression adds another unbearable layer to women’s oppression which we are determined to fight together…We in South Africa know too well the gap between the hard earned theories set out in law, and the reality of women's access to justice in practice".

Read the full article

sokwanele! ==

2007-08-18T23:13:00.000-07:00

zvakwana... enough is enough!

News is that SADC has refused to challenge Robert Mugabe over the continuing crisis in Zimbabwe at their latest summit...

This is Zimbabwe from Sokwanele Citizen Action Group, and the Dignity! Period campaign, to raise awareness about the severe shortage of sanitary supplies available for women. There are care packages leaving from Chicago.

Zimbabwe: Crises in Climax, at Newsdesk.org

Water Shortage in southern Zimbabwe

Zim Police impounding food aid

Cry Beloved Zimbabwe

I will be including an ongoing section here about what organizing is taking place and how we can support it... stay tuned.
==========================

elvira arellano has left her one year sanctuary in Adalberto United Methodist Church here in Chicago and is headed to LA

more on her story

8/19 UPDATE: ARRESTED! Elvira was grabbed Sunday afternoon by ICE from a car transporting her between speaking stops at churches in LA. Full Story here

Next Steps: "Unity and Focus", Pueblo Sin Fronteras

Stop the Raids! Jobs with Justice Campaign

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NPR recently had a story about 2 guys lobbying for funding for a "domestic peace corps"... unfortunately i can't find the link to an archive of the piece.

On the surface, it's a great idea, one a lot of people have been discussing-- see Kucinich's plan for a department of peace, or a myriad of community based groups looking to fund community builders and organizers in their own 'hoods.

We really should be focusing on programs that can promote systemic change--both through means and ends. By offering young folks (and others) opportunities to do community-based work, we give local organizations the capacity to do more, and give ourselves a generation of engaged activists who will take an analysis of oppression and community empowerment wherever they go.

Check the latest on the total cost of the war --still spiraling out of control, estimates at National Priorities Project are nearly $455 Billion, money we could have spent on building 4 million homes or hiring 7.75 million teachers, or funding 4 year college scholarships for nearly 22 million students. (see National Priorities Project-- The War in Iraq Costs)

26 hours to go until...

2007-07-05T20:28:00.000-07:00

07 07 07!!

I know this is a pretty gratuitous post, but... I'm celebrating my lucky birthday this weekend by playing a whole lot of beach Ultimate Frisbee, and the tournament is raising some money for one of my favorite organizations, Habitat for Humanity. So, I thought I'd see if anyone would be up to challenge me to play awesomely this weekend...

For every successful lay out (diving catch like this one) I make, I'll ask for 50 cents.

For every lay out in the end zone that results in a score, I'll ask for a dollar.

ANY TAKERS?

Now, this may not seem like a lot of incentive, but just imagine for a moment--Beach Ultimate is 5 on 5, the field is smaller than a regular ultimate field, and you have to run in SAND. HOT Sand.

My team, "Birthday Party!", will be playing 4 games on Saturday and at least two Sunday, so imagine all the chances for lay outs!!

***If you're interested in sponsoring me, please let me know by 8 am Saturday.***

And please feel free to come and watch! We'll be playing at Montrose Beach, usually in the sand just east of the park bathrooms. We've got maroon jerseys, a huge birthday cake/mug flag, and listen for someone playing "happy birthday," perhaps on a saxophone of some kind.

Also, everyone's welcome to continue the birthday party with burgers and dancing at the Hideout Saturday night.

More info TBA.

Love,
Steph

"may all your weeds be wildflowers..."

2007-06-26T20:43:00.000-07:00

I am hoping that something good will come out of the Supreme Court's ruling this week in PARENTS INVOLVED IN COMMUNITY SCHOOLS v. SEATTLE SCHOOL DISTRICT NO. 1 ET AL.

From Justice Breyer's Dissent: "...it undermines Brown’s promise of integrated primary and secondary education that local communities have sought to make a reality. This cannot be justified in the name of the Equal Protection Clause."

From Chief Justice Robert's Footnotes:
"14... Regardless of what JUSTICE BREYER’s goals might be, this Court does not sit to “create a society that includes all Americans” or to solve the problems of “troubled inner city schooling.” Ibid. We are not social engineers. The United States Constitution dictates that local governments cannot make decisions on the basis of race. Consequently, regardless of the perceived negative effects of racial imbalance, I will not defer to legislative majorities where the Constitution forbids it."

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Internet Radio is under siege! Free, independent broadcasters, that is... please check out www.savenetradio.org

The Internet Radio Equality Act will make it easier for smaller radio sites to stay on the air, by levelling the amount of royalties due to artists relative to corporation size and mission...

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Partners in Health has launched an interactive, on-line edition of The PIH Guide to the Community-Based Treatment of HIV in Resource-Poor Settings.

If you haven't read about PIH, or seen the case studies of Paul Farmer, like Pathologies of Power, now is the time. Their online model has the potential to exponentialize the way we connect to other orgs working with community based models of knowledge and practice...

Praying for the day that worldwide wifi changes our lives, so this discussion isn't limited to those who can access a computer and the internet. But still pretty awesome in its scope and possibility. Stay tuned...

darling, some chemical with your flowers?

2007-03-02T19:39:00.000-08:00

My friend Alexandra co-wrote this article, about cut flower growing in Columbia, where 62% of the flowers in the US market comes from...

Flower farmers aim to stem pesticides

Some Colombia growers have cut use, but workers are still at risk, consumer advocates say.

By Joshua Goodman/Alexandra Sossa
The Associated Press

February 28, 2007

BOGOTA, COLOMBIA - It's probably the last thing most people think about when buying roses but by the time the bright, velvety flowers reach your Valentine, they will have been sprayed, rinsed and dipped in a battery of potentially lethal chemicals.

Most of the toxic assault takes place in the waterlogged savanna surrounding the capital of Colombia, the world's second-largest cut-flower producer after the Netherlands. It produces 62% of all flowers sold in the United States.

With 110,000 employees - many of them single mothers - and annual exports of $1 billion, the industry provides an important alternative to growing coca. Coca is the source crop of the Andean nation's better known albeit illegal export: cocaine. But these economic gains come at a cost to workers' health and Colombia's environment, according to consumer advocates.

The United States requires imported flowers to be bug-free, but unlike edible fruits and vegetables they are not tested for chemical residues.

The tropical climate that drew U.S. flower growers to Colombia and neighboring Ecuador is a haven for pests. So growers facing stiff competition from emerging flower industries in Africa and China apply pesticides and fungicides, some of which have been linked to elevated rates of cancer and neurological disorders and other problems.

Colombia's flower exporters association responded by launching Florverde, which has certified 86 of its 200 members for taking steps to improve worker safety and welfare. Florverde says it members have reduced pesticide use by 38% since 1998.

"Every day we're making more progress," said Florverde Director Juan Carlos Isaza. "The value of Florverde is that these best practices have now been standardized and are being adopted by the industry."

Nevertheless, 36% of the toxic chemicals applied by Florverde farms in 2005 were listed as extremely or highly toxic by the World Health Organization, Isaza acknowledged.

A survey of 84 farms from 2000 to 2002, partly financed by Asocolflores, the exporters' association, found only 16.7% respected pesticide manufacturer recommendations to let 24 hours pass before workers reenter greenhouses sprayed with the most toxic of pesticides.

Carmen Orjuela began suffering dizzy spells and repeated falls in 1997 while working at a flower farm outside Bogota. During the peak season before Valentine's Day, she said her employer forced workers to enter greenhouses only half an hour after they had been fumigated.

"Those who refused were told they could leave - that 20 people were outside waiting to take their job," said Orjuela, who quit in 2004.

Orjuela's employer, Flores de la Sabana, denied ever disregarding manufacturer-recommended reentry times, but a 2005 toxicology study from Colombia's National University obtained by the Associated Press confirmed that Orjuela's illness was "directly related to an important exposure to potentially toxic chemical substances." A government arbiter finally ordered the company to pay her a pension equal to the $200 monthly minimum wage earned by most workers.

Government oversight is relatively strict in the United States - in California, each flower farm's pesticide use is available for review on the Internet. But there are no reliable statistics about chemicals used by Colombia's 600-plus flower farms, in part because only a third belong
to Asocolflores, which does keep good records.

Although the industry has made huge strides thanks to Florverde, accidents continue to happen.

On Nov. 25, 2003, about 200 workers at Flores Aposentos, outside Bogota, were hospitalized after fainting and developing sores inside their mouths. Authorities determined this mass poisoning could have been caused by any number of pesticide-handling violations, but fined the
company just $5,770.

Causal links between chemicals and individual illnesses are hard to prove because chronic pesticide exposure has not been studied in enough detail. But the Harvard School of Public Health examined 72 children ages 7 to 8 in a flower-growing region of Ecuador whose mothers were exposed to pesticides during pregnancy and found they had developmental delays of as many as four years on aptitude tests.

"Every time we look, we're finding out these pesticides are more dangerous than we ever thought before and more toxic at lower levels," said Philippe Grandjean, who led the Harvard study published last year.

Producers say they would love to go organic, especially given the high costs of pesticides. But their risks include infestations and stiff competition from emerging flower growers in Africa and China.

"The biggest hurdle to going organic is that once you're there you have to be prepared to lose your crop," said John Amaya, president of the Miami-based flower unit of Dole Food Co., Colombia's largest flower grower.

Still, U.S. consumers bought $16 million in organic flowers in 2005, and demand is growing by 50% a year, according to the Organic Trade Assn.

That growth has been helped by VeriFlora, a certification and labeling program launched by U.S. consumers, growers and retailers including Whole Foods Market Inc.

Some 32 farms in Colombia and Ecuador have earned the VeriFlora label.

missing these dynamic voices....

2007-02-03T15:57:00.000-08:00

I got word today that a leader of abahlali base mjondolo has passed on. Cosmos was a vibrant, passionate and loud voice for change, as well as a sound thinker in terms of strategy and how to build the movement. I only knew him briefly, but I'm sad to hear of abahlali's loss. Footage from his memorial service here

Among others I'm sure I am missing, the past week has also seen the passing of 3 more incredible souls who were able to combine their passions and gifts into lifelong commitment to the struggle for justice...

Adelaide Thambo, a lifelong ANC activist, escaped with husband Oliver from South Africa while the ANC was outlawed, to continue building the struggle from the outside.

see the South Africa History Archives for more about her life.

Father Robert Drinan, a Catholic priest who chose to run for Congress during the Vietnam war. He served for 10 years as congressman with a vocal anti-war message. I heard an old interview of his on the radio recently-- Drinan was asked if he regretted his decision to leave the House of Representatives when the pope said he had to choose between being a priest and being a congressman. Drinan said no. We make decisions, he said, and have to live with the choices we make, and make the best of it. Some great advice for a young and wandering activist, trying to decide what struggle is most connected to my passions, and in most need of my energies.

Molly Ivins--
(from Paul Krugman):

July 14, 2003: "I opposed the war in Iraq because I thought it would lead to the peace from hell, but I'd rather not see my prediction come true and I don't think we have much time left to avert it. That the occupation is not going well is apparent to everyone but Donald Rumsfeld. ... We don't need people with credentials as right-wing ideologues and corporate privatizers -- we need people who know how to fix water and power plants."

Oct. 7, 2003: "Good thing we won the war, because the peace sure looks like a quagmire... I've got an even-money bet out that says more Americans will be killed in the peace than in the war, and more Iraqis will be killed by Americans in the peace than in the war. Not the first time I've had a bet out that I hoped I'd lose."

Hoping to find a collection of her radio interviews... her Texan drawl ladened with a sarcastic wit that will be hard to best... see her recently replayed interview with Fresh Air's Terri Gross about "gang-plucking" and censorship

6 weeks out, and already democracy is the loser.

2007-01-20T09:27:00.000-08:00

I've been working on a campaign for alderman here in Chicago, for a great progressive candidate with loads of leadership and community experience.

we were kicked off the ballot by the alderman because i misfiled an economic statement--something that would have taken me 5 minutes to fix with a simple bit of lacking advice by the elections clerks (like "sorry honey, go up to the 5th floor, you file it there and bring the receipt for filing it to me"). or, if someone had checked the "no" box on the receipt I was given when handing in the improper document, instead of the "yes" box, which led me to believe I filed properly. apparently "yes" and "no" have a different definition to elections clerks than perhaps what reasonable people would assume they mean.

we didn't commit any fraud.

we didn't lie on any documents like alderman solis in the 25th ward who apparently had someone else sign his name for him.

we didn't submit wrong information on our D2s (campaign committee income and spending disclosure filed with the state) like the 48th ward alderman the first time she ran for re-election [she was appointed by mayor daley 17 years ago], and was fined for it.

had we submitted a fraudulent claim on our economic statement, the worst penalty is a $1000 fine. and you get to remain on the ballot.

had we submitted a fraudlent signature on my candidate's statement of candidacy, would our hearing officer at the elections board also have looked the other way as Solis's has?

big mistakes, little mistakes. two sets of rules.

The Sun-Times editorial yesterday says its time for a reality check in city elections : Felon candidates give logic a run for its money (Jan 19)

The Sun-Times's Mark Brown last week: Just getting on the ballot is more than half the battle

check out a place trying to work for change: IL Campaign for Political Reform

and a brand new site: democracy denied (i'll have a link as soon as it is live.)

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7 years later, democracy gets another look in Seattle:

The class action civil suit against the city of Seattle for wrongful arrest of protestors during the WTO ministerial conference in 1999--
from the seattle pi: Speaking out is no crime, WTO protesters' lawyer argues

Breuer for State Senate!!

2006-09-28T13:59:00.000-07:00

www.votebreuer.org

I'm running my friend Dorian's campaign for State Senate in Illinois's first district, against corporate-owned politician Tony Munoz, head of one of TWO competing democratic organizations in the area. What a mess. We ran into members of the machine that's not in office right now, and they're all about creating alliances. But to what end? Is it really about issues? Or is it still about who gets to control jobs and promotions in the government?

Rumor has it that Munoz will be indicted soon for his involvement in the political hiring scandals that are rocking city hall and the state goverment right now.

Munoz-- he sits on committees that deal with environmental policies and alcohol legislation. Guess who are his biggest funders? How bout Midwest Generation-- the coal power plant a few blocks from our campaign office, that is fighting against community activists asking for them to clean up the stuff they emit into the air.

How about more alcohol distributors than i realized existed in Illinois? How bout developers and real estate organizations? Check out Munoz's list of funders, who have given him a whopping $363,000.

My candidate? We've got 1/100th of that.

45 days to go.

the politics of organizing

2006-08-30T16:47:00.000-07:00

In These Times has a great article this month by Greg Bloom about the half-lives of organizers/canvassers at the Public Interest Research Groups (PIRGS).

It's about time that someone has done an in-depth expose of the realities of the PIRGs so-called "organizing" campaigns. The PIRGs success as moneymakers for progressive, and i'd say mainly white, issue driven organizations can't be disputed. But their practice of blowing through hundreds of young people every year to meet their bottom lines is creating a crisis for real, longlasting organizing. The PIRGs collect most of their money through door-to-door canvassing, which usually includes educating sympathetic folks on an issue in 2 minutes or less, then asking for money. How many times do these folks get plugged in to local community campaigns? I'm guessing not all that often. And sure, they get a lot of funds to lobby for legislation around important progressive issues, like health care and the environment. But how does this build power? How does this challenge the structures of power and influence and the cycles of inequity and injustice? How does this build a movement when they are union-busting their own employees?

Bloom has also written a 5 part series about Grassroots Campaigns, Inc, called "Strip-mining the Grassroots", the campaign organization that MoveOn and the DNC have contracted in the last 2 election cycles to do their fundraising and fieldwork. It's a pretty depressing story about the frustrations of the folks on the ground struggling to deal with a pretty rigid nationwide structure set up to get numbers out on election day. Improvisation or getting creative about organizing or building leaders was not part of the gameplan, nor was what to do post November 2nd.

GCI and the PIRGs have a lot in common. And they are helping to alienate a whole generation of young progressive organizers. It's a crying shame. As a former union organizer who has wondered about these multitudes of passionate young (and many not-so-young) activists who have spent a few years in labor and other movement campaigns only to get burned out on the work, i ask myself what would it take for this cycle to end? Is there a way to really do movement building AND not create a whole generation of jaded organizers?

I wrote to Bloom to ask him if there were others talking about new organizing paradigms. He says the National Organizers Alliance (NOA) has a few ideas about how to create more sustainable systems of organizing that hopefully challenge this hella patriarchal and hierarchical model. We definitely need to think of something.

Sure, organizing work is not for everyone. But organizations like the PIRGs and GCI, as well as many labor types, make this work unavailable for almost everyone. To really create a progressive, sustainable movement, we need to think about how to do things differently. A cut-throat attitude might be necessary to fulfill deadlines in tight races and in short term campaigns, but that mentality takes us nowhere if we try to use it down the road--it builds very little that is capable of being sustained past a campaign or election cycle. The folks in charge are not in it to build relationships. They want numbers. They want dollars. They live in the most present, present tense. Their "it's our way or the highway" mantra leaves no room for building consensus or promoting a diversity of views or workstyles or workers. If we are really into challenging the powers that be, we can't continue to be players in the same game, following the same rules. To play by "the master's rules" means that we are still working within the language and reality of oppression. We have to change the model. There's just too much at stake.

See also Beating Bush: Dispatches from the Grassroots Trenches of Election 2004

no longer fearing the truth...

2006-08-04T20:46:00.000-07:00

Tonight I finally went to see An Inconvenient Truth, Al Gore's movie about climate change.

Have you seen this movie? It's one of the best presentations I've ever seen of scientific data-- about the unprecedented changes in climate in the past 35 years, how in the next 50 years we could lose a significant amount of the world's glaciers and with them many of the world's water sources, how a significant melt of the ice sheets in the antarctic and greenland are possible and could raise sea levels 20 feet, drowning the homes of 60 million people around the world.

scary shit... but, Al's last graph shows how we can reduce carbon emissions to lower than 1970 levels by just focusing on a few major changes, like moving toward renewable energies, focusing on local govt policies that fight global warming, and reducing personal carbon emissions-- see more here about what you can do.

i also found a link for Earth 911, a clearinghouse for recycling info.

why are we letting this happen? i want my grandkids to be able to see glacier national park like i just saw it...

it's bad already, not a lot of snow left.

all it takes to start is to change your lightbulbs...

democracy and blue bags...

2006-07-23T14:39:00.000-07:00

so it's about time, the reader has done a pretty rad expose of the reasons behind the continued promotion of blue bags in the city's FAILED recycling program. Some of my favorite excerpts:

* the city uses yard waste to greatly increase the city's overall recycling numbers
* there is no enforcement for recycling for the majority of residences and business in the city
* mayor daley's BROTHER (surprised?) used to work for Allied Resources, who won the original contract for collecting recyclables and sorting blue bagged materials.
--------------------------------------

SEIU has been running kick ass trainings for local citizen activists thinking about running for alderman or getting involved in the local process.

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there's a pivotal vote on Wednesday morning at City Hall regarding the Big Box Living Wage Ordinance. Walmart has apparently brought in 5 of their top execs to meet with aldermen, with proposals to build 10 supercenters in town: "Where do you want it?"

If Costco is able to give their workers a living wage and health insurance in the city, than so can Target, Walmart and other big box stores. It's that simple. This vote has implications nationwide. so call your alderperson. or, come downtown, the hearing is at 10 am.

war--what is it good for?

2006-05-27T08:19:00.000-07:00

there's a great article by James M Skelly at Open Democracy's website comparing the experiences of soldiers in Vietnam with those today in Iraq... A snip:

"...War, with its organised killing, also calls into question the meaningfulness of life and the societies we live in. Like no other collective activity that a society can engage in, war challenges the core values and norms that guide us in our daily lives, and it has the capacity to undermine the fundamental structures and institutions of society....

"When we are authorising the killing of large numbers of people – including some whom we consider "our own" – it is right that a significant majority must believe it is meaningful and legitimate. And that belief must be held most strongly of all by those who will carry out the killing, and who may in turn be killed: the soldiers....

"Charles Sheehan Miles, a veteran of the first Gulf war, remembered engaging two Iraqi trucks that caught fire. As one of the occupants ran ablaze from the truck, Miles fired his machine-gun and instantly killed him. His immediate response was, he said,"a sense of exhilaration, of joy", but a split second later he felt "a tremendous feeling of guilt and remorse". The image of the man on fire, running and dying, stayed with him "for years and years and years," he said. His unit returned home amidst great celebration and he was awarded a medal, yet he felt, in his words, "probably the worst person alive".

"Subsequently, Miles went to the military chaplain and told him that he didn't think he would be able to kill again. "It's not that I couldn't, it's that I knew I could. Because it was … it was so easy to pull the trigger and kill people. Yes, I was afraid of what would happen. I was afraid of what it would do to me. What kind of person I would become."

"For some soldiers the challenge to their principles is so great that the animal that lurks beneath our humanity comes to the fore. As Chris Hedges remarks, "Fundamental questions about the meaning, or meaninglessness, of our place on the planet are laid bare when we watch those around us sink to the lowest depths. War exposes the capacity for evil that lurks not far below the surface within all of us."

Read the rest here.

Ruckus Society and Indyvoter have teamed up with the Coup to create Not Your Soldier: Youth Counter Recruitment Camps. There's a great video bout the project.
**********************
Global Movement for Children released a report yesterday on the numbers of children with HIV.

Saving Lives: Children’s right to HIV and AIDS treatment, says 700,000 children were infected with the HIV virus in 2005, bringing the number of children with the virus worldwide to over 2 million. The study also says that only about 1 in 20 kids who need HIV treatment receive it.

**********************
Also, word that unemployment assistance is due to run out in New Orleans for 80,000 people on June 3rd. Not sure if the bill to extend assistance, H.R. 5392, made it to the floor on friday to get a vote before the memorial holiday. friday was the last day that Congress will be in session before the 3rd.
See Color of Change.

**********************
stress relief dancing tonight... with life during wartime!
saturday may 27th @ hideout L.D.W.'s "dancINthehideOUT" Residency
Bald Eagle Mother Hubbard J2K 11PM - 3AM 21+ LATE START TONIGHT Y'ALL
1354 W. Wabansia Ave. hideoutchicago.com

the real story in darfur

2006-05-22T12:07:00.000-07:00

today on worldview, chi public radio's global affairs program, there was a discussion with a filmmaker/conflict resolution practitioner, Jen Marlowe, who just finished working on a film interviewing refugees in Darfur.

The movie, Darfur Diaries: Message from Home, will be shown at Dusable Museum of African American History, today, Monday, May 22 @ 7 pm; and Tuesday, May 23 @ 11 am and 7 pm, at 740 East 56th Place-- at 57th and Cottage Grove, along the west edge of Hyde Park.

While in Darfur collecting the stories of refugees, the filmmakers met up with Darfur Peace & Development, an org they say is rooted in the community's struggle to bring education and development to their kids and families. Marlowe said they witnessed mothers in the camps--which are 80% women and children--taking their children out to a spot in the sand, and under the blazing sun, beginning to teach their kids themselves.

She also talked about the realities of the Darfur situation that are not making it to the airwaves/into the news--people in the camps say that in fact the government and the janjaweed militia are working together, and that many refugees remain afraid for their lives with this government in charge of maintaining the "peace" that was recently negotiated between rival groups . For more info on this movie and the story compilation, see Code Blue: Darfur.

Also:
Human Rights Watch
Amnesty International
Save Darfur
other links at Darfur Diaries

feliz cinco de mayo...

2006-05-06T08:23:00.000-07:00

may day in chicago brought 400,000 people downtown for a march and rally at grant park in support of immigrants rights...

indymedia photos here, mine up soon.

tonite is the 33rd annual Salsedo press party, always the Best party of the year
Salsedo is a worker-owned union printer collective that has been printing for the progressive community in Chicago since 1969.

Proceeds to benefit the Common Ground Collective, who are helping to rebuild communities in New Orleans thru assistance and mutual-aid.
3139 W. Chicago | 773-533-9900 | $15 before 10 PM, $20 after

april 10 immigrants rights day of action

2006-04-01T18:20:00.000-08:00

see Delete the Border.org.

also, photos from tremendously large immigrants rights protest in LA, on Mar 25.

scahill: a not so widely reported story bout the death of milosevic

2006-03-17T16:14:00.000-08:00

Rest Easy, Bill Clinton: Milosevic Can't Talk Anymore

by Jeremy Scahill
15 March 2006

Slobodan Milosevic is characterized in the obituaries as the "Butcher of the Balkans." If that is the story you want to read about, please go to almost any other media outlet and read it again and again. Some are now suggesting that death is Milosevic's final revenge, that he "ended up cheating history" by dying before judgment was passed. But the world has already passed judgment on Milosevic, and what is being cheated by his death is history itself.

What the corporate media overwhelmingly ignores in Milosevic's death is what they ignored in his life as well – his intimate knowledge of U.S. war crimes in Yugoslavia. While Milosevic was undoubtedly a war criminal who deserved to be tried for his crimes, he was also the only man in the unique position of being able to expose and detail the full extent of the U.S. role in the bloody disintegration of Yugoslavia in the 1990s. In fact, that is precisely what he was fighting to do at his war crimes trial when he died.

Because of the rule of victors' justice in the ad hoc tribunal system (a poor and unfair substitute for a true international court), Milosevic's case would have been the only international trial to potentially expose the details of the illegal, U.S.-led NATO bombing of Yugoslavia for 78 days in 1999. While the U.S.-backed court consistently tried to limit Milosevic's right to speak, stripping him of his right to self-representation, Milosevic battled regularly to raise U.S. war crimes. Sadly, with Milosevic will likely die the last hope the victims of these crimes in Yugoslavia had of getting their day (if it could even be called that) in court – a tragic and unjust reality to begin with that speaks volumes about the twisted state of international justice.

Milosevic's cause, regardless of what one thinks of it, was a casualty of 9/11 – an event that relegated him and his trial to the annals of history before it was even over. Most people in the world – with the exception of those in the Balkans, where the proceedings were broadcast live, daily – probably didn't even know Milosevic was still on trial in The Hague. It became an obscure sideshow to the blood and gore unfolding constantly on the international stage.

Milosevic's death means that those who bombed Yugoslavia for 78 days beginning seven years ago this month, killing thousands, will be once and for all protected from any public scrutiny for their crimes. However opportunistic Milosevic may have been, he would have been one of the few people to appear at The Hague who could have – and would have – laid out these crimes in great detail. Now, there is almost certain to be no condemnation of the U.S. bombing of Radio Television Serbia, killing 16 media workers; the cluster bombing of the Nis marketplace, shredding human beings into meat; the use of depleted uranium munitions; and the targeting of petrochemical plants, causing toxic chemical waste to pour into the Danube River. There will be no condemnation of the bombing of Albanian refugees by the U.S., or the deliberate targeting of a civilian passenger train, or the bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade. Milosevic also would have discussed how the U.S. supports a regime in Kosovo that has systematically expelled Serbs, Romas, and other ethnic minorities from their homes and burned down scores of churches. He would have discussed the role of the U.S. in funding and arming the Kosovo Liberation Army, which operates like a death squad, and how the new prime minister of Kosovo, Agim Ceku, is a U.S.-trained war criminal who gained infamy in both the Bosnian war and the 1999 Kosovo conflict. And Milosevic would have talked of the U.S. interference in the Yugoslav elections in 2000 and the ultimate neoliberal takeover that was the aim of Clinton's sanctions and 78 days of bombing. In reality, it would have fallen on deaf ears, but it would have been stated for the record.

It is ironic that Milosevic's last legal battle was an attempt to compel his old friend-turned-nemesis Bill Clinton to testify at his trial. If successful, Milosevic would have grilled the man who was U.S. president through the entire Yugoslav war in what would have been a fiery direct examination. Clinton and Milosevic were once pals who talked collective strategy in the 1990s. Milosevic had many damning stories to tell and, without a doubt, uncomfortable questions to ask Clinton. The judges in Milosevic's case clearly worked to keep those moments from ever happening, and the U.S. government made clear its forceful opposition to such subpoenas of U.S. officials, even considering invading a country that would put a U.S. official on trial. With or without Clinton, Milosevic's defense would have brought to light some serious documentation of U.S. war crimes, but he died, muzzled, before he really got started.

Little attention, therefore, has been paid to Milosevic's long-term efforts – which predated 9/11, the 1999 NATO bombing, and his own trial – to expose the presence of al-Qaeda in the Balkans, from Bosnia to Kosovo. With 9/11, Milosevic's talk of al-Qaeda was easily dismissed as laughable, pathetic opportunism. But those who followed Milosevic's career and more importantly the events of the 1990s in Yugoslavia know it was not. Those allegations were based on events the U.S. does not want discussed in an international court. Following the defeat of the Soviets in Afghanistan in the 1980s, many mujahedin eventually turned their sights on Yugoslavia, where they went to fight alongside the Bosnian Muslims against the Orthodox Serbs and Catholic Croats. Once again, the U.S. and bin Laden were on the same team. To this day, there are reports of training camps in Bosnia, which remains under occupation. It is also a likely training ground for future blowback.

In his opening statement, Milosevic alluded to some of the information he would introduce during his defense.

In 1998 when [Clinton envoy Richard] Holbrooke visited us in Belgrade, we told him the information we had at our disposal, that in Northern Albania the KLA is being aided by Osama bin Laden, that he was arming, training, and preparing the members of this terrorist organization in Albania. However, they decided to cooperate with the KLA and indirectly, therefore, with bin Laden, although before that he had bombed the embassies in Kenya and Tanzania [and] had already declared war.

Milosevic concluded that "one day all this will have to come to light, these links."

That, however, is unlikely, and more so now that Milosevic is dead.

To be sure, there will never be indictments of these U.S. war criminals at The Hague: Bill Clinton, Madeleine Albright, Jamie Rubin, William Cohen, Sandy Berger, Richard Holbrooke, and Wesley Clark. For many of Serbia's victims of U.S. war crimes, Milosevic's trial was a "Hail Mary" pass, as awful an historical irony as that is, aimed at someone recognizing their forgotten suffering.

It is a sad testimony to the state of international jurisprudence that after many attempts to find justice, the only hope for U.S. victims in the Yugoslavia wars was the trial defense of a man many of those same victims despised. If there was an independent international court that was recognized and respected by the U.S., those responsible for bombing Yugoslavia would have been alongside Slobodan Milosevic in the docks these past years instead of having their responsibility buried with him.

originally posted at antiwar.com

democracy doesn't get any better than this...

2006-02-24T13:49:00.000-08:00

some highlights from bill moyers on a recent speaking tour:

“...Thirty years ago the average annual compensation of the top 100 chief executives in the country was 30 times the pay of the average worker. Today it is 1000 times the pay of the average worker. A recent article in The Financial Times reports on a study by the American economist Robert J. Gordon, who finds “little long-term change in workers’ share of U.S. income over the past half century.” Middle-ranking Americans are being squeezed, he says, because the top ten percent of earners have captured almost half the total income gains in the past four decades and the top one percent have gained the most of all – “more in fact, than all the bottom 50 percent.”

“Since Bush was elected the number of lobbyists registered to do business in Washington has more than doubled. That’s 16,342 lobbyists in 2000 to 34,785 last year. Sixty-five lobbyists for every member of Congress.”

“...early in his political career, and with exquisite timing and the help of some videos from the right wing political evangelist, James Dobson, Tom DeLay found Jesus and became a full-fledged born again Christian. He would later humbly acknowledge that God had chosen him to restore America to its biblical worldview. “God,” said Tom DeLay, “has been walking me through an incredible journey…God is using me, all the time, everywhere…God is training me. God is working with me…”

Moyers: “Yes, indeed: God does work in mysterious ways.”

oh, and katherine armstrong, hostess at the infamous ranch where cheney shot his friend, happened to be on the board of halliburton when cheney was hired.

read it all here.

Thousands being evicted in New Orleans

2006-02-18T01:49:00.000-08:00

On February 13, leases were due to expire for a lot of homeless New Orleans residents and workers, who have been temporarily housed by FEMA around the city in hotels and on cruise ships. With the Mardi Gras holiday approaching, and expected tourist influx, temporary residents are being forced to find other shelter.

On Monday, February 16, thousands of people were served with eviction notices. FEMA's transitional housing program is supposed to aid New Orleans residents through the entire process of relocation to a permanent (or semi-permanent) home. But hundreds of trailers brought in by rail are sitting unused, and people staying temporarily at hotels are overwhelming the FEMA call centers for extensions on their temporary housing at hotels. Some people have received extensions, but even that does not mean staying is a sure thing--some hotel managers are doing room inspections and choosing who can stay and who must go.

See New Orleans Housing Emergency Action Team, No-Heat, and the People's Hurricane Relief Fund.

From the PHRF's website:

People’s Hurricane Relief Fund Statement on Gulf South Housing Crisis, February 9th, 2006

In the wake of thousands of hotel evictions on Tuesday and with thousands more being made homeless in the weeks to come, hurricane Katrina survivors are continuing to struggle for long term housing, a right to return to their communities and justice in the rebuilding process. Government failure on housing issues has manifested in several ways:

1) FEMA and the Federal Government have failed to comply with the Stafford Act, which specifically states that those impacted by a national disaster would receive housing and assistance for 18 months. It has been less than 6 months. The US government is out of compliance with civil and international law and should be held accountable for failing to make housing justice a reality.

2) Not only are people being evicted from hotel rooms and struggling to get trailers, but many communities are also under threat of corporate takeover from the Baker Bill. This disastrous plan will put property into the hands of wealthy developers and leave hurricane survivors without any chance of rebuilding their communities or contributing to decisions about how rebuilding takes place.

3) Although Congressional Black Caucus Bill HR 4197 has been drafted as a long-term plan for housing, a recovery, this bill has not yet received critical attention in congress nor has it moved towards a vote.

Many Survivors have organized into a grassroots coalition called the People’s Hurricane Relief Fund and Oversight Coalition. We are working to fight home demolitions without notice and illegal evictions, for the rights and means to return and rebuild our lives and our communities and for a process to seek justice. Without federal support, however, some relief and rebuilding efforts have been stalled in the arbitrary process of FEMA and the needs and voices of community action are being silenced by corporate greed. It is time for the Federal government to stand up for the human rights of survivors: by empowering communities to lead their own relief process and by passing legislation that makes affordable housing a national priority.

We are reaching out to all justice loving people to join The People’s Hurricane Fund on February 13th and March 1st, to oppose government enforced mass homelessness and to call for long-term housing options with community control of property decisions.

From Indymedia New Orleans:

On March 1st, the New Orleans homeless population will skyrocket, and the basic rights of Katrina survivors will be trampelled again. FEMA's short-term hotel program expires for virtually all of the thousands of displaced hurricane survivors and most of these evacuees have not been provided with long-term, or even transitional housing solutions. For those lucky enough to have gained access to FEMA's long-term resources, many have been told they must live far from their jobs, far from homes needing repair, and out of reach of their communities. Transitional housing is meant to aid people in fixing up their houses and reclaiming their previous lives. Despite not having any local long-term housing for the hotel guests, mercenary security groups are on call to evict people at gun point. There are three groups of people who are making the decision to evict these people; these three groups should be the targets of our dissent.

******
a friend of mine has been in New Orleans for the past few months, working as an organizer for Peoples Hurricane Relief Fund. Ingrid is a part of the Catalyst Project in the bay area. here is her latest email:

Date: Thu, 16 Feb 2006 21:09:26 -0800
From: Ingrid
Subject: Ingrid in New Orleans update 2

Hey all,

I want to thank folks who have written or called to check in with me and offer support. I have been missing you all a lot. And have been feeling so much love and appreciation for my folks back in the bay and other friends I have been in touch with. I am sorry that I am not sending out more frequent updates. So much happens here every day. This is a long email, but also just scrapes the surface of everything that is going on.

This last weekend and Monday were real hard. There is so much crazy shit happening and not the resources we need in terms of organizers. Thousands of people were evicted Monday from the hotels here thousands more will most likely be evicted on the 1st of March, totaling around 10,000 people. The organizing for Monday's evictions was very last minute. Peoples Hurricane Relief Fund has been organizing with survivors all over the city but the connection to organizing tenets in the hotels that were facing eviction has been limited. We fliered all the major hotels that were housing FEMA guests on Friday. Saturday night we had a meeting of about 30 people from the hotels. Sunday morning did a small action that the residents had decided on at one of the FEMA trailer parks demanding that they give the empty trailers to folks being evicted. Sunday night had another meeting with folks staying at the hotels, had less folks maybe 20 residents and decided on a protest at city hall that morning and to do outreach at all the major hotels that morning for it. Monday morning was for the most part a failure. We missed many people who had left the night before and people who were leaving through out the day. Many folks did get extensions until March 1st after calling FEMA dozens and dozens of time until they could finally find some one who would work with them. It is unclear how many people were evicted out of the 10,000 and it is unclear where they all went. Many were taken in by family members and friends but many did not have that as an option. The Gov had set up busses to take people to a shelter in Baton Rouge. But most people who were staying in the hotels have jobs in New Orleans so they can't be bused out of the city.

I know this kind of stuff is happening constantly every where but it is on such a large scale here. It is hard to believe that this kind of cruelty can just keep coming. People have gone through so much and the extreme disregard for their safety and lives just keeps coming. And what do we do. The total desperation, talking to folks the last couple days and these are folks who came out to a meeting to try and organize something. Trying to fight back as a group. I feel like my heart keeps on breaking but I can't let it out because everyone is going through so much and they are trying to hold it together.

We had a few very small victories amongst all the horrible loss. We had decided with residents to go to one hotel at 7 am were the owner was interviewing people one by one who had gotten a FEMA extension until March 1st and inspecting their rooms and then would decide whether he would let them stay. So we had a couple folks from PHRF there and some New York Times reporters and independent documentary filmmaker there to support the tenants. In the end no one who had the extension were evicted from that hotel. Also Sunday night a family came to the meeting who had been put out of there hotel early so after the meeting we went with them to the hotel and made the front desk lady so nervous with our crew in the lobby that she soon allowed the family back into the hotel. I have to hold onto the small victories when so much horrible stuff is going down.

We have a couple weeks to prepare for the march 1st evictions so organizers with PHRF will be going out to hotels daily and building relationships with folks and inviting them to the survivors meetings, which happen every Saturday. Plugging them into the larger network of residents organizing. An idea is to potentially trying to make living space for folks in the lower 9th ward in houses that others have offered up for residents to stay in while they are rebuilding there home. This is part of the strategy of getting people back into the lower ninth and occupying the land making it harder for developers to just take it.

Yesterday I went to the save our lands reconstruction work group meeting of mostly lower 9th ward residents. We talked about a plan for going block by block gutting houses, tarpping roofs and getting houses structurally sound and the basics repaired. Prioritizing houses of people who will let other residents stay in their home wile they are rebuilding other homes. We talked about the basic things that people need to return home like schools, healthcare, jobs and food. So we talked about trying to get into the Martin Luther King elementary school and fixing that up so it can open. Which would also take a bunch of legal and political work, as it is a public school. Talked about trying to get funding to set up apprenticeship programs through the rebuilding effort that people get paid $10 per hour and healthcare while learning a trade. We talked about trying to find land to build a grocery store, because there was no grocery store even before the hurricanes and the need to pressure banks to make loans to black people. We talked about the levee which the government has not even begun rebuilding and rebuilding a section of the levee them selves demonstrating the govs lack accountability and action to secure the safety of black residents in the lower ninth.

The reconstruction work group comes out of a larger body of residents that are mostly from the lower ninth ward but also from other parts of the city. They have and organizing work group, which strategizes on how to bring people back to New Orleans and get them involved in the organizing efforts, media work group, finance and fundraising work group, which PHRF has handed over the money it has raised to be managed by the survivors in this work group and the reconstruction work group. At the Saturday meetings all the work groups report back to the larger body and get feedback on the priorities and strategies for work they are taking on.

The main work I have been doing with PHRF has been working on building and supporting the reconstruction work group. The first 3 weeks I was actually doing a lot of carpentry work on our first house in the upper 9th. Then the direction of the reconstruction workgroup shifted and will be moving our work into the lower ninth but is taking a good amount of time supporting the residents coming together and building the leadership that will be directing the physical reconstruction work and the organizational form it will take.

The other main thing I have been working on is supporting organizing efforts within common ground to be building a stronger anti-racist culture and practice. This is difficult as it always is among large groups of mostly white activists but slowly slowly things are building. We started and anti-racism committee that is trying to strategize around how to work with the Thousands (I am not exaggerating) of mostly white volunteers who will be coming to New Orleans to work with common ground during spring break. Which is pretty crazy considering there is a huge housing crisis and there is very few affordable places for residents who want to live here, with many of the homes still being uninhabitable and major price gouging of rents by land lords. In most areas the rents have quadrupled or sextupled. Even PHRF is going to have hundreds of mostly black students come through out March to volunteer. On top of all the ongoing organizing and the March 1st evictions we have a couple weeks to figure out the logistics for housing, food, political education and coordination of all these students. Oh it is a little over whelming.

OK that was a long email. Congratulations if you made it all the way through. For those of you who did not get my first email update it is below. I miss you all and hope you are doing well.

Love,
Ingrid
----------------------------------------------
Update #1

Hey all,

So I don't even know where to start. I have been in New Orleans for 2 weeks and it feels like 6 months. I have felt totally inspired, angry, sad, despair, hope, appreciation, love, frustration, empowerment, humility all so intensely in such a short amount of time. I feel like I am learning a million lessons a minute in terms of organizing, solidarity, leadership and power. I feel that right now in New Orleans this is a historic moment with so much potential and possibility for building a movement of working class folks that is unstoppable and can really inspire and impact organizing all over this country.

Two examples of meeting I attended in the last 24 hours. Last night I attended a meeting of migrant workers from all over who are camping out at the city park and paying over $300 a month to live in a tent at the park and $5 per shower. These workers are rebuilding New Orleans. The park has been mostly segregated into different camp sites of Latino workers, Apache workers, white workers, and black workers with racial tensions and divisions super high. Who with the help of organizers from the Peoples Hurricane Relief Fund came together, created a list of demands of basic necessities such as having the port-o-potties cleaned more often, free hot showers, more water spigots distributed through out the sight, a formal eviction process, a first aid tent and other things of that nature. A private company called Storm Force had gotten a contract with the city park to set up these camp sights and charge people all this money but wanted to give in return nothing and were threatening to evict everyone off the land using the national guard.

Last night the campers met with the company management in the dark with only the light of a fire in a metal garbage can a few flash lights. A spokes person picked by the campers presented the demands and the management had to respond. Management was so scared one of them even started crying. They did not agree to all the demands but small victories were made and negotiations will continue. The campers are no longer at this point under threat of eviction, and won some victories, but most importantly to me they came together and organized despite racial divides and tensions and showed there power through organizing and can serve as a model or inspiration for other workers in New Orleans right now.

Today I went to a meeting of residents of the lower ninth ward. We met in this small blue house that common ground folks had fixed up. It is a block away from where the barge hit the levee. It looks like a massive bomb went off, most of the houses right there no longer exist they are piles of wood, gravel, glass, rusty metal and peoples personal belongings. Non of the residents can actually live there but 50 or so of them return there twice a week to meet share their stories, their struggles and discus how it is they can bring there neighbors back, stop the land grab, rebuild there homes and communities and organize a strong force of survivors that can do this against tremendous odds. These folks have lost so much, their homes, friends and family members and the government is trying to take even more. Solidarity is almost not an option for many residents. I can see the pain and the fire in there eyes. They have to do this, they can do this. They need support but the collective will is there. As folks outside New Orleans we must not let the collective conscious die away from the situation here. It is so important for all of us who are struggling for a just world. I know the movement here can strengthen the movement every where. But folks need solidarity from outside New Orleans, cause the odds are high, but the will is here.

I have decided to stay until the end of February. I will not be able to follow through on many of my responsibilities for the month of February and I don't want to be a flake, but I know that nothing will fall apart with out me there cause the folks I work with are all solid. I feel there is a lot I can contribute down here and learn. In particular there are hundreds of mostly young white volunteers from outside New Orleans with Common Ground who need some support right now. They have a huge operation providing tones of needed services, but you can imagine what happens when you bring together 250 young white folks and put them in the middle of African American community devastated by more than the unfortunate average of racial and class exploitation. There are folks who are reflecting and trying to figure out how to move the culture and structure of the organization to an anti-racist one but need support. I have always a tone to learn but I also have some experience and lessons I have learned that I can use to support this work. And I feel like I can not walk away from this right now. This work is vital in terms of the movement down here and what direction it goes. This support has been asked of me and I feel this is a moment right now that I must engage in.

There is so much more I could say and stories I could share but I feel over whelmed trying to write it all down plus is would be a hella long email. So please feel free to call. When I find time to talk it helps me process and provides me an opportunity to get the word out about what it is I am seeing and experiencing. I will write again later and let you know more about the specific projects I am working on but this is it for now. I will miss you all but will be back before you know it.

Love and Struggle,
Ingrid

2 weeks from 1 year to go...

2006-02-15T03:36:00.000-08:00

that's right... almost time to get geared up for another Chicago election!

February 27, 2007: the mayor and all 50 city ward seats are up for election. So, to get ready, this site's gonna undergo a few minor changes, hopefully with a specific focus to local democracy building and campaigns over the next year, with writers and people not so often available in the mainstream. So stay tuned. Until then, check these out:

"Dueling Dynasties: With Chicago's Mayor Daley Embroiled in Scandal, Jesse Jackson Jr. Eyes the 2007 Race," by Ethan Michaeli, in In These Times

Barack Obama has announced a new bill to create an independent commission to play watchdog to campaign finance issues. See the details here, or Obama's explanation here.

Congress last week, by 2 votes, passed the reconciliation bill that includes MASSIVE CUTS to student funding for college. this is a horrible thing. we will be organizing during the house election races this fall. if you voted against us, we know who you are. See more info at Indyvoter.org

And finally, and it's about time, my alma mater is making some good strides in building a better relationship with the Woodlawn neighborhood. Check "Due South," a great article from the alumni magazine.

ohio 1, 2 punch

2006-02-04T15:51:00.000-08:00

there was a piece in one of the weekly news mags recently about the possible scope of the abramoff lobbying scandal and who might rise from the ashes amid the republican reshuffle... it looks like the winner is... Ohio Rep. John Boehner, a real ironic choice for majority leader to replace DeLay, given Boehner's similarly scandalous proclivity toward campaign contributions. outside of lavish trips and beachfront parties for high donors, he's got Sallie Mae on his rolodex, and as a member of the House's Education and Workforce committee, he is called "the rep from Sallie Mae." (Borosage, GOP's Pre-owned leader, tompaine.com)

Borosage's article continues:

"Sallie Mae is the leading provider of loans to college students and their parents, and Boehner has consolidated his leadership by dispensing big bucks raised from lenders in campaign and party contributions. In fact, the Center for Responsive Politics reports that Sallie Mae is the biggest donor to Boehner's political action committee, called Freedom Project. In return, he protects their interest. Most recently, he helped develop and push through legislation that may weaken the loan industry’s competition — the Direct Student Loan program, where students bypass Sallie Mae and others and borrow directly from the government. While taking it to their competition, Boehner openly reassured bankers that they would not be harmed greatly by this legislation — as reported in the Chronicle of Education — he informed a group of bankers that they could rest easy in his “trusted hands.”

"College tuition is soaring, and grant levels aren’t keeping up. Under Boehner’s leadership, Congress has refused to raise the top level of Pell grants, despite repeated campaign pledges by George W. Bush to do so. As a result, more and more students have to work part time, while taking on ever greater levels of debt to pay for college. Already, hundreds of thousands are having college priced out of reach; thousands more drop out, unable to sustain the burden of classes and work and debt. And those that do make it will find the difficult burden of paying of those loans just got harder."

and what could be worse? How about House Bill 3, Ohio's answer to "election reform?" Some of the highlights from Columbus LPOV:

require all voters to show an ID when they vote. This will disenfranchise a very targeted 10 to 20% of Ohio voters, with African Americans, college students, the elderly, and the homeless being hit the hardest.

open voter registration activists to prosecution making it virtually impossible for groups to register large numbers of voters

exempt electronic voting machines from public scrutiny

quintuple the cost of citizen-requested statewide recounts

make it illegal to challenge a presidential vote count in the state of Ohio

create 14 different situations that would bar a voter from voting on a machine. Instead, those voters would be required to cast provisional ballots. In 2004, at least 22% of Ohio's provisional ballots were thrown out.
Read the full text of HB3 here

this week's top 3

2006-01-31T02:57:00.000-08:00

E xxon-Mobil: $36 billion in profits, tops of any corporation, any time, any place. [and what is all this talk about the oil barons being in the middle east?]
Congress is set to massively cut funds to student loans, by $12.7 BILLION, shifting more of the burden on families and students. [like the average american needs more debt.]
The South African port authority has detained a Sea Shepherd society boat in Cape Town that was trailing Japanese whaling vessels along with a Greenpeace ship to try to get in the way of the whale harpoons.

voicesphoto

2006-01-25T06:58:00.000-08:00

waiting is so hard to do.
2 months already since i captured your face (almost).

missing you, newton. til soon.

great article on evo morales' victory in bolivia

2006-01-09T04:56:00.000-08:00

and the US webs of influence...

Bolivia: Revolution Through the Ballot?

By Aijaz Ahmad 9 January 2006

here's just a taste from toward the end:

"...[T]he U.S. has been intimately involved in the military affairs of the Bolivian state since the revolutionary days of the 1950s and 60s when it became obsessed with what it called "internal subversion" in Bolivia. Initial training programmes were conducted through U.S. surrogates in Argentina. By 1963, however, Bolivia had more graduates from the United States Army Special Warfare School at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, than any other country in Latin America, while direct military aid increased, in currency values of that time, from $100,000 in 1958 to $3.2 million in 1964. In 1962-63 alone, a total of 659 officers were trained at the School of the Americas while 20 of the 23 senior-most officers of the Bolivian army were brought there for extended visits. The killing of Che was the high point of their success, and these men and their subordinates, backed by U.S. agencies, destroyed the revolutionary and populist forces of Bolivia and imposed a brutal military dictatorship which paved the way for oligarchic rule and neoliberal regimes for the next two decades. Since then, the Bolivian army has been the creature of the U.S. At present, that U.S. stranglehold on the security apparatus of Bolivia is conducted under the name of "war on drugs" upon which "war on terrorism" has been grafted more recently.

"Over the past four years, as popular uprisings engulfed Bolivia, the U.S. is said to have poured more than $150 million a year in military and `social' aid, largely in the name of containing drug trafficking, though the real amounts are likely to be much higher. The main focus in the so-called "war on drugs" is of course on Colombia, which shares a strategic border with Venezuela, but in Bolivia itself this "war is conducted by about a dozen different agencies, all funded by the U.S., which go far and wide into Bolivian society to conduct this "war." Even so, and in addition to all that, U.S. training and equipping of Bolivian military and police forces skyrocketed again from 2003 onwards, as the rise of Morales became imminent, just as it had escalated in the revolutionary days of 40 years ago. Bolivia again became, next to Colombia itself, the second largest Latin American recipient of U.S. military training, and the number of Bolivian personnel receiving such training went up from 531 in 2000 to 2,054 in 2003. Meanwhile, the U.S. has also been positioning weapons and personnel in neighbouring Paraguay. The point here is that the combination of this U.S.-trained army and the U.S.-aligned oligarchic power is quite formidable. Morales may be able to defeat them but the going shall be tough. In comparison to the ordeals ahead, the heady ride to power at the head of a historic people's uprising may begin to feel like a mere picnic before tremors of an earthquake set in."

from: Centre for Civil Society, January 9, 2006.

The Blue bag blues

2005-12-18T13:55:00.000-08:00

I got another email this week I have to share, this time from Sadhu Johnston, Commissioner in Chicago's Dept of Environment:

December 14, 2005 SENT VIA EMAIL

Dear Concerned Chicago Citizen:

Thank you for your email correspondence regarding the Blue Bag recycling program. Recycling is a critical component of the Mayor's goal to be the greenest city and a great example of how individual actions can make a difference in improving the environment.

Your suggestion of separate bins for recycling, yard trimmings and garbage is one alternative collection method that is currently under review. Earlier this year, the City launched a recycling pilot program in the 19th Ward (Beverly) using separate blue carts to collect the recyclables. Initial results from the pilot are favorable from a recycling standpoint with over 20% recycling and 90% participation from residents. However, the cost for implementing the program city-wide is prohibitive and the City is working on ways to improve the efficiency of the program.

Although the Blue Bag program serves the needs of many Chicagoans, additional programs are necessary to meet everyone's needs. Just some of the City's recent recycling and waste efforts are listed below:

· Opening a permanent household hazardous waste (HHW) and electronic waste (e-waste)
facility on Goose Island at the end of 2005;

· Conducting Spring and Fall HHW and e-waste collection events;

· Piloting the use of split-bin trucks in the 19th Ward for the separate collection;

· Traveling to New York City to learn about their separate collection activities;

· Preparing a Zero Waste Plan to identify short and long term actions that the City, residents, and businesses can take to reduce the amount of waste generated and landfilled;

· Evaluating options for landscape and food waste composting;

· Offering battery recycling at Chicago Public Libraries and Walgreens;

· Requiring construction and demolition sites to recycle 50% of their waste in 2006, with an increase to 75% in 2007; and

· Providing the annual Christmas tree recycling at several Chicago Park District facilities on January 7, 2006.

Remember, if you don't have a Christmas tree, just bring a bag of recyclables for a year's supply of blue bags (while supplies last).

Thank you for your interest in recycling. For more information, please refer to the City's website at www.cityofchicago.org or call the Recycling Hotline at 312-744-1614. If your waste is not picked up by the Department of Streets and Sanitation, be sure to contact your building manager or recycling services provider for information.

Sincerely,

Sadhu A. Johnston Michael Picardi
Commissioner Commissioner
Dept.of Environment Dept. of Streets & Sanitation

Sadhu Johnston
Commissioner

Department of the Environment
30 North LaSalle, Suite 2500
Chicago, IL 60602
(312) 744-7609
sjohnston@cityofchicago.org

*******
too bad he didn't bcc everyone who emailed the city recently to complain about the inefficiencies of the blue bag system, so now we all know who we are.

word on the street

2005-11-07T12:38:00.000-08:00

so apparently donald rumsfeld owns significant portions of stock in Gilead, the company that manufactures the avian flu drug...

more info:

Rumsfeld to profit from Avian Flu Vaccine:

"The prospect of a bird flu outbreak may be panicking people around the globe, but it's proving to be very good news for Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and other politically connected investors in Gilead Sciences, the California biotech company that owns the rights to Tamiflu, the influenza remedy that's now the most-sought after drug in the world.

"Rumsfeld served as Gilead Research's chairman from 1997 until he joined the Bush administration in 2001, and he still holds a Gilead stake valued at between $5 million and $25 million, according to federal financial disclosures filed by Rumsfeld.

"The forms don't reveal the exact number of shares Rumsfeld owns, but in the past six months fears of a pandemic and the ensuing scramble for Tamiflu have sent Gilead's stock from $35 to $47. That's made the Pentagon chief, already one of the wealthiest members of the Bush cabinet, at least $1 million richer." (Nelson Schwartz, Fortune Magazine /Truthout.org)

It's November 2nd again

2005-11-02T10:56:00.000-08:00

(from November 2.org)

Not sure who to vote for? Check Indyvoter.org for election information and voter guides

Reform Ohio Now

The Real Rosa Parks

2005-11-01T10:20:00.000-08:00

Thank You, Rosa Parks

by Steve Chase

Four years ago, I founded a one-of-a-kind master's program at Antioch New England Graduate School to train public interest advocates and grassroots organizers working for environmental protection, corporate accountability, and social justice. People have occasionally asked me what inspired me to dream up the Environmental Advocacy and Organizing program. My answer is always the same: Rosa Parks.

Parks, who died at home last week, became famous in 1955 when she refused to move to the back of a segregated bus for a white man. She was immediately arrested, and her act of defiance sparked the Montgomery Bus Boycott, which won the first major victory against legal segregation in the South and launched a national movement for civil rights.

People can usually see how Rosa Parks sparked my interest in nonviolent activism for the common good. What they don't get is how she inspired my interest in activist training and education.

Like most people, I used to think that Rosa Parks was just a tired, middle-aged seamstress who got fed up with the indignities of racism on the evening of December 1, 1955. However, when I was a teenager, an older Quaker activist told me the real story of Rosa Parks.

For starters, Parks was a seasoned activist, not a novice. She had been an active member of her local NAACP chapter for over twelve years before refusing to move to the back of the bus, and she had participated in many discussions about how to launch a successful campaign against segregation. Contrary to the conventional story, her act of civil disobedience was pre-planned and aimed at sparking a powerful movement for freedom.

Secondly, Parks was a trained activist. The summer before her famous act of civil disobedience, Parks attended a ten-day activist training workshop at the Highlander Folk School in Tennessee. During a radio interview years later, Studs Terkel asked Parks what role Highlander played in her decision to act. Parks answered, "Everything."

Highlander Folk School was founded in the 1930s by Myles Horton. His vision for the school was to bring poor and oppressed people together, encourage them to grapple with their everyday social problems, provide an arena for deep political reflection, and, ultimately, provide training workshops in the skills and strategies of social movement organizing.

During the 1930s and the early 1940s, Highlander focused its educational programs on the southern labor movement. By the early 1950s, Highlander moved into civil rights activism and Horton brought together blacks and whites interested in confronting the problem of segregation.

To deepen the effectiveness of this work, Horton hired Septima Clark, the School's first black staff member, as his Education Director. A public school teacher who had been fired and blacklisted because of her volunteer work with the NAACP, Clark cemented Highlander's ties over the years with many of the people who eventually became leaders of such groups as the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, and the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party.

At Highlander, these people were encouraged by both Horton and Clark to take what they learned and apply it in their own communities. As Horton said to generations of participants at Highlander's training workshops: "The way to use this information is not to say that we have learned a lot, and isn't it wonderful and great to have been at Highlander.... You're here to act on it. This is education for action. Now, how are you going to act on this? Let's just plan what you're going to do when you go back."

In her own recollection of Parks' first visit to Highlander, Septima Clark reports how Parks struggled with her fears over taking the kind of daring action against segregation being discussed by workshop participants and Highlander's trainers. As Clark remembers it: "Rosa Parks was afraid for white people to know that she was as militant as she was. She didn't even want to speak before the whites that she met
at Highlander, because she was afraid they would take it back to the whites in Montgomery. After she talked it out in that workshop that morning and she went back home, then she decided that 'I'm not going to move out of that seat.'"

With her dramatic action a few months later, Parks earned her "diploma" from Highlander and rightly became revered as the grandmother of the 1960s Civil Rights Movement. Unknown to her, she also inspired the creation of a two-year activist training program in Keene, New Hampshire a little over 46 years after her big day.

Thank you, Rosa Parks.

Steve Chase is the director of the Department of Environmental Studies'
Environmental Advocacy and Organizing Program at Antioch New England
Graduate School.

Reprinted with permission from the Keene Sentinel, November 1, 2005

Katrina aftermath...

2005-09-09T11:28:00.000-07:00

Did you hear Barbara Bush's remarks about the state of the relief efforts? In an interview broadcast on American Public Media's "Marketplace" on Monday, referring to refugees in the Houston astrodome, she said "This is working very well for them."

from Editor & Publisher.com:

" 'Almost everyone I’ve talked to says we're going to move to Houston.'

"Then she added: 'What I’m hearing which is sort of scary is they all want to stay in Texas. Everyone is so overwhelmed by the hospitality.

" 'And so many of the people in the arena here, you know, were underprivileged anyway, so this--this (she chuckles slightly) is working very well for them.' "

*********************************

Think Progress has a GREAT timeline of the events that went down over the past 10 days

*********************************

Lots of folks are talking about what's next, and how we can help survivors & refugees, and start the dialogue to rebuild.

A great story on the In These Times Website by David Moberg about possibilities in the aftermath of Katrina: Will History Repeat Itself?

Check out 10 Great Ways You Can Help
By Don Hazen, AlterNet. Posted September 7, 2005.

Also on AlterNet: Rescuing America: A 9-Step Plan
By Van Jones, AlterNet. Posted September 9, 2005.

Other places to check:

*Grassroots/Low-income/People of Color-led Hurricane Katrina Relief from Spark Plug Foundation

*Resources for Socially Responsible Hurricane Relief

*Veterans for Peace

*Get Your Act On

*New Orleans Network

*Indyvoter.org

*An Unnatural Disaster: A Critical Guide for Addressing the Aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in the Classroom, from the New York Collective of Radical Educators

Why is looting the main news? Where is the relief?

2005-09-02T11:03:00.000-07:00

The Untold Story of Katrina's Aftermath

By Malkia A. Cyril

Katrina has been called a disaster of biblical proportions. And it is. But the disaster is not confined to weather. The loss of life is being compounded by the frightening political decision to withhold rescue services from survivors and instead focus on fighting crime. It seems that Katrina has not only uprooted homes and trees, but also uncovered the stark truth about race in Louisiana. Racial injustice in New Orleans is on fire. And the news coverage of Katrina is fanning the flames.

Over 1 million people with the means to leave fled before the storm, but nearly 150,000 were left behind, trapped by poverty and neglected by disaster plans. Those who got out were mostly affluent and white. Those left behind were not. They represented the poorest 15-20% of New Orleans population and were predominately black. This is not simply the result of a natural disaster. This is the consequence of human decisions about who deserves to live and who should be left to die. And the death toll is still rising. Survivors are floating in stagnant debris-filled water, huddled in attics or on rooftops. More than 60,000 people have gathered at the Superdome stadium for evacuation and remain there in increasingly horrific conditions. One man couldnt bear it and jumped to his death. In the aftermath of this natural disaster, relief efforts are being hindered by racial mistreatment and racist decisions that are as dangerous as any storm.

Emergency systems and disaster protocol must put life above law. And yet, when it comes to the lives of blacks and poor people in the aftermath of Katrina, looting is the leading headline. Interestingly, in the face of absolute tragedy, President Bushs message is about zero tolerance for crime and not about encouraging and applauding the humanity of those helping each other to live. There is no question that survival is the primary issue of the day. And yet Reuters reported that New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin ordered police to suspend rescue efforts and arrest people instead. Louisiana Governor Kathleen Blanco told reporters that she will use the 12,500 National Guard troops in or en route to New Orleans to bring law and order to the area, and not to continue rescuing survivors. Officials have either ceased or redirected the relief and evacuation efforts of the Red Cross, FEMA, local police and the National Guard. Black and poor residents of New Orleans are paying for this decision with their lives.

While the decision to arrest people for trying to survive seems misplaced, it could have something to do with the news coverage of Katrina, which has been saturated with descriptions of blacks chest-deep in water looting food, while referring to whites in virtually the same circumstances as survivors finding food. Or perhaps it is because almost no news outlets have even mentioned the demographics of those left behind or raised life and death questions about how evacuation plans, search and rescue operations, relief distribution, and emergency care are being influenced by race.

Where were the resources and political will that would have prevented this tragedy from reaching such deadly proportions? In the aftermath of this devastating natural disaster, the media can expose the racism and help prevent the man-made disaster at hand? Even CBS reported that in one neighborhood the police helped homeless survivors carry stolen supplies from Walmart to another area that had been hit harder. Across the country concerned communities are demanding that the arrests for so-called looting should cease and search and rescue efforts should continue unhindered, that all resources should be used to evacuate survivors immediately, and people should be provided with clean water and food. Not everyone agrees that your race or income should determine whether you survive the storm.

posted on colours mailing list, colours@mutualaid.org, 9/2/05

more about Malkia at www.youthmediacouncil.org/aboutus.html

********
peeps at get-your-act-on are trying to get stuff together to travel from houston to new orleans with relief supplies.

from their site:

There are supplies sitting in Baton Rouge for the folks in New Orleans, but the National Guard has the city surrounded and is not letting anyone in or out. They are turning away people with supplies, claiming it is too dangerous. If we have planes that can drop bombs on people in Iraq, certianly we can air drop supplies into the city. Our goverment is KILLING the people of New Orleans. This is the message I am now sending to all major media sources, national and worldwide, as well as posting to email lists, blogs, etc. The story is getting out that the people there are not getting supplies, but the truth of WHY is not. Please help spread the word, we must get this story out. Please so not let any more of my friends die.

**********************

from an email posted by Jordan Flaherty, an editor of Left Turn Magazine .

...While the rich escaped New Orleans, those with nowhere to go and no way to get there were left behind. Adding salt to the wound, the local and national media have spent the last week demonizing those left behind. As
someone that loves New Orleans and the people in it, this is the part of this tragedy that hurts me the most, and it hurts me deeply.

No sane person should classify someone who takes food from indefinitely closed stores in a desperate, starving city as a “looter,” but thats just what the media did over and over again. Sherrifs and politicians talked of having troops protect stores instead of perform rescue operations.

Images of New Orleans’ hurricane-ravaged population were transformed into black, out-of-control, criminals. As if taking a stereo from a store that will clearly be insured against loss is a greater crime than the governmental neglect and incompetence that did billions of dollars of damage and destroyed a city. This media focus is a tactic, just as the eighties focus on “welfare queens” and “super-predators” obscured the simultaneous and much larger crimes of the Savings and Loan scams and mass layoffs, the hyper-exploited people of New Orleans are being used as a scapegoat to cover up much larger crimes.

City, state and national politicians are the real criminals here. Since at least the mid-1800s, its been widely known the danger faced by flooding to New Orleans. The flood of 1927, which, like this week’s events, was more about politics and racism than any kind of natural disaster, illustrated exactly the danger faced. Yet government officials have consistently refused to spend the money to protect this poor, overwhelmingly black, city.

While FEMA and others warned of the urgent impending danger to New Orleans and put forward proposals for funding to reinforce and protect the city, the Bush administration, in every year since 2001, has cut or refused to
fund New Orleans flood control, and ignored scientists warnings of increased hurricanes as a result of global warming. And, as the dangers rose with the floodlines, the lack of coordinated response dramatized vividly the callous disregard of our elected leaders.

The aftermath from the 1927 flood helped shape the elections of both a US President and a Governor, and ushered in the southern populist politics of Huey Long.

In the coming months, billions of dollars will likely flood into New Orleans. This money can either be spent to usher in a “New Deal” for the city, with public investment, creation of stable union jobs, new schools, cultural programs and housing restoration, or the city can be “rebuilt and revitalized” to a shell of its former self, with newer hotels, more casinos, and with chain stores and theme parks replacing the former neighborhoods, cultural centers and corner jazz clubs.

Long before Katrina, New Orleans was hit by a hurricane of poverty, racism, disinvestment, de-industrialization and corruption. Simply the damage from this pre-Katrina hurricane will take billions to repair.

Now that the money is flowing in, and the world’s eyes are focused on Katrina, its vital that progressive-minded people take this opportunity to fight for a rebuilding with justice. New Orleans is a special place, and we need to fight for its rebirth.
----------------------------------------------

why the levee broke in new orleans

2005-09-01T10:38:00.000-07:00

Why the Levee Broke

By Will Bunch, Attytood. Posted September 1, 2005.

Washington knew exactly what needed to be done to protect the citizens of New Orleans from disasters like Katrina. Yet federal funding for Louisiana flood control projects was diverted to pay for the war in Iraq.

http://alternet.org/story/24871/

from the article:

"New Orleans had long known it was highly vulnerable to flooding and a direct hit from a hurricane. In fact, the federal government has been working with state and local officials in the region since the late 1960s on major hurricane and flood relief efforts. When flooding from a massive rainstorm in May 1995 killed six people, Congress authorized the Southeast Louisiana Urban Flood Control Project, or SELA.

"Over the next 10 years, the Army Corps of Engineers, tasked with carrying out SELA, spent $430 million on shoring up levees and building pumping stations, with $50 million in local aid. But at least $250 million in crucial projects remained, even as hurricane activity in the Atlantic Basin increased dramatically and the levees surrounding New Orleans continued to subside.

"Yet after 2003, the flow of federal dollars toward SELA dropped to a trickle. The Corps never tried to hide the fact that the spending pressures of the war in Iraq, as well as homeland security -- coming at the same time as federal tax cuts -- was the reason for the strain. At least nine articles in the Times-Picayune from 2004 and 2005 specifically cite the cost of Iraq as a reason for the lack of hurricane- and flood-control dollars.

"...In early 2004, as the cost of the conflict in Iraq soared, President Bush proposed spending less than 20 percent of what the Corps said was needed for Lake Pontchartrain, according to this Feb. 16, 2004, article, in New Orleans CityBusiness:

The $750 million Lake Pontchartrain and Vicinity Hurricane Protection project is another major Corps project, which remains about 20% incomplete due to lack of funds, said Al Naomi, project manager. That project consists of building up levees and protection for pumping stations on the east bank of the Mississippi River in Orleans, St. Bernard, St. Charles and Jefferson parishes.

The Lake Pontchartrain project is slated to receive $3.9 million in the president's 2005 budget. Naomi said about $20 million is needed.

"The longer we wait without funding, the more we sink," he said. "I've got at least six levee construction contracts that need to be done to raise the levee protection back to where it should be (because of settling). Right now I owe my contractors about $5 million. And we're going to have to pay them interest."

"On June 8, 2004, Walter Maestri, emergency management chief for Jefferson Parish, Louisiana, told the Times-Picayune: "It appears that the money has been moved in the president's budget to handle homeland security and the war in Iraq, and I suppose that's the price we pay. Nobody locally is happy that the levees can't be finished, and we are doing everything we can to make the case that this is a security issue for us."

***********

From Democracy Now, Thursday, September 16th, 2004:

Charley, Frances and Ivan: Hurricanes and Global Warming

"...it is New Orleans - the largest US city below sea level - that is particularly vulnerable to flooding. The city's emergency manager yesterday warned that as many as 50,000 people could drown if New Orleans was hit by a strong Category 4 storm. The city has 10,000 body bags on hand in case of a catastrophe.

"While many New Orleans residents took city officials' advice and left town, a large group of people, mostly concentrated in poorer neighborhoods didn't have a choice but to stay and hope for the best. With no public transportation or evacuation plan, up to 100,000 people were left stranded in the city.

"...JUAN GONZALEZ: Yeah. Mark [Shleifstein, New Orleans Times Picayune], your newspaper had a story yesterday about the advice of officials to many residents in New Orleans to move out of the storm's path, but yet there was the problem of up to 100,000 poor New Orleans who could not – New Orleans residents who could not evacuate because they didn't own cars. Could you talk about that story and what happened?

"MARK SCHLEIFSTEIN: Sure. Fortunately, like I said, things weren't horrendous. That became a semi-non-problem this time. But it's the elephant in the room in Louisiana. What is going to happen when the worst case scenario hits, and there are all of these people who cannot get out? There are -- there's talk about some grand plan for moving people to some sort of structure that was -- that would provide them with at least a refuge. The mayor of New Orleans yesterday opened up the super dome to act as that refuge, and fortunately, a few people took advantage of it. I think there were 1,200 people who did. In the two-hour period that they were allowed to make that decision, get to a staging area, and be bussed to the superdome and allowed in. When there really is a serious one, I think you'll see a rush of buses to get people to a variety of different structures with the explanation that this is a refuge, not a shelter, and there is nothing there for you. You have to bring everything yourself. And it is going to be a disaster. Engineers have gone through the city, building engineers, civil engineers have done a survey of the city and basically found that there are no public buildings with enough areas that would survive a catastrophic storm to actually act as refuges even in the city. There's no effort yet to require new public buildings to withstand catastrophic hurricane winds.

AMY GOODMAN: Mark, very quickly, we were just commenting at the top of this segment that there's a tremendous amount of coverage obviously on these monster hurricanes, but we rather hear the words “global warming” in all of the weather coverage. Actually, the British Prime Minister Tony Blair yesterday said urgent action is needed to combat the world's greatest environmental challenge, but in this country, it's almost a concept, people don't know about it if they just get their information from the media.

Details from the energy bill (hr 6)...

2005-07-29T09:46:00.000-07:00

Yep, it passed as well. Here's the text.

Approved by a margin of 249-183, here's what's in the fine, and maybe not-so-fine print:

The bill includes $12 billion in tax breaks and subsidies for the oil and gas industry.

$8.1 billion are tax breaks

$2 billion over 10 years to fund research into oil and gas recovery

Shields MTBE makers from product liability lawsuits stemming from groundwater contamination from the gasoline additive. MTBE contamination has affected more than 1,800 community water systems in 29 states with a potential cleanup cost of $29 billion. MTBE makers, including large oil companies and refiners, argued they need liability protection because of an expected surge in lawsuits.

This got in thanks to an amendment sponsored by Tom DeLay. According to the EWG Action Fund, there are at least 208 members of Congress who represent people or companies with the gasoline additive MTBE in their drinking water. DeLay's amendment makes taxpayers, and not the companies who caused the leaks or spills, responsible to pay for cleanup.

Opens Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska to oil and gas drilling.

Here's the text of the "Alaska pipeline" provision

Eases environmental restrictions on building or expanding oil refineries in economically depressed areas.

Expands the Strategic Petroleum Reserve by 300 million barrels to 1 billion barrels, and halts new shipments if U.S. oil futures prices rise above $40 per barrel.

Sends more than $3 billion for more research for oil, gas and coal industries.

It removes local control in new energy project development. For ex, it gives the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission final say if communities object to new liquefied natural gas projects.

Cuts the number of special gasoline blends now required to ease air pollution in cities and regions.

Doubles funding to develop coal plants to $2.5 billion.

Extends annual U.S. daylight-saving time by two months to cut energy use.

Extends the deadline for cities downwind of polluting factories to comply with smog standards if the state can prove that most pollution comes from outside their borders.

Authorizes more than $3 billion annually to help poor families pay winter heating bills.

Provides a 20 percent tax credit up to $2,000 for homeowners who put in more energy efficient windows, doors and insulation.

What's missing:

fuel efficiency standards... energy efficiency assistance... support for alternative energy production & development... incentives to cut greenhouse gas emissions

from a post at http://www.dailykos.com/
Read more here

Find out where your rep stands... Here's the entire vote tally .

2 Votes... all it took.

2005-07-28T10:51:00.000-07:00

Here are the results:

Votes For : 217
Votes Against : 215
Not Voting : 2

Map of the vote, and the Complete Tally

Roll Call vote on CAFTA from the Senate in June

Tom DeLay was apparently linking CAFTA to national security, a reason many think that some moderate republicans may have voted for it.

Nancy Pelosi, in response to DeLay's remarks:

"Trade alone, devoid of basic living and working standards, has not, and will not, promote security, nor will it lift developing nations out of poverty. Our national security will not be improved by exploiting workers in Central America."

Cafta vote today, & energy bill soon...

2005-07-27T10:21:00.000-07:00

CAFTA's going to be close.

Link to where people stand as of yesterday...
http://www.thelibertycommittee.org/caftavotecount.htm

TOTALS
Yes/Leaning Yes: 123
No/Leaning No: 173
Undecided: 67
Declined to Answer/No Response 71

Have you called your rep? see below for more info...

AFSC's CAFTA page

Up next to add to this, the "Nuclear Swindle" from Wenonah Hauter of Public Citizen:

In one of the biggest taxpayer bailouts in recent years, the energy bill about to pass out of Congress stands on the cusp of providing the nuclear industry and the oil industry, among others, with the sweetest deal that energy executives have seen in the last 50 years. Passage of this costly and flawed bill will prove to the American public that Congress cares more about rewarding business interests than protecting consumers—who will predictably suffer from higher energy bills and corporate abuse enabled by this legislation.

Despite cries for reduced foreign oil dependence, lower gas prices, strong global warming provisions and a general need to conserve energy, this bill instead reaches out to reward two industries that don’t deserve the gifts they’re being bestowed: the nuclear and oil industries. These industries serve as an example of how our energy future is being dictated by corporate interests, not common-sense policies that will ensure a healthier environment for generations to come. Like ‘Banana Republic’ officials on the take, Congress has accepted $90 million from these industries since 2001 in exchange for providing them with billions of dollars in subsidies and regulatory rollbacks.

To begin, the nuclear industry is on the edge of its seat, hoping to win billions in cradle-to-grave subsidies and incentives to build new nuclear reactors. The conference report thus far includes $7 billion in research, development and construction subsidies, with another $7.3 billion in tax breaks pending in the yet-to-be released tax package. Those dollars aside, the bill contains unlimited taxpayer-backed loan guarantees for the construction of new reactors and extends the industry’s limited liability in the case of an accident to new reactors. This bill contains just about every conceivable taxpayer subsidy and incentive for the 50-year-old nuclear industry to build new reactors.

Contrary to the public relations spin coming from the pro-nuclear lobby, nuclear energy is not the answer to climate change or energy independence. Its five fatal flaws are more than enough reason to vote against this dirty and expensive technology: Nuclear power is expensive and relies on massive taxpayer subsidies; heightens proliferation risks; produces radioactive waste that remains dangerous for hundreds of thousands of years; endangers public health and security with the threat of accidents or attacks; and continuously fails to adhere to adequate safety standards.

Read the rest of the article here...

And yikes! The energy bill also includes seismic testing! From Greenpeace:

For 26 years, there have been bans on offshore oil and gas drilling, and for good reason. At decibel levels of 260, seismic blasts have a devastating impact on whales, dolphins and other marine mammals that rely on their sense of hearing to survive. In fact, they can lead to permanent hearing loss, brain hemorrhaging and even cause entire pods of whales and dolphins to beach.

Say no to the energy bill! Take action Now.

********************************************
Your rep's voting records can be found here: Progressive punch.org

CAFTA vote draws near...

2005-07-22T12:07:00.000-07:00

**The CAFTA vote in the house has been tentatively scheduled for Wednesday, July 27**

Wednesday, Republican House leaders tentatively scheduled a vote on the Central American-Dominican Republic-United States Free Trade Agreement (DR-CAFTA) for Wednesday, July 27. It passed the Senate on June 30th.

CAFTA is the extension of the failed model of NAFTA to five countries of Central America and the Dominican Republic. Its most devastating impact would be felt by 6 million farmers in Central America, who have seen over 1.5 million Mexican farmers lose their livelihoods due to the influx of cheap, subsidized imports from the US.

Under “fast-track” trade promotion authority, the U.S. Congress can only approve or reject—not amend—trade agreements. DR-CAFTA supporters estimate that an additional 25 to 40 supporters in the House of Representatives are needed to ensure DR-CAFTA will pass. Supporters of DR-CAFTA include the Business Coalition for U.S.–Central American Trade, which represents an array of corporate interests from high-tech to agribusiness.

Opposition to the agreement comes from grassroots groups focusing on agriculture, workers’ and consumers’ rights, the environment, and even traditional supporters of free trade such as the U.S. sugar lobby. The diversity among DR-CAFTA’s opponents reveals how many people face significant hardship if the agreement is ratified.

The threat DR-CAFTA poses to the 5.5 million Central Americans who earn their livelihood in agriculture goes beyond U.S. dumping of highly subsidized agricultural goods: under the agreement Central American countries would be required to adopt U.S. patent rules, including patents on plants, that would remove farmers’ traditional right to save seed and pave the way for biotech corporations to sue small farmers if the farmers’ seed is contaminated with biotech products.

DR-CAFTA also includes

an even stronger version of NAFTA’s “Chapter 11” foreign investor protections, allowing corporations to sue for future lost profits.
Its procurement policy removes the right of municipal and city governments to use selective buying, such as giving preference to locally produced, recycled, or environmentally friendly goods.
Changes to the U.S. sugar program under DR-CAFTA will turn sugar into a dumped commodity on international markets, and would lead to a price drop for sugar farmers in over 41 countries—a deadly blow to some of the world’s poorest countries, who aren’t even party to the agreement.
It would open the door to privatization of public services such as water and education by allowing corporations to bid for contracts for publicly funded services
It only binds countries to existing labor laws, many of which are below ILO standards. It also overrides labor protections attached to current trade agreements.

(from Food First; for more info, please see "It's Time to Defeat CAFTA," at food first's website)

Now, get involved and call your Representative!

Use the toll free number 1-866-340-9281 to the Congressional Operator, and ask for your rep. Tell them that you are a constituent, and that you urge them to vote against CAFTA.

Some talking points, from www.globalexchange.org/campaigns/cafta:

* I urge you to vote against CAFTA because, like NAFTA, CAFTA will be a disaster for family farmers. NAFTA has pushed a million and a halffarmers in Mexico off their traditional land. Likewise, more than six million Central American farmers fear that they will be pushed off theirs, tearing apart rural families. Meanwhile 38,000 family farmers in the US have lost their land because of NAFTA as well. The so-called "sugar deal" does nothing to address the devastating implications of CAFTA for tens of thousands of workers in the US sugar industry.

*I urge you to vote against CAFTA because it's modeled on NAFTA. NAFTA has cost the US a million manufacturing jobs, and spread sweatshops across Mexico. CAFTA is more of the same bad for workers, and it's only great for big corporations. Please vote against CAFTA!

* I urge you to vote against CAFTA because the corporate patent monopolies in CAFTA will make life-saving medicines outrageously and prohibitively - expensive. CAFTA is a death sentence for 275,000 people withHIV/AIDS in Central America.

* I urge you to vote no on CAFTA because, like NAFTA, it includes anti-democratic provisions that allows foreign corporations to sue local governments if health, safety, or environmental laws interfere with their desire to profit. Foreign corporations should not have more rights than local citizens! Vote no on CAFTA!

Thousands of homes demolished in Zimbabwe

2005-06-25T10:41:00.000-07:00

Hundreds of thousands of Zimbabweans are homeless due to President Mugabe's new "Operation Sweep Out the Trash."

photos from Institute for War and Peace Reporting

left: a family sits outside their
demolished home in Mbare, one of the poorest, most densely populated neighborhoods in Harare.

below: a woman sits by the ruins of her home in Mbare.

Many are saying that Mugabe's “Operation Muram-batsvina” is 'cleaning up' opposition strongholds in the cities, which have voted overwhelmingly for Movement for Democratic Change (MDC).

It is winter in Zimbabwe right now, and young children, the elderly, pregnant women, and the sick are being forced to sleep outside without shelter.

Mugabe's actions are affecting the poorest of the poor, people already struggling with starvation, unemployment, high inflation (hit 600% last year) and the AIDS epidemic.

Many of these homeless families are being relocated to rural camps, where all people have to check in with local ZANU-PF committee members (Mugabe's political party) in order to get food aid and assistance.

In the Mupedzanhamo market in Mbare, world-reknowned as an extensive trading and selling ground of everything from fresh foods and tourist items to cookware, books, cheap music and second-hand clothes, government bulldozers have razed trading stalls, evacuating sellers with tear gas.

4 million people are said to have fled the country over the past few years, and are refugees around the world. 2 million Zimbabweans are living in South Africa.

for more info, see www.iwpr.net

Count Every Vote Act of 2005

2005-02-09T14:34:00.000-08:00

I got an email from Hillary Clinton that I have to share:

Dear voicesrising,

It's time to tell those who celebrate elections and voter participation in countries around the world that we must make sure every vote is counted in elections right here at home!

That's why I am asking you to sign on now as a citizen co-sponsor of vitally important election reform legislation.

www.friendsofhillary.com/CountEveryVote

Next week, I will introduce the Count Every Vote Act of 2005, co-sponsored by Senator Barbara Boxer. This comprehensive election reform bill will:

*Provide a verified paper ballot for every vote cast in electronic voting machines.
*Set a uniform standard for provisional ballots, so that every qualified voter within the state will know their votes are treated equally and will be counted.
*Require the Federal Election Assistance Commission to issues standards that ensure uniform access to voting machines and election personnel in every community. It's outrageous that some people in predominantly minoritycommunities had to wait up to 10 hours to vote, while people in other communities often voted in minutes!

In 2004, I introduced legislation similar to the Count Every Vote Act. But it never saw the light of day. I couldn't even get a hearing for my bill before the Senate Rules Committee.We can't allow this new legislation to suffer the same fate.

The Republicans who control Congress don't want to address this issue. So we've got to build grassroots momentum to make sure they don't have any choice but to act. That's why I am determined to keep moving forward-- on the Hill, with advocacy groups, and with all of you!

www.friendsofhillary.com/CountEveryVote

Will you join me in calling for action to Count Every Vote? Will you sign up to become a citizen co-sponsor of this bill, so that we can demonstrate that the American people won't sit still for inaction on legislation so essential to our freedom?

Please forward this e-mail to your friends, and ask them to join us. Together we will restore the credibility of American democracy, and make sure that we count every vote.

Sincerely,
Hillary Rodham Clinton

P.S. ... Now, as we say goodbye to the outstanding leadership of my friend Terry McAuliffe, I look forward to working with Governor Howard Dean and the new DNC leadership. Let's make sure that our hard work counts on Election Day!

So, take a look at the webpage, add yourself as a citizen co-sponsor, and we'll keep up with the progress of the Count Every Vote Act of 2005.

It's time.

PS: check it! Win number 1: Dr Dean is in the house! All of his opposition in the race for the DNC chair have pulled out of the race.

As soon as I can find it on Pop and Politics, I'll add my reasons for Dean.

2005-02-08T21:25:00.000-08:00

voicesbowling

The Empire of Vulgarity

2005-02-08T10:47:00.000-08:00

by Mike Carlton,
Sydney Morning Herald
Friday, January 21, 2005

George Bush's second inaugural extravaganza was every bit as repugnant as I had expected, a vulgar orgy of triumphalism probably unmatched since Napoleon crowned himself emperor of the French in Notre Dame in 1804.

The little Corsican corporal had a few decent victories to his escutcheon. Lodi, Marengo, that sort of thing. Not so this strutting Texan mountebank, with his chimpanzee smirk and his born-again banalities delivered in that constipated syntax that sounds the way cold cheeseburgers look, and his grinning plastic wife, and his scheming junta of neo-con spivs, shamans, flatterers and armchair warmongers, and his sinuous evasions and his brazen lies, and his sleight of hand theft from the American poor, and his rape of the environment, and his lethal conviction that the world must submit to his Pax Americana or be bombed into charcoal.

Difficult to know what was more repellent: the estimated $US40 million cost of this jamboree (most of it stumped up by Republican fat-cats buying future presidential favours), or the sheer crassness of its excess when American boys are dying in the quagmire of Bush's very own Iraq war. Other wartime presidents sought restraint. Abraham Lincoln's second inaugural address in 1865 - "with malice toward none, with charity for all" - is the shortest ever. And he had pretty much won the Civil War by that time.

In 1944, Franklin Delano Roosevelt opened his fourth-term speech with the "wish that the form of this inauguration be simple and its words brief". He spoke for a couple of eloquent minutes, then went off to a light lunch, his wartime victory almost complete as well.

But restraint is not a Dubya word. Learning nothing, the dumbest and nastiest president since the scandalous Warren Harding died in 1923, Bush is now intent on expanding the Iraq war to neighbouring Iran.

Condoleezza Rice did admit to the US Senate this week that there had been some "not so good" decisions. But the more I see of her gleaming teeth and her fibreglass helmet of hair and her perky confidence, the more I am convinced that back in the '60s she used to be Cindy Birdsong, up there beside Diana Ross as one of the Supremes of Motown fame. I don't think it's a good idea to let her make a comeback as Secretary of State.

The war in Iran is under way already, if we believe Seymour Hersh, the distinguished investigative writer for The New Yorker magazine. Hersh reported this week that clandestine US special forces have been on the ground there, targeting nuclear facilities to be bombed whenever Bush feels the time is ripe.

"The immediate goals of the attacks would be to destroy, or at least temporarily derail, Iran's ability to go nuclear," he wrote, quoting reliable intelligence sources. "But there are other, equally purposeful, motives at work. The government consultant told me that the hawks in the Pentagon, in private discussions, have been urging a limited attack on Iran because they believe it could lead to a toppling of the religious leadership."

Naturally, Pentagon flacks rushed out to deny all. But then they did that when Hersh broke the story of the My Lai massacre in Vietnam in 1968, and again when he revealed the torture of Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib. A tussle for the truth between Hersh and the Pentagon is no contest.

What terrifies me most is the people planning this new war. The CIA professionals have been frozen out: too weak and wimpy for the Bushies.

The Defence Secretary, the incompetent Donald Rumsfeld, has seized control, aided by two Pentagon under-secretaries. One is Douglas Feith, a mad-eyed Zionist largely responsible for the post-invasion collapse of order in Iraq, a civilian bureaucrat memorably described by the former Centcom commander, General Tommy Franks, as "the f---ing stupidest guy on the face of the Earth".

The other is army Lieutenant General William G. (Jerry) Boykin, whose name also rings a bell. Jerry is a born-again Christian evangelical, a three-star bigot who, in his spare time, stumps the country in full uniform, preaching that America's enemy is Satan, Allah is a false idol, and that George Bush has been ordained by the Lord to rout evil.

"He's in the White House because God put him there for a time such as this," Jerry told a prayer meetin' in Oregon just a while back.

Be very afraid.

C 2005 The Sydney Morning Herald

*****

Iraqi Vets are coming home, some face homelessness and massive waits for services from the VA. Come on, yo, we all need support and ears to hear us, counselling sometime! Imagine the needs of these young kids.

See Gimme Shelter, by Rose Aguilar, at alternet.org.

*****
And, from the Dreyfuss Report, at tompaine.com, February 7:

The unjustified euphoria over the Iraq elections still has not worn off. That will happen, no doubt, when the final results are tabulated, showing how few Iraqis actually voted. (In Mosul, a city of two million, only 10 percent went to the polls—and that in a city that has a significant Kurdish population.)

Meanwhile, there is important news about the resistance. On Sunday, the Post reported that the CIA is leaking more information about the Iraqi insurgency. Two important bits of news emerge here: One, that Zarqawi’s fanatics, the Al Qaeda branch in Iraq, “are now described as lesser elements,” i.e., the truth is finally coming out that the hooded killers and beheaders are not the true face of the resistance, which is in fact a popular movement with tens of thousands of supporters. That’s clear from the second tidbit in the story: that in 2004, U.S. forces killed or captured 15,000 “suspected insurgents,”—and that obviously does not count the many thousands killed or captured this year, including in the two battles of Fallujah.

read more at http://www.tompaine.com/archives/the_dreyfuss_report.php

fighting for democracy

2005-01-29T08:43:00.000-08:00

the iraq elections are here. polling places are bunkered, safe and ready...

the washington post has reported that there is 1, that's right, ONE accredited international election observer in iraq right now, and that due to security reasons, he's stuck inside some barracks somewhere.

i've been hearing rumblings over the radio here and there about the effects of trying to impose democracy on other peoples... seems like there may be whole ethnic groups boycotting the elections in iraq this weekend. though they all say they want to take part in writing a constitution, something that hopefully bridges the divides between the so many groups that live within, or spill over and into, the borders of Iraq.

how do we correctly legitimize ethnic minorities that were persecuted under Saddam, like the Kurds, while at the same time not drown out the voices of others that should be at the table, as well?

and what kind of legitimacy is gained by delivering an election during an occupation and massive resistance. it brings echoes of the elections in afghanistan. those areas safe enough to hold elections will get to control the government. and will they be open to a just process of building a real democracy in Iraq? or are we talking bout something that looks more like our system, where a mandate comes with ooh, 51% of the vote, with less than a majority turnout to the polls, with (s)elected officials gerrymandering their districts, appointing their friends to elections board positions, etc etc.

so, what the hell are our (i mean, the royal "our," of course, ie. King George, Regent Cheney) interests in all this? everyone knows, well, everyone should know, that Afghanistan's Hamid Karzai is deeply connected in the international finance deals of the Bush dynasty, through the Carlyle group (see Fahrenheit 911 and elsewhere).

results coming in show turnout in iraq extremely high... feeling a little deja vu coming on??

U.S. Encouraged by Vietnam Vote
Officials Cite 83% Turnout Despite Vietcong Terror

by Peter Grose, Special to The New York Times September 4, 1967, p.2

WASHINGTON, Sept. 3-- United States officials were surprised and heartened today at the size of turnout in South Vietnam's presidential election despite a Vietcong terrorist campaign to disrupt the voting.

According to reports from Saigon, 83 percent of the 5.85 million registered voters cast their ballots yesterday. Many of them risked reprisals threatened by the Vietcong.

The size of the popular vote and the inability of the Vietcong to destroy the election machinery were the two salient facts in a preliminary assessment of the nation election based on the incomplete returns reaching here.

see more at http://www.tompaine.com/archives/the_dreyfuss_report.php

********
Make a New Post

bring it!!!

2005-01-13T13:47:00.000-08:00

what the hell is going on?

is anybody paying attention?

check it: democracy now headline from Thursday, January 13, says "the Washington Post is reporting that the Bush administration is considerably lowering its expectations for both the turnout and the results of the Jan. 30 election in Iraq. Officials are now claiming that high voter turnout is not even significant. A senior administration official said, "I would . . . really encourage people not to focus on numbers, which in themselves don't have any meaning, but to look on the outcome and to look at the government that will be the product of these elections." The comment came during an official White House briefing. But reporters were barred from citing what official conducted the briefing. Also Wednesday, White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan admitted, "The election is not going to be perfect," Earlier this week interim Iraqi Prime Minister Ayad Allawi said for the first time that elections would not be held in all parts of Iraq.

Don't focus on the numbers.
Only the outcome. What outcome if there aren't going to be numbers of votes to be counted?

Sound familiar? hmm. reminds me a lot of talk last week during our elections results hearings, that measly 2 hours before the validation/rubber stamping by the house of the outcome of our (s)election day.

Some of the reasons that senator barbara boxer objected, from a letter she released:

"Why did voters in Ohio wait hours in the rain to vote?

Why were voters at Kenyan College, for example, made to wait in line until nearly 4 a.m. to vote because there were only two machines for 1300 voters?

Why did poor and predominantly African-American communities have disproportionately long waits?

Why in Franklin County did election officials only use 2,798 machines when they said they needed 5,000? Why did they hold back 68 machines in warehouses? Why were 42 of those machines in predominantly African-American districts?

Why did, in Columbus area alone, an estimated 5,000 to 10,000 voters leave polling places, out of frustration, without having voted? How many more never bothered to vote after they heard about this?

Why is it when 638 people voted at a precinct in Franklin County, a voting machine awarded 4,258 extra votes to George Bush. Thankfully, they fixed it - but how many other votes did the computers get wrong?

Why did Franklin County officials reduce the number of electronic voting machines in downtown precincts, while adding them in the suburbs? This also led to long lines.

In Cleveland, why were there thousands of provisional ballots disqualified after poll workers gave faulty instructions to voters? "

That last one really makes my skin crawl. A simple vote, really, for most people. But the effin paperwork just to verify you are who you say you are and you aren't a terrorist to the system that works so inefficiently. How easy it would have been to double check ids, misplaced info, etc. But hey, what's easier than callin it spoiled and tossing it to the circular file?

Thanks much, Ken Harris, I mean, Blackwell...

If you heard any of the house debate bout the elections results, then maybe you heard as i did, as i was brushing the snow off my car, radio blaring, the rep lady from upper arlington, ohio [read:suburbs] who chided her colleague from inner city colombus for wasting her tax-payers' time and hard earned dollars to talk about the lack of voting machines, cause her district sure had enough. touche'.

All these repubs went stammerin on bout 'legitimizing the prezident' and this thing about a war on (support the troops!) , and a 'mandate,' 'clear majority,' 'wrong debate wrong place wrong time.'

You go Karl!, your messaging is catching on--rinse, repeat. rinse, repeat. rinse, why not repeat again? wrong war, wrong debate, hey, wrong election, man.

Oh, wait a sec. Didn't the entire congressional black caucus, reminiscent of four years ago without a senator-objector, protest the election results on the grounds of our failing democracy?

And yet, a mandate falls for king george. Let's just focus on the outcomes, shall we.

I was really hoping for a december surprise-kind o' outcome, that truth and justice would prevail, and our boy jk would be declared the prez for real, and get to spend $40 million in the next week on inaugural balls, celebrations etc.

But that would mean counting things. Like votes.

Like in the real surprise, half a world away. A first election so similar to ours, with rampant discrepancies, voter disenfranchisement, over-voting, and the inability for international/ outside/ independent elections observers (call them what you will)... in Ukraine.

sounds like ohio.

But nothing but outcomes here. No late December gift of a new election, or a complete recount, or a sympathetic Supreme Court.

What will it take for a "revolution" in democracy here?

Sit ins by flight attendants and pilots and police officers and truck drivers who are losing their pensions and health care?

Corn bread and chocolate chip cookies, bridge party block club get togethers?

Building TAZs and new communities & structures of our own that express our values?

Or, Dealing with diversity, with rugged individuals and the patriot act, with sinking governments? How do we deal with this world power global aggression that affects us all, but leave us so impotent in the public sphere? ("support the troops!")

I mean, we can all go and create our perfect utopia, buy up some town in Montana somewhere, live out our glocally local ideals, but still perhaps watch the world go to, you know, cause there'd be even less of us around to say, 'hey wait a minute, that ain't right.'

So what do we do? How do we become patient champions of democracy, in a civic republicanism sense? How do we gain faith in building community where we all feel good participating cause we're listening to each other, and we all get the chance to be heard?

*****

In a world of so much sadness, where can we find hope?

RIP Gustavo.

Relief efforts continue

2005-01-10T23:52:00.000-08:00

My thoughts are with all of those struggling to keep on after the massive quake and waves, with all who are grieving, and those seeking meaning to this massive tragedy.

There was a half-decent attempt on NPR this morning at bringing together comparative religious perspectives on how and why this tsunami occured. A buddhist monk mentioned the over 50 temples washed away along the shoreline, and how aggrieved he was to have known so many communities that have perished; a hindu woman talked about karma and blamed individual actions in this or other liftimes for the reasons people perished, and the importance of seeking forgiveness from a punishing god; a jewish perspective offered there is no reason to seek blame from those who died, scores of whom were children.

the reality is that these events are the result of pressures built up over massive lengths of time.

pressure.

time.

rising water.

an image that haunts me now is at a muslim school along the coast in india, where a group of children, caught in a schoolroom with waters rising, were found together, holding hands.

below is some info about Via Campesina, an organization that supports local and self-organized disaster relief:

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Via Campesina Relief Effort Update
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Supporting Via Campesina's relief and reconstruction efforts are an effective way to help tsunami survivors because:

* Via Campesina gives all donations directly to the communities that know best how and where to use it for relief and rebuilding
* Local, self-organized disaster relief has worked well in previous disasters, proving its efficacy in regions such as Africa, Asia and Latin America
* Giving local people and organizations control of these funds strengthens and empowers the community, not some aid agency or government
* With true people-to-people aid, you can be assured that 100 percent of the aid gets to people who are the neediest

Report from Via Campesina

Because of your continuing support, Via Campesina is already doing important work in relief and rebuilding efforts to areas devastated by the Tsunami.

In a recent Via Campesina dispatch, farmers from Via Campesina member organization the Indonesian National Peasant Federation (FSPI) are sending fresh food to North Sumatra and Aceh. On January 4, Via Campesina began sending bananas, cassava, fruits, rice, chilies, potatoes and fresh vegetables, local produce that is more nutritious than the usual instant noodles and biscuits sent by many international aid organizations. Also included are cooking tools, clothes, infant formula, drinking water and burial tools.

In Sri Lanka, local fishing organizations are working closely with community and youth groups clearing debris, building shelters and rebuilding fishing boats. Via Campesina has also arranged for counseling for refugees, including arranging for women's groups to attend the special needs of women impacted by this disaster.

In India, grassroots affiliates have arranged donations of land to build shelters and community kitchens for survivors. They are also repairing or rebuilding fishing boats for displaced fishing villages.

Meanwhile in Thailand, Via Campesina member group the Assembly of Poor is investigating the extent of damage and helping with emergency needs throughout coastal communities where many lost their lives and livelihoods.

See more at Via Campesina.org

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Normally I don't think I would add a nationally syndicated anything to this page, but this commentary in today's paper deserves attention.

'Tsunami' victims we don't count

In Iraq we kill off thousands of innocent civilians with our own hands, and we reject any attempt to comprehend what we have done

Derrick Z. Jackson, Washington Post Writers Group. Derrick Z. Jackson is a
syndicated columnist based in Boston

January 10, 2005

Secretary of State Colin Powell tours tsunami-stricken Banda Aceh, the devastated main city of northern Sumatra, and says, "I cannot begin to imagine the horror that went through the families and all of the people who heard this noise coming and then had their lives snuffed out by this wave."

Indiana Sen. Richard Lugar, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, issued a resolution that said: "The tsunami disaster constitutes a humanitarian tragedy of incredible proportions. ... My heart goes out to the victims of this tragedy."

Last and hardly least, President Bush said: "The devastation in the region defies comprehension. ... Our flags will fly at half-staff to honor the victims of this disaster. We mourn especially the tens of thousands of children who are lost. We think of the tens of thousands more who will grow up without their parents or their brothers or their sisters. We hold in our prayers all the people whose fate is still unknown."

In the abstract, the outpouring was appropriate. In context, the sympathy was a stench unto itself. Tens of thousands of people die by an act of nature and we say we cannot imagine the horror. We say it defies comprehension. We call it a catastrophe.

In Iraq we kill off thousands, perhaps tens of thousands of innocent civilians with our own hands, and we reject any attempt to comprehend what we have done. Countless Iraqi civilians are homeless. We call it liberation.

Bush quoted all the numbers for the tsunami in speeches last week. Then he said: 150,000 lives lost, including 90,000 in Indonesia; perhaps 5 million homeless; millions vulnerable to disease. That stands in hypocritical contrast to the refusal to count the Iraqi civilians killed in his invasion over false claims of weapons of mass destruction and the crime-ridden chaos of an occupation that did not plan on an "insurgency."

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and former Iraq commander Tommy Franks both said, "We don't do body counts." Then, right in our faces, Powell said civilian casualty figures were "relatively low." Central Command spokesman Pete Mitchell hailed the invasion for its "unbelievably low amount of collateral damage and needless civilian death." Paul Bremer, Bush's former civilian reconstruction envoy, said, "We have freed people with one of the great military battles of all time, in a period of three weeks, with almost no collateral damage, very few civilian deaths, and they are now free."

The White House left the counting to journalists, doctors, think tanks, and human rights groups. The numbers range from conservative guesses of 3,200 in the first few weeks of the war and occupation to estimates ranging from 15,000 to 100,000. No matter if the number was 3,200 or 32,000, this atrocity of silence makes the torture in Abu Ghraib pale in comparison.

No flags have been flown at half-staff for Iraqi civilians. There have been no moments of silence in Congress. There have been no speeches by Bush mourning "the tens of thousands of children who are lost." Americans have not been asked to think of the "tens of thousands more who will grow up without their parents or their brothers or their sisters."

In a nation that supposedly re-elected Bush on "moral values," there have been no prayers from the White House for "all the people whose fate is still unknown" in Iraq. This was a bipartisan hypocrisy. Even House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) fell into the trap of favoritism, fueling the appearance that this war was a religious crusade.

At the beginning of the war she said, "We pray for the swift and successful disarmament of Iraq with the least possible loss of life among our forces and the civilians of Iraq." But then she closed her message with: "May God bless our courageous forces and their brave families. May God bless the president of the United States. And may God bless America."

Not once did Pelosi or any American politician say in the last two years, "God bless Iraqi civilians" or any variant. Only one time has Bush uttered "God bless the people of Iraq," and that was in announcing Saddam Hussein's capture. Not once has he asked God's blessing for the courageous civilians and the families of Iraq who had no choice but to brave our bombs.

Let us do what we can for the victims of the tsunami. But no matter what donations we spare, the offerings will not spare us from history's judgment, if not God's. Lugar said his heart goes out to the victims of the tsunami. No hearts have gone out to Iraqi civilians in this heartless cover-up.

Powell said of the tsunami, "The power of the wave to destroy bridges, to destroy factories, to destroy homes, to destroy crops, to destroy everything in its path is amazing." He said, "I have never seen anything like it in my experience." Yes, he has. It was in Iraq. The tsunami was us.

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Copyright (c) 2005 Chicago Tribune

Congressional hearings in Ohio-- looks like a stolen election

2004-12-16T13:28:00.000-08:00

Startling new revelations highlight rare Congressional hearings on Ohio vote
by Bob Fitrakis, Steve Rosenfeld and Harvey Wasserman, Free Press

December 13, 2004

Startling new revelations about Ohio's presidential vote have been uncovered as Democratic members of the House Judiciary Committee join Rev. Jesse Jackson in Columbus, the state capital, on Monday, Dec. 13, to hold a rare field hearing into election malfeasance and manipulation in the 2004 vote. The Congressional delegation will include Rep. John Conyers (D-MI), Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA), Rep. Stephanie Tubbs-Jones, and others.

Taken together, the revelations show Republicans – in state and county government, and in the Ohio Republican Party – were determined to undermine and suppress Democratic turnout by a wide variety of methods.

The revelations were included in affidavits gathered for an election challenge lawsuit filed Monday at the Ohio Supreme Court. Ohio's Republican Electoral College representatives are also to meet at noon, Monday, at the State House, even though the presidential recount, requested by the Green and Libertarian Parties, is only beginning the same day.

On Sunday, John Kerry spoke with Rev. Jesse Jackson and urged him to take an more active role in investigating the irregularities and ensuring a fair and impartial recount. Kerry said there were three areas of inquiry that should be addressed: 92,000 ballots that recorded no vote for president; qualifying and counting provisional ballots; and supported an independent analysis of the software and set-up of the optical scan voting machines.

What follows are excerpts from some of the affidavits for the election challenge.

- In Warren County, where election officers declared a homeland security emergency on Election Day, and barred reporters and others from watching the vote count, it now has been revealed that county employees were told the previous Thursday they should prepare for the Election Day lockdown. That disclosure suggests the lockdown was a political decision, not a true security risk. Moreover, statements also describe how ballots were left unguarded and unprotected in a warehouse on Election Day, and they were hastily moved after county officials received complaints.

- In Franklin County, where Columbus is located, the election director, Matt Damschroder, misinformed a federal court on Election Day when he testified the county had no additional voting machines – in response to a Voting Rights Act lawsuit brought by the state Democratic Party that minority precincts were intentionally deprived of machines. It now appears as many as 81 voting machines were being held back, out of 2,866 available, according to recent statements by Damschroder and Bill Anthony, the chairman of the Franklin County Board of Elections. The shortage of machines in Democratic-leaning districts lead to long lines and thousands of people leaving in frustration and not voting. Damschroder's contradictory statements raise the possibility of perjury.

- Also in Franklin County, a worker at the Holiday Inn observed a team of 25 people who called themselves the "Texas Strike Force" using payphones to make intimidating calls to likely voters, targeting people recently in the prison system. The "Texas Strike Force" members paid their way to Ohio, but their hotel accommodations were paid for by the Ohio Republican Party, whose headquarters is across the street. The hotel worker heard one caller threaten a likely voter with being reported to the FBI and returning to jail if he voted. Another hotel worker called the police, who came but did nothing.

- In Knox County, students at Kenyon College, a liberal arts school, stood in line for up to 11 hours, because only one voting machine was in use. However, at nearby Mt. Vernon Nazarene University, there were ample voting machines and no lines. This suggests the GOP shorting of voting machines was a more widespread tactic than just targeting inner-city neighborhoods.

- Reports in sworn affidavits affirm numerous instances of direct official interference with the right to vote. In Warren County, Democrats were being targeted and forced to use provisional ballots, even if they had proper identification. These ballots were then subjected to more rigorous standards to be counted than were other ballots. In a half-dozen precincts in Franklin County, people who were not inside polling places by 7:30 PM were told to leave - even if they had waited in line for hours. This is a violation of the Voting Rights Act. Sworn affidavits also confirmed reports of old voter rolls being used, meaning that new voters were not on the list and would be given provisional ballots, if allowed to vote at all.

Affidavits were also filed in support of the election challenge suit raising questions about manipulating exit poll results and computer tabulation of county and statewide votes.

In one exit poll affidavit, Jonathan David Simon, an expert witness, notes that at 12:53 a.m. the exit polls altered the projected winner – even though the same number of votes had been cast. "Although each update reports the same number of respondents (872), the reported results differ significantly, with the latter (12:53 a.m.) exit poll results apparently having been brought into congruence with the tabulated vote results." In other words, the exit polls were made to conform to a political decision to declare Bush the victor.

Another exit poll affidavit, filed by Ron Paul Baiman, an economist and statistician at the University of Illinois and University of Chicago, said the swing in national exit poll results, recorded at 12:33 a.m., when Kerry was winning with 50.8 percent of the vote, to Bush winning with 51.2 percent, was, "in lay terms, impossible."

"This is more than a 100 percent swing in the other direction of the exit poll margin," he said. "There is less than a one in 25,000,000 (1/25,507,308) chance of this occurring."

Another affidavit by Richard Hayes Phillips, a geomorphology Ph.D. from University of Oregon with a special expertise in spotting anomalous data, found dramatic examples of erroneous voting patterns – with votes taken away from Kerry - that can only be explained by computer manipulation.

For instance, in 16 precincts in Cleveland, he found votes that were shifted from Kerry to other candidates. In at least 30 precincts, there was ultra-low voter turnout reported – as low as 7.1 percent or 13.05 percent – and seven entire wards where total turnout was below 50 percent. He writes, "Kerry won Cleveland with 83.27 percent of the vote to 15.88 percent for Bush. If voter turnout were really 60 percent of registered voters, as seems likely based on turnout in other major cities of Ohio, rather than 49.89 percent as reported, Kerry's margin of victory in Cleveland has been wrongly reduced by 22,000 votes."

Phillips points to other counties where has says "there is compelling evidence of fraud." In Miami County early on election night, when 31,620 votes had been counted, and later, when 50,235 votes were counted, "Kerry had exactly the same percentage, 33.92 percent, and the percentage for George Bush was almost exactly the same, dropping by 0.03 percent from 65.80 to 65.77 percent. The second set of returns gave Bush a margin of exactly 16,000 votes, giving cause to question the integrity of the central counting device for the optical scan machines. "

He cites many other examples, but summarizes his findings: "It is my professional opinion that John Kerry's margins of victory were wrongly reduced by 22,000 votes in Cleveland, by 17,000 votes in Columbus, and by as many as 7,000 votes in Toledo. It is my further professional opinion that John Kerry's margins of defeat in Warren, Butler, and Clermont Counties were inflated by as many as 37,000 votes in the aggregate, and in Miami County by as many as 6,000 votes. There are still 92,672 uncounted regular ballots that, based upon the analysis set forth of the election results from Dayton and Cincinnati, may be expected to break for John Kerry by an overwhelming margin. And there are still 14,441 uncounted provisional ballots."

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This is disgusting! John Kerry Won Ohio. We got to get moving to prevent this from happening again.... educate more peeps to be pollwatchers, lobby for our rights to more voting machines, count our own votes, and kick out any official who has the audacity to be a chair to his political party and wants to run his state's non-partisan election.

I'm pissed off... how bout you?

Wangari Maathai wins the Nobel Peace Prize

2004-12-10T15:55:00.000-08:00

Transcript from Democracy Now!, December 9, 2004:

JUAN GONZALEZ: This is Wangari Maathai speaking today in Oslo.

WANGARI MAATHAI: As the first African woman to receive this prize, I accept it on behalf of the people of Kenya and Africa and indeed the whole world. I am especially mindful of women and girl-child. I hope to encourage them to raise their voices and take more space for leadership. I know the honor also gives a deep sense of pride to our men, both old and young. As a mother, I appreciate the inspiration this brings to the youth and I urge them to use it to pursue their dreams.

Although this prize comes to me, it acknowledges the work of countless individuals and groups across the world. They work quietly and often without recognition to protect the environment, promote democracy, defend human rights and ensure equality between women and men. By so doing, they plant the seeds of peace. I know they too are proud today. To all who feel represented by this prize I say use it to advance your mission and meet with the high expectations the world will place on all of us. This honor is also for my family, friends, partners and supporters throughout the world. All of them helped shape the vision and sustain the work which was often accomplished under hostile conditions.

I'm also grateful to the people of Kenya who remained stubbornly hopeful that democracy could be realized and the environment managed sustainably. Because of this support I'm here today to accept this great honor.

I am immensely privileged to join my fellow African Peace Laureates, President Nelson Mandela and F.W. de Klerk, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, the late Chief Albert Lutuli, the late Anwar al-Sadat and the U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan. I know that African people everywhere are encouraged by this news.

My fellow Africans, as we embrace this recognition let us use it to intensify our commitment to our people to reduce conflicts and poverty and thereby improve the quality of life of our people. Let us embrace democratic governance, protect human rights and protect our environment. I'm confident that we shall rise to the occasion. I have always believed that solutions to most of our problems will have to come from us.

In this year's prize the Norwegian Nobel Committee has placed the critical issue of environment and its linkage to democracy and peace before the world. For their visionary action I'm profoundly grateful. Recognizing that sustainable development, democracy and peace are indivisible is an idea whose time has come. Our work for over the past 30 years has always appreciated and engaged these linkages.

My inspiration partly comes from my childhood experiences and observations of nature in rural Kenya. It has been influenced and nurtured by the formal education I was privileged to receive in Kenya, the United States of America and Germany. As I was growing up I witnessed forests being cleared and replaced by commercial plantations which destroyed local biodiversity and the capacity of forests to conserve water.

Excellencies, ladies and gentlemen, in 1977 when we started the Green Belt Movement, I was partly responding to the needs identified by rural women, namely lack of firewood, clean drinking water, balanced diets, shelter and income. Throughout Africa, women are the primary care takers, holding significant responsibility for tilling the land and feeding their families. As a result, they are often the first to become aware of environmental damage as resources become scarce and incapable of sustaining their families.

The women we worked with recounted that unlike in the past they were unable to meet their basic needs. This was due to the degradation of the immediate environment, as well as the introduction of commercial farming which replaced the growing of household food crops, but international trade controlled the price of exports from these small scale farmers and a reasonable and just income could not be guaranteed.

I came to understand that when the environment is destroyed, plundered or mismanaged, we undermine our quality of life and that of our future generations. Tree planting became a natural choice to address some of the initial basic needs identified by women. Also, tree planting is simple, attainable and guarantees quick, successful results within a reasonable amount of time. These are all important to sustain interest and commitment.

So together we planted over 30 million trees that provide fuel, food, shelter and income to support the children and education and household needs. The activity also creates employment and improves soils and watersheds. Through their involvement, women gained some degree of power over their lives, especially their socioeconomic position and relevance in the family. This work continues.

Initially the work was difficult because historically our people have been persuaded to believe that because they are poor they lack not only capital but also knowledge and skills to address their challenges. Instead, they are conditioned to believe that the solutions to their problems must come from outside.

Further, women did not at that time realize that meeting their needs depended on their environment being healthy and well managed. They were also unaware that a degraded environment leads to a scramble for scarce resources and may culminate in poverty and even conflict. They were also unaware of the injustices of international economic arrangements. In order to assist communities to understand these linkages we developed a citizen education program during which people identify their problems, causes and solutions. They then make connections between their own personal actions and the problems they witness in the environment and in society.

Make a New Post

War Crimes, and worse.

2004-11-30T11:48:00.000-08:00

Democracy Now!, November 30, 2004

Red Cross Finds Detainees Intentionally Tortured in Guantanamo as Lawyers in Germany Charge Rumsfeld, Tenet With War Crimes in Iraq

In a confidential report, the Red Cross concluded that the U.S. has been intentionally using psychological and sometimes physical coercion "tantamount to torture" on prisoners at Guantanamo Bay. We go to Germany to speak with Michael Ratner, president of the Center for Constitutional Rights, who is filing a criminal complaint charging a group of U.S. officials with war crimes in Iraq.

The International Committee of the Red Cross has concluded that the U.S. has been intentionally using psychological and sometimes physical coercion "tantamount to torture" on prisoners at Guantanamo Bay. This according to a report in the New York Times.

The conclusion comes in a confidential report written by the Red Cross based on information the group obtained during a visit to Guantanamo in June.

The report also concluded that the military had a set up a system at Guantanamo devised to break the will of the prisoners , and make them wholly dependent on their interrogators through "humiliating acts, solitary confinement, temperature extremes, use of forced positions." The U.S. has rejected the charges.

Meanwhile in Germany, the Center for Constitutional Rights is filing a criminal complaint today on behalf of four Iraqi citizens who allege that a group of U.S. officials committed war crimes in Iraq.

The Iraqis claim they were victims of electric shock, severe beatings, sleep and food deprivation and sexual abuse. Among the officials named in the complaint are Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Former CIA Director George Tenet. Germany's laws on torture and war crimes permits the prosecution of suspected war criminals wherever they may be found.

Michael Ratner, president of the Center for Constitutional Rights.

AMY GOODMAN: We go now to Berlin to Michael Ratner, President of the Center for Constitutional Rights. Welcome to Democracy Now!

MICHAEL RATNER: Thank you for having me.

AMY GOODMAN: Can you explain what this lawsuit is all about?

MICHAEL RATNER: Well Germany has the best single law probably in the world right now for prosecuting alleged war criminals. You can prosecute them anywhere in the world. They have universal jurisdiction and we decided to come to Germany partly on the basis of that law and partly on the basis that three of the people involved in torture are actually in Germany. Ricardo Sanchez, who is the general in charge of all the of the military bases in Iraq, as well as the Iraq War during the Abu-Ghraib period, his Deputy Major Picowski and Colonel Pathos, they are all at U.S. military bases in Germany, so that gives you another handle. They are actually here.
They are people who we allege were deeply involved in the abuses and torture that took place.

Germany is different than the United States in the sense that you can actually bring a criminal complaint and the prosecutor has to do something with it. He has to either investigate it, go ahead and do something, indict people, or he could reject it, but in that case you can always go to a court. We decided this, really, we have been working on it for a number of months. The German complaint is 160-some pages, quite detailed. Most of it is based on the public record of what these people have authorized over a period of years and we came here really for two reasons.

One is the U.S. is not doing anything to investigate the chain of command going up. The investigations are a complete fraud. There are only criminal indictments at best against low-level officials and there's nowhere you can turn to international courts; the U.S. isn't in the ICC. So this is really, I consider this a major and important initiative and it will really say whether the German law has the teeth that it should and whether or not big torturers like the United States can get away with setting an agenda that is taking us into the Dark Ages. Coming on the heels of, of course, the Guantanamo article in the Times, it's quite extraordinary.

Coupled with the attempts to keep Bush out of Canada right now that are being made on the grounds that their immigration law doesn't allow war criminals for people who violate laws of war into Canada. We're really, I think, trying to make I think this world right now as uncomfortable for these people in the administration as we can.

AMY GOODMAN: Michael Ratner, can you talk about this report on the front page of the New York Times today, "Red Cross Finds Detainee Abuse at Guantanamo," a confidential report calls practice tantamount to torture. You are representing some of the detainees at Guantanamo.

MICHAEL RATNER: Yes. I was really, I mean I was really--I wasn't pleased at what I saw in the report, but I have known about this for a long time. In fact they talk about what happened to three of our clients, the three from the United Kingdom who told me their stories in March that, March of this year, that track exactly what happened, what the New York Times article says from shackling to isolation to stripping, a whole range of conduct both psychological and physical that now the Red Cross says, as of June 2004, that are tantamount to torture and what's extraordinary to me is this is like the emperor has no clothes.

Everybody in the world knows the U.S. is engaging in everything from cruel inhuman and degrading treatment to torture. They are doing it around the world, they're doing it in Guantanamo, they're doing it in Baghram, they're doing it in Iraq. And United States insists as Donald Rumsfeld says in that article, as the Pentagon spokesman says, we treat people humanely.

The world has become utterly Orwellian. War is peace, torture is humane treatment. That article is just extraordinary because it does detail exactly what happened to our clients, the Center's clients in Guantanamo and it's one of the reasons we are here in Germany. When you can call that treatment humane treatment, we have a world and we have a government, we have a government that has to be changed. Something has to be done that these people have to be held accountable. In 10 years or 20 years from now, I don't want to see us then finally write "nunc amas" like they did in Argentina after all of the tortures that took place there. We should do something about it now.

And what's amazing is, this is not in the past. This is continuing today. What's going on in Guantanamo, what's going on in the detention facilities around the world is continuing today. And our highest level government officials are authorizing it, condoning it and then trying to say oh, no, it's a few bad soldiers. But that's not the case.

AMY GOODMAN: Michael Ratner, the Red Cross report goes on to say, quote, "The construction of such a system whose stated purpose is the production of intelligence cannot be considered other than an intentional system of cruel, unusual and degrading treatment and a form of torture." I wanted to ask you about that linked to Congress expanding its threats to cut off aid, both military and civil aid, to countries which refuse to guarantee immunity to Americans from prosecution by the International Criminal Court.

MICHAEL RATNER: Well, it's all related, Amy. What I have always said about our refusal to even join the International Criminal Court and now our desire, or our efforts to enter special agreements with these countries and to cut off aid, it's related to our highest government officials know that they are engaged in basic violations of the laws of war and humanitarian law and they don't want to be prosecuted anywhere in the world and they want their soldiers to be able to carry those illegal acts out all over the world without, with impunity from prosecution.

And it goes right to the Gonzales memo that was written in January 2002 when he said well, we better not say the Geneva Conventions apply because if the Geneva applies, we can be charged with war crimes under Geneva and the best defense is to simply say they don't apply. So what we're doing around the world is we're coercing countries with our political, economic, and military power into saying the United States is not just exceptional in its many ways it thinks but is exceptional even in the sense that the laws prohibiting torture should not apply to it. It's an extraordinary moment. One that is taking us back really to the Middle Ages.

AMY GOODMAN: Finally Michael Ratner, President Bush making his first state visit to Canada today and Lawyers Against War, a legal organization, has called on the Prime Minister, the Canadian Prime Minister, Paul Martin, to issue a warrant for President Bush's arrest for breaking the country's Crimes against Humanity and War Crimes Act.

MICHAEL RATNER: What they have actually done in Canada is say that because Bush is president, he can't actually be prosecuted right now in Canada until he's out of office, but that he should be barred from entering Canada because alleged war criminals, people who violate humanitarian law, cannot come into Canada and he should be barred from coming into Canada and it is true, their law is very clear on that, and if the Canadians have any guts, that's what they'll do. But unfortunately, although the world knows that this country, the United States, is now harboring torturers at the highest level, so far we haven't seen people stand up.

I want to say one more word about the German case. We're going to need support all over the world to make sure that prosecutor really does an investigation. If people visit the CCR web site at ccr-ny.org, they will in a few hours find a letter they can send directly to the German prosecutor urging the German prosecutor to begin a serious investigation. But really we are facing a moment that's a very bad moment on terms of what the U.S. is doing but a very good moment in that lawyers and other activists all over the world are really pursuing these tortures to the end of the earth. We called them in our legal jargon, enemies of all humankind who can be brought to justice wherever found. And that is what we have to do.

AMY GOODMAN: Michael Ratner, I want to thank you very much for being with us. Michael Ratner is President of the Center for Constitutional Rights. He is speaking to us from Berlin, Germany.

more at democracynow.org

What's Worse: The amount of depleted uranium dropped on the cities of iraq is known to be at least twice that of the Gulf War. It will take billions of years for its radioactivity to subside. And who knows how it will contaminate the gene pools of iraqi families, for generations and generations?
See: April 2003 BBC article, and DU Spread over Iraq's cities.

Make a New Post

NCWs are WMDs, too

2004-11-28T13:00:00.000-08:00

One of Jamail's latest posts below. I'm in shock as I'm hearing more about the killing of civilians in Fallujah by US troops, and the use of non-conventional weapons. Yes, war is hell. But these are war crimes.

Jamail, who has a journal posted at http://www.vitw.org/ and on his own website, wrote recently of an attack by American troops on a mosque during prayer.

Bill Moyers, in a photo essay, The Face of War, reminds me of why this war is so difficult to "win." Both sides are fighting for the supposed good of a higher power.

I woke up to some church service on the radio this morning, maybe catholic? whose entire program held the message "turning swords into ploughshares." It is hard to think of celebrating advent, or any other holiday, with all that's going on in the world. How can a service here be sacred still with the way we are defiling mosques and prayer services in Iraq?

Dahr Jamail
BAGHDAD, Nov 26 (IPS) - The U.S. military has used poison gas and other non-conventional weapons against civilians in Fallujah, eyewitnesses report.

"Poisonous gases have been used in Fallujah," 35-year-old trader from Fallujah Abu Hammad told IPS. "They used everything -- tanks, artillery, infantry, poison gas. Fallujah has been bombed to the ground." Hammad is from the Julan district of Fallujah where some of the heaviest fighting occurred. Other residents of that area report the use of illegal weapons.

"They used these weird bombs that put up smoke like a mushroom cloud," Abu Sabah, another Fallujah refugee from the Julan area told IPS. "Then small pieces fall from the air with long tails of smoke behind them."
He said pieces of these bombs exploded into large fires that burnt the skin even when water was thrown on the burns. Phosphorous weapons as well as napalm are known to cause such effects. "People suffered so much from these," he said.

Macabre accounts of killing of civilians are emerging through the cordon U.S. forces are still maintaining around Fallujah.

Doctors in Fallujah are reporting to me that there are patients in the hospital there who were forced out by the Americans, said Mehdi Abdulla, a 33-year-old ambulance driver at a hospital in Baghdad. "Some doctors there told me they had a major operation going, but the soldiers took the doctors away and left the patient to die."

Kassem Mohammed Ahmed who escaped from Fallujah a little over a week ago told IPS he witnessed many atrocities committed by U.S. soldiers in the city.

"I watched them roll over wounded people in the street with tanks," he said. "This happened so many times."

Abdul Razaq Ismail who escaped from Fallujah two weeks back said soldiers had used tanks to pull bodies to the soccer stadium to be buried. "I saw dead bodies on the ground and nobody could bury them because of the American snipers," he said. "The Americans were dropping some of the bodies into the Euphrates near Fallujah."

Abu Hammad said he saw people attempt to swim across the Euphrates to escape the siege. "The Americans shot them with rifles from the shore," he said. "Even if some of them were holding a white flag or white clothes over their heads to show they are not fighters, they were all shot."

Hammad said he had seen elderly women carrying white flags shot by U.S. soldiers. "Even the wounded people were killed. The Americans made announcements for people to come to one mosque if they wanted to leave Fallujah, and even the people who went there carrying white flags were killed." Another Fallujah resident Khalil (40) told IPS he saw civilians shot as they held up makeshift white flags. "They shot women and old men in the streets," he said. "Then they shot anyone who tried to get their bodies...Fallujah is suffering too much, it is almost gone now."

Refugees had moved to another kind of misery now, he said. "It's a disaster living here at this camp," Khalil said. "We are living like dogs and the kids do not have enough clothes." Spokesman for the Iraqi Red Crescent in Baghdad Abdel Hamid Salim told IPS that none of their relief teams had been allowed into Fallujah, and that the military had said it would be at least two more weeks before any refugees would be allowed back into the city.

"There is still heavy fighting in Fallujah," said Salim. "And the Americans won't let us in so we can help people."
In many camps around Fallujah and throughout Baghdad, refugees are living without enough food, clothing and shelter. Relief groups estimate there are at least 15,000 refugee families in temporary shelters outside Fallujah.

More writing, photos and commentary at http://dahrjamailiraq.com/

Make a New Post

Small victories amid the fog of war

2004-11-14T09:14:00.000-08:00

So I woke up to a radio report this morning about the fighting that continues in Fallujah. The US Military is claiming that is has killed or captured over 1000 resistance fighters, but still after 6 days have not "won" the city.

6 days. The Red Crescent says they have sent an envoy to Fallujah to give much needed food, water and medical treatment to civilians caught in the city. They have not been allowed through. See 'Catastrophic conditions' in Falluja

6 days for families hiding in their homes, 6 days without food, water, treatment more than home made bandages.

6 daysfor women and children, to be separated from their military-age male loved ones because they are feared to be part of the resistance.

6 DAYS FOR AMERICAN FIGHTERS TO BOMB HOSPITALS? SHOOT AT AMBULANCES? ARREST DOCTORS?

6 days,nowentering 7 or 8, what will be the real cost to this city? What are the real counts of casualties? How many people will die because they are Iraqi? Check out this link for more accurate counts on the war:
Fallujah & the Reality of War: Destroying a City to Save It

The US Military also issued a warning last week to reporters, most of whom of course are embedded with different regiments of the army, marines, etc, not to talk about the insurgents as resistance fighters. What a great media spin.

From a non-embedded reporter: Dahr Jamail

From Democracy Now: Iraqi Gov't Warns Journalists About Coverage

The interim Iraqi government is also threatening media outlets in Iraq to be careful on how it describes members of the Iraqi resistance and how it describes military operations carried out by the U.S and interim Iraqi government. The government said reporters must differentiate between, "innocent citizens of Fallujah who are not targeted by the military operations and between the terrorist groups who infiltrated the city and took its people hostage under the pretext of resistance and jihad." Iraq's Media High Commission also told news organizations they must provide space to explain "the government position" and journalists have been warned not to add patriotic descriptions to me mbers of the Iraqi resistance. Journalists were told to underscore that "these military operations did not come about until all peaceful means were attempted." It is unclear what will happen to news organizations that break the new guidelines. The commission said that failure to follow the instructions will require authorities to "take all necessary measures to safeguard the supreme interest of the homeland."

*******************************************************************************************
I did say something about small victories.

Cynthia won... http://www.cynthiaforcongress.com/

Exciting New Feminist Legislators to watch: See www.now.org

Progressive Ballot Initiatives, like Living Wage referendums, passed in some places:
Check it!

This morning I read an appeal for the Catholic Campaign for Human Development's annual collection next Sunday, talking about my experiences working with Organization of the Northeast,fighting gentrification in our neighborhoods. I was pleasantly surprised to be seconded by Father Jim in an impassioned appeal to support groups like ONE fighting "greed and displacement" in our communities.

Looking for hope.

Voices in the Wilderness, live journal from Iraq

A Legitimate Recount Effort in Ohio

Public Hearings have been called for in Ohio.
Statewide Actions Today, November 13: See indyvoter.org

Reasons for Hope, by Ruth Conniff

Growing a Real Youth Movement

2004-11-09T13:45:00.000-08:00

Imagining a Real Youth Movement

Commentary, Raj Jayadev,
Pacific News Service, Nov 05, 2004

Editor's Note: Youth voters couldn't kick George W. Bush out of the White House, and now organizing efforts that had Nov. 2 as their end point might slip into oblivion. What's needed, the writer says, is a movement that respects youth and fires their imagination.

The day after the election I sat in a room with two-dozen early twenty-something political activists discussing Bush's victory. They were too gloomy to even feign hope. This group comprised not only members of the highly touted youth vote, but the very organizers who tried to deliver it.

After massive campus and community canvassing, national strategizing conferences and media campaigns centering around pop culture icons, the youth vote ultimately did not do what it set out to do -- beat Bush. Keep the champagne corked and tell the DJ to cut the music, because the party ain't happening. But what happens to all that political energy after it has been harnessed, win or lose? Does it just evaporate?

The truth is, the potential of the youth vote actually was never about Nov. 2. It was about Nov. 3.

A record 20 million young voters came to the polls on Tuesday, an increase of 4.5 million from 2000, for whatever reason -- a brother in Iraq, an Eminem video, rising tuition fees, or a P-Diddy "Vote or Die" ultimatum. Today, these same voters may already be back to the couch, remote in hand, watching Real World re-runs, defeated, cynical and rightfully dismissive anytime anyone tries to get them plugged into politics again. Lesson learned in 2004. Or, a significant number of youths could be ignited by the past few months, reborn with new-found political voice and drive.

The outcome will not only be a truer temperature check of youth political activism than abstract poll numbers, but will reveal how transformative, or superficial, the power of voting actually is for the hip-hop generation.

I remember having a similar "where do we go from here" get-together after a state election in 2000 that had youth in the spotlight. We had just lost Prop. 21 in California, which aimed (and has since succeeded) in locking up scores of young people under the guise of reducing crime. We didn't have Puff Daddy, but we had our own bells and whistles. We did banner drops on freeway overpasses, took over hotels and, like this election, stayed in front of the polls through the rain. Our statewide "youth movement" was inspiring, even in its defeat.

We hoped the coalitions we formed would be a stepping stone to long-term, substantive change, not just a temporary reaction to a legislative threat. But political infrastructures fell apart as quickly as they were built, a sad reality of "online organizing." Those who didn't get burned out returned to their independent, local struggles. I remember an organizer I looked up to telling us, "You can't win what you want in a voting booth, but you can lose what you got." The challenge we didn't acknowledge, and is now facing the national youth vote, is rooted in the way youth electoral organizing is done in the first place.

For one, it's built to climax at a particular finish line -- Election Day. Any day after that just isn't on the strategy charts. There are of course obligated political messaging about how we always need to keep marching forward or whatever, but "Vote Or Die" sure doesn't have much broad-scoped vision.

Secondly, young people are always targeted as consumers, no matter if it's a product, a brand name or a political cause. This election's youth organizing drives were absolutely shameless in this way. Voting was sold to young people like Nike or Sprite is sold to the masses. But marketing is not organizing. No one wants to be led like sheep, even if it's to greener pastures.

The third and perhaps biggest obstacle is that voting is about choosing what's in front of you, while a movement is about creating choices. The gulf is about imagination. As Desmond Tutu said, it's not just about having a seat at the table, it's about setting the menu. If young people really did set the menu, I doubt they would be serving up the Democratic Party or John Kerry.

If the "youth movement" is going to be more than a mere footnote in George Bush's story of continuing manifest destiny, it won't be up to Puff Daddy or John Kerry. I don't even think it will be based on the actions of the college youth organizers who were trying to console each other that day after the election. A youth movement will be led by those who were as removed from the vote as they are from MTV. It will be based on the 24-year-old who is living on the streets of downtown San Jose, jobless, and keeps his poetry book hidden under his 40-bottle in his backpack. The same one who told me, as I was about to drive over to the polling station on voting day, that sometimes he hates himself.

I don't reflect about what president we need when I think of him. I think of what movement we need to imagine.

Jayadev (svdebug@pacificnews.org) is the editor of www.siliconvalleydebug.com, the voice of young workers, writers and artists in Silicon Valley.

see the article and comment at
http://news.pacificnews.org/news/view_article.html?article_id=85e869cb2eed1c043718db94fe1f0a5c

Make a New Post

Will we all be counted?

2004-11-07T09:45:00.000-08:00

The Ultimate Felony Against Democracy

by Thom Hartmann

Published on Thursday, November 4, 2004 by CommonDreams.org

The hot story in the Blogosphere is that the "erroneous" exit polls that showed Kerry carrying Florida and Ohio (among other states) weren't erroneous at all- it was the numbers produced by paperless voting machines that were wrong, and Kerry actually won. As more and more analysis is done of what may (or may not) be the most massive election fraud in the history of the world, however, it's critical that we keep the largest issue at the forefront at all time: Why are We The People allowing private, for-profit corporations, answerable only to their officers and boards of directors, and loyal only to agendas and politicians that will enhance their profitability, to handle our votes?

Maybe Florida went for Kerry, maybe for Bush. Over time - and through the efforts of some very motivated investigative reporters - we may well find out (Bev Harris of www.blackboxvoting.org just filed what may be the largest Freedom of Information Act [FOIA} filing in history), and bloggers and investigative reporters are discovering an odd discrepancy in exit polls being largely accurate in paper-ballot states and oddly inaccurate in touch-screen electronic voting states. Even raw voter analyses are showing extreme oddities in touch-screen-run Florida, and eagle-eyed bloggers are finding that news organizations are retroactively altering their exit polls to coincide with what the machines ultimately said.

Read the rest of the article at http://www.commondreams.org/views04/1104-38.htm

Also: see alternet's coverage of election intimidation: http://www.alternet.org/election04oh/20384/

And a Laura Flanders article with a little history:

You know what the Republicans are up to?

The party of pre-emptive war is trying to pre-empt democracy.

They couldn't find any weapons of mass destruction, now they're trying to manufacture weapons of mass disruption ... to disqualify likely Democrats from voting.

It's all over the news. In Ohio, the state Republican Party has challenged the eligibility of 35,000 newly registered voters. ... It's necessary they say, to prevent fraud in a state where polls show President Bush and John F. Kerry are in a statistical tie. Most of the 35,000 you'll not be surprised to hear, live in urban, which is to say, multi-racial, which is to say, Democratic, areas.

Read the rest of the article at http://www.alternet.org/election04oh/20283/

Was the Ohio election honest and fair? See the Institute for Public Accuracy:
http://www.accuracy.org/press_releases/PR110304.htm

Taking Democracy into our own Hands

2004-11-05T17:48:00.000-08:00

It's time to take it back, define it ourselves.

I still believe that Kerry is the true winner. The stories are beginning to pour in about voter disenfranchisement & voting machine messups
(like the extra 3,000 votes for Bush in one Ohio precinct? Whoops!)

Greg Palast writes that if all the spoiled + provisional ballots were counted, Ohio might have gone Blue: http://www.tompaine.com/articles/kerry_won_.php

Yes, it's hella upsetting that W got so many votes, huh? And there are lots of us hella angry.

So how do we heal & at the same time make all them red states
purple --> indigo --> blue?

Check out this map with the breakdown: http://www.princeton.edu/~rvdb/JAVA/election2004/

How bout this...

Taking Democracy from the Polls Into the Streets
by Chris Crass

On November 3rd the march for democracy went from the polls to the streets. People across the country - in cities including Asheville, Baltimore, Boston, Chicago, Denver, Gainesville, Las Vegas, Minneapolis, New York City, Pittsburgh, Portland, San Diego, Tucson and in San Francisco - are declaring that the people are the decision-makers in society, not just on Election Day, but every day.

In this election between two pro-war candidates, each representing the dictatorship of the rich, there was massive voter disenfranchisement and voter intimidation targeting working class people, communities of color, young people and immigrants who are traditionally progressive/left and vote Democrat. With blatant, public efforts to undermine one of the most basic rights in a democratic society, with outrage at this imperialist system, we took to the streets to exercise our power and announce to the world that people in the United States will continue to fight back.

At the 5pm march called by the anti-war coalition Not In Our Name, the groups Global Intifada, the Heads Up Collective and Siafu called for an Anti-Imperialist Contingent (AIC) to make visible struggles for justice in the US and around the world. Over 300 people marched in the AIC to demonstrate unity in struggle. The AIC included members from people of color and working class-led racial and economic justice community organizations, direct action global justice affinity groups, immigrant-led groups and white anti-racist groups.

"From Baghdad to the US/Mexico border, women, children and elders suffer and die every day because of the so-called 'War on Terrorism.' Bush has created and aided this plan for empire and Kerry didn't even pledge to stop it," says Lupe Arreola of St. Peter's Housing Committee and a member of Siafu. The AIC action focused on both the attacks against immigrant communities and the leadership of immigrants in social justice movements. St. Peters and the AIC surrounded the Mission police station and led a speak-out with street theatre denouncing the involvment of the SFPD in raids and deportations against the immigrant community. They called out for City Hall to enforce its INS raid free zone/Santuary City resolution.

Arreola continues, "We, as immigrant communities, must be out in the streets on Nov 3, in defense of democracy and in solidarity with other third world immigrants, and with the people of the world - from Port-au-Prince to West Oakland."

Raeanne Young of Global Intifada and Direct Action to Stop the War worked nationally to build the Beyond Voting campaign of mobilizing people to take to the streets Nov. 3rd. "We recognize that we cannot vote for freedom within this two party system. Real democracy comes from grassroots organizing, leadership and self-determination in ourcommunities." She explains, "This time around we took it from the polls to the streets.

"In vigils, marches and acts of civil disobedience around the country, communities committed to social justice stepped forward to reclaim democracy. Rahula Janowski of the Heads Up collective states, "As a white working class mother struggling to get by, I marched in the streets in solidarity with immigrants, communities of color and all working class people and poor people struggling to get by. We came together in the Anti-Imperialist Contingent not just to march against the Bush regime and this so-called democracy, but to work together to build a truly just society for us all. "

Thanks to Ryan Phillips of Siafu and Clare Bayard of Heads Up for help with this article.

ps: pictures from the Nov 3rd marches:
*This link includes pictures of the overall march with lots of pictures of the Nov 3rd march the AIC: http://www.indybay.org/news/2004/11/1703076.php

*Pictures of our speakers at the NION march http://www.indybay.org/news/2004/11/1703441.php

*There are pictures here from the march and an earlier Healthcare NotWarfare march at 9am on Nov 3rd in SF.http://www.indybay.org/news/2004/11/1703133.php

*More overall pictures from Beyond Voting Nov 3rd 9am Healthcare NotWarfare march. http://www.basetree.com/photos/beyond-voting.html

We Continue the Struggle Against Imperialism
by Mel Pilbin, Heads Up Collective at the day-after-the-election protest at Powell and Market

It's great to see you all out tonight. It's so important that we are in the streets today to express our outrage and demonstrate the power of our movements. My name is Mel Pilbin and I am a member of the Heads Up Collective and part of tonight's Anti-Imperialist Contingent. Heads Up is honored to be speaking. The connections that are being made in this march between U.S. imperialist war and the war on the working poor and people of color in this country are exactly the types of connections we need to be making to help build power and unity as a left radical movement. And power and movement building are going to be more necessary than ever over the next four years.

The Heads Up Collective formed shortly after September 11th to do anti-war organizing in the Bay Area that made explicit the connections to the wars being waged domestically. We are a white, anti-racist, anti-imperialist collective that prioritizes doing movement building work with economic and racial justice struggles led by poor people and people of color. We organize in the anti-war and global justice movements with a focus on Palestinian liberation and supporting anti-racist analysis and practice among predominately white sectors. Our overarching goal is to help build revolutionary, multi-racial, working-class led movements in the Bay Area.

Heads Up joins today with Siafu, Global Intifada, and our close allies toform the Anti-Imperialist Contingent. Siafu is a delegation of Bay Areaanti-imperialist activists of color and white anti-racist allies that cametogether to protest the RNC. Global Intifada is a multi-racial affinity group within Direct Action to Stop the War that has a strong focus on supporting Palestinian Liberation and resisting racist attacks on civilliberties.

Our theme for tonight's march is the "Ghosts of the dead and the disappeared". In the tradition of Dia de los Muertos, we mourn the victims and honor the lives of those killed at the hands of U.S. Imperialism. Imperialism is the global system that causes the war abroad and the war at home in the U.S. We come together tonight to help make visible the struggles of Third World peoples around the globe as well as the policies that make those struggles necessary. Today we are faced with the same system that we were faced with yesterday and therefore we have the same task we have always had; to build a broad and powerful revolutionary grassroots movement led by exploited and oppressed people and ready to challenge U.S. imperialism in solidarity with grassroots movements on a global scale.

As white folks in the movement we need to continue to build on the connections between local struggles and movements on an international level and work to support the leadership coming from oppressed communities. This is not just about liberation of other people, but alsoabout our own liberation from these systems of oppression and from Capitalism.

We know we cannot vote for freedom within this two party system. We know real democracy comes from grassroots organizing, leadership and self-determination in oppressed communities. Despite the disappointing outcome of the elections, I am inspired by what we are a part of building here and now.

As we march today challenging the war in Iraq, the occupation of Palestine and U.S. intervention globally, we must also continue to challenge the daily war waged against exploited and oppressed communities within this country. Understanding how the issues are interconnected brings our movements together. We must continue to join in struggle to unify our movement and build power for what lies ahead. The Heads Up Collective is proud to be in the streets with all of youtonight expressing our outrage and demonstrating our hope and revolutionary vision for a world beyond the Bush regime and Beyond U.S. Imperialism.

*Messaging developed by the Anti-Imperialist Contingent was used in this speech.

Make a New Post

An era of shock & awe, in red & blue

2004-11-04T22:57:00.000-08:00

A Blue City (Disconsolate, Even) Bewildered by a Red America

By JOSEPH BERGER, NY Times

Published: November 4, 2004

Striking a characteristic New York pose near Lincoln Center yesterday, Beverly Camhe clutched three morning newspapers to her chest while balancing a large latte and talked about how disconsolate she was to realize that not only had her candidate, John Kerry, lost but that she and her city were so out of step with the rest of the country.

"Do you know how I described New York to my European friends?" she said. "New York is an island off the coast of Europe."

Like Ms. Camhe, a film producer, three of every four voters in New York City gave Mr. Kerry their vote, a starkly different choice from the rest ofthe nation. So they awoke yesterday with something of a woozy existential hangover and had to confront once again how much of a 51st State they are, different in their sensibilities, lifestyles and polyglot texture from most of America. The election seemed to reverse the perspective of the famous Saul Steinberg cartoon, with much of the land mass of America now in the foreground and New York a tiny, distantand irrelevant dot.

Some New Yorkers, like Meredith Hackett, a 25-year-old barmaid in Brooklyn, said they didn't even know any people who had voted for President Bush.(In both Manhattan and the Bronx, Mr. Bush received 16.7 percent of the vote.) Others spoke of a feeling of isolation from their fellow Americans, a sense that perhaps Middle America doesn't care as much about New York and its animating concerns as it seemed to in the weeks immediately after the attack onthe World Trade Center.

"Everybody seems to hate us these days,"said Zito Joseph, a 63-year-old retired psychiatrist. "None of the people who are likely to be hit by a terrorist attack voted for Bush. But the heartland people seemed to be saying, 'We're not affected by it if there would be another terrorist attack.'"

City residents talked about this chasm between outlooks with characteristic New York bluntness.

Dr. Joseph,a bearded, broad-shouldered man with silken gray hair, was sharing coffee and cigarettes with his fellow dog walker, Roberta Kimmel Cohn, at an outdoor table outside the hole-in-the-wall Breadsoul Cafe near Lincoln Center. The site was almost a cliché corner of cosmopolitan Manhattan, with a news stand next door selling French and Italian newspapers and, a bit farther down, the Lincoln Plaza theater showing foreign movies.

"I'm saddened by what I feel is the obtuseness and shortsightedness of a good part of the country--the heartland," Dr. Joseph said. "This kind of redneck, shoot-from-the-hip mentality and avery concrete interpretation of religion is prevalent in Bush country--in the heartland."

"New Yorkers are more sophisticated and at a level of consciousness where we realize we have to think of globalization, of one mankind, that what's going to injure masses of people is not good for us," he said.

His friend, Ms.Cohn, a native of Wisconsin who deals in art, contended that New Yorkers were not as fooled by Mr. Bush's statements as other Americans might be. "New Yorkers are savvy," she said. "We have street smarts. Whereas people in the Midwest are more influenced by what their friends say."

"They're very 1950's," she said of Midwesterners. "When I go back there, I feel I'm in a time warp."

Dr. Joseph acknowledged that such attitudes could feed into the perception that New Yorkers are cultural elitists, but he didn't apologize for it.

"People who are more competitive and proficient at what they do tend to gravitate toward cities," he said.

Like those in the rest of the country, New Yorkers stayed up late watching the results, and some went to bed with a glimmer of hope that Mr. Kerry might yet find victory in some fortuitous combination of battleground states. But they awoke to reality. Some politically conscious children were disheartened - or sleepy - enough to ask parents if they could stay home. But even grownups were unnerved.

"To paraphrase our current president, I'm in shock and awe," said Keithe Sales, a 58-year-old former publishing administrator walking a dog near Central Park. He said he and friends shared a feeling of "disempowerment" as a result of the country's choice of President Bush."There is a feeling of 'What do I have to do to get this man out of office?'"

In downtown Brooklyn, J. J. Murphy, 34, a teacher, said that Mr. Kerry's loss underscored the geographic divide between the Northeast and the rest of the country. He harked back to Reconstruction to help explain his point.

"One thing Clinton and Gore had going for them was they were from the South," he said. "There's a lot of resentment toward the Northeast carpetbagger stereotype, and Kerry fit right in to that."

Mr. Murphy said he understood why Mr. Bush appealed to Southerners in a way that he did not appeal to New Yorkers.

"Even though Bush isn't one of them - he's a son of privilege - he comes off as just a good old boy," Mr. Murphy said.

Pondering the disparity, Bret Adams, a 33-year-old computer network administrator in Rego Park, Queens, said, "I think a lot of the country sees New Yorkas a wild and crazy place, where these things like the war protests happen."

Ms. Camhe, the film producer, frequents Elaine's restaurant with friends and spends many mornings on a bench in Central Park talking politics with homeless people with whom she's become acquainted. She spent part of Tuesday knocking on doors in Pennsylvaniato rustle up Kerry votes then returned to Manhattan to attend an election-night party thrown by Miramax's chairman, Harvey Weinstein, at The Palm. Ms. Camhe was also up much of the night talking to a son in California who was depressed at the election results.

When it became clear yesterday morning that the outlook for a Kerry squeaker was a mirage, she was unable to eat breakfast. Her doorman on Central Park West gave her a consoling hug. Then a friend buying coffee along with her said she had just heard a report on television that Mr. Kerry had conceded and tears welled in Ms. Camhe's eyes.

Ms. Camhe explained the habits and beliefs of those dwelling in the heartland like an anthropologist.

"What's different about New York City is it tends to bring people together and so we can't ignore each others' dreams and values and it creates a much more inclusive consciousness," she said. "When you're in a more isolated environment, you're more susceptible to some ideology that's imposed on you."

As an example, Ms. Camhe offered the different attitudes New Yorkers may have about social issues like gay marriage.

"We live in this marvelous diversity where we actually have gay neighbors,"she said. "They're not some vilified unknown. They're our neighbors."

But she said that a dichotomy of outlooks was bad for the country.

"If the heartland feels so alienated from us, then it behooves us to wrap our arms around the heartland," she said. "We need to bring our way of life,which is honoring diversity and having compassion for people with different lifestyles, on a trip around the country."

[Michael Brick and Brian McDonald contributed reporting for this article.]

T+ 24 Hours

2004-11-03T18:05:00.000-08:00

I've still got hope.

Though I witnessed a day of people voting for the first time, election judges not sure of which form to fill out and what IDs they could accept from who, I'm done with this exclusive democracy we have.

Thrilled combined with devastated:
Audacious Hope from new Senator Obama, & the tons and tons of new voters who raised their voices today.

The precinct I worked had 87% turnout of folks on their roles, and nationally 4.6 Million More Young People Cast Votes Than in 2000, sending youth turnout up by 9.3 %.

Shattering Let down Weakness from Kerry-Edwards. Though if the election was only folks under 30, Kerry would have won in a landslide.

Check out these breakdowns of the electorate

If we are to fight for the rights of all americans to vote, why make it so goddam difficult? And why predict results, concede victory before all the ballots have been counted, before we know about all the irregularities that happened on election day?

From green jacket clad republicans in Wisconsin trying to dissuade the citizen children of undocumented families from voting (the INS wears the same colors), to

Older women in Florida bein told they have until November 16th to vote, so no need to hurry and go on the 2nd.

From disenfranchisement of students and young people here in Chicago because of challenges to their registration and residency, to

Native Americans in South Dakota not bein given the right to vote, to

Intimidation and voter disenfranchisement happening all over Ohio. 150,000 PROVISIONAL BALLOTS CAST! How many more might voted had the lines not been as long? Had the process been less discouraging?

Ohio.

The Swing State.

The State a microcosm of the pulse of the nation.

Now, a president with a "mandate,"
with a "clear majority," say the pundits,
full of hope for the future, says Bush,

will gamble

with my and my family's and my community's and my children's

and my children's children's

future.

Oh the Audacity of Hope.

7 Hours left!

2004-11-01T15:58:00.000-08:00

Regime Change begins at home.

Too many innocent people have died
Too much indifference, injustice and lies
Time to stand up be a voice, a new way
Enter our lives and dawn a new day
of democracy, where every vote gets counted!
Where we gain the power, the mandate we've mounted

Runs COUNTER to pain,
Runs COUNTER to blame
Runs COUNTER to saying, "this is the only way"
Runs COUNTER to murder and genocide

and straight for HOPE! HOME! PATIENCE! RESPECT!
no more blinders and one-liners! no more neglect
of our allies & our responsibilities
in the world, of our histories & abilities
to see ourselves
as partners,
changers, planters
community builders

We need forgiveness.

From ourselves,
from the world.

And for starters, let's ACT.

Raise Our Voices together!

Tomorrow we take out of our back pockets
Our finest in civil (dis)obedience, actions--
speak louder than words--
and send a certain Bush packin
back to the ranch

and we get back
to buildin a better world
not some "free world" supremacy
where we're all free to think, choose, be

ourselves, our needs are

yours, our thoughts are

with you, our voices are

stronger in unison, our dreams are

better together.

100,000 Fireflies

2004-10-31T10:18:00.000-08:00

Civilian death toll in Iraq exceeds 100,000

Shaoni Bhattacharya, NewScientist.com news service
Updated 13:05, October 29 04

The invasion of Iraq in March 2003 by coalition forces has lead to the death of at least 100,000 civilians, reveals the first scientific study to examine the issue.

The majority of these deaths, which are in addition those normally expected from natural causes, illness and accidents, have been among women and children, finds the study, released early by The Lancet on Thursday.

The most common cause of death is as a direct result of violence, mostly caused by coalition air strikes, reveals the study of almost 1000 households scattered across Iraq. And the risk of violent death just after the invasion was 58 times greater than before the war. The overall risk of death was 1.5 times more after the invasion than before.

The figure of 100,000 – estimated by extrapolating the surveyed households’ death toll to the whole population - is based on "conservative assumptions", notes Les Roberts at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Baltimore, US, who led the study.

That estimate excludes Falluja, a hotspot for violence. If the data from this town is included, the study points to about 200,000 excess deaths since the outbreak of war.

***********************************************
I went out to the forest and caught
A hundred thousand fireflies
As they ricochet round the room
They remind me of your starry eyes
Someone else's might not have made me so sad
But this is the worst night I ever had
Cause I'm afraid of the dark without you close to me

...
Why do we keep shrieking, when we mean something?
We should be whispering all the time...

Magnetic Fields, 100,000 Fireflies

Make a New Post

Letter from Baghdad

2004-10-20T08:46:00.000-07:00

From Baghdad: A Wall Street Journal Reporter's E-Mail to Friends
by Farnaz Fassihi 10/02/04

Being a foreign correspondent in Baghdad these days is like being under virtual house arrest. Forget about the reasons that lured me to this job: a chance to see the world, explore the exotic, meet new people in far away lands, discovertheir ways and tell stories that could make a difference.

Little by little, day-by-day, being based in Iraq has defied all those reasons. I am house bound. I leave when I have a very good reason to and a scheduled interview. I avoid going to people's homes and never walk in the streets. I can't go grocery shopping any more, can't eat in restaurants, can't strike a conversation with strangers, can't look for stories, can't drive in any thing but a full armored car, can't go to scenes of breaking news stories, can't be stuck in traffic, can't speak English outside, can't take a road trip, can't say I'm an American, can't linger at checkpoints, can'tbe curious about what people are saying, doing, feeling. And can't and can't. There has been one too many close calls, including a car bomb so near our house that it blew out all the windows. So now my most pressing concern every day is not to write a kick-ass story but to stay alive and make sure our Iraqi employees stay alive. In Baghdad I am a security personnel first, a reporter second.

It's hard to pinpoint when the 'turning point' exactly began. Was it April when the Fallujah fell out of the grasp of the Americans? Was it when Moqtada and Jish Mahdi declared war on the U.S. military? Was it when Sadr City, home to ten percent of Iraq's population, became a nightly battlefield for the Americans? Or was it when the insurgency began spreading from isolated pockets in the Sunni triangle to include most of Iraq? Despite President Bush's rosy assessments, Iraq remains a disaster. If under Saddam it was a 'potential' threat, under the Americans it has been transformed to 'imminent and active threat,' a foreign policy failure bound to haunt the United States for decades to come.

Iraqis like to call this mess 'the situation.' When asked 'how are things?' they reply: "the situation is very bad." What they mean by situation is this: the Iraqi government doesn't control most Iraqi cities, there are several car bombs going off each day around the country killing and injuring scores of innocent people, the country's roads are becoming impassable and littered by hundreds of landmines and explosive devices aimed to kill American soldiers, there are assassinations, kidnappings and beheadings. The situation, basically, means a raging barbaric guerilla war. In four days, 110 people died and over 300 got injured in Baghdad alone. The numbers are so shocking that the ministry of health -- which was attempting an exercise of public transparency by releasing thenumbers -- has now stopped disclosing them.

Insurgents now attack Americans 87 times a day.

A friend drove thru the Shiite slum of Sadr City yesterday. He said young men were openly placing improvised explosive devices into the ground. They melt a shallow hole into the asphalt, dig the explosive, cover it with dirt and put an old tire or plastic can over it to signal to the locals this is booby-trapped. He said on the main roads of Sadr City, there were a dozen landmines per every ten yards. His car snaked and swirled to avoid driving over them. Behind the walls sits an angry Iraqi ready to detonate them as soon as an American convoy gets near. This is in Shiite land, the population that was supposed to love America for liberating Iraq.

For journalists the significant turning point came with the wave of abduction and kidnappings. Only two weeks ago we felt safe around Baghdad because foreigners were being abducted on the roads and highways between towns. Then came a frantic phone call from a journalist female friend at 11 p.m. telling me two Italian women had been abducted from their homes in broad daylight.

Then the two Americans, who got beheaded this week and the Brit, were abducted from their homes in a residential neighborhood. They were supplying the entire block with round the clock electricity from their generator to win friends. The abductors grabbed one of them at 6 a.m. when he came out to switch on the generator; his beheaded body was thrown back near the neighborhoods.

The insurgency, we are told, is rampant with no signs of calming down. If any thing, it is growing stronger, organized and more sophisticated every day. The various elements within it-baathists, criminals, nationalists and Al Qaeda-are cooperating and coordinating.

I went to an emergency meeting for foreign correspondents with the military and embassy to discuss the kidnappings. We were somberly told our fate would largely depend on where we were in the kidnapping chain once it was determined we were missing. Here is how it goes: criminal gangs grab you and sell you up to Baathists in Fallujah, who will in turn sell you to Al Qaeda. In turn, cash and weapons flow the other way from Al Qaeda to the Baathisst to the criminals. My friend Georges, the French journalist snatched on the road to Najaf, has been missing for a month with no word on release or whether he is still alive.

America's last hope for a quick exit? The Iraqi police and National Guard units we are spending billions of dollars to train. The cops are being murdered by the dozens every day-over 700 to date -- and the insurgents are infiltrating their ranks. The problem is so serious that the U.S. military has allocated $6 million dollars to buy out 30,000 cops they just trained to get rid of them quietly.

As for reconstruction: firstly it's so unsafe for foreigners to operate that almost all projects have come to a halt. After two years, of the $18 billion Congress appropriated for Iraq reconstruction only about $1 billion or so has been spent and achuck has now been reallocated for improving security, a sign of just how bad things are going here.

Oil dreams? Insurgents disrupt oil flow routinely as a result of sabotage and oil prices have hit record high of $49 a barrel. Who did this war exactly benefit? Was it worth it? Are we safer because Saddam is holed up and Al Qaeda is running around in Iraq?

Iraqis say that thanks to America they got freedom in exchange for insecurity. Guess what? They say they'd take security over freedom any day, even if it means having a dictator ruler.

I heard an educated Iraqi say today that if Saddam Hussein were allowed to run for elections he would get the majority of the vote. This is truly sad.

Then I went to see an Iraqi scholar this week to talk to him about elections here. He has been trying to educate the public on the importance of voting. He said, "President Bush wanted to turn Iraq into a democracy that would be an example for the Middle East. Forget about democracy, forget about being a model for the region,we have to salvage Iraq before all is lost."

One could argue that Iraq is already lost beyond salvation. For those of us on the ground it's hard to imagine what if any thing could salvage it from its violent downward spiral. The genie of terrorism, chaos and mayhem has been unleashed onto this country as a result of American mistakes and it can't be put back into a bottle.

The Iraqi government is talking about having elections in three months while half of the country remains a 'no go zone'-out of the hands of the government and the Americans and out of reach of journalists. In the other half, the disenchanted population is too terrified to show up at polling stations. The Sunnis have already said they'd boycott elections, leaving the stage open for polarized government of Kurds and Shiites that will not be deemed as legitimate and will most certainly lead to civil war.

I asked a 28-year-old engineer if he and his family would participate in the Iraqi elections since it was the first time Iraqis could to some degree elect a leadership. His response summed it all: "Go and vote and risk being blown into pieces or followed bythe insurgents and murdered for cooperating with the Americans? Forwhat? To practice democracy? Are you joking? "

www.moveon.org
www.truthvsbush.org

The Silence is Deafening

2004-10-17T09:45:00.000-07:00

It's 2 weeks til D(ecision) Day.

D for Democracy Day? Guess we'll be waiting to see what happens.

The Chicago Tribune endorsed W today, for his commitment to keepin the country "safe," in the words of John McCain, makin sure we leave a better and safer tomorrow for our children.

WHO's feeling safe these days? Not me.
Been having nightmares about hydrogen bombs wiping out the eastcoast.

"Pounding" resistance cores in Fallujah. This builds democracy? I guess that's why Karzai doesn't care if only 20% of Afganistan was able to vote in the presidential election last week.

I wonder how many Iraqi's will be left by the time January rolls around and their elections take place.

I've been reading Arundhati Roy's latest book, An Ordinary Person's Guide to Empire. In it, she says:

''Free elections, a free press, and an independent judiciary mean little when the free market has reduced them to commodities available for sale to the highest bidder."

I wonder what free elections, free press, and independent courts really mean in this day & age to the free market-crazed in the white house, the press rooms, and the board rooms...

Check out www.indyvoter.org for peeps who are redefining what free elections and democracy really should mean.

peace out.

Make a New Post

voices rising...

2004-09-21T21:13:00.000-07:00

count down to november 2.

43 days to go.

dear friend:

can we dialogue a bit? that's all i ask. it seems like, these days, all people want to do is argue. make pronouncements. make stuff this or that. bad or good. black or white.

can we learn how to listen? ask questions? seek real answers that might be a lil bit gray.

all i ask.

take a breath. listen for it. is it something you can normally hear?
i wonder what else i'm missing if i'm not listening for what's harder to hear.

voices rising...

sharing a space for voices to RISE

a space for all those talking dialoguing singing shouting
way below the radar, bein drowned out
by all the loud ugly noisy angry patriarchal shite in the mainstream.

Listen,

RISE.