Sunday, August 28, 2005

BAUAW NEWSLETTER-SUNDAY, AUGUST 28, 2005

***************************************************************
STOP THE WAR AND OCCUPATION!
IRAQ, PALESTINE, HAITI....
MARCH AND RALLY SEPTEMBER 24
11:00 A.M. DOLORES PARK, S.F.
COLLEGE NOT COMBAT CONTINGENT
10:00 A.M. 16TH AND MISSION BART PLAZA, S.F.

ANSWER Organizing Meetings:
Tuesdays, 7:00 p.m.
2489 Mission St., suite 24 (at 21st St., S.F.)
415-821-6545
www.internationalanswer.org/SFcampaigns

COLLEGE NOT COMBAT Planning Meeting:
Saturday,
September 17th,
2:00 P.M.
110 Capp Street (Buzz #202)
San Francisco
For more information:
college_not_combat@yahoo.com
(415) 248-1701
http://www.collegenotcombat.org/

NEXT BAUAW MEETING:
TUESDAY EVENING,
SEPTEMBER 20, 7:00 P.M.
474 VALENCIA STREET, S.F.
NEAR 16TH STREET
www.bauaw.org
415-824-8730

KEEP UP WITH CINDY SHEEHAN!
Photos from Camp Casey; Anti-War
Texas Hoe Down, and Crawford Pro-War Rally

Sun, 28 Aug 2005 14:23:34 -0500

Photos from Camp Casey yesterday:
http://www.indybay.org/news/2005/08/1762910.php

Photos from Crawford pro-war rally yesterday:
http://www.indybay.org/news/2005/08/1762933.php

Jeff Paterson
jeff@paterson.net
Crawford, Texas (August 28, 2005)

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

1) GET THE MILITARY OUR OF OUR SCHOOLS!
VOTE YES ON I!
COLLEGE NOT COMBAT HIGH SCHOOL
LEAFLETING FOR PROP. I
TOMORROW MORNING,
MONDAY, AUGUST 29TH, 7:30 A.M.-9:00 A.M.
Mission High School
3750 18th Street
(Entrance on 18th Street between Dolores and Church)
Washington High School
600 32nd Ave.
(Entrance on 32nd avenue in the middle
of the block between Geary and Balboa)

2) Book Review
It Will Be a Great Day When the Navy
Has to Hold a Bake Sale to Buy a Ship
By Tom Crumpacker
Fightback
A collection of Socialist Essays
By Sylvia Weinstein

3) Radioactive Wounds of War
Tests on returning troops suggest serious health
consequences of depleted uranium use in Iraq
News > August 25, 2005
By Dave Lindorff
http://www.inthesetimes.com/site/main/article/2298/

4) NWA Flight Attendant
Refuses To Cross Picket Line
(WCCO) A flight attendant for
Northwest Airlines said she will not be
going back to her job because of
her support for the striking mechanics.
Aug 26, 2005 8:47 am US/Central
http://wcco.com/topstories/local_story_238094822.html

5) Even in Summer, Americans
Dread Winter Heating Bills
By JAD MOUAWAD
Published: August 26, 2005
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/26/business/
26energy.html?ei=5094&en=485351b950f3b6f8&hp=&ex=1125115200&adxnnl=1&
partner=homepage&adxnnlx=1125068504-IhjZctK6XHgv7IsS5xHHXA

6) Op-Ed Columnist
Summer of Our Discontent
By PAUL KRUGMAN
Published: August 26, 2005
Employers certainly aren't having trouble finding workers. When
Wal-Mart announced that it was hiring at a new store in Northern
California, where the unemployment rate is close to the national
average, about 11,000 people showed up to apply for 400 jobs.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/26/opinion/26krugman.html

7) Economic Imbalances in U.S.
Worry Greenspan
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: August 26, 2005
Filed at 10:08 a.m. ET
JACKSON, Wyo. (AP) -- Creeping trade protectionism and bloated
budget deficits pose a risk to the United States' long-term economic
vitality, Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan warned Friday.
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/business/AP-
Greenspan.html?hp&ex=1125115200&en=178883bf73661ef7&ei=5094&partner=ho
mepage

8) As School-Building Plan Fails,
New Jersey Is Left With Slums
By JEFFREY GETTLEMAN
Published: August 26, 2005
Across New Jersey, hundreds of people have been pushed out of
their homes for school projects that, it turns out, were only dreams.
They were displaced as part of a once-celebrated $8.6 billion
program that, instead of creating new schools, has in several
instances created new slums.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/26/nyregion/26newark.html

9) '63 Tapes Reveal Kennedy and
Aides Discussed Using Nuclear
Arms in a China-India Clash
By ANAND GIRIDHARADAS
Published: August 26, 2005
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/26/international/asia/26india.html

10) F.B.I., Using Patriot Act,
Demands Library's Records
By ERIC LICHTBLAU
Published: August 26, 2005
WASHINGTON, Aug. 25 - Using its expanded power under the
antiterrorism law known as the USA Patriot Act, the F.B.I.
is demanding library records from a Connecticut institution
as part of an intelligence investigation, the American Civil
Liberties Union said Thursday.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/26/politics/26patriot.html

11) Ground zero in pot club fight
S.F. DEBATES REGULATIONS FOR SCORES OF OPERATORS
By Mary Anne Ostrom
Mercury News
http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/local/12482081.htm

12) News Feature
8/25/2005
Arresting Resistance
Police turned blocked sidewalks into violent confrontation,
protesters charge
Writer: MARTY LEVINE
Photographer: MARTY LEVINE
Chanting "Shut it down, no recruiters in our town,"
100 protesters marched down Forbes Avenue at 11 a.m.
on Aug. 20 to Oakland's military recruitment center
with help from two Pittsburgh Police cars blocking traffic.
Twenty minutes and a handful of arrests later, protest
organizer Alex Bradley was left shouting at officers
from a dozen police cars and three local law enforcement
agencies: "You want to taser some more of us?"
A taser, an electrical device intended to shock someone
into immobility, was used several times on at least one
protester while the cough-inducing tang of pepper spray
still hung in the air.
http://www.pittsburghcitypaper.ws/news/story.cfm?type=News%20Feature

13) Initiative would force governor to seek
recall of Guard units in Iraq
By Chase J. Davis, Globe Correspondent | August 26, 2005
Under the initiative, governors of Massachusetts would be
required to ''take all necessary steps" under the law to
bring home state Guard units deployed in Iraq. While only
the US president can order such a recall, the initiative
would compel the governor to argue against deployments to
Iraq or risk being sued by a state resident, its supporters said.
http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2005/08/26/
initiative_would_force_governor_to_seek_recall_of_guard_units_in_iraq/

14) Yesterday's from Camp Casey, Crawford, Texas photos
Jeff Paterson Crawford, Texas
(August 27, 2005)
http://www.indybay.org/news/2005/08/1762704.php

15) State Narcotics Agent to Go on Trial for Murder
in Cardenas Case September 26
by Peter Maiden Thursday, Aug. 25, 2005 at 7:58 PM
pmaiden@pacbell.net
http://www.indybay.org/news/2005/08/1762398.php

16) Op-Ed Columnist
The Vietnamization of Bush's Vacation
By FRANK RICH
Published: August 28, 2005
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/28/opinion/28rich.html?pagewanted=1

17)In War Debate, Parents
of Fallen Are United Only in Grief
By ABBY GOODNOUGH
Published: August 28, 2005
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/28/national/
28parents.html?pagewanted=1&ei=5094&en=c253b1ffc277e7c1&hp&ex=11252880
00&partner=homepage

18) LOCAL NEWS | washingtonblade.com
Farrakhan invites black
gay group to rally
NBJC accepts request to be 'co-convener' of Millions More event
By LOU CHIBBARO JR.
Aug. 26, 2005
Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan has invited the nation's
largest African-American gay civil rights organization to become one
of about 100 co-conveners of the Millions More Movement rally, which
is expected draw thousands of blacks to Washington, D.C. on Oct. 15.
http://www.washblade.com/print.cfm?content_id=6366

19) Bush Thinks Just Like Pat Robertson, Says Fidel Castro
Havana, Aug 27 (Prensa Latina) Fidel Castro said that US
President George W. Bush has the same line of thought of
ultra-conservative Reverend Pat Robertson, who recently
incited to assassinate Venezuela´s statesman Hugo Chavez
http://www.plenglish.com/article.asp?ID=%7B1E7BFBCF-477C-4F7D-91BB-
414E803DC7E9%7D)&language=EN

20) A Long March Towards Justice
The Cuban Five in Atlanta
By RICARDO ALARCÓN de QUESADA
"The sun of justice shall rise,
bearing salvation on its wings"
(Malaquías, 4, 2)
http://www.counterpunch.org/alarcon08272005.html

21) Two "Green Zones"
Dahr Jamail's Iraq Dispatches
http://dahrjamailiraq.com
August 27, 2005

22) Strike shows Northwest's true colors
By Michael Kuchta, St. Paul Union Advocate editor
- August 24, 2005
BLOOMINGTON - The strike by mechanics at Northwest
Airlines demonstrates how far airline executives are
willing to go to cut costs, destroy jobs, and break
promises to workers and Minnesota taxpayers, the state
AFL-CIO says.
"Northwest is just a bad employer," said Minnesota
AFL-CIO President Ray Waldron. "All you have to do
is look at the record. When times were tough and they
came to Minnesota to ask for money to keep them in
business, everybody came to their aid.
http://www.workdayminnesota.org/
view_article.php?print=y&id=713a34031fadcdcffde4bec2f0cedc51

---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*--------

1) ***********************************
GET THE MILITARY OUR OF OUR SCHOOLS!
VOTE YES ON I!
***********************************
COLLEGE NOT COMBAT HIGH SCHOOL
LEAFLETING FOR PROP. I
MONDAY, AUGUST 29TH, 7:30 A.M.-9:00 A.M.

College Not Combat is organizing leafleting for
Proposition I at Mission and George Washington
High Schools on the first day of school in San Francisco,
Tomorrow morning,
Monday, August 29 from 7:30 a.m. to 9:00 a.m.

We need volunteers who can show up at 7:30 a.m. at either
school on that day for no more than an hour.

If you can help with either school contact:
Jeremy, 609-610-2332, jtully@riseup.net
Bonnie, 415-824-8730, giobon@sbcglobal.net

Mission High School
3750 18th Street
(Entrance on 18th Street between Dolores and Church)

Washington High School
600 32nd Ave.
(Entrance on 32nd avenue in the middle
of the block between Geary and Balboa)

A press release has been sent out and
we want to make a good showing.

Next CNC meeting:
Saturday, 17, 2PM
110 Capp Street (Buzz #202)
San Francisco

---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*--------

2) Book Review
It Will Be a Great Day When the Navy
Has to Hold a Bake Sale to Buy a Ship
By Tom Crumpacker
Fightback
A collection of Socialist Essays
By Sylvia Weinstein

Remember the old saying "It will be a great day when our
schools get all the money they need and the Navy has to hold
a bake sale to buy a ship?" This was one of Sylvia Weinstein's
gems and there are hundreds of others equally perceptive
in this collection of her political essays named after the
title of her monthly columns which appeared in Socialist
Action newspaper from 1984 until the end of 2000. From then
on, her columns appeared in Socialist Viewpoint magazine
until the very month of her death in August 2001.
Fortunately for us, her voice carries on in this book.

Sylvia was a natural essay writer. Like Babe Ruth she hit
lots of home runs. Each of her missiles is brief, usually
just two or three pages. In the Jonathan Swift tradition,
she picks a relevant event of the day (often from media
reports), gets right to the essence of the matter, and
then by exposing and juxtaposing our ruling class propaganda
(as mouthed in the mainstream media) with a dose or two
of common sense, she shows how utterly absurd, irrational
and damaging to ordinary people this society has become.

Reading Sylvia forces one to comprehend if not agree
with Scottish psychiatrist Ronnie D. Laing's observation
back in the sixties: that sane people in this type
of society may need to find their respite in the
mental hospitals.

It's disheartening to think about how little progress
and much regress our society has made since Sylvia wrote
these columns. There are about 190 of them on 350 pages,
interspersed with photos of her with her kids and at work
in the struggle. These essays are sharp, to the point,
often humorous, always provocative, always well researched
and documented. They cover the things which bother us the
most, the crucial battles of our time, topics like the
corruption of our political system, worker exploitation,
privacy in reproduction, welfare, poverty, homelessness,
social security, peace, civil rights, gender and racial
discrimination, children's needs, public education,
health, drugs, ecological crises, imperialism and
many, many others.

Each starts with a specific topic in the news, for example,
an editorial on Social Security, a court decision on abortion,
a TV report on Russian mothers pulling their soldier sons
out of Chechnya, a politician's assertion of the necessity
of a "war" against some small Third World country. Then
follows some logical analysis of the real problem and
its solution.

What is Sylvia's solution? Change has to come from
outside the oligarchic political system we're now
saddled with, which always served only the capitalists
and is way too far gone now to be a vehicle for change.
It has to be based on people power rather than money
power. Most of us are working people, and it's through
grouping together, acting collectively, that we not
only protect ourselves from the ravages of capital,
but also take control of our own destiny to create
a better world.

Instead of voting for the lesser evil of two capitalist
candidates, we need to enter the struggle by activism:
writing, speaking, demonstrating, striking, sitting in,
civil disobedience, direct action, and above all, unity
and organization. Whether called a labor or women's party,
the new movement to be capable of real change must be
based in the class struggle, made up of workers, and it
must include women, people of color, and all others who
seek change. When it becomes a mass social movement it
will necessarily wield power, and we can argue then
about the best ways to use our power, whether within
or without our present political system.

Sylvia's politics are working class politics, the only
reality based politics independent of the capitalist
parliamentary system, which Marx and Engels called "the
executive committee of the bourgeoisie." She was a true
revolutionary, obviously well versed in the Marxist
tradition. But you won't find any of the old 19th Century
language and theoretical niceties in these essays, nor
any dogmatism, reformism, abstraction or ideological
posturing. She chose to think and do as Marx thought
and did, without speaking in an abstract or academic way.

This in my opinion is just the kind of writing we
desperately need these days, practical discussion of
the real problems now facing us, and the institutions
now oppressing us and holding us back. We first have
to deconstruct the ridiculous myths of our rulers,
which is what Sylvia does best.

After all, class struggle is our key analytical tool
not because of its ideological purity, but rather
because it explains what is really happening in our
society today and points us in the direction of real
transformation. In Sylvia's analytical framework, we
see not just some seemingly isolated or unexplainable
social injustices, but we also learn how it fits into
the larger picture of class struggle and people power.
It's exciting and eye-opening to see seemingly
mysterious events and attitudes explained in this way.
Not only worker exploitation, but patriarchy, racial
discrimination, war, fascism, environmental degradation,
almost any serious injustice one can think of.

Sylvia was an active participant in the key struggles
of our time, and it's this experience above all which
informs and blesses her writing. As wife, mother then
grandmother she was also deeply involved in the labor,
women's liberation, antiwar and civil rights movements.
Besides publishing and writing for Socialist Action and
Socialist Viewpoint with her husband, she was an effective
speaker who talked at meetings, demonstrations, strikes,
pickets and other public venues.

She worked in the civil rights movement in Brooklyn and
in the Brooklyn branch of the NAACP. She helped organize
Fidel Castro's initial appearances at United Nations and
in Harlem and was always a strong supporter of the Cuban
revolution. She was one of the more militant voices in
the feminist movement, organizing for Planned Parenthood,
abortion rights, childcare and the defense of clinics
under physical assault by right to lifers. In San Francisco
she was a leader in the progressive wing of NOW and she
once ran for Board of Education featuring an ongoing
campaign for childcare for working mothers. For the
first 38 years of her political life she was a member
of the Socialist Workers Party and worked full time
for 35 of those years as a fulltimer in the business
office of its newspaper The Militant.

The first essay is a biographical speech Sylvia gave
at the University of Maryland in 1993. She grew up in
a working class family in Kentucky during the depression.
Unemployment caused her parents to split and was sent
to Kentucky where she was born to be raised primarily
by her maternal grandmother.

Workers were organizing in CIO industrial unions and by
age ten she and her grandmother were standing in the
picket lines of a major strike. She married in 1944
and had two children. Her husband, a merchant seaman
during the war, had learned about socialism from
a shipmate, and she immediately saw how it "explained
everything." She says that when in his first letter
her husband started with "At last I have found the
truth" she initially feared he had become
a Jehovah's Witness.

She became involved in women's liberation when
in 1959 the Boston police were angered at women
violating Massachusetts law by buying diaphragms
in Connecticut. They threatened to confiscate them
on return-but gave up the confiscation idea when
the women countered by saying they were wearing them.

It was during the civil rights and anti-Vietnam war
struggles that women became more assertive concerning
their rights, not just concerning reproduction but
in many important ways. I suspect Sylvia contributed
significantly to the new boldness.

Living in San Francisco she worked on a major class
action abortion case before Roe v. Wade, organized
women's unions, and was a leader in the local and
national ERA campaign which eventually failed,
she thought, because of too much trust in the
corrupt political system.

Because many of these columns use personal history
and stories to make their points, another reason
to read the book is to get a genuine activist's
perspective of life in the late 20th Century in
this absurd and tragic empire we call the USA.
In this respect, it's a memoir of a life well lived.

Order book from:

Socialist Viewpoint
1380 Valencia Street
San Francisco, CA 94110
Send check for $25.00 + 5.95, shipping and handling
Please include your name, address, city and zip code

---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*--------

3) Radioactive Wounds of War
Tests on returning troops suggest serious health
consequences of depleted uranium use in Iraq
News > August 25, 2005
By Dave Lindorff
http://www.inthesetimes.com/site/main/article/2298/

---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*--------

4) NWA Flight Attendant
Refuses To Cross Picket Line
(WCCO) A flight attendant for
Northwest Airlines said she will not be
going back to her job because of
her support for the striking mechanics.
Aug 26, 2005 8:47 am US/Central
http://wcco.com/topstories/local_story_238094822.html

---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*--------

5) Even in Summer, Americans
Dread Winter Heating Bills
By JAD MOUAWAD
Published: August 26, 2005
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/26/business/
26energy.html?ei=5094&en=485351b950f3b6f8&hp=&ex=1125115200&adxnnl=1&
partner=homepage&adxnnlx=1125068504-IhjZctK6XHgv7IsS5xHHXA

---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*--------

6) Op-Ed Columnist
Summer of Our Discontent
By PAUL KRUGMAN
Published: August 26, 2005
Employers certainly aren't having trouble finding workers. When
Wal-Mart announced that it was hiring at a new store in Northern
California, where the unemployment rate is close to the national
average, about 11,000 people showed up to apply for 400 jobs.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/26/opinion/26krugman.html

---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*--------

7) Economic Imbalances in U.S.
Worry Greenspan
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: August 26, 2005
Filed at 10:08 a.m. ET
JACKSON, Wyo. (AP) -- Creeping trade protectionism and bloated
budget deficits pose a risk to the United States' long-term economic
vitality, Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan warned Friday.
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/business/AP-
Greenspan.html?hp&ex=1125115200&en=178883bf73661ef7&ei=5094&partner=ho
mepage

---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*--------

8) As School-Building Plan Fails,
New Jersey Is Left With Slums
By JEFFREY GETTLEMAN
Published: August 26, 2005
Across New Jersey, hundreds of people have been pushed out of
their homes for school projects that, it turns out, were only dreams.
They were displaced as part of a once-celebrated $8.6 billion
program that, instead of creating new schools, has in several
instances created new slums.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/26/nyregion/26newark.html

---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*--------

9) '63 Tapes Reveal Kennedy and
Aides Discussed Using Nuclear
Arms in a China-India Clash
By ANAND GIRIDHARADAS
Published: August 26, 2005
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/26/international/asia/26india.html

---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*--------

10) F.B.I., Using Patriot Act,
Demands Library's Records
By ERIC LICHTBLAU
Published: August 26, 2005
WASHINGTON, Aug. 25 - Using its expanded power under the
antiterrorism law known as the USA Patriot Act, the F.B.I.
is demanding library records from a Connecticut institution
as part of an intelligence investigation, the American Civil
Liberties Union said Thursday.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/26/politics/26patriot.html

---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*--------

11) Ground zero in pot club fight
S.F. DEBATES REGULATIONS FOR SCORES OF OPERATORS
By Mary Anne Ostrom
Mercury News
http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/local/12482081.htm

---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*--------

12) News Feature
8/25/2005
Arresting Resistance
Police turned blocked sidewalks into violent confrontation,
protesters charge
Writer: MARTY LEVINE
Photographer: MARTY LEVINE
Chanting "Shut it down, no recruiters in our town,"
100 protesters marched down Forbes Avenue at 11 a.m.
on Aug. 20 to Oakland's military recruitment center
with help from two Pittsburgh Police cars blocking traffic.
Twenty minutes and a handful of arrests later, protest
organizer Alex Bradley was left shouting at officers
from a dozen police cars and three local law enforcement
agencies: "You want to taser some more of us?"
A taser, an electrical device intended to shock someone
into immobility, was used several times on at least one
protester while the cough-inducing tang of pepper spray
still hung in the air.
http://www.pittsburghcitypaper.ws/news/story.cfm?type=News%20Feature

---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*--------

13) Initiative would force governor to seek
recall of Guard units in Iraq
By Chase J. Davis, Globe Correspondent | August 26, 2005
Under the initiative, governors of Massachusetts would be
required to ''take all necessary steps" under the law to
bring home state Guard units deployed in Iraq. While only
the US president can order such a recall, the initiative
would compel the governor to argue against deployments to
Iraq or risk being sued by a state resident, its supporters said.
http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2005/08/26/
initiative_would_force_governor_to_seek_recall_of_guard_units_in_iraq/

---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*--------

14) Yesterday's from Camp Casey, Crawford, Texas photos
Jeff Paterson Crawford, Texas
(August 27, 2005)
http://www.indybay.org/news/2005/08/1762704.php

The population of Camp Casey has doubled in the last 24 hours.
From a midweek lull of approx. 150 supporters, folks are now
streaming in for the final weekend of activities. In preparation
for an expected 1,000+ camp visitors, a great wall of bottled
water has been erected under the big tent.

Meanwhile, the "Cindy Doesn't Speak for Me" tour will be
holding a rally in Crawford at the high school football field
- home of the Crawford Pirates. Cindy has repeatedly noted
that she has never claimed to speak for anyone but herself.
However, through Cindy's determined action, thousands have
come to Crawford to be a part of this classic David and
Goliath struggle.

Next Wednesday, August 31st -- the last day of the encampment
-- the Bring Them Home Now Tour will launch three buses from
Crawford, Texas. Each bus will carry military and Gold Star
families, veterans of the Iraq War and veterans of previous
wars. These buses will travel different routes across the
country, converging in Washington, D.C. on September 21st,
for the September 24th-26th anti-war mobilizations.

Folks are working a campaign to encourage churches across
the country to ring their bells for peace once a day
until the war in over.

One example of the outpouring of support, the new Not
in Our Name Statement of Conscience was published in
the Waco Tribune - the paper most read in the Crawford area.

"As George W. Bush bullies his way through his second
term, let it not be said that people in the United
States silently acquiesced in the face of this shameful
coronation of war, greed, and intolerance. He does not
speak for us. He does not represent us. He does not
act in our name."

---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*--------

15) State Narcotics Agent to Go on Trial for Murder
in Cardenas Case September 26
by Peter Maiden Thursday, Aug. 25, 2005 at 7:58 PM
pmaiden@pacbell.net
http://www.indybay.org/news/2005/08/1762398.php

---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*--------

16) Op-Ed Columnist
The Vietnamization of Bush's Vacation
By FRANK RICH
Published: August 28, 2005
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/28/opinion/28rich.html?pagewanted=1

---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*--------

17)In War Debate, Parents
of Fallen Are United Only in Grief
By ABBY GOODNOUGH
Published: August 28, 2005
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/28/national/
28parents.html?pagewanted=1&ei=5094&en=c253b1ffc277e7c1&hp&ex=11252880
00&partner=homepage

---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*--------

18) LOCAL NEWS | washingtonblade.com
Farrakhan invites black
gay group to rally
NBJC accepts request to be 'co-convener' of Millions More event
By LOU CHIBBARO JR.
Aug. 26, 2005
Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan has invited the nation's
largest African-American gay civil rights organization to become one
of about 100 co-conveners of the Millions More Movement rally, which
is expected draw thousands of blacks to Washington, D.C. on Oct. 15.
http://www.washblade.com/print.cfm?content_id=6366

---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*--------

19) Bush Thinks Just Like Pat Robertson, Says Fidel Castro
Havana, Aug 27 (Prensa Latina) Fidel Castro said that US
President George W. Bush has the same line of thought of
ultra-conservative Reverend Pat Robertson, who recently
incited to assassinate Venezuela´s statesman Hugo Chavez
http://www.plenglish.com/article.asp?ID=%7B1E7BFBCF-477C-4F7D-91BB-
414E803DC7E9%7D)&language=EN

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20) A Long March Towards Justice
The Cuban Five in Atlanta
By RICARDO ALARCÓN de QUESADA
"The sun of justice shall rise,
bearing salvation on its wings"
(Malaquías, 4, 2)
http://www.counterpunch.org/alarcon08272005.html

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21) Two "Green Zones"
Dahr Jamail's Iraq Dispatches
http://dahrjamailiraq.com
August 27, 2005

As the US-backed Iraqi puppet government flails about arguing over the
so-called constitution, Iraq remains in a state of complete anarchy.
There is no government control whatsoever, even inside the infamous
"Green Zone" where the puppets seem to have tangled their strings.

Why the harsh tone for the conflagrations of the so-called Iraqi government?

Because the price paid for this unimaginably huge misadventure of the
neo-conservative driven Bush junta is being paid by real human beings
who shed real blood and cry real tears. Because well over 100,000 Iraqis
and over 1,800 US soldiers would be alive today if it wasn't for the
puppeteers of Mr. Bush.

The coward sits behind his guards in Crawford, Texas, too afraid to deal
with the reality of the grief he and his masters have caused to
thousands of military families who have lost loved ones in Iraq.
Meanwhile, fires are raging out of control not only in Iraq, but right
here in the US.

"I ask you, Mr Bush, if you believe that this war is for "Our Freedom"
and "Our Values" why don't you send your daughters to fight for
freedom," wrote Fernando Suarez del Solar recently, who lost his son in
Iraq due to the lies of Mr. Bush.

He continued, "Why don't your closest associates send their children to
defend these values? Why are the children of immigrant families dying?
Why are children from working families who are the least privileged
dying? Why Mr. Bush? Why?"

Of course Suarez del Solar knows the answer. It's a rhetorical question
asked of a prep school punk who has never earned nor risked anything. A
smirking dimwit, who has never truly served his country, let alone
fellow human beings outside of his gangster corporate crony pals who
inserted him into the highest office...twice.

Today he chooses to ignore the fire which is spreading across the US as
he ignores the debacle in Iraq, where the US military must leave, will
leave, but are unable to leave for fear of tarnishing what is left of
the now sordid reputation of the US.

I get emails daily from sources throughout Iraq...both Iraqi and American.
Even inside US bases in the newest colony things don't seem to be going
so well, according to an American man who is working there as support.

"I don't know how much longer I can stand working for these idiots and
their brothers' mothers' sisters' cousin," he wrote me recently, "They
have acres of armored air conditioned trucks but won't pay to fix the
alternators, so the drivers must use the worst of the equipment...no
armor, no air conditioning...You know the heat here, now add the heat of
an engine to that cab and throw in a few rockets, mortars, and IED's
[roadside bombs] and it makes for a very bad day. I'm trying to expose
the corruption of the Third Country National contractors by finding them
a forum to send the truth. Prisoners, slaves, concubines. My life may be
a contradiction, but I will not compromise with evil. The enemy is
inside the wire."

Wars for empire don't change...and Iraq is the perfect example. Invading
armies using slave labor (foreign in this case due to their deep
distrust of Iraqis), taking advantage of those who lack privilege, the
poor, minorities, to do the dirty work while the top 1% make more money
than ever before.

And the pirates behind the US policy-making in Iraq have chosen, perhaps
to their chagrin at this point, to disregard some of the latest history
from a past occupation of Iraq.

During the previous British occupation of Iraq, the resistance began in
Fallujah. As a response the British shelled half of that city to the
ground, much like the US military did recently as part of their failed
policy. (US soldiers are now dying in and near Fallujah again.)

It was said that if the British left Iraq civil war would ignite. Just
as we are hearing today, even though state-sponsored civil war is in
full swing, thanks to the occupiers.

The rule of the British Empire over Iraq went on for three decades
before the Brits withdrew. Every year of that time found an uprising
against the occupiers...and now less than three years into the failed US
occupation, lesser uprisings occur daily.

Attacks on US forces in Iraq are now back up over 70 per day...we'll cross
the 2,000 dead mark before too much longer, and things are about to get
much, much worse. As Iraqis continue to say, "Today is better than
tomorrow." The same goes for US troops there.

There is a reason why a relatively recent Army survey found that 54% of
all soldiers in Iraq reported either "low" or "very low" morale.

There is also a reason why, again according to the Army, that 30% of all
soldiers returning from Iraq develop mental health problems 3-4 months
after their return.

And there is a reason why soldiers like Nicolas Prubyla come home and
join organizations like Iraq Veterans Against the War.

"Up until five days ago, I had large amounts of blood in my stool," he
told me recently, "I've felt tired all the time, I have had loss of
hair...loss of the feeling in my right arm...I'm battling this stuff."

What he is battling is exposure to uranium munitions in Iraq. He is
battling radiation sickness as the result of the most recent nuclear war
waged by the United States of America. There is a reason why over 11,000
veterans from the '91 Gulf War are dead today, and over 250,000 others
are on medical disability. That reason (hundreds and hundreds of tons of
uranium munitions dropped on Iraq) is the same thing Prubyla is battling
today.

"As the years go on this is going to effect a hell of a lot more people
than we think...radioactive dust and the clouds of smoke and dust from
firing the DU [depleted uranium] is getting to us now," he said, "And I
know I'm not the only person in my unit-my boss got diagnosed with
cancer, one of my other buddies who is 23 years-old is getting
rashes....every time I do more research on DU-I'm seeing that I have all
the side effects."

Prubyla has realized what more and more veterans understand...that the
powers that be in our military plutocracy (also known as the US
government) could care less for their well being. One of the shadow
members of the current plutocracy who is also an exalted
neo-conservative, Henry Kissinger, has referred to military men as
"dumb, stupid animals to be used" as pawns for foreign policy.

People like Prubyla get this; they have had enough, and are now doing
something about it.

Meanwhile in the Crawford "Green Zone," Mr. Bush chooses to ignore the
resistance movement that is standing outside his fence. But that is
alright, because the hundreds of people there now protesting represent
tens (if not hundreds) of millions across the country who, like the
Iraqi resistance, are not going to go away.

More writing, photos and commentary at http://dahrjamailiraq.com
Iraq_Dispatches mailing list
http://lists.dahrjamailiraq.com/mailman/listinfo/iraq_dispatches

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22) Strike shows Northwest's true colors
By Michael Kuchta, St. Paul Union Advocate editor
- August 24, 2005
BLOOMINGTON - The strike by mechanics at Northwest
Airlines demonstrates how far airline executives are
willing to go to cut costs, destroy jobs, and break
promises to workers and Minnesota taxpayers, the state
AFL-CIO says.
"Northwest is just a bad employer," said Minnesota
AFL-CIO President Ray Waldron. "All you have to do
is look at the record. When times were tough and they
came to Minnesota to ask for money to keep them in
business, everybody came to their aid.
http://www.workdayminnesota.org/
view_article.php?print=y&id=713a34031fadcdcffde4bec2f0cedc51

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