Monday, April 02, 2007

BAUAW NEWSLETTER - MONDAY, APRIL 2, 2007

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My Favorite Mutiny, The Coup
http://www.myspace.com/thecoupmusic

Michael Moore- The Awful Truth
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xeOaTpYl8mE

Morse v. Frederick Supreme Court arguments
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n_LsGoDWC0o

Free Speech 4 Students Rally - Media Montage
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RfCjfod8yuw

'My son lived a worthwhile life'
In April 2003, 21-year old Tom Hurndall was shot in the head
in Gaza by an Israeli soldier as he tried to save the lives of three
small children. Nine months later, he died, having never
recovered consciousness. Emine Saner talks to his mother
Jocelyn about her grief, her fight to make the Israeli army
accountable for his death and the book she has written
in his memory.
Monday March 26, 2007
The Guardian
http://www.guardian.co.uk/israel/Story/0,,2042968,00.html

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CINE DEL BARRIO and New College Media Studies Program present:
The Red Dance (El Baile Rojo) directed by Yezid Campos
a film about Colombia, video, in color, 57 minutes, 2004
sub-titles in English plus, an up to the minute report on the
continuing struggle in Colombia by Cristina Gutierrez.
Saturday, April 7, 11:30 a.m.
at the Roxie New College Film Center
3117 - 16th Street (between Valencia and Guerrero)
San Francisco
No admission charge

This is part of "Nuestra America, Muestra de Cine y Video
Documental" series of film showings on Saturdays of March,
April, and May. All films are at 11:30am and 1:30pm on
Saturdays at the Roxie. Films on Nicaragua, Venezuela,
Colombia, Argentina, Cuba, Mexico, and the U.S. (Immigrantes
Nuevo Orleans). Films are in Spanish with English sub-titles.
For more information: 415-863-1087
www.roxie.com

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Anti-War Rally at Port of Oakland
Saturday, April 7, 11 a.m. to 1 p.m.
An anti-war rally will mark the fourth anniversary of the
Oakland police attack on anti-war protesters at the Port.
Port of Oakland Headquarters
530 Water Street, foot of Washington St. in Jack London Square.
For more information, call
415-863-6637 or email portaction@riseup.net

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SOLIDARITY WITH KATRINA SURVIVORS

SATURDAY, APRIL 7 @ 7 p.m.
Centro del Pueblo, 474 Valencia St., S.F.

Featured Speaker: KALI AKUNO
Executive Director, People's Hurricane Relief Fund - O.C.

Also: "Down But Not Out" —A Film on the Gulf Coast Resistance

Music by Leith Kahl, Biko, & Spoken Word Artists

SATURDAY, APRIL 7 @ 7 p.m.
(@ 16th Street; near 16th St. Mission BART)
Donation requested at door; No one turned away for lack of funds.

Sponsored by PHRF-OC, Malcolm X Grassroots Movement,
Bay Area Katrina Solidarity Committee,
Revolution Youth, The Organizer Newspaper,
Colectivo Media Insurgente, CRUCS,
Mission High Black Student Union

For more information, call 415-646-6469 or 504-301-0215.

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DEMAND THE RELEASE OF SAMI AL-ARIAN

The National Council of Arab Americans (NCA) demands the immediate
release of political prisoner, Dr. Sami Al-Arian. Dr. Al-Arian is currently
under his 60th day of a water-only hunger strike in protest of his
maltreatment by the US Department of Justice (DOJ). After an earlier
plea agreement that absolved Dr. Al-Arian from any further questioning,
he was sentenced up to 18 months in jail for refusing to testify before
a grand jury in Virginia.

Dr. Al-Arian is currently being held at a medical facility in North Carolina.
He is in critical condition, having lost 53 pounds, over 25% of his
body weight.

According to family members who recently visited him he is no longer
able to walk or stand on his own.

More information on Dr. Al-Arian's ordeal can be found in the transcript
of a recent interview with his wife, Nahla Al-Arian on Democracy Now.

See:
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=07/03/16/1410255

ACTION:

We ask all people of conscience to demand the immediate
release and end to Dr. Al- Arian's suffering.

Call, Email and Write:

1- Attorney General Alberto Gonzales
Department of Justice
U.S. Department of Justice
950 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20530-0001
Fax Number: (202) 307-6777
Email: AskDOJ@usdoj.gov

2- The Honorable John Conyers, Jr
2426 Rayburn Building
Washington, DC 20515
(202) 225-5126
(202) 225-0072 Fax
John.Conyers@mail.house.gov

3- Senator Patrick Leahy
433 Russell Senate Office Building
United States Senate
Washington, DC 20510
(202)224-4242
senator_leahy@leahy.senate.gov

4- Honorable Judge Gerald Lee
U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia
401 Courthouse Square, Alexandria, VA 22314
March 22, 2007
[No email given...bw]

National Council of Arab Americans (NCA)
http://www.arab-american.net/

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Excerpt of interview between Barbara Walters and Hugo Chavez
http://www.borev.net/2007/03/what_you_had_something_better.html

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Introducing...................the Apple iRack
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o-KWYYIY4jQ

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"A War Budget Leaves Every Child Behind."
[A T-shirt worn by some teachers at Roosevelt High School
in L.A. as part of their campaign to rid the school of military
recruiters and JROTC--see Article in Full item number 4, below...bw]

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THIS IS AN EXCELLENT VIDEO DESTRIBUTED BY U.S. LABOR AGAINST
THE WAR (USLAW) FEATURING SPEAKERS AT THE JANUARY 27TH
MARCH ON WASHINGTON FOCUSING ON THE DEMAND - BRING
THE TROOPS HOME NOW.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=6935451906479097836&hl=en

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Defend the Los Angeles Eight!
http://www.committee4justice.com/

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George Takai responds to Tim Hardaway's homophobic remarks
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kcJoJZIcQW4&eurl_

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Iran
http://www.lucasgray.com/video/peacetrain.html

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Another view of the war. A link from Amer Jubran
http://d3130.servadmin.com/~leeflash/

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Petition: Halt the Blue Angels
http://action.globalexchange.org/petition.jsp?petition_KEY=458
http://www.care2.com/c2c/share/detail/289327

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A Girl Like Me
7:08 min
Youth Documentary
Kiri Davis, Director, Reel Works Teen Filmmaking, Producer
Winner of the Diversity Award
Sponsored by Third Millennium Foundation
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=1091431409617440489

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Film/Song about Angola
http://www.prisonactivist.org/angola/

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"200 million children in the world sleep in the streets today.
Not one of them is Cuban."
(A sign in Havana)
Venceremos
View sign at bottom of page at:
http://www.cubasolidarity.net/index.html
[Thanks to Norma Harrison for sending this...bw]

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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

"Cheyenne and Arapaho oral histories hammer history's account of the
Sand Creek Massacre"

CENTENNIAL, CO -- A new documentary film based on an award-winning
documentary short film, "The Sand Creek Massacre", and driven by
Southern Cheyenne and Arapaho people who tell their version about
what happened during the Sand Creek Massacre via their oral
histories, has been released by Olympus Films+, LLC, a Centennial,
Colorado film company.

"You have done an extraordinary job" said Margie Small, Tobient
Entertainment, " on the Colorado PBS episode, the library videos for
public schools and libraries, the trailer, etc...and getting the
story told and giving honor to those ancestors who had to witness
this tragic and brutal attack...film is one of the best ways."

"The images shown in the film were selected for native awareness
value" said Donald L. Vasicek, award-winning writer/filmmaker, "we
also focused on preserving American history on film because tribal
elders are dying and taking their oral histories with them. The film
shows a non-violent solution to problem-solving and 19th century
Colorado history, so it's multi-dimensional in that sense. "

Chief Eugene Blackbear, Sr., Cheyenne, who starred as Chief Black
Kettle in "The Last of the Dogmen" also starring Tom Berenger and
Barbara Hershey and "Dr. Colorado", Tom Noel, University of Colorado
history professor, are featured.

The trailer can be viewed and the film can be ordered for $24.95 plus
$4.95 for shipping and handling at http://www.fullduck.com/node/53.

Vasicek's web site, http://www.donvasicek.com, provides detailed
information about the Sand Creek Massacre including various still
images particularly on the Sand Creek Massacre home page and on the
proposal page.

Olympus Films+, LLC is dedicated to writing and producing quality
products that serve to educate others about the human condition.

Contact:

Donald L. Vasicek
Olympus Films+, LLC
7078 South Fairfax Street
Centennial, CO 80122
http://us.imdb.com/Name?Vasicek,+Don
http://www.donvasicek.com
dvasicek@earthlink.net
303-903-2103

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ARTICLES IN FULL:
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1) Let America Be America Again
by Langston Hughes
http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/15609

2) The End of the Line as They Know It
By LOUIS UCHITELLE
Detroit
April 1, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/01/business/yourmoney/01jobs.html?ref=business

3) Patents Over Patients
By RALPH W. MOSS
Op-Ed Contributor
State College, Pa.
April 1, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/01/opinion/01moss.html

4) Distract and Disenfranchise
By PAUL KRUGMAN
April 2, 2007
http://select.nytimes.com/2007/04/02/opinion/02krugman.html?_r=1&hp&oref=login

5) Taxing Private Equity
Editorial
April 2, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/02/opinion/02mon1.html?hp

6)PROTECT OUR PENSIONS
April 1, 2007
http://www.soldiersofsolidarity.com/

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1) Let America Be America Again
by Langston Hughes
http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/15609

Let America be America again.

Let it be the dream it used to be.

Let it be the pioneer on the plain

Seeking a home where he himself is free.


(America never was America to me.)


Let America be the dream the dreamers dreamed--

Let it be that great strong land of love

Where never kings connive nor tyrants scheme

That any man be crushed by one above.


(It never was America to me.)


O, let my land be a land where Liberty

Is crowned with no false patriotic wreath,

But opportunity is real, and life is free,

Equality is in the air we breathe.


(There's never been equality for me,

Nor freedom in this "homeland of the free.")


Say, who are you that mumbles in the dark?

And who are you that draws your veil across the stars?


I am the poor white, fooled and pushed apart,

I am the Negro bearing slavery's scars.

I am the red man driven from the land,

I am the immigrant clutching the hope I seek--

And finding only the same old stupid plan

Of dog eat dog, of mighty crush the weak.


I am the young man, full of strength and hope,

Tangled in that ancient endless chain

Of profit, power, gain, of grab the land!

Of grab the gold! Of grab the ways of satisfying need!

Of work the men! Of take the pay!

Of owning everything for one's own greed!


I am the farmer, bondsman to the soil.

I am the worker sold to the machine.

I am the Negro, servant to you all.

I am the people, humble, hungry, mean--

Hungry yet today despite the dream.

Beaten yet today--O, Pioneers!

I am the man who never got ahead,

The poorest worker bartered through the years.


Yet I'm the one who dreamt our basic dream

In the Old World while still a serf of kings,

Who dreamt a dream so strong, so brave, so true,

That even yet its mighty daring sings

In every brick and stone, in every furrow turned

That's made America the land it has become.

O, I'm the man who sailed those early seas

In search of what I meant to be my home--

For I'm the one who left dark Ireland's shore,

And Poland's plain, and England's grassy lea,

And torn from Black Africa's strand I came

To build a "homeland of the free."


The free?


Who said the free? Not me?

Surely not me? The millions on relief today?

The millions shot down when we strike?

The millions who have nothing for our pay?

For all the dreams we've dreamed

And all the songs we've sung

And all the hopes we've held

And all the flags we've hung,

The millions who have nothing for our pay--

Except the dream that's almost dead today.


O, let America be America again--

The land that never has been yet--

And yet must be--the land where every man is free.

The land that's mine--the poor man's, Indian's, Negro's, ME--

Who made America,

Whose sweat and blood, whose faith and pain,

Whose hand at the foundry, whose plow in the rain,

Must bring back our mighty dream again.


Sure, call me any ugly name you choose--

The steel of freedom does not stain.

From those who live like leeches on the people's lives,

We must take back our land again,

America!


O, yes,

I say it plain,

America never was America to me,

And yet I swear this oath--

America will be!


Out of the rack and ruin of our gangster death,

The rape and rot of graft, and stealth, and lies,

We, the people, must redeem

The land, the mines, the plants, the rivers.

The mountains and the endless plain--

All, all the stretch of these great green states--

And make America again!

From The Collected Poems of Langston Hughes, published
by Alfred A. Knopf, Inc. Copyright © 1994 the Estate of Langston Hughes.

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2) The End of the Line as They Know It
By LOUIS UCHITELLE
Detroit
April 1, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/01/business/yourmoney/01jobs.html?ref=business

TALK to Kenneth Doolittle about General Motors, where he once
supervised a team of assembly line workers, and he readily speaks
with pride about his job and the self-esteem it provided. “I loved
all of it — the people, the work,” he says. “I was in a position
finally where people listened to me when I spoke. I wasn’t just
a Joe-Nobody. I contributed.”

Talk to Mr. Doolittle a little longer and he gradually describes
why he decided to take a buyout from G.M. — joining more than
80,000 Big Three employees in the largest exodus of workers
from a single American industry in decades.

After G.M. shuttered the plant where Mr. Doolittle worked,
it offered him a job back on the assembly line at another
factory, an offer he pondered in silent humiliation. At 54,
he considers himself “mentally not ready to retire,” but his
union contract, and G.M.’s woes, required him to return
to the assembly line and forfeit the higher rank he had
worked years to secure.

So he decided to leave. “I did not want to start over,” he
said, “not after 33 ½ years.”

The exodus that Mr. Doolittle is joining is voluntary. Some
have changed their minds. More than 3,000 workers who
signed up over the last year to leave Ford and G.M.
subsequently decided to stay. These are, after all, the
highest-paying blue-collar jobs left in America. Even so,
workers are departing from the auto industry en masse,
escaping — as they put it in interviews — increasingly
difficult working conditions at companies they fear will
desert them.

As the workers depart in greater numbers than either their
union or their employers anticipated, the exodus becomes
more than a long ledger of altered lives. It is an accounting,
of course, but an accounting of the most personal and
poignant sort. Communities are fragmenting, families are
relocating, and years of individual choices tethered to the
notion of a certain kind of job in a certain kind of place are
giving way to uncertainty, regret and loss of control.

“The question is, Are we seeing a final end to what we have
called blue-collar aristocracy?” asks Sheldon H. Danziger,
a public policy researcher at the University of Michigan
in Ann Arbor. “Big Steel is gone, coal is gone, shipbuilding
is gone — all the big industrial unions are gone or going,
except the auto workers. These are the people who had
the strongest ability to fight, and now they seem to be
giving up the struggle.”

The reasons auto workers give for embracing buyouts are
almost as numerous as the 18 workers interviewed for this
article. Some have already departed from G.M., the first
of the Big Three to offer the buyouts, and others are soon
to depart from the Ford Motor Company and DaimlerChrysler.
Many who left or are leaving were eligible for retirement,
having already worked the necessary 30 years. Others have
accepted lump-sum payments, often in the six figures,
to start over again. Indeed, the voluntary nature of this
exodus has made it seem softer or less apparent than the
upheavals that have greeted mass layoffs in other industries.

But the common thread running through all of the interviews
is that working conditions and benefits, which had become
steadily better through the 1970s and even in the 1990s,
were unmistakably in decline — and the future unpredictable.

Mr. Doolittle, a stocky man with a narrow mustache, joined
G.M. on the assembly line in Lansing in 1973 and rose to become
a leader of one of the Japanese-style work teams that first
became fashionable in the American auto industry in the
1980s. By 2005, he was a “team build coordinator” with
authority over several groups whose job it was to transfer
engines from a conveyor into cars, bolt them into place and
attach skeins of wires as the cars moved down an assembly line.

When G.M. decided to close his plant in 2005, Mr. Doolittle’s
seniority gave him every right to transfer to a much newer
factory right next door, where G.M. is building a popular
Cadillac sedan and is likely to do so for as long as Mr. Doolittle
might have wanted a job. But he balked because of the change
in stature that would accompany the switch.

Since his departure last year, he has struggled to occupy
his time. Divorced, with four grown children, he divides his
days between an apartment in Lansing and a trailer parked
on a small lakefront plot that he owns north of the city.
He has typed out on a laptop three novels “about my life
experience.” And to make up some of his lost income —
his $36,000 pension is 60 percent of his old pay — he
works 20 hours a week, at $10 an hour, doing maintenance
at Sears stores.

“That is just enough to keep me from watching Jerry Springer
every day,” he said. “I don’t want to sit in front of a TV;
I’m too young for that.”

STARTING two years ago, the Big Three announced their
intention to shed tens of thousands of workers by 2008.
The buyouts, negotiated with the United Automobile Workers,
are an attempt to orchestrate a huge downsizing in a kindlier,
more orderly manner. The offers hold out a variety of subsidies,
with the announced goal to tide people over as they make
the transition to other jobs and lives.

Ford Motor in particular has told its younger employees, through
a series of job fairs, that good incomes await them in other
industries, especially if they avail themselves of one of the
tuition subsidies that Ford offers as a buyout option. Ford
also offers departing employees a six-figure lump-sum
payment, which experts at the job fairs suggest could be
used to start a small business or to buy into a franchise.

Joe W. Laymon, Ford’s vice president for corporate human
resources and labor affairs, says his company has successfully
used the job fairs to inform workers about opportunities and
good pay elsewhere. On a more ominous note, however,
he is quick to add that Ford has no other choice but to lay
off or buy out workers if the company hopes to remain
competitive.

“We believe that the Ford Motor Company will be a viable,
profitable entity going forward,” Mr. Laymon says. “To get
from where we are today to that viable, profitable entity, we
will reduce the number of employees working at Ford. Now,
we can do it with an involuntary action or we can do it with
a combination of voluntary actions and involuntary actions.”

Across America, more than 30 million people have been forced
out of jobs since the early 1980s, the Bureau of Labor Statistics
reports, and regaining lost incomes has not been easy. Nearly
50 million new jobs have been created over that same period,
according to the bureau, so there are always new opportunities
but more often than not at lower pay. Among those who have
lost work, only a third held new jobs two years later that paid
as well as those that were lost, according to the bureau’s surveys
of displaced workers. Another third of those displaced were
in jobs that paid, on average, 15 to 20 percent less than their
previous employment — while the final third had dropped out
of the labor force entirely.

The Census Bureau reported a jump in net migration out of
Michigan last year: some 42,300 people left, up from 29,700
in 2005. That was far and away the largest outflow from the
state since 1984, during the Rust Belt crisis, census data show.
In some Michigan neighborhoods that have been home to auto
workers, houses are now selling for less than the prices of
some of the vehicles rolling off of assembly lines in Detroit,
Dearborn, Lansing and elsewhere in the state. While no statistical
evidence currently links the buyouts and the migration, Michigan
state officials are responding as if that were the case. Gov. Jennifer
M. Granholm is promising publicly financed college scholarships
for all high school graduates, and she is expanding retraining
programs for idled workers. “People who had auto manufacturing
in the DNA of their families for several generations,” she says,
“are all of a sudden finding the rug pulled out from under them.”

The exodus is reminiscent of the Dust Bowl migration from
the prairie states in the 1930s, when unemployed farmers gave
up and trekked west to California. The Dust Bowl migration, on
its face, was much more brutal — the number of displaced Okies,
as they were called, was far greater than the current number
of departing auto workers, and there were not corporate and
public subsidies at the time to soften the hardship.

“The Okies did not know whether they would get to their destination
before they starved to death,” said Daniel Luria, an economist
at the Michigan Manufacturing Technology Center. “The labor
market prospects for the auto workers are not good, but they
have assets. They are not in danger of immediately falling
into poverty.”

Still, for all their greater means, the auto workers talk of a similar
jarring sense of dislocation. The World War II economy eventually
lifted the Okies to prosperity, and the buyouts may be the first
step in achieving the same result for auto workers, though their
fate will not be known for quite a while.

Unionized auto workers can boast of annual wages of $60,000,
built on a 40-hour work week that pays $28 or more an hour.
Overtime pay helps swell wages to $80,000 or more, but overtime
is steadily disappearing as the Big Three’s market share declines
in the post-S.U.V. era. At the same time, getting off the assembly
line, with its grueling pace and mental and emotional fatigue, has
become more difficult. Rising seniority once meant transfers after
10 or 15 years to easier tasks such as building seats or moving
materials as a forklift driver. Many of these off-the-line jobs
have been outsourced.

Skilled auto workers — electricians, millwrights, tool makers —
are similarly disheartened. Their skills have been hollowed out,
they say. Instead of taking apart and repairing a machine’s
gearbox, for example, they are limited to swapping out the
damaged box for a spare. The damaged box goes for repair
to an outside contractor employing less expensive labor.

Beyond all of these specific complaints, auto workers say they
fear the future. Plant closings have sown uncertainty. Some auto
workers who accepted buyouts explained that they did so to lock
in pensions and retiree health benefits. But they worry that these
benefits may be bargained away for future retirees in contract
negotiations that begin this summer.

Younger workers, as a result, often say they see themselves
as having no choice but to bail out. They have grabbed
at generous college tuition payments or lump-sum payments
as a bridge to what they hope will be, if not better lives, then
incomes that someday will at least equal those they earned
as auto workers.

JEFFREY VITALE, 39, is in this camp. He is considering a $100,000
buyout from DaimlerChrysler as part of a package that the automaker
is just now putting on the table; it was the last of the Big Three
to make such an offer.

“Don’t get me wrong,” Mr. Vitale says. “It is going to be hard
financially to leave.”

Like many younger auto workers, he has gone to college. He was
on his way to becoming a public school teacher when he dropped
out in the late 1980s, against his father’s wishes, to become
a carpenter. “It was hard to tell a 21-year-old making $75,000
a year that you needed a college education to get a job,”
Mr. Vitale recalls.

A decade ago, he left carpentry and went to work for Chrysler at
the Jefferson North assembly plant in Detroit. As a skilled millwright,
his $31 an hour often brought in $80,000 a year or more, with
overtime. “I was content,” he says. “I was bringing home a steady,
good paycheck.” He married six years ago and he and his wife,
a dance instructor, have a 3-year-old son.

Then disillusionment crept in. Mr. Vitale found himself stuck on
the second shift, working afternoon and evening hours, unable
to spend much time with his family. Periodic layoffs of less-senior
workers have kept him close to the bottom of the seniority ladder,
which means that he has not been able to qualify for the more
desirable day shift.

The outsourcing of skilled work — in his case, maintenance
of conveyors and machinery — also grates. “I think they will
build cars in this plant for a long time,” he says, “but they won’t
utilize in-house skills as they have in the past.”

Two years ago, he was injured. A Jeep he was helping to push
back onto a conveyor slipped off and pinned him. He spent 10
months at home convalescing from shoulder injuries that required
two operations.

“That is when I realized I did not want to come back to the factory,”
Mr. Vitale says. “I checked out my college transcript; I needed seven
more courses, 21 credits, for a bachelor’s degree, and I’ve been
doing the course work online.”

He expects to graduate in December, qualified to work as a physical
therapist, a profession not likely to pay as much as he now earns,
and certainly not with the same benefits. For that reason, he
hesitates to leave, but the Chrysler buyout proposals include,
in his case, six months of health insurance on top of a $100,000
payment.

“I’m halfway decided to take the money and go,” he says. “I’ll be
40 in November. Do I wait until they cut my pay in half and there
is no buyout? Or they decide they don’t need so many millwrights
in the plant, and they let me go? They have 136 now, down from
280 ten years ago.”

FOR her part, Leann Bies, 48, an electrician at the Ford truck
plant in Dearborn, says that accepting a buyout means she will
finally have a summer off. “There comes a point in time when
you want to leave,” she says.

With 29 years of service, one shy of the 30 needed to retire,
she qualifies for a buyout that allows her to stay home that last
year while collecting 85 percent of her pay, which is $31 an
hour or $65,000 annually. She then segues into a normal
$36,000 pension as well as retiree health insurance, both
nominally insulated from any chipping away that might take
place in pending contract negotiations.

In a future job, if she takes one, she won’t even try to match
her Ford salary, she says. She does not need to. Her husband
continues to work at a G.M. plant. Their mortgage is paid off.
The last two of her three children are in their final college years.
And as an electrician with a state license, Ms. Bies says she can
get work in her trade if need be.

Or she could take an office job. While at Ford, she earned
a bachelor’s degree in business leadership during her spare
time. Ford paid her tuition under a program the U.A.W. negotiated.
“I am young enough to pursue another career if I choose
to do so,” she says.

But for all of her creature comforts, Ms. Bies is angry about
what she calls shoddy treatment in recent years. “The management
of this plant is very disrespectful,” she says.

The truck plant, a state-of-the-art operation, produces the still-
popular F150 pickup, and there is constant pressure to keep the
line moving. “I came into this plant in 2003 and for two years they
treated me as if I were dumber than a box of rocks,” she says.
“You get an attitude if you are treated that way. It is an important
part of my decision to leave.”

Yet it is only after departing that some auto workers realize what
they have lost. Andrew J. Vigliano, 63, is one. He worked 44 years
for G.M. in Lansing, mostly on the assembly line, and he still has
the wiry body of a younger man. His factory closed last year, and
rather than transfer to another plant, he took a $35,000 incentive
to retire.

“I was kind of tired of working,” he says. “But if you want my true
opinion, if I had it to do over again, I would have stayed. I miss the
people I worked with every day. Suddenly you cut that right off.”
As the buyouts continue, some auto workers have turned to jobs
that were once hobbies or sidelines to replace lost income: repairing
gutters, landscaping, serving as full-time pastors or working as real
estate brokers, plumbers and electricians.

Mark Strong, 48, a stocky six-footer, his long graying hair pulled
back in a ponytail, went on such a route. A decade ago, he and his
brother, Tim, started a small machine shop, first in the garages
of their homes in Mason, just south of Lansing, and then in an
industrial park, in a small hangar-like building that Mark had
constructed.

The venture, Strong Products, has struggled. Tim, 47, a machinist,
worked at the shop full time while Mark worked there during time
off from his job at G.M., which he joined in 1976. When his plant
closed in 2005, he elected to transfer to another plant in Lansing,
then still under construction. While he waited for the plant to open,
he furloughed himself from G.M. and focused on his machine shop.
“I could see then, working full time, that we could grow the business,”
he said, “and we have.”

Their operation now includes several computerized cutting machines,
bought on credit, and several employees. Still, with gross revenue
of only $200,000 a year, and debts more than double that amount,
there is little income left for the brothers. Tim, with a wife and children,
draws a salary. Mark, living alone and childless, draws much less money
from the business. So when the new G.M. plant finally opened last
year, he reported for work.

He didn’t like what he found. He had risen over the years from
the assembly line to materials handling, in his case delivering
cylinders of chemicals at a pace that he controlled. “As long as
there was not a phone call saying some chemical was needed,
I was on my own,” he said.

In the new plant, chemical delivery was automated, and Mark
found himself on a much more demanding schedule. He was
assigned to deliver parts from the shipping bays to the assembly
line at a pace set by the line’s speed. He hooked his small tractor
to a train of wagons, each loaded with parts, and drove them
to stations along the line.

“Every 45 minutes to an hour another tractor-trailer would show
up at the shipping bays with the already-loaded wagons inside,”
he said. “It took me 45 minutes to get the contents to the line,
leaving just enough time to get back and hook up the next load.”

Automation and more rigorous scheduling may have improved
G.M.’s efficiency, but for Mr. Strong, the change was stressful
and G.M.’s buyout last year offered an escape. With 30 years
under his belt, he collected a $35,000 incentive to retire and
began to draw a $36,000 annual pension, or 60 percent
of his old wage, along with retiree health insurance.

“I would have stayed,” he says, “ if the work was similar to
the old job and if I had a wife and kids in college, which
I don’t have. And if I did not have this shop. It weighed
in my decision to leave; I had something to do.”

UNLIKE Mr. Strong, other displaced workers, including
Mr. Doolittle, now working part time at Sears, do not have
occupations that engage them. And they miss the work,
the income and the way of life that defined their careers
as auto workers.

“My children and my grandchildren will never have an opportunity
to work at G.M.,” Mr. Doolittle says. “My dad made a good living
there. So did my brother and my brothers-in-law. That is all over
now. It will be 10 to 15 years before G.M. hires again, if it ever does,
and at who knows what wages.”

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3) Patents Over Patients
By RALPH W. MOSS
Op-Ed Contributor
State College, Pa.
April 1, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/01/opinion/01moss.html

WE could make faster progress against cancer by changing the way
drugs are developed. In the current system, if a promising compound
can’t be patented, it is highly unlikely ever to make it to market —
no matter how well it performs in the laboratory. The development
of new cancer drugs is crippled as a result.

The reason for this problem is that bringing a new drug to market
is extremely expensive. In 2001, the estimated cost was $802 million;
today it is approximately $1 billion. To ensure a healthy return on
such staggering investments, drug companies seek to formulate new
drugs in a way that guarantees watertight patents. In the meantime,
cancer patients miss out on treatments that may be highly effective
and less expensive to boot.

In 2004, Johns Hopkins researchers discovered that an off-the-shelf
compound called 3-bromopyruvate could arrest the growth of liver
cancer in rats. The results were dramatic; moreover, the investigators
estimated that the cost to treat patients would be around 70 cents
per day. Yet, three years later, no major drug company has shown
interest in developing this drug for human use.

Early this year, another readily available industrial chemical,
dichloroacetate, was found by researchers at the University
of Alberta to shrink tumors in laboratory animals by up to 75 percent.
However, as a university news release explained, dichloroacetate is
not patentable, and the lead researcher is concerned that it may
be difficult to find funding from private investors to test the chemical.
So the university is soliciting public donations to finance a clinical trial.

The hormone melatonin, sold as an inexpensive food supplement
in the United States, has repeatedly been shown to slow the growth
of various cancers when used in conjunction with conventional
treatments. Paolo Lissoni, an Italian oncologist, helped write more
than 100 articles about this hormone and conducted numerous
clinical trials. But when I visited him at his hospital in Monza in
2003, he was in deep despair over the pharmaceutical industry’s
total lack of interest in his treatment approach. He has published
nothing on the topic since then.

Potential anticancer drugs should be judged on their scientific
merit, not on their patentability. One solution might be for the
government to enlarge the Food and Drug Administration’s
“orphan drug” program, which subsidizes the development
of drugs for rare diseases. The definition of orphan drug could
be expanded to include unpatentable agents that are scorned
as unprofitable by pharmaceutical companies.

We need to foster a research and development environment in
which anticancer activity is the main criterion for new drug
development.

Ralph W. Moss writes a weekly online newsletter about cancer.

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4) Distract and Disenfranchise
By PAUL KRUGMAN
April 2, 2007
http://select.nytimes.com/2007/04/02/opinion/02krugman.html?_r=1&hp&oref=login

I have a theory about the Bush administration abuses
of power that are now, finally, coming to light.
Ultimately, I believe, they were driven by rising
income inequality.

Let me explain.

In 1980, when Ronald Reagan won the White House,
conservative ideas appealed to many, even most,
Americans. At the time, we were truly a middle-class
nation. To white voters, at least, the vast inequalities
and social injustices of the past, which were what
originally gave liberalism its appeal, seemed like
ancient history. It was easy, in that nation,
to convince many voters that Big Government was
their enemy, that they were being taxed to provide
social programs for other people.

Since then, however, we have once again become
a deeply unequal society. Median income has risen
only 17 percent since 1980, while the income
of the richest 0.1 percent of the population
has quadrupled. The gap between the rich and
the middle class is as wide now as it was in the
1920s, when the political coalition that would
eventually become the New Deal was taking shape.

And voters realize that society has changed.
They may not pore over income distribution tables,
but they do know that today’s rich are building
themselves mansions bigger than those of the robber
barons. They may not read labor statistics,
but they know that wages aren’t going anywhere:
according to the Pew Research Center, 59 percent
of workers believe that it’s harder to earn
a decent living today than it was 20 or
30 years ago.

You know that perceptions of rising inequality
have become a political issue when even President
Bush admits, as he did in January, that “some
of our citizens worry about the fact that our
dynamic economy is leaving working people behind.”

But today’s Republicans can’t respond in any
meaningful way to rising inequality, because
their activists won’t let them. You could see
the dilemma just this past Friday and Saturday,
when almost all the G.O.P. presidential hopefuls
traveled to Palm Beach to make obeisance to the
Club for Growth, a supply-side pressure group
dedicated to tax cuts and privatization.

The Republican Party’s adherence to an outdated
ideology leaves it with big problems. It can’t
offer domestic policies that respond to the
public’s real needs. So how can it win elections?

The answer, for a while, was a combination of
distraction and disenfranchisement.

The terrorist attacks on 9/11 were themselves
a massive, providential distraction; until
then the public, realizing that Mr. Bush wasn’t
the moderate he played in the 2000 election,
was growing increasingly unhappy with his
administration. And they offered many
opportunities for further distractions.
Rather than debating Democrats on the issues,
the G.O.P. could denounce them as soft
on terror. And do you remember the terror
alert, based on old and questionable
information, that was declared right after
the 2004 Democratic National Convention?

But distraction can only go so far. So the
other tool was disenfranchisement: finding
ways to keep poor people, who tend to vote
for the party that might actually do something
about inequality, out of the voting booth.

Remember that disenfranchisement in the form
of the 2000 Florida “felon purge,” which
struck many legitimate voters from the rolls,
put Mr. Bush in the White House in the first
place. And disenfranchisement seems to be
what much of the politicization of the Justice
Department was about.

Several of the fired U.S. attorneys were under
pressure to pursue allegations of voter fraud
— a phrase that has become almost synonymous
with “voting while black.” Former staff members
of the Justice Department’s civil rights division
say that they were repeatedly overruled when
they objected to Republican actions, ranging
from Georgia’s voter ID law to Tom DeLay’s Texas
redistricting, that they believed would effectively
disenfranchise African-American voters.

The good news is that all the G.O.P.’s abuses
of power weren’t enough to win the 2006 elections.
And 2008 may be even harder for the Republicans,
because the Democrats — who spent most of the Clinton
years trying to reassure rich people and corporations
that they weren’t really populists — seem
to be realizing that times have changed.

A week before the Republican candidates trooped
to Palm Beach to declare their allegiance to tax
cuts, the Democrats met to declare their commitment
to universal health care. And it’s hard to see
what the G.O.P. can offer in response.

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5) Taxing Private Equity
Editorial
April 2, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/02/opinion/02mon1.html?hp

In the world of private equity, “2 and 20” is a formula
for making money. The mavens of the industry — venture
capitalists and buyout specialists — generally collect
a management fee of 2 percent of the assets they manage
and a performance fee equal to 20 percent of any profits.
With hundreds of billions of dollars flowing through
the 2-and-20 structure, the megabucks pile up quickly.

High fees, however, are only one reason that private
equity lives by “2 and 20.” Another is low taxes.

Partners in private equity ventures treat their
performance fees as capital gains — in other words,
like profits on the sale of a stock — and thus pay
tax on the fees at a rate of 15 percent, about the
lowest in the tax code. According to federal
partnership tax rules, that’s legal. But the rules
were developed before private equity became the
force it is today, and mainly with small business
and real estate partnerships in mind.

Some lawmakers — notably Senator Max Baucus, the
Democratic chairman of the Finance Committee, and
Senator Charles Grassley, the committee’s top
Republican — have begun to question whether those
rules should apply to private equity.

Adding grist to lawmakers’ skepticism is a recent
paper by Victor Fleischer, an associate professor
at the University of Colorado Law School.
Mr. Fleischer makes several arguments against
treating performance pay as capital gain, starting
with the increasingly huge sums that private equity
firms raise from tax-exempt investors, like pension
funds and endowments.

In general, when corporate executives get performance
-based pay, like stock options, they don’t have
to pay tax right away. That’s a big tax benefit,
but it leaves the government no worse off because
the corporation also delays taking a deduction for
the payment. There is no such offset when private
equity partners are paid by tax-exempt investors.
The nation in effect waits longer for its tax revenue
and gets less, as private equity partners get more.

The deeper question in all this is whether capital
gains — which are currently taxed at less than half
the top rate of ordinary income — should continue
to be so lavishly advantaged. The answer there is
no. Today’s preferential rate for capital gains
is excessive, with no mechanism in the tax code
to ensure that it is not overused. Excessively
favoring one form of income over another encourages
wasteful gamesmanship, creates inequity and crowds
out other ways to foster risk-taking. Tackling the
too-easy tax terms for private equity is a good way
for Congress to begin addressing that bigger issue.

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6)PROTECT OUR PENSIONS
April 1, 2007
http://www.soldiersofsolidarity.com/

Norm Goddard transferred back to GM from Delphi in March
2000. In May 2006 he applied for retirement from GM. After
30 years of service he wanted out. He was looking forward
to the $35,000. When he went to the Benefits Office to sign
his retirement papers the document stated that he hired
into Delphi in 1976.

"That's a lie," Norm said. "Delphi wasn't even around in 1976.
I hired in at GM."

The Benefits Rep informed him that if he signed the document
he agreed to everything it said. Norm refused. "I worked
less than nine months for Delphi." He has 24 years of
pension credits with Delphi, a bankrupt company that
never operated independent of GM.

When Delphi was spun off from GM in 1999 John Goshka
had 34 years seniority. He chose to keep working. "I had
children in college," he said. When John retired in 2004
he had 39 years of credited service with Delphi. At age
60 John doesn't know what will happen to his pension
or his health care. His 34 years of GM time were dumped
into Delphi.

When Delphi offered two choices, retire or transfer away
from home and likely give up his trade as a toolmaker,
Mike Wittek decided to call it quits. He signed up for
the Special Attrition Program [SAP] and went out with
only 21 years of credited service. Though he hired
in at GM, he left with a Delphi pension and a bad
taste in his mouth.

At the UAW Constitutional Convention in June 2006
I asked for a point of information. I explained that
GM had transferred all my pension credits to Delphi
at the time of the spin off in 1999. Now Delphi was
bankrupt. GM's contractual agreement to guarantee the
Delphi pension expires at the end of this contract
in October 2007. What happens if Delphi decides to
stop pension payments in 2008, after the guarantee
expires?

The resolution on the floor at the time was "Protecting
Pensions." Dick Shoemaker, the UAW-VP responsible for
negotiations at GM and Delphi, declared me "Out of Order."
But he said that he would speak to me "privately."
Shoemaker understood that I wanted him to speak publicly
for the record. He didn't take the bait.

I immediately approached the stage and Shoemaker came
down to talk with me. What he had to say concerning
Delphi retirees was not intended for the official record.
He explained that if I signed the Special Attrition
Program [SAP] and "checked the box", it was "understood"
that GM would guarantee the pension.

"But it doesn't say that," I replied.

"It's understood," he said.

"It states that only what is written is valid and that
verbal promises contrary to the written document have
no merit," I replied.

"Well, it's understood," he said.

"OK. I'll take your word for it. But what about the
people who already retired or who will retire five
years from now and don't have the opportunity
to check the box"?

"We still have to negotiate that," Shoemaker said.

Here are the facts. The SAP states that if you sign
you agree to the terms, and the SAP stipulated that
those who signed would get a "Delphi Hourly Pension".
Shoemaker's verbal assertion that it "was understood"
doesn’t amount to a tinker's damn. As Shoemaker readily
admitted to me, the fate of Delphi-UAW members who
retired before the SAP was available or who transferred
back to GM and would retire in the future still has
to be negotiated.

Demonstrate solidarity with Delphi-UAW members by
demanding that the Benefit Guarantee be activated
and GM held accountable for the orchestrated bankruptcy
at Delphi.

I am not a delegate at this Bargaining Convention
because my old plant is now closed. I chose to return
to a GM plant rather than take the SAP because there
is no security with a Delphi pension.

For the record, a commitment to protect the Delphi
retirees at the 2007 UAW Bargaining Convention would
be in order.

Gregg Shotwell
UAW Local 1753

www.soldiersofsolidarity.com

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LINKS AND VERY SHORT STORIES

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Robert Fisk: The war of humiliation
Published: 02 April 2007
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/fisk/article2412764.ece

US anti-Zionist synagogue gutted
"A synagogue of an anti-Zionist Jewish group has been
destroyed in a fire.
The blaze tore through a synagogue of Neturei Karta
near New York and the residence of a senior rabbi.
Police have established a crime scene and are investigating
the cause of the fire. The ultra-orthodox group has recently
been the target of threats.
In December, five members of the community attended
a conference for Holocaust deniers in Iran and met
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
Arson claims
Rabbi Moshe Beck, who lives in the building in the town
of Monsey - about 30 miles (48km) from New York -
was in London when the fire broke out, said Neturei
Karta member Rabbi Yisroel Dovid Weiss.
Mr Weiss said the group believes it was targeted by
arsonists because it had previously received threats.
'There's no question that the issue is to stifle the
opposition to Zionism,' he said to AP news agency.
Police would not confirm whether they were treating
the fire as suspicious.
Neturei Karta opposes the existence of the state
of Israel on religious grounds.
Members of the group - whose name means 'Guardians
of the City' - believe Jews should live under Arab
Muslim rule until the Messiah comes."
Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/americas/6518033.stm

Justices Rule Against White House on Emissions
By DAVID STOUT
April 2, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/02/washington/02cnd-scotus.html?hp

Crime Intensifies Debate Over Taping of Suspects
By ERIC LIPTON and JENNIFER STEINHAUER
April 2, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/02/washington/02taping.html?ref=us

Poor Nations to Bear Brunt as World Warms
By ANDREW C. REVKIN
April 1, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/01/science/earth/01climate.html?hp

The Fake Fight Over the Iraq War
That Was an Antiwar Vote?
By ALEXANDER COCKBURN
and JEFFREY ST. CLAIR
March 31 / April 1, 2007
Weekend Edition
http://www.counterpunch.com/cockburn03312007.html

Judge Allows Private Testing for Mad Cow
By MATT APUZZO, Associated Press Writers
Thursday, March 29, 2007
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2007/03/29/national/w153913D29.DTL&hw=mad+cow&sn=001&sc=1000

Residents of Fallujah Fear a US 'Genocidal Strategy'
http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/03/30/188/

Gulf Hits Snags in Rebuilding Public Works
By LESLIE EATON
March 31, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/31/us/31fema.html?ref=us

Bill to Legalize Abortion Set to Pass in Mexico City
By JAMES C. McKINLEY Jr.
March 31, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/31/world/americas/31mexico.html?ref=world

Olmert Rejects Right of Return for Palestinians
By STEVEN ERLANGER
March 31, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/31/world/middleeast/31mideast.html?ref=world

How did the real hero of the anti-slavery movement
get airbrushed out of history?
By ISABEL WOLFF
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=444105&in_page_id=1770

Disuse of System Is Cited in Gaps in Soldiers’ Care
By IAN URBINA and RON NIXON
March 30, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/30/washington/30medical.html?hp

New York City to Reward Poor for Doing Right Thing
By DIANE CARDWELL
March 30, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/30/nyregion/30poverty.html?ref=nyregion

White House Proposal Would Move Illegal Immigrants
Off the Citizenship Path
By RACHEL L. SWARNS
White House officials have issued a discussion document
on immigration that calls for legislation that would grant
legal status to illegal immigrants and guest workers, but
would not put them on a path to citizenship. It would allow
illegal immigrants to remain in the country indefinitely,
under certain conditions, and would require guest workers
to leave the country after six years. The document, drafted
after several meetings with Republican senators, was
designed to garner broad Republican support for key
immigration principals. Democratic and Republican
senators are negotiating in hope of coming to a consensus
on an immigration bill.
March 30, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/30/washington/30brfs-citizen.html

Cuba: Castro Criticizes U.S. Biofuel Policies
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
The Cuban leader, Fidel Castro, lashed out against American plans
to increase use of renewable fuels, mainly ethanol, in a front-page
article in the Communist Party newspaper, Granma, warning that
food stocks for millions of people would be threatened. The article,
titled “Condemned to Premature Death by Hunger and Thirst —
More Than 3 Billion People of the World,” said that if the United
States and other wealthy nations decided to import huge amounts
of traditional crops like corn from poorer countries to help meet
their energy needs, “you will see how many people among the hungry
masses of our planet will no longer consume corn.” “Or even worse,”
it continued, “by offering financing to poor countries to produce
ethanol from corn or any other kind of food, no tree will be left
to defend humanity from climate change.” They were his first
comments on international issues since Mr. Castro took ill last July.
In recent weeks, several senior Cuban officials have indicated that
he might soon take a more active role and even return
to the presidency.
March 30, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/30/world/americas/30briefs-castro.html

Opposition to the War Growing Among Troops
by Sarah Olson
March 30, 2007
http://www.antiwar.com/orig/solson.php?articleid=10742

Two Radical Immigrants, Framed for Murder, Executed by the State
Sacco and Vanzetti Revisited
By MARLENE MARTIN
March 29, 2007
http://www.counterpunch.org/martin03292007.html

Havana rights
Plans to legalise gay marriage and offer sex change
operations free of charge mean Cuba is set to become
the most socially liberal country in the Americas.
March 28, 2007 8:30 PM
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/calvin_tucker/2007/03/the_street_scene_was_entertain.html

Eighteen Months After Katrina
"When it is all said and done, there has been a lot more said than done."
http://www.justiceforneworleans.org/index.php?module=article&view=83&page_num=1

Study Says Junk Food Still Dominates Youth TV
By ELIZABETH OLSON
March 29, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/29/business/media/29adco.html

Located in Hospital, DNA Clears Buffalo Man Convicted in ’80s Rapes
By DAVID STABA
March 29, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/29/nyregion/29bike.html?ref=nyregion

Texas: Deal on Juvenile Prisons
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Lawmakers and the governor vowed to abolish the Texas Youth
Commission’s board in favor of a juvenile prison czar. The plan
puts the agency into a conservatorship for now and allows a single
executive to take it over later. The commission has been in turmoil
since a two-year-old sexual abuse investigation surfaced a month
ago. Lawmakers still must introduce legislation and vote on the plan.
Gov. Rick Perry, a Republican, made Jay Kimbrough the conservator.
Mr. Kimbrough, left, said that he would fire immediately 111
commission employees who have felony convictions and that
superintendents of commission facilities and other top officials
would have to reapply for their jobs.
March 29, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/29/us/29brfs-DEALONJUVENI_BRF.html

California: Sentences in Immigrant Hiring
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Two executives at a fence-building company were sentenced
to six months of home confinement for hiring illegal immigrants.
The men, Mel Kay, founder, chairman and president of the business,
Golden State Fence Company of Riverside, and Michael McLaughlin,
a manager, had pleaded guilty to knowingly hiring illegal immigrants.
In addition, the two were sentenced to three years’ probation.
Also, Mr. Kay was fined $200,000; McLaughlin agreed
to pay $100,000.
March 29, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/29/us/29brfs-SENTENCESINI_BRF.html

Colleges Hiring Lenders to Field Queries on Aid
By JONATHAN D. GLATER
March 29, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/29/education/29loans.html?ref=us

Street Violence by Paris Youths Intrudes Again Into French Politics
By KATRIN BENNHOLD
March 29, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/29/world/europe/29paris.html

Inside the secretive plan to gut the Endangered Species Act
"Proposed regulatory changes, obtained by Salon, would destroy the
'safety net for animals and plants on the brink of extinction,'
say environmentalists.'
By Rebecca Clarren
http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2007/03/27/endangered_species/

Pennsylvania: Negligence Is Cited in Deadly Mine Explosion
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Federal investigators found “flagrant violations” at a Pennsylvania
mine where a worker died last year in a methane gas explosion, the
federal Mine Safety and Health Administration said. The R&D Coal
Company did not ensure adequate ventilation, safe blasting practices
or proper preshift safety checks at the mine, Buck Mountain Slope,
directly contributing to the Oct. 23 death of Dale Reightler, 43,
a veteran miner, federal officials said. The miners conducting the
blasting that day were not qualified to handle explosives and set
them off before other miners could get to a safe area, investigators
found. State regulators have revoked R&D’s permit to operate the
Buck Mountain site, in Schuylkill County about 80 miles northwest
of Philadelphia. R&D officers did not respond to requests for comment.
March 27, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/27/us/27brfs-mine.html

Black Politicians Chicken Out on Reparations
Black Press International
http://news.newamericamedia.org/news/view_article.html?article_id=44ad0172db35b08198274c68176d54e7

Failing Schools See a Solution in Longer Day
By DIANA JEAN SCHEMO
March 26, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/26/us/26schoolday.html?ref=us

Aged, Frail and Denied Care by Their Insurers
By CHARLES DUHIGG
March 26, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/26/business/26care.html?hp

Chavez Launches Formation of Unified Socialist Party of Venezuela
Sunday, Mar 25, 2007
By: Chris Carlson - Venezuelanalysis.com
http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/news.php?newsno=2250

Four Years Later in Iraq
Where are the Laptop Bombardiers Now?
By ALEXANDER COCKBURN
Weekend Edition
March 24 / 25, 2007
http://www.counterpunch.com/cockburn03242007.html

The Women’s War
By SARA CORBETT
Editors' Note Appended
March 18, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/18/magazine/18cover.html

City Police Spied Broadly Before G.O.P. Convention
By JIM DWYER
For at least a year before the 2004 Republican National Convention,
teams of undercover New York City police officers traveled to cities
across the country, Canada and Europe to conduct covert observations
of people who planned to protest at the convention, according
to police records and interviews.
March 25, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/25/nyregion/25infiltrate.html?hp

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GENERAL ANNOUNCEMENTS
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A NEW LOOK AT U.S. RADIOACTIVE WEAPONS
Join us in a campaign to expose and stop the use of these illegal weapons
http://poisondust.org/

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You may enjoy watching these.
In struggle
Che:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nqcezl9dD2c
Leon:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ukkFVV5X0p4

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FIGHTBACK! A Collection of Socialist Essays
By Sylvia Weinstein
http://www.walterlippmann.com/sylvia-weinstein-fightback-intro.html

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[The Scab
"After God had finished the rattlesnake, the toad,
and the vampire, he had some awful substance left with
which he made a scab."
"A scab is a two-legged animal with a corkscrew soul,
a water brain, a combination backbone of jelly and glue.
Where others have hearts, he carries a tumor of rotten
principles." "When a scab comes down the street,
men turn their backs and angels weep in heaven, and
the devil shuts the gates of hell to keep him out."
"No man (or woman) has a right to scab so long as there
is a pool of water to drown his carcass in,
or a rope long enough to hang his body with.
Judas was a gentleman compared with a scab.
For betraying his master, he had character enough
to hang himself." A scab has not.
"Esau sold his birthright for a mess of pottage.
Judas sold his Savior for thirty pieces of silver.
Benedict Arnold sold his country for a promise of
a commision in the british army."
The scab sells his birthright, country, his wife,
his children and his fellowmen for an unfulfilled
promise from his employer.
Esau was a traitor to himself; Judas was a traitor
to his God; Benedict Arnold was a traitor to his country;
a scab is a traitor to his God, his country,
his family and his class."
Author --- Jack London (1876-1916)...Roland Sheppard
http://web.mac.com/rolandgarret]

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END ALL U.S. AID TO ISRAEL!
Stop funding Israel's war against Palestine
Complete the form at the website listed below with your information.
https://secure2.convio.net/pep/site/Advocacy?
JServSessionIdr003=cga2p2o6x1.app2a&cmd=display&page=UserAction&id=177

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Sand Creek Massacre
"THE SAND CREEK MASSACRE" AWARD-WINNING DOCUMENTARY
SHORT FEATURED AT NATIVE AMERICAN FILM FESTIVAL:
http://www.aberdeennews.com/mld/aberdeennews/news/local/16035305.htm
(scroll down when you get there])
"THE SAND CREEK MASSACRE" AWARD-WINNING
WRITER/FILMMAKER DONALD L. VASICEK REPORT:
http://www.digitalcinemareport.com/sandcreekmassacre.html
"THE SAND CREEK MASSACRE" AWARD-WINNING DOCUMENTARY
SHORT FINALIST IN DOCUMENTARY CHANNEL COMPETITION (VIEW HERE):
http://www.docupyx.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=28&Itemid=41
VIEW "THE SAND CREEK MASSACRE" AWARD-WINNING DOCUMENTARY
SHORT FILM MOVIE OF THE WEEK FOR FREE HERE:
http://twymancreative.com/twymanc.html

On November 29, 1864, 700 Colorado troops savagely slaughtered
over 450 Cheyenne children, disabled, elders, and women in the
southeastern Colorado Territory under its protection. This act
became known as the Sand Creek Massacre. This film project
("The Sand Creek Massacre" documentary film project) is an
examination of an open wound in the souls of the Cheyenne
people as told from their perspective. This project chronicles
that horrific 19th century event and its affect on the 21st century
struggle for respectful coexistence between white and native
plains cultures in the United States of America.

Listed below are links on which you can click to get the latest news,
products, and view, free, "THE SAND CREEK MASSACRE" award-
winning documentary short. In order to create more native
awareness, particularly to save the roots of America's history,
please read the following:

Some people in America are trying to save the world. Bless
them. In the meantime, the roots of America are dying.
What happens to a plant when the roots die? The plant dies
according to my biology teacher in high school. American's
roots are its native people. Many of America's native people
are dying from drug and alcohol abuse, poverty, hunger,
and disease, which was introduced to them by the Caucasian
male. Tribal elders are dying. When they die, their oral
histories go with them. Our native's oral histories are the
essence of the roots of America, what took place before
our ancestors came over to America, what is taking place,
and what will be taking place. It is time we replenish
America's roots with native awareness, else America
continues its decaying, and ultimately, its death.

You can help. The 22-MINUTE SAND CREEK MASSACRE
DOCUMENTARY PRESENTATION/EDUCATIONAL DVD IS
READY FOR PURCHASE! (pass the word about this powerful
educational tool to friends, family, schools, parents, teachers,
and other related people and organizations to contact
me (dvasicek@earthlink.net, 303-903-2103) for information
about how they can purchase the DVD and have me come
to their children's school to show the film and to interact
in a questions and answers discussion about the Sand
Creek Massacre.

Happy Holidays!

Donald L. Vasicek
Olympus Films+, LLC
http://us.imdb.com/Name?Vasicek,+Don
http://www.donvasicek.com
dvasicek@earthlink.net
303-903-2103

"THE SAND CREEK MASSACRE" AWARD-WINNING DOCUMENTARY
SHORT FEATURED AT NATIVE AMERICAN FILM FESTIVAL:
http://www.aberdeennews.com/mld/aberdeennews/news/local/16035305.htm
(scroll down when you get there])
"THE SAND CREEK MASSACRE" AWARD-WINNING
WRITER/FILMMAKER DONALD L. VASICEK REPORT:
http://www.digitalcinemareport.com/sandcreekmassacre.html
"THE SAND CREEK MASSACRE" AWARD-WINNING DOCUMENTARY
SHORT FINALIST IN DOCUMENTARY CHANNEL COMPETITION (VIEW HERE):
http://www.docupyx.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=28&Itemid=41
VIEW "THE SAND CREEK MASSACRE" AWARD-WINNING DOCUMENTARY
SHORT FILM MOVIE OF THE WEEK FOR FREE HERE:
http://twymancreative.com/twymanc.html

SHOP:
http://www.manataka.org/page633.html
BuyIndies.com
donvasicek.com.

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