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URGENT: SCHOOL BOARD TO DECIDE TONIGHT TO EXTEND JROTC!
November 13, 2007, 6:00 PM
555 Franklin Street, 1st Floor
San Francisco, CA 94102
415/241-6427 or (415) 241-6493
(To get on the speakers list call Monday, November 12 from 8:30 AM - 4:00 PM or Tuesday, November13--the day of the meeting from 8:30 AM - 3:30 PM. You will get at most, two minutes and most probably only one minute to speak. Also expect a large group of JROTC cadets and teachers to show up.)
S.F. school board will decide whether JROTC gets one more year
Jill Tucker, Chronicle Staff Writer
Monday, November 12, 2007
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/11/12/BAVST9IVN.DTL&hw=jrotc&sn=001&sc=1000
The San Francisco school board will consider on Tuesday retaining the high school Junior Reserve Officers' Training Corps program for one more year, but the proposed reprieve includes several conditions that some say amount to poison pills.
The conditions would eliminate JROTC at two of the school district's seven high schools, would prohibit ninth-graders from enrolling, and would no longer give physical education credits for participating in the program.
"They effectively kill the program anyway," said Gerry Peratore, a Balboa High School JROTC instructor.
After a stormy meeting that was packed with JROTC supporters last November, the school board voted to phase out the program by the end of this school year. The decision was based on the program's connection to the military, which some board members said is discriminatory, homophobic and at odds with the mission of public education.
The board appointed a task force to develop an alternative program to replace JROTC, but the group didn't meet until April. The task force subsequently requested the extension of JROTC at all seven high schools, saying there wasn't enough time to develop an alternative by fall 2008.
Board President Mark Sanchez, who led the charge against JROTC last November, said the new resolution is a compromise, allowing the program to continue while its substitute is being developed. The resolution, he acknowledged, leaves no doubt about the program's future.
"We were just very resolute that we need to move forward, and this is a good way of doing it," he said. "Basically, no shenanigans - just move forward and do it."
The measure before the board Tuesday night would eliminate two of the district's seven JROTC programs by next fall, replacing them with a yet-to-be-determined alternative.
It would also prohibit enrollment of ninth- graders at the remaining five JROTC sites. In addition, district officials have decided that the high schools will no longer grant physical education credit for JROTC courses next year.
There are about 1,200 students enrolled in the JROTC program.
Most of the district's JROTC cadets receive PE credit for the courses; the others receive elective credits.
School and JROTC officials said it's likely that few students would continue in JROTC if they couldn't get PE credit because there is little room in their schedules for electives.
The district splits the $1.7 million cost of JROTC with the federal government, but that subsidy will phase out with the program.
The new resolution, written by Sanchez and board member Kim-Shree Maufas, requires Superintendent Carlos Garcia to select by mid-December the two high school JROTC programs to close at the end of the school year.
Mission, Burton and Lowell high schools are the likely candidates because they have the lowest JROTC enrollment, Sanchez said.
A majority of board members have said in the past that they don't want to eliminate JROTC before a new program is in place that provides the leadership development and other positive - but nonmilitary - attributes of JROTC.
The school board and district staff would have less than nine months to create, fund and implement a replacement program if the resolution is adopted.
In addition, each of the district's high schools with JROTC programs will have to figure out how to absorb an influx of students into physical education classes.
At Galileo High School, Principal Vicki Pesek said she'll need at least one more PE teacher, given that her gym classes now are already crowded with about 40 students each.
But finding places to put additional PE classes is also a problem.
"There's a space issue as far as PE stations where you can have your activities," she said.
District officials said they are eliminating PE credit for JROTC because state law requires physical education instructors to have a PE credential, and none of the San Francisco JROTC instructors does.
Current state law requires students to take two years of physical education, one of which must be during freshman year.
Many California districts, including Los Angeles and Oakland, allow JROTC to substitute for PE credits, despite instructors' lack of PE credentials.
Meeting information
The board meeting will be at 6 p.m. Tuesday, 555 Franklin St., San Francisco. To sign up to speak at the meeting, call (415) 241-6493 before 3:30 p.m. Tuesday or fill out a speaker card at the meeting before the board addresses the item.
E-mail Jill Tucker at jtucker@sfchronicle.com.
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/11/12/BAVST9IVN.DTL
This article appeared on page B - 1 of the San Francisco Chronicle
GET JROTC OUT OF OUR SCHOOLS—AGAIN!
Remember when SF made history a year ago when the Board of Education voted to phase out JROTC from our public schools? Well it seems like the military forces have succeeded in delaying, if not stopping, the phase out. Even previously anti-JROTC school board members are wavering.
In 2004, 63 percent of San Franciscans voted to withdraw all troops from Iraq. In 2005, 59 percent of San Franciscans voted to end military recruiting in our public schools. In 2006 the school board, the first in the country, voted to phase out JROTC. San Franciscans clearly do not support the military taking our children. We MUST muster enough support to hold the school board to its courageous vote last year.
Attend a meeting:
Monday, November 26
7:00 P.M.
474 Valencia Street
(Near 16th Street, San Francisco)
For more info, call: 415-824-8730
In solidarity,
Medea Benjamin
Eric Blanc
Riva Enteen
Bob Forsberg
Vickie Leidner
Cristina Gutierrez
Tommi Avicoli Mecca
Millie Phillips
Carole Seligman
Bonnie Weinstein
Please sign this letter and pass it along to all those opposed to JROTC in our schools.
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Petition in defense of Morton students:
To: Morton West School District
In Defense of the Morton West Antiwar Students
We are writing in defense of the students who now face excessive disciplinary actions at the hands of various Morton West school administrators. Our sympathies lie with the courageous and moral struggle that the students have taken up, and with their parents who still support them. The struggle for a peaceful and just society absent of war should not be met with punishment, but should be supported by the community as a whole, especially from within the educational setting. Furthermore, It is our firm belief that an injury to freedom for students anywhere is an injury to freedom for students everywhere. This is why we urge all Morton West administrators to drop all disciplinary action against the said students, and to remove any indications of said events from their permanent records. We urge you to respect these students right to free expression now and in the future.
(Written by Columbia College Chicago Students for a Democratic Society)
Sincerely,
Sign your name at:
http://www.petitiononline.com/mortonw/
See Articles:
Suspended Morton students demand return to class
BY KATE N. GROSSMAN Education Reporter
November 6, 2007
http://www.suntimes.com/news/education/637168,morton110607.article#
Students Call Protest Punishment Too Harsh
By CRYSTAL YEDNAK
“Who’s the next group to go off to war?” said Adam Szwarek, whose 16-year-old son, Adam, faces expulsion. “These kids. The kids do a peaceful sit-in and they’re threatened with expulsion, yet the military’s running around the school trying to recruit.”
November 7, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/07/us/07protest.html?ref=us
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MONEY AS DEBT
http://video. google.com/ videoplay? docid=-905047436 2583451279
http://www.moneyasd ebt.net/
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Port of Olympia Anti-Militarization Action Nov. 2007
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SOkn2Fg7R8w
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Help end the war by supporting the troops who have refused to fight it.
Please sign the appeal online
"DEAR CANADA: LET U.S. WAR RESISTERS STAY!"
"I am writing from the United States to ask you to make a provision for
sanctuary for the scores of U.S. military servicemembers currently in
Canada, most of whom have traveled to your country in order to resist
fighting in the Iraq War. Please let them stay in Canada..."
To sign the appeal or for more information:
http://www.couragetoresist.org/canada
Courage to Resist volunteers will send this letter on your behalf to three
key Canadian officials--Prime Minister Stephen Harper, Minister of
Citizenship and Immigration Diane Finley, and Stéphane Dion, Liberal
Party--via international first class mail.
In collaboration with War Resisters Support Campaign (Canada), this effort
comes at a critical juncture in the international campaign for asylum for
U.S. war resisters in Canada.
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OCT. 27 COALITION EVALUATION MEETING WILL TAKE PLACE:
SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 18, 1 P.M. AT CENTRO DEL PUEBLO.
474 Valencia Street, SF (Near 16th Street)
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ARTICLES IN FULL:
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1) Child sweatshop shame threatens Gap's ethical image
An Observer investigation into children making clothes has shocked the retail giant and may cause it to withdraw apparel ordered for Christmas
Dan McDougall
Observer
Sunday October 28, 2007
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/world/story/0,,2200573,00.html
2) On the Bottle, Off the Streets, Halfway There
By DAN BARRY
SEATTLE
November 11, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/11/us/11land.html?ref=us
3) Examining the Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act
By Lindsay Beyerstein
November 1, 2007
http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/3388/
4) U.S. Congress approves $155 million weapons package for Israel
Saed Bannoura - IMEMC
November 08, 2007
http://www.uruknet.de/?s1=1&p=38041&s2=09
5) Bring the Real World Home
By ROGER COHEN
Op-Ed Columnist
November 12, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/12/opinion/12cohen.html?hp=&adxnnl=1&adxnnlx=1194883212-EkOs92xeeaXrtl76g//GFw
6) Security Guard Fires From Convoy, Killing Iraqi Driver
By JAMES GLANZ
November 12, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/12/world/middleeast/12contractor.html?hp
7) For U.S. Exporters in Cuba, Business Trumps Politics
By JAMES C. McKINLEY Jr.
November 12, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/12/world/americas/12cuba.html?ref=world
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1) Child sweatshop shame threatens Gap's ethical image
An Observer investigation into children making clothes has shocked the retail giant and may cause it to withdraw apparel ordered for Christmas
Dan McDougall
Observer
Sunday October 28, 2007
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/world/story/0,,2200573,00.html
Amitosh concentrates as he pulls the loops of thread through tiny plastic beads and sequins on the toddler's blouse he is making. Dripping with sweat, his hair is thinly coated in dust. In Hindi his name means 'happiness'. The hand-embroidered garment on which his tiny needle is working bears the distinctive logo of international fashion chain Gap. Amitosh is 10.
The hardships that blight his young life, exposed by an undercover Observer investigation in the back streets of New Delhi, reveal a tragic consequence of the West's demand for cheap clothing. It exposes how, despite Gap's rigorous social audit systems launched in 2004 to weed out child labour in its production processes, the system is being abused by unscrupulous subcontractors. The result is that children, in this case working in conditions close to slavery, appear to still be making some of its clothes.
Gap's own policy is that if it discovers children being used by contractors to make its clothes that contractor must remove the child from the workplace, provide it with access to schooling and a wage, and guarantee the opportunity of work on reaching a legal working age.
It is a policy to stop the abuse of children. And in Amitosh's case it appears not to have succeeded. Sold into bonded labour by his family this summer, Amitosh works 16 hours a day hand-sewing clothing. Beside him on a wooden stool are his only belongings: a tattered comic, a penknife, a plastic comb and a torn blanket with an elephant motif.
'I was bought from my parents' village in [the northern state of] Bihar and taken to New Delhi by train,' he says. 'The men came looking for us in July. They had loudspeakers in the back of a car and told my parents that, if they sent me to work in the city, they won't have to work in the farms. My father was paid a fee for me and I was brought down with 40 other children. The journey took 30 hours and we weren't fed. I've been told I have to work off the fee the owner paid for me so I can go home, but I am working for free. I am a shaagird [a pupil]. The supervisor has told me because I am learning I don't get paid. It has been like this for four months.'
The derelict industrial unit in which Amitosh and half a dozen other children are working is smeared in filth, the corridors flowing with excrement from a flooded toilet.
Behind the youngsters huge piles of garments labelled Gap - complete with serial numbers for a new line that Gap concedes it has ordered for sale later in the year - lie completed in polythene sacks, with official packaging labels, all for export to Europe and the United States in time for Christmas.
Jivaj, who is from West Bengal and looks around 12, told The Observer that some of the boys in the sweatshop had been badly beaten. 'Our hours are hard and violence is used against us if we don't work hard enough. This is a big order for abroad, they keep telling us that.
'Last week, we spent four days working from dawn until about one o'clock in the morning the following day. I was so tired I felt sick,' he whispers, tears streaming down his face. 'If any of us cried we were hit with a rubber pipe. Some of the boys had oily cloths stuffed in our mouths as punishment.'
Manik, who is also working for free, claims - unconvincingly - to be 13. 'I want to work here. I have somewhere to sleep,' he says looking furtively behind him. 'The boss tells me I am learning. It is my duty to stay here. I'm learning to be a man and work. Eventually, I will make money and buy a house for my mother.'
The discovery of the sweatshop has the potential to cause major embarrassment for Gap. Last week, a spokesman admitted that children appeared to have been caught up in the production process and rather than risk selling garments made by children it vowed it would withdraw tens of thousands of items identified by The Observer.
He said: 'At Gap, we firmly believe that under no circumstances is it acceptable for children to produce or work on garments. These allegations are deeply upsetting and we take this situation very seriously. All of our suppliers and their sub-contractors are required to guarantee that they will not use child labour to produce garments.
'It is clear that one of our vendors violated this agreement, and a full investigation is under way. After learning of this situation, we immediately took steps to stop this work order and to prevent the product from ever being sold in our stores. We are also convening a meeting of our suppliers where we will reinforce our prohibition on child labour.
'Gap Incorporated has a rigorous factory-monitoring programme in place and last year we revoked our approval of 23 factories for failing to comply with our standards.
'We are proud of this programme and we will continue to work with government, trade unions and other independent organisations to put an end to the use of child labour.'
In recent years Gap has made efforts to rebrand itself as a leader in ethical and socially responsible manufacturing, after previously being criticised for practices including the use of child labour.
With annual revenues of more than £8bn and endorsements from Madonna and Sex and The City star Sarah Jessica Parker, Gap has arguably become the most successful brand in high-street fashion. The latest face of the firm's advertising is the singer Joss Stone.
Founded in San Francisco in 1969 by Donald Fisher, now one of America's wealthiest businessmen, Gap operates more than 3,000 stores and franchises across the world. In Britain Gap, babyGap and GapKids are very successful, their own-brand jeans alone outselling their retail rivals' lines by three to one.
Last year, the company embarked on a huge advertising campaign surrounding 'Product Red', a charitable trust for Africa founded by the U2 singer Bono and backed by celebrities including Hollywood star Don Cheadle, singers Lenny Kravitz and Mary J Blige, Steven Spielberg and Penelope Cruz. As part of the fundraising endeavour, Gap launched a new, limited collection of clothing and accessories for men and women with Product Red branding, the profits from which are being channelled towards fighting Aids in the Third World.
On its website the company states that all individuals who work in garment factories deserve to be treated with dignity and are entitled to safe and fair working conditions and not since 2000, when a BBC Panorama investigation exposed the firm's working practices in Cambodia, have children been associated with the production of their brand.
Gap has huge contracts in India, which boasts one of the world's fastest-growing economies. But over the past decade, India has also become the world capital for child labour. According to the UN, child labour contributes an estimated 20 per cent of India's gross national product with 55 million children aged from five to 14 employed across the business and domestic sectors.
'Gap may be one of the best-known fashion brands with a public commitment to social responsibility, but the employment [by subcontractors ultimately supplying major international retail chains] of bonded child slaves as young as 10 in India's illegal sweatshops tells a different story,' says Bhuwan Ribhu, a Delhi lawyer and activist for the Global March Against Child Labour.
'The reality is that most major retail firms are in the same game, cutting costs and not considering the consequences. They should know by now what outsourcing to India means.
'It is an impossible task to track down all of these terrible sweatshops, particularly in the garment industry when you need little more than a basement or an attic crammed with small children to make a healthy profit.
'Some owners even hide the children in sacks and in carefully concealed mezzanine floors designed to dodge such raids,' he explains.
'Employing cheap labour without proper auditing and investigation of your contractor inevitably means children will be used somewhere along the chain. This may not be what they want to hear as they pull off fresh clothes from clean racks in stores but shoppers in the West should be thinking "Why am I only paying £30 for a hand-embroidered top. Who made it for such little cost? Is this top stained with a child's sweat?" That's what they need to ask themselves.'
· The investigation was carried out in partnership with WDR Germany.
· This article was amended on Sunday October 28 2007.
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2) On the Bottle, Off the Streets, Halfway There
By DAN BARRY
SEATTLE
November 11, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/11/us/11land.html?ref=us
The Moocher introduced them years ago down by the ferry terminal, near that “No Loitering” sign scratched up to read “Know Loitering.” It was Ed, meet Daryl, Daryl, Ed, between sips and slugs of bottom-shelf whiskey and high-octane beer.
Soon, in the blathering small talk that kills time, Ed Myers and Daryl Jordan identified a bond beyond a shared dislike for the Moocher, who drank but never bought. They both had survived the same firefight in Vietnam, it seemed; brothers now, in blood and booze.
Together they panhandled with Nam Vet Needs Help signs at the highway entrance, converted their proceeds into Icehouse beer and Rich & Rare whiskey, and shared their nights in the perpetual dusk beneath the elevated highway, taking turns seeking the full sleep that never came, so loud was the traffic above, so naked were they below, in addled vulnerability.
Now and then they came in from the elements, sometimes to the same shelter, sometimes to separate shelters, sometimes to the Sobering Support Center on Boren Avenue, where you store your shoes and coat in a black plastic bag, have your vitals checked, accept the soup and juice or not, then fold up on a thin mat over concrete.
If separated, Daryl would spend the early morning pacing the dark streets, until finally here would be Ed, already to drinking to quell those first shakes of the day. And the two would return to Know Loitering.
They came to know the jagged pieces of each other’s bottle-shattered past, the broken marriages, the lost jobs, the ghosts. Daryl still sees what he saw in Vietnam. As for Ed, he was working on a fifth one day in his Iowa hometown when suddenly, there before him, stood his father and grandfather, telling him for shame. That both were dead only underscored the point.
Ed dumped the bottle and didn’t drink for 12 years — until one day he did. Back he fell to the hard, hard streets, which at least offered up another man who understood. Daryl.
Hell, Daryl was there that Thanksgiving time when a woman slipped Ed two twenties; they gave thanks with two days of beer, whiskey and chicken-fried-steak dinners. And Daryl was there when some young cop poured out most of a fifth and tossed the bottle on the ground, prompting Ed to say he didn’t appreciate littering.
Early last year, some people, not cops, tracked Daryl down at the sobering center, where he had slept off a drunk 360 times in one calendar year. They were from a homeless outreach organization and they had some news, good for a change.
The organization had just built a 75-unit residence for homeless chronic alcoholics at 1811 Eastlake Avenue, and was offering rooms to the frailest and costliest to the system, as determined by time spent in the sobering center, the emergency room and jail. The idea: provide them first with housing and meals, gain their trust, then encourage them to partake of the available services, including treatment for chemical dependency.
No mandatory meetings or church-going. And one more thing, crucial to all: You can drink in this place.
Welcome, Daryl. A month later: Welcome, Ed.
“I damn near bawled,” Ed recalls.
The $11 million project has endured the angry complaints of some that it uses public money to enable, even reward, chronic inebriates. And Bill Hobson, the director of the Downtown Emergency Service Center, has met that anger with some of his own.
First, he says, the complaints reflect no understanding of the grip of alcoholism: Do you really think these men and women would rather live on the streets? Second, the cost to the public appears to have dropped as the number of visits to the emergency room, jail and the sobering center has plummeted.
Finally, he asks, what kind of equation of humanity is this: Since you refuse to stop drinking, since you refuse to address your disease, you must die on the streets.
“These guys have nothing going for them,” he says. “They could not be more dispossessed.”
So, welcome. Pay a third of your disability income for rent, and remember to behave; this isn’t a party house.
The handsome building at 1811 Eastlake stands on the shores of Interstate 5, a short walk from both the sobering center and a convenience store that sells cheap staples like cans of Icehouse and Midnight Special tobacco. Its first floor includes a laundry, a nurse’s office, counseling rooms and a bulletin board adorned with photos of smiling residents.
Captured in those snapshot smiles, evidence of this life: missing teeth, ill-fitting clothes, faces disfigured by subdural hematomas — from beatings and falls to the pavement. Some residents snatch these photos to decorate their rooms, along with the cardboard signs they once used while panhandling.
Above are three floors of studio apartments, including one for Daryl and one for Ed, both immaculately maintained. Daryl, 59 and with a left forefinger burnt orange by tobacco, was July’s resident of the month. Ed, 61 and with a taste for western-style clothes, was August’s. The poster boys for visiting journalists , forever twinned, it seemed.
Then something happened. On July 1, one day not blurred in memory, Ed felt he needed some nutrients, so he fixed himself a tomato beer: tomato juice and a can of Rainier. He took a sip, winced, took another sip, winced, and that was that. He hasn’t had a drink since.
“It didn’t taste good anymore,” Ed says.
Ed has been drinking ginger ale, and Daryl has been struggling. For a long while Daryl would not go to Ed’s apartment, with its coffee table and La-Z-Boy, and the occasional sound of a resident falling to the floor upstairs. He didn’t want to drink in front of Ed because he didn’t want to tempt his friend, and because, because — “I’m done trying,” he says, eyes tearing.
The other day Daryl was back in Ed’s cozy apartment. Ed was drinking coffee he had just brewed, and Daryl was drinking a can of Rainier from that six-pack Ed never finished. They talked around old and fresh wars for a while, but it was clear that whatever Ed was looking at, Daryl could not yet see.
Online: Voices from Seattle’s 1811 Eastlake Project. www.nytimes.com/danbarry
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3) Examining the Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act
By Lindsay Beyerstein
November 1, 2007
http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/3388/
The Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act passed the House of Representatives on Oct. 23 by a vote of 404-6. The wide margin is indicative of a growing concern among U.S. authorities about the potential for so-called “homegrown terrorism” in the United States.
“The impetus is that homegrown terror is something that we now see in Western Europe. It’s by far the number one threat to security in Britain,” Rep. Jane Harman (D-Calif.), who introduced the bill, told In These Times.
Some of the most infamous terrorist attacks in U.S. history have been carried out by citizens, including the bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City in 1995. Harman doesn’t believe homegrown terrorism is a major threat to U.S. security today, but she says that it is important to learn from experiences in other countries like Britain and Canada, where citizens have been inspired to commit terrorism at home by Islamic propagandists reaching out over the Internet.
One of the findings of the bill is that, “the Internet has aided in facilitating violent radicalization, ideologically based violence, and the homegrown terrorism process in the United States by providing access to broad and constant streams of terrorist-related propaganda to United States citizens.”
“A chief problem is radical forms of Islam, but we’re not only studying radical Islam,” Harman says. “We’re studying the phenomenon of people with radical beliefs who turn into people who would use violence.”
That worries Mike German, policy counsel for the ACLU, who calls the legislation “wrongheaded” because it focuses on ideology, rather than criminal activity. The bill calls for heightened scrutiny of people who believe, or might come to believe, in a violent ideology. German wants the government to focus on people who are actually committing crimes, rather than those who are merely entertaining violent ideas, something perfectly legal.
Harman’s bill would convene a 10-member national commission to study “violent radicalization” (defined as “the process of adopting or promoting an extremist belief system for the purpose of facilitating ideologically based violence to advance political, religious, or social change”) and “homegrown terrorism” (defined as “the use, planned use, or threatened use, of force or violence by a group or individual born, raised, or based and operating primarily within the United States […] to intimidate or coerce the United States government, the civilian population of the United States, or any segment thereof, in furtherance of political or social objectives”).
The bill also directs the Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to designate a “center of excellence,” a university-based research center where academics, policy-makers, members of the private sector and other stakeholders can collaborate to better understand and prevent radicalization and homegrown terrorism.
Some experts have raised concerns about whether politics will unduly influence which institution DHS Secretary Michael Chertoff will pick.
“The bill replicates what already exists without peer review and safeguards,” says Chip Berlet, a senior policy analyst for Political Research Associates, an independent non-profit research organization that studies political violence, authoritarianism, and homegrown terrorism.
The bill stipulates that the research center be chosen on the basis of merit and according to existing DHS protocols.
However, Amy Kudwa, a spokeswoman for DHS, says she “would be surprised” if the selection process were peer-reviewed. Kudwa could not supply the full details of the selection process and funding arrangements as of press time.
Berlet characterizes the proposed research center as “a slush fund for politically connected people inside the Beltway.”
Mark Hamm, a former warden and current professor at Indiana State University who studies radicalization in prisons, expressed confidence in the good intentions of the Homeland Security administrators, but he echoed Berlet’s concerns about the potential for insularity.
“Government tends to reach out to the people that are known within the government to do this type of work,” Hamm says. “When the government reaches out in the area of terrorism, they reach out to Washington, they reach out to the Beltway.”
Rep. Harman strongly disputes the notion that political concerns will influence the selection of Commission members or the selection of the center of excellence.
“We’re not looking for political cronies,” Harman says.
But each of the 10 commission members will be appointed by a high-ranking elected official. The appointers include the president, the Secretary of Homeland Security, the Speaker and ranking member of the House, the Majority and Minority leaders of the Senate, and senior members of the House and Senate committees overseeing homeland security.
The FBI already has a domestic terrorism unit. The U.S. intelligence community also monitors the homegrown terrorists and overseas networks that might be reaching out to US residents. The July 2007 National Intelligence Estimate included a section headed, “The Terrorist Threat to the U.S. Homeland.” But Harman argues that a national commission on homegrown terrorism could benefit the country in much the same way as the 9/11 Commission, the Silberman/Robb Commission or other high-profile national security inquiries.
Whatever the merits of a commission, they seem to be separate from the arguments for a center for excellence. After all, Congress can request testimony from the experts of its choice. There are other ways to fund research into domestic terrorism, including research grants awarded by peer review. One of the amendments to the bill emphasized the importance of international cooperation between U.S. authorities and experts in countries that have already contended with homegrown Islamic terrorist plots, but there is nothing stopping Congress from consulting with those experts now.
Berlet questions why the country needs the Secretary of Homeland Security to channel resources through a handpicked “center of excellence” when there are already so many scholars organizations studying political violence in America. He cited the Southern Poverty Law Center, the Anti-Defamation League, and the Simon Wiesenthal Center as long-established, institutional sources of expertise on homegrown terrorism. Their efforts are complimented by independent scholars and writers across the country.
“Congress could just read their books,” he says.
Harman says she did not know who would be chosen to sit on the Commission. Nor did she suggest any names that might appear on the short list. She also told In These Times that it hasn’t been determined which institution will be chosen to host the Center for Excellence.
Hamm believes DHS might look to preexisting Centers of Excellence, such as the START program at the University of Maryland, which already has a working group on terrorist group formation and recruitment.
The Congressional Budget Office estimates that the bill will cost approximately $22 million over four years.
Rep. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) voted against the bill because he objected to the government spending new money on this project when the House just passed a $37 billion appropriations bill for Homeland Security, Flake’s spokesman told In These Times.
Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Calif.) issued a statement saying that the money could be better spend funding preexisting law-enforcement efforts, rather than funding another commission. None of the three Democrats who voted against the bill—Reps. Dennis Kucinich (Ohio), Neil Abercrombie (Hawaii), and Jerry Costello (Ill.)—was available for comment.
The bill’s broad language and loose definitions of “violent radicalization” and “homegrown terrorism” also arouse the concerns of many civil libertarians.
The broad wording of the bill leaves open many questions. If homegrown terrorism is defined to include “intimidation” of the United States government or any segment of its population—could the Commission or the Center of Excellence task itself with investigating groups advocating boycotts, general strikes, or other forms of non-violent “intimidation”?
“While we wholeheartedly support efforts to curtail terrorism, primarily coming from white supremacists, we would also like to see legislation that more vigorously defends civil rights,” says Devin Burghart, an expert on domestic terrorism at the Center for New Communities, a national civil and human rights organization based in Chicago.
Rep. Harman is careful to emphasize the language in the bill that states that the Department of Homeland Security’s efforts “shall not violate the constitutional rights, civil rights, or civil liberties of United States citizens or lawful permanent residents.” However, the bill also directs the DHS to write its own rules to protect civil rights and puts the Department’s office of Civil Rights and Civil Liberties in charge of making the rules for the commission and the research center as well as administering the audits.
The ACLU’s German says that an internal civil liberties and privacy review is no substitute for independent oversight.
“Nobody should be fooled that such an office would have authority to address policies that are approved at a high level of the administration,” German says.
Lindsay Beyerstein is a National Political Reporter for In These Times.com, who also works as a national correspondent for Raw Story and as a metro reporter for Chelsea Now. Her work can also be read at her blog, Majikthise.
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4) U.S. Congress approves $155 million weapons package for Israel
Saed Bannoura - IMEMC
November 08, 2007
http://www.uruknet.de/?s1=1&p=38041&s2=09
The U.S. Senate voted Wednesday to approve $155 million worth of weapons for Israel, in an addendum to a $460 billion military spending bill that was approved on October 1st in the U.S. Congress.
The gift of more weapons to the U.S. ally comes at a moment when tensions are high and diplomacy is delicate between Israel and the Palestinians, and analysts point out that the gift of additional weapons to Israel at this particular moment could have an effect on the Summit planned for the end of November between Israel and the Palestinian Authority.
The bill still needs to be approved by the full bodies of the House and Senate before going to the president for approval, but it is unlikely that lawmakers would make changes before a vote.
Most of the money, $98 million, would go to the development of a 'Hetz' missile defense system, which would be built in a US factory (Boeing) by an Israeli firm (Israel Aerospace Industries).
The main focus of the missile defense system would be a potential war with Iran, although Israeli sources claim that the system is also meant to fight possible attacks by the Lebanese militia Hezbollah, or the Syrian military.
:: Article nr. 38041 sent on 09-nov-2007 09:01 ECT
www.uruknet.info?p=38041
Link: www.imemc.org/article/51359
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5) Bring the Real World Home
By ROGER COHEN
Op-Ed Columnist
November 12, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/12/opinion/12cohen.html?hp=&adxnnl=1&adxnnlx=1194883212-EkOs92xeeaXrtl76g//GFw
In the gym at the NATO base in Kabul, U.S. soldiers hit the treadmills every morning and gaze at TV screens broadcasting Al Jazeera’s English news channel. When Osama bin Laden makes news, as he did recently with a statement about Iraq, America’s finest work out beneath the solemn gaze of their most wanted enemy.
This sounds like a scene from Donald Rumsfeld’s private hell. The former secretary of defense dismissed Al Jazeera as a “mouthpiece of Al Qaeda.” He once called the network, which is based in and owned by Qatar, “vicious, inaccurate and inexcusable.”
In an indication of what the Bush administration thinks of Al Jazeera journalism (and habeas corpus), it has locked up one of the network’s cameramen, Sami al-Hajj, in Guantánamo Bay for more than five years without charging him.
The choice of viewing at the NATO gym is a lot wiser than Rumsfeld’s choice of words or the terrible treatment of Hajj. America, and not just its front-line soldiers, needs to watch Al Jazeera to understand how the world has changed. Any other course amounts to self-destructive blindness.
The first change that must be grasped is America’s diminished ability to influence people. Global access to information now amounts to an immense à la carte menu. Networks escape control. To hundreds of millions of people accessing information for the first time, from central China to Kenya’s Rift Valley, the United States can easily look exclusive and less relevant to their future.
The second essential change is the erosion of American power. Samantha Power, the author and Harvard professor, calls this “the core fact of recent years.”
America’s hard power — its military — is compromised by intractable counterinsurgency wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Its economy is strained; witness the ever feebler dollar. Its soft power — the resonance of the American idea — has been hurt by a loss of legitimacy (Hajj languishing) and by incompetence (Iraq).
The third essential change is the solidification of anti-Americanism as a political idea. Jihadist Islamism is the most violent expression of this, but its agents benefit from swimming in a sea of less murderous resentments.
In response to all this, America can say to heck with an ungrateful world. It can mutter about third, even fourth, world wars. Therein lies a downward spiral. Or it can try to grasp the new, multinetworked world as it is.
To this world Al Jazeera English offers a useful primer. The network can be tendentious — bin Laden’s face up there for several minutes — in stomach-turning ways. But, over all, its striving for balanced reporting from a distinct perspective seems genuine.
A year after its launch, it reaches 100 million households worldwide. Its focus is on “reporting from the political south to the political north,” as Nigel Parsons, its managing director, put it. The world it presents, more from the impact than the launch point of U.S. missiles, is one that must be understood.
Yet, the network has been sidelined in the United States. Representative Jim Moran, a Democrat from Virginia, told me: “There’s definitely an attitude here that these guys are the enemy. But in the Mideast, Asia and Europe they have a credibility the U.S. desperately needs.”
Moran met recently with Al Jazeera English executives seeking to extend the service’s Lilliputian reach here. Right now, you can watch it in Toledo, Ohio, through Buckeye Cablesystem, which reaches 147,000 homes.
Or, if you’re in Burlington, Vt., a municipal cable service offers the network to about 1,000 homes. Washington Cable, in the capital, reaches half that. Better options are YouTube or GlobeCast satellite distribution.
These are slim pickings. Al Jazeera English is far more accessible in Israel. Allan Block, the chairman of Block Communications, which owns Buckeye, told me: “It’s a good channel. Sir David Frost and David Marash are not terrorists. The attempt to blackball it is neo-McCarthyism.”
Block, like other cable providers, got protest letters from Accuracy in Media, a conservative watchdog. Cliff Kincaid, its editor, cites the case of Tayseer Allouni, a former Afghanistan correspondent jailed in Spain for Al Qaeda links. This is evidence, he suggests, that “cable providers shouldn’t give them access.”
Most cable companies have bowed to the pressure while denying politics influenced their decisions. “It just comes down to channel capacity and other programming options,” Jenni Moyer, a Comcast spokeswoman, told me.
Nonsense, says Representative Moran, blaming “political winds plus a risk-averse corporate structure.”
These political winds hurt America. Counterinsurgency has been called armed social science. To win, you must understand the world you’re in.
Comparative courses in how Al Jazeera, CNN, the BBC and U.S. networks portray the Iraq war and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict should be taught in all U.S. high schools and colleges. Al Jazeera English should be widely available.
You are invited to comment at my blog: www.iht.com/passages
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6) Security Guard Fires From Convoy, Killing Iraqi Driver
By JAMES GLANZ
November 12, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/12/world/middleeast/12contractor.html?hp
BAGHDAD, Nov. 11 — An Iraqi taxi driver was shot and killed on Saturday by a guard with DynCorp International, a private security company hired to protect American diplomats here, when a DynCorp convoy rolled past a knot of traffic on an exit ramp in Baghdad, the Iraqi Interior Ministry said Sunday.
Three witnesses said the taxi had posed no threat to the convoy, and one of them, an Iraqi Army sergeant who inspected the car afterward, said it contained no weapons or explosive devices.
“They just killed a man and drove away,” Maj. Gen. Abdul-Karim Khalaf, an Interior Ministry spokesman, said in his office on Sunday afternoon. He added later, “We have opened an investigation, and we have contacted the company and told them about our accusations, and we are still waiting for their response.”
It was the latest in what the Iraqi government has said are unprovoked shootings on the streets of Baghdad by security companies hired by the State Department or contractors affiliated with it. On Sept. 16, guards with another of those concerns, Blackwater, opened fire a few miles south of Saturday’s shooting, killing 17 Iraqi civilians and wounding at least 24, according to Iraqi investigators.
The Iraqi government has accused Blackwater of involvement in at least six questionable shootings in Baghdad since September 2006. DynCorp has not drawn the same scrutiny, though it is unclear whether it has been involved in any other episodes in which Iraqis have been killed.
The shootings have stoked outrage among Iraqis, driven efforts to hold private security companies legally accountable for their actions in both the United States and Iraq, and created new challenges for American officials who were already forced to do much of their business within Baghdad’s protected Green Zone.
The latest episode came as senior officials from the Pentagon and the State Department were due to arrive in Baghdad on Sunday to arrange new measures to tighten control over security firms and coordinate their movements more closely with the United States military.
Mirembe Nantongo, a spokeswoman for the United States Embassy in Baghdad, said the officials expected in Baghdad were Gregory Starr, acting assistant secretary of state for diplomatic security, and P. Jackson Bell, deputy under secretary of defense for logistics and matériel readiness.
“They will meet with U.S. Embassy and military officials concerning private security company operations in Iraq,” Ms. Nantongo said in an e-mail message, adding that Mr. Starr also planned to meet with senior Iraqi officials, including the interior minister, Jawad al-Bolani.
As in several previous shootings involving security companies affiliated with the State Department, witnesses to Saturday’s shooting said they saw no reason for the guards to open fire on the car, a white Hyundai with a taxi sign on the roof, driven by Mohamad Khalil Khudair, 40. It was unclear where the convoy was headed, or whether it carried any American officials.
“The poor cabdriver was stopped here,” said one witness, Raafat Jassim, 36, who said he was standing outside a barbershop near the exit ramp at the time. “He had his hazard lights flashing, and the convoy was a long way away from him,” Mr. Jassim said, pointing to a spot about 50 yards down the ramp, which comes off a bridge over the Tigris River in a neighborhood called Utafiya.
An official at the local police headquarters said that the victim’s brother had insisted on pressing charges against the company and that as a result, the case had been referred to an Iraqi judge. But legal loopholes and immunities in Iraqi and American law have raised questions about whether private security companies operating in this country can be called to account in any court.
Both the State Department and DynCorp confirmed that there had been a shooting involving one of the company’s convoys on Saturday. Possibly because the convoy sped away after the shooting, neither the company nor the State Department could immediately confirm that Mr. Khudair had been killed.
But Gregory Lagana, a DynCorp spokesman, said the details of the encounter in which Mr. Khudair died appeared to match the one in which DynCorp guards reported discharging a weapon on Saturday. “We’re assuming it’s the same incident,” he said.
“We’ve stood down that particular team,” Mr. Lagana said, pending an investigation. “We take this kind of thing very seriously.”
He added: “We run a very disciplined, very restrained security operation. We’re trying to ascertain the facts. We’ll work with the Ministry of Interior and the State Department every step of the way.”
Mr. Lagana said the DynCorp guards reported that they were unaware that they had wounded or killed anyone.
“We knew that we had fired at the front of the vehicle,” he said. “We were kind of surprised that there was a death.”
One witness, Sgt. Ahmad Hussein, 32, who was stationed near the spot where the shooting took place, said the convoy consisted of six vehicles, including three white trucks or sport utility vehicles with tinted glass, and three sedans, which he believed were Peugeots.
The convoy came barreling down the exit ramp from the bridge around midday, Sergeant Hussein said. “We saw them coming, so we ordered the traffic to stop,” he said.
The crowded traffic on the ramp came to a stop, but as Mr. Khudair tried to pull closer to the side of the road, a gun in the rear truck of the convoy fired several shots into his car, Sergeant Hussein said. At least one bullet went through the windshield and struck Mr. Khudair on the right side of his chest, the sergeant said.
Another witness, who gave his name only as Ahmad, said that as the convoy sped away, he and several other people rushed to the car and found Mr. Khudair with his chest smeared in blood.
“We got him out of the car and put him in another car to take him to a hospital,” Ahmad said. He added that Mr. Khudair’s gearshift was in neutral when they pulled him out.
Sergeant Hussein said that Mr. Khudair was alive when he began the journey to the hospital but that he died along the way. “He didn’t make it to the hospital,” he said.
Two witnesses said that while Westerners appeared to be wielding the guns in the white trucks, at least some of the passengers in the sedans appeared to be Iraqis.
A United States official said that DynCorp was under contract to the State Department’s International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Bureau, to protect both embassy personnel and affiliated contractors. The official, who requested anonymity, did not specify who was in the convoy.
Ms. Nantongo, the embassy spokeswoman, said that according to DynCorp’s own report to the State Department on the episode, the DynCorp guards first used “nonlethal means to warn the driver of the vehicle to stop.”
In Iraq, the term “nonlethal means” often indicates that guards threw water bottles, waved or fired a small flare to get the attention of a driver.
But DynCorp told the State Department that the vehicle continued forward, and that a guard “discharged his weapon to disable the vehicle,” Ms. Nantongo said. “There are conflicting accounts as to whether anyone was injured or killed,” she said.
Mudhafer al-Husaini and Ahmad Fadam contributed reporting.
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7) For U.S. Exporters in Cuba, Business Trumps Politics
By JAMES C. McKINLEY Jr.
November 12, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/12/world/americas/12cuba.html?ref=world
HAVANA, Nov. 11 — A trade fair in Communist Cuba is perhaps the last place you would expect to find a Republican governor from the American heartland. Yet last week, Gov. Dave Heineman of Nebraska was here to sign a deal to export $11 million worth of his state’s wheat to the island.
Asked the obvious question about whether longstanding American trade sanctions should be lifted, Governor Heineman ducked and weaved like a professional boxer. “Well, I try not to get into that, because that’s up to the president and the Congress, but I will say expanding trade relationships is good for Nebraska and altogether good for America,” he said.
Just weeks after President Bush delivered an address calling on the world to isolate Cuba, officials from Minnesota, Alabama and Ohio — and more than 100 American businesses — were working the giant Havana International Fair, trying to secure part of the $1.6 billion the Cuban government spends each year to import sugar, wheat, livestock, poultry and beans, among other staples.
Those business interests clash with the Bush administration’s anti-Castro policies, as well as the need of both Democrats and Republicans to court Cuban exiles in Florida, a crucial voting bloc. So while some trade with Cuba is allowed, it is fraught with restrictions. A 1992 law, for instance, denies ships access to American ports for six months after they have docked in Cuba, making shipping tricky, to say the least.
Several Americans here said they were frustrated that the sanctions have proved more a source of irritation for those who want to do business with Cuba than a crippling blow to Fidel Castro.
“They are doing everything they can to make it difficult,” said Ralph Kaehler, a Minnesota farmer who sells cattle feed in Cuba. “It’s unfortunate.”
American businesspeople and state officials have been coming to the fair for six years, ever since Congress gave in to pressure from the agriculture lobby in late 2000, during the waning days of the Clinton administration, and lifted a four-decade ban on selling food to Cuba.
Since then, the number of farm states and agribusinesses who want a piece of the Cuban market has been growing, despite the Bush administration’s steady tightening of sanctions. For farm states, the need for jobs has trumped cold-war politics.
“It’s helped our economy,” said Ron Sparks, the Alabama agriculture commissioner, as he talked with people near the booth for the Mobile Port Authority. “It’s helped our farmers. I don’t talk national policy.”
Now in its 25th year, the annual trade fair drew more than 1,000 companies from 53 countries to a sprawling fairground known as Expocuba just outside Havana.
The atmosphere was festive, with more than a dozen restaurants where people drank Havana Club rum and puffed on Cuba’s famous cigars, a treat several Americans appeared to enjoy. The five-day fair, which ended Saturday, also attracted hundreds of ordinary Cubans.
Aside from state officials, the American delegation included several shipping companies and large agricultural outfits like Pilgrim’s Pride, Cargill and Purdue. Their sales representatives worked in the booths all day before returning to the Hotel Nacional, an art deco landmark, and then heading out to enjoy the Havana night life.
Some Americans at the fair predicted that Cuba’s market would open up more after Fidel Castro gave up power permanently, and they said they wanted to get a head start on deal making. Many envision a return to the prerevolution days when the United States was Cuba’s biggest trading partner, as wheat and durable goods flowed south while sugar, tobacco and rum flowed north.
But financial and travel restrictions have never been tighter, as the Bush administration has quietly stepped up the prohibition of tourism to and from Cuba and invented new ways to squeeze the island financially. It has also increased efforts to fine international banks that handle transactions in dollars for the Cuban government as well as companies that do business in both Cuba and the United States.
American farmers complain that Washington has also tried to find ways to hinder agricultural sales to the island. Since the ban was lifted in 2000, an exception to the general trade embargo against Cuba, sales from American farmers to the island have risen to about $500 million a year, Cuban officials say.
But the Bush administration has required the purchases to be made in cash and, since 2004, that the payment must be received before shipment. The system has created immense logistical headaches for American shippers and food exporters. Loads of grain and poultry end up waiting for days on a dock until proof of payment arrives, shippers said.
“There are lot of delays in loading because of that,” said Eric T. Junker, the owner of Americana Marine Services, which ships grain to the island.
President Bush and other supporters of the sanctions maintain that every dollar that enters Cuba helps support a despotic regime. In his speech on Oct. 24, Mr. Bush asked Congress to maintain the embargo and said the transfer of power from Fidel Castro, who has been ill, to his brother Raúl, amounted to “exchanging one dictator for another.” He called for elections after Fidel Castro’s death.
Cuban officials argue the embargo hurts American farmers more than it does the government here. But they also acknowledge the American attempts to punish foreign companies for doing business here have hurt them in dozens of small ways, from limiting their ability to buy to certain medicines to making it impossible to get spare parts for scientific equipment.
“The blockade makes doing business here insecure,” said Pedro Álvarez Borrego, the chairman of Alimport, the government-owned company that imports food.
The biggest blow, however, has been to tourism. The minister for tourism, Manuel Madero, said that before Mr. Bush took office, about 80,000 Americans visited Cuba every year, usually going through Mexico or another country. He declined to give a number for the current year, but said it had been reduced to trickle.
Luis M. Morejón, who operates a small tour company, said he used to arrange tours for at least 30 Americans a year in the late 1990s. “Now this whole year I haven’t had one,” he said.
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8) Increased Compensation Puts More College Presidents in the Million-Dollar Club
By JONATHAN D. GLATER
November 12, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/12/us/12compensation.html?ref=us
Soaring compensation of university presidents, once limited to a few wealthy institutions, is becoming increasingly common, with the number of million-dollar pay packages at private institutions nearly doubling last year, and compensation at many public universities not far behind.
Presidents at 12 private universities received more than $1 million in the 2005-6 school year, the most recent period for which data on private institutions is available, up from seven a year earlier, according to an annual survey of presidential pay to be released today by The Chronicle of Higher Education. The number of private college presidents earning more than $500,000 reached 81, up from 70 a year earlier and just three a decade ago.
The survey also found that the number of public university presidents making $700,000 or more rose to eight in 2006-7, the reporting period for public institutions. Only two public university presidents made $700,000 in the previous period. The survey did not include E. Gordon Gee, who took over at Ohio State University earlier this year and whose $1 million pay package, before bonuses, is probably the highest of any public institution.
“If your aspiration is to be a college president, that is a way to become a millionaire,” said Patrick M. Callan, president of the National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education in San Jose, Calif. “That was inconceivable 20 years ago.”
The survey results continue a trend, even as some students, their families and lawmakers have questioned whether such generous packages for college presidents have contributed to the rising cost of college.
“The public has kind of lost confidence in the altruistic mission of higher education,” Mr. Callan said. “They see higher education as just another institution that’s in it for its own bottom line.”
John W. Curtis, director of research and public policy at the American Association of University Professors, said rising pay to presidents was consistent with a “corporate mindset” at colleges, reflecting “the idea that you have a single person who essentially is running the place.”
But officials at high-pay institutions defend the salaries, saying they result from intense competition to hold onto talented executives necessary to help build institutional wealth and prestige. They say that running a large university is increasingly similar to running a corporation.
For example, Howard E. Cosgrove, chairman of the University of Delaware board, in a statement described the growth in his institution’s endowment and in the number of grants and contracts to faculty during the tenure of David P. Roselle, who retired this summer as the university’s president and who was the top earner at a public institution, not counting Mr. Gee. Mr. Roselle received $874,687 in salary and benefits and for serving on a corporate board. Mr. Cosgrove called Mr. Roselle’s work “outstanding in every aspect.”
The other top earners at public institutions in 2006-7 were John T. Casteen III of the University of Virginia, with $753,672, and Mark A. Emmert of the University of Washington, with $752,700.
The survey identifies Richard M. Freeland of Northeastern University as the highest paid president of a private university in 2005-6, with annual compensation of nearly $2.9 million. James P. Gallagher of Philadelphia University comes next with just under $2.6 million, and William R. Brody of Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore is third with slightly more than $1.9 million. Mr. Freeland stepped down in 2006 and Mr. Gallagher in 2007.
For the first time the survey, which reported on 1,017 institutions, included presidents of community colleges, who generally earn less than their counterparts at public and private four-year institutions even though some community colleges are larger than some public universities.
The presidents at half of the 68 community colleges surveyed make less than $250,000 a year. The most highly paid president in 2006-7 was Michael B. McCall of the Kentucky Community and Technical College System, with $610,670 in total compensation.
Richard Bean, chairman of the board of regents of the system, said the pay package was appropriate and added that Mr. McCall got the same percentage raise as members of the faculty.
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Writers Set to Strike, Threatening Hollywood
By MICHAEL CIEPLY and BROOKS BARNES
November 2, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/02/business/media/02cnd-hollywood.html?ref=us
Raids Traumatized Children, Report Says
By JULIA PRESTON
Hundreds of young American children suffered hardship and psychological trauma after immigration raids in the last year in which their parents were detained or deported, according to a report by the National Council of La Raza and the Urban Institute. Of 500 children directly affected in three factory raids examined in the report in which 900 adult immigrants were arrested, a large majority were United States citizens younger than 10. With one or both parents deported, the children had reduced economic support, and many remained in the care of relatives who feared contact with the authorities, the study said. Although the children were citizens, few families sought public assistance for them, the study found.
November 1, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/01/us/01brfs-raids.html?ref=us
Newark: Recalled Meat Found in Store
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
New Jersey consumer safety officials said yesterday that state inspectors bought recalled frozen hamburgers at a store weeks after the meat was recalled because of fears of E. coli contamination. The 19 boxes were bought in Union City on Wednesday, nearly four weeks after the manufacturer, the Topps Meat Company, issued a nationwide recall of 21.7 million pounds of frozen patties. Officials would not name the store yesterday because of the investigation, and investigators have not determined when the store received the meat, said Jeff Lamm, a spokesman for the state’s Division of Consumer Affairs.
New Jersey
October 26, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/26/nyregion/26mbrfs-meat.html?ref=nyregion
Florida: Sentence for Lionel Tate Is Upheld
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
An appeals court has upheld a 30-year probation violation sentence for Lionel Tate, who for a time was the youngest person to be sentenced to life in an American prison. The ruling Wednesday by the Fourth District Court of Appeal in West Palm Beach sets the stage for Mr. Tate’s trial on robbery charges that could carry another life term. Mr. Tate, 20, had sought to have the sentence thrown out based on procedural mistakes. Mr. Tate was 12 at the time of the 1999 beating death of 6-year-old Tiffany Eunick. An appeals court overturned his murder conviction in 2004, and he was released but was on probation. In May 2005, the police said, Mr. Tate robbed a pizza delivery man, and he was found to be in possession of a gun even before that, a violation of his probation.
October 26, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/26/us/26brfs-lionel.html?ref=us
Submarine’s Commanding Officer Is Relieved of His Duties
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
The commanding officer of the nuclear-powered submarine Hampton was relieved of his duty because of a loss of confidence in his leadership, the Navy said. The officer, Cmdr. Michael B. Portland, was relieved of duty after an investigation found the ship had failed to do daily safety checks on its nuclear reactor for a month and falsified records to cover up the omission. Commander Portland will be reassigned, said Lt. Alli Myrick, a public affairs officer. [Aren't you glad they are out there making the world safe for democracy?...bw]
October 26, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/26/us/26brfs-sub.html?ref=us
Britain: New Claim for Sovereignty in Antarctica
By REUTERS
World Briefing | Europe
Britain plans to submit a claim to the United Nations to extend its Antarctic territory by 386,000 square miles, the Foreign Office said. Argentina wants some of it, and its foreign minister said his country was working on its own presentation. May 13, 2009, is the deadline for countries to stake their claims in what some experts are describing as the last big carve-up of maritime territory in history.
October 18, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/18/world/europe/18briefs-claim.html?ref=world
California: Veto of 3 Criminal Justice Bills
By SOLOMON MOORE
Bucking a national trend toward stronger safeguards against wrongful convictions, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger vetoed bills that would have explored new eyewitness identification guidelines, required electronic recordings of police interrogations and mandated corroboration of jailhouse informant testimony. Mr. Schwarzenegger cited his concern that the three bills would hamper local law enforcement authorities, a contention shared by several state police and prosecutor associations. The proposals had been recommended by the California Commission on the Fair Administration of Justice, a bipartisan body of police officials, prosecutors and defense lawyers charged by the State Senate to address the most common causes of wrongful convictions and recommend changes in criminal justice procedures.
October 16, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/16/us/16brfs-VETOOF3CRIMI_BRF.html?ref=us
Illinois: Chicagoans May Have to Dig Deeper
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Chicagoans would have to spend 10 cents more on a bottle of water, pay higher property taxes and spend more for liquor under Mayor Richard M. Daley’s proposed budget for next year. Also financing Mr. Daley’s $5.4 billion budget are higher water and sewer fees and more expensive vehicle stickers for people driving large vehicles, $120 a vehicle sticker, up from $90. Mr. Daley announced his budget to aldermen, calling it a last resort to ask taxpayers for more money. His budget closes a $196 million deficit and avoids service cuts and layoffs. Budget hearings will be held, and a city spending plan will require a vote by aldermen.
Midwest
October 11, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/11/us/11brfs-CHICAGO.html?ref=us
Wisconsin Iraq vet returns medals to Rumsfeld
By David Solnit, Courage to Resist / Army of None Project.
"I swore an oath to protect the constitution ... not to become a pawn in your New American Century."
September 26, 2007
http://www.couragetoresist.org/x/
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GENERAL ANNOUNCEMENTS AND INFORMATION
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Russell Means Speaking at the Transform Columbus Day Rally
"If voting could do anything it would be illegal!"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_8Lri1-6aoY
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Stop the Termination or the Cherokee Nation
http://groups.msn.com/BayAreaIndianCalendar/activismissues.msnw?action=get_message&mview=1&ID_Message=5580
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"They have a new gimmick every year. They're going to take one of their boys, black boys, and put him in the cabinet so he can walk around Washington with a cigar. Fire on one end and fool on the other end. And because his immediate personal problem will have been solved he will be the one to tell our people: 'Look how much progress we're making. I'm in Washington, D.C., I can have tea in the White House. I'm your spokesman, I'm your leader.' While our people are still living in Harlem in the slums. Still receiving the worst form of education.
"But how many sitting here right now feel that they could [laughs] truly identify with a struggle that was designed to eliminate the basic causes that create the conditions that exist? Not very many. They can jive, but when it comes to identifying yourself with a struggle that is not endorsed by the power structure, that is not acceptable, that the ground rules are not laid down by the society in which you live, in which you are struggling against, you can't identify with that, you step back.
"It's easy to become a satellite today without even realizing it. This country can seduce God. Yes, it has that seductive power of economic dollarism. You can cut out colonialism, imperialism and all other kind of ism, but it's hard for you to cut that dollarism. When they drop those dollars on you, you'll fold though."
—MALCOLM X, 1965
http://www.accuracy.org/newsrelease.php?articleId=987
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A little gem:
Michael Moore Faces Off With Stephen Colbert [VIDEO]
http://www.alternet.org/blogs/video/57492/
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LAPD vs. Immigrants (Video)
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/qws/ff/qr?term=lapd&Submit=S&Go.x=0&Go.y=0&Go=Search&st=s
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Dr. Julia Hare at the SOBA 2007
http://mysite.verizon.net/vzeo9ewi/proudtobeblack2/
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"We are far from that stage today in our era of the absolute
lie; the complete and totalitarian lie, spread by the
monopolies of press and radio to imprison social
consciousness." December 1936, "In 'Socialist' Norway,"
by Leon Trotsky: “Leon Trotsky in Norway” was transcribed
for the Internet by Per I. Matheson [References from
original translation removed]
http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1936/12/nor.htm
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Wealth Inequality Charts
http://www.faireconomy.org/research/wealth_charts.html
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MALCOLM X: Oxford University Debate
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dmzaaf-9aHQ
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"There comes a times when silence is betrayal."
--Martin Luther King
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YouTube clip of Che before the UN in 1964
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CtATT8GXkWg&mode=related&search
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The Wealthiest Americans Ever
NYT Interactive chart
JULY 15, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/ref/business/20070715_GILDED_GRAPHIC.html
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New Orleans After the Flood -- A Photo Gallery
http://www.dissentmagazine.org/article/?article=795
This email was sent to you as a service, by Roland Sheppard.
Visit my website at: http://web.mac.com/rolandgarret
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[For some levity...Hans Groiner plays Monk
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=51bsCRv6kI0
...bw]
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Which country should we invade next?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q3g_zqz3VjY
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My Favorite Mutiny, The Coup
http://www.myspace.com/thecoupmusic
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Michael Moore- The Awful Truth
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xeOaTpYl8mE
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Morse v. Frederick Supreme Court arguments
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n_LsGoDWC0o
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Free Speech 4 Students Rally - Media Montage
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RfCjfod8yuw
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'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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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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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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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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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.Peace Articles at Libraryofpeace.org">
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