END THE U.S. OCCUPATION OF IRAQ!
BRING ALL THE TROOPS HOME NOW!
MARCH AND RALLY TO STOP THE WAR NOW!
WEDNESDAY, NOV. 3RD, 5PM
POWELL AND MARKET-MARCH TO 24TH & MISSION ST., S.F.
---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
VOTE YES ON N! MEETING THURSDAY, OCT. 28, 7PM,
GLOBAL EXCHANGE, 2017 MISSION STREET, SUITE 303
(NEAR 16TH & MISSION STREETS)
---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
NEXT BAUAW MEETING
TUESDAY, OCTOBER 26, 7 P.M.
1380 VALENCIA STREET
(BETWEEN 24TH & 25TH STREETS)
---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
1) Dear UFPJ Bay Area Members, (and BAUAW and everyone...bw)
"This week both the San Francisco Chronicle and the Examiner came out
strongly against Prop N..."
Quote from Chronicle Editorial:
"Such is the danger of a symbolic resolution written by a group
of politicians who have enough trouble solving problems in the
streets of their own city. They are clearly over their heads in
trying to figure out how to bring peace and stability to Fallujah
or Baghdad."
2) Yes on N Lowell coverage/photos
"Jeff Paterson"
Thu, 21 Oct 2004 13:57:11 -0700
3) MWM Meeting Sunday October 24th 5:30PM !!!
From: "Douglas MacDonald"
To: All MWM supporters and Committee Memebers
(NOTE: The Date for the Report Back on the MWM is SUNDAY
October 24 th !!!!! ( not the 22 nd )
4) Just Say No to More Cops!
This special Education not Incarceration announcement
is being sent out as the No on Measure Y campaign goes
into its home stretch.
5) A Call to Action:
The following Call to Action was raised from the stage at
the Million Worker March on Sunday, and supported by a
meeting of the Million Worker March Committee on Monday,
October 18.
6) Bush Signs $136 Billion
Corporate Tax Cut Bill
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
WASHINGTON
Filed at 3:51 p.m. ET
October 22, 2004
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Corporate-Taxes.html?oref=login
7) Why Didn't Anyone Tell Us?
Environmental Racism Threatens the Lives of our Babies
By Ebony Colbert
http://www.sfbayview.com/102004/why102004.shtml
8) A Schoolgirl Riddled with Bullets. And No One is to Blame
Questions remain after Israeli unit commander is cleared
of Palestinian pupil's death
By Chris McGreal in Rafah
Published on Thursday, October 21, 2004 by the Guardian/UK
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/1021-03.htm
9) Cancer and the Environment
What the Bill Moyers Program "Trade Secrets" Revealed
By Roland Sheppard
10) Ogallala Aquifer
Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/sci/tech/3754520.stm
Published: 2004/10/20 07:48:58 GMT
[map on url]
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/sci/tech/3754520.stm
Map: The world's water hotspots
11) I Was Robbed Last Sunday
My Personal Reflections After the Washington DC.
Million Workers March and
the Armed Robbery Happened to Me
By: Lee Siu Hin
October 20, 2004
12) DOCUMENTARY: 'A Killing in Choctaw' tells an extraordinary
American story of murder and forgiveness
13) Dear Readers
Here is the digest for October 21, 2004
1-Two killed in the northern Gaza Strip, another dies
of wounds sustained on Wednesday
2-231 Palestinians, including 88 children, killed in
Khan Younis in four year
14) Return of the Class Struggle: Hotel Workers National
Battle, One We Can't Afford to Lose
By Gene Pepi
craigslist.org/cgi-bin/search?areaID=1&subAreaID=1&query=san+francisco&cat=o
ff&minAsk=500&maxAsk=1000&minSqft=600&neighborhood=
---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
1) Dear UFPJ Bay Area Members, (and BAUAW and everyone...bw)
"This week both the San Francisco Chronicle and the Examiner came out
strongly against Prop N..."
Quote from Chronicle Editorial:
"Such is the danger of a symbolic resolution written by a group
of politicians who have enough trouble solving problems in the
streets of their own city. They are clearly over their heads in
trying to figure out how to bring peace and stability to Fallujah
or Baghdad."
Prop N needs your help. This week both the San Francisco Chronicle
and the Examiner came out strongly against Prop N despite
endorsements from dozens of San Francisco groups including
the SF Labor Council, SF Building & Construction Trades Council,
the Sierra Club and the SF Democratic Party. This is a low blow to
the local Peace Movement.
In both arguments, the editors state that there is no place for
opposition to the Iraq War in local politics, appear to ignore the
psychological, economic and even physical harm caused to people in
our city because of the Iraq War, and seem to encourage the citizens
of San Francisco who are voicing their opposition through local
government to essentially burry our heads in the sand and let the
Bush or Kerry Administration take care of it. Yeah, right.
The Chron went so far as to suggest that Prop N was conceived
exclusively by ill-witted SF Supervisors, mockingly rename
Prop N 'Bring the supes home now', and say "(The Supervisors)
are clearly over their heads in trying to figure out how to bring
peace and stability to Fallujah or Baghdad." Are we activists
over our heads, too?
Both newspapers also took the common stance that an immediate
withdrawal of US Troops would do more harm than good. But,
if they had taken the time to speak to some of us working on the
Prop N, maybe they would have come to the conclusion that the
US military presence is a source of violence, not tranquility and
that our military occupation should be replaced by humanitarian
aid in order to bring peace. Maybe they would have also learned
about similar legislation that occured in many cities across the
nation during the final stages of the Vietnam War.
At the bottom of this message are links to the Chron and Examiner
Prop N arguments. If you want to help counter their assaults,
please send your opinion to the editors:
http://www.sfgate.com/feedback/
letters@examiner.com
Finally, to give you an idea of the Chron's cogent perspective on
local politics, today's headline in their online political section is
'Lovin' Mouthfuls' in which "Kimberly Guilfoyle Newsom recently
shared steamy details about hubby Gavin's sexuality, prowess
and much more...". I'm sorry, but is that really newsworthy?
Jon Previtali
Bring Our Troops Home Now, Vote Yes on N!
www.yesonn.net
Chron (10/21/04) "Bring the supes home now" (No on Prop N)
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2004/10/21/EDGD99CLKK1.DTL
Examiner (10/19/04) "No on Prop N"
http://www.examiner.com/article/index.cfm/i/101904op_editorial
---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
2) Yes on N Lowell coverage/photos
"Jeff Paterson"
Thu, 21 Oct 2004 13:57:11 -0700
Hi folks,
Here is the IMC coverage with photos from yesterday's
"Yes on N" rally at Lowell I filed today. Feel free to use the
photos for anything related to the campaign.
High school students organize rally against the war, for SF prop N.
http://www.indybay.org/news/2004/10/1700635.php
Jeff for
Not in Our Name
---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
3) MWM Meeting Sunday October 24th 5:30PM !!!
From: "Douglas MacDonald"
To: All MWM supporters and Committee Memebers
(NOTE: The Date for the Report Back on the MWM is SUNDAY
October 24th! (not the 22nd)
Dear Brothers and Sisters;
The SF MWM Committee voted at our last meting to have a report
back to describe and discuss what occurred and what will come
from the MWM on Washington . Please make certain to attend this
Million Worker March Meeting on SUNDAY Oct 24 th at 5:30PM,
400 North Point, the ILWU Local 10 Hall.
Proposed Agenda includes:
Report Back on March and Evaluation
Report Back on Regional Meeting and Proposed Organizing
Campaigns/Activities (see below)
Discussion on Division of Labor/Structure and
Membership of the SF MWM Committee
Old Business
Telephone Workers Solidarity Event
Update on Hotel Workers Struggle
Update on Bricklayers Struggle with Valero Refinery
Outreach to Local Endorsing Unions and Organizations
The following activities and actions were proposed to be brought
back to the regional committees in order to gain grass roots input.
Some, none or all of the activities can be executed, changed and modified.
The next Regional MWM conference call will develop an action plan
based the input gathered from the members of each regional committee.
The proposed actions and activities are listed below:
_ 11/7 - Support rallies for the National Japanese Day of Protest
_ November - Develop local workers boards to take testimony on
the harassment of workers organizing drives, the difficulty in obtaining
workers compensation and the general attack on workers rights in each
region of the nation.
_ November - Contacting UNITE/HERE to determine what the MWM
regional committees can do to support the national struggle of the hotel
and restaurant workers. Propose a National Day of Solidarity with
these workers struggle for a fair contract.
_ 12/3-12/10 - Support the National week of anti-war protests.
_ 12/4 - 12/5 - Attend the US Labor Against the War Conference
in Chicago and advocate for the cooperation of the MWM movement
and USLAW.
_ December - Send representatives to the Labor Party Meeting
to advocate for cooperation between the MWM movement and the
Labor Party.
_ 1/20/05 - Participate as a delegation in the anti-inauguration
activities
_ 3/20/05 - Support International Women's Day activities.
_ 5/1/05 - (International Labor Day) Promote a global demonstration
against privatization while building international solidarity for workers
rights.
_ 6/23/05 - Organize protests against Taft-Hartley, the slave-labor
law that undermines union organizing and strikes. 6/23 is the
anniversary of the creation and adoption of Taft-Hartley.
_ 7/7/05 - Send representatives to the national AFL-CIO convention
in Chicago to promote the MWM movement and advocate for cooperation
between the organized labor movement and community organizations
on the demands of the MWM.
_ 7/16/05 - Convene a National MWM Conference in order to promote
the MWM demands and the independent movement of working people
mobilizing in their own name to advance their own needs in their own voice.
_ Encourage ongoing regional actions and organizing around the
MWM demands by building labor-community alliances and coalitions
in each region.
Solidarity;
Douglas MacDonald
925-890-6430
---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
4) Just Say No to More Cops!
This special Education not Incarceration announcement
is being sent out as the No on Measure Y campaign goes
into its home stretch.
Hi Friends,
Please join me at the fundraiser for the No on Measure Y campaign
(just say no to more cops) in Oakland this Friday night, 8pm,
Humanist Hall, 390 27th Street, downtown Oakland, and at the
following events Saturday and Monday. The movie "Every Mother's Son"
is a powerful documentary on three victims of police murder in New
York City and the mothers' quest for justice and accountability, and
the panel afterwards with the mothers of Idris Stelly, Cammerin Boyd,
and Malaika Parker of Bay Area Policewatch will bring it home to the
Bay Area.
Californians for Justice is the latest endorser of No on Y; let's keep
working to build a movement for peace and justice in Oakland.
Thank you,
Aaron Shuman
510-938-0654 mobile
510-428-9417 home
From: "Education Not Incarceration"
Date: Tue, 19 Oct 2004 11:38:00 -0700 (PDT)
To: ednotinc@riseup.net
Subject: Special Announcement for No on Measure Y
NO ON MEASURE Y!!!!
This special Education not Incarceration announcement
is being sent out as the No on Measure Y campaign goes
into its home stretch. First is a list of 3 upcoming
No on Measure Y events. Following that is a powerful
essay written by a high school student at Oakland Tech
HS about being racially profiled in the hallway of his
school. Please endorse the No on Y campaign and share
this with your friends.
No on Measure Y: Jobs, Housing, Education and Health
Care, Not 63 More Cops
1. Fundraiser for No on Measure Y
A screening of the film, "Every Mother's Son," which
is about victims of police violence in New York City.
There will be guest speakers following the film,
including mothers of the victims. The event is
happening this Friday, October 22nd, from 8pm-10pm at
the Humanist Hall in Oakland, which is located at
390 27th Street (near 27th and Broadway)
Suggested Donation of $5-10, but no-one will be turned
away for lack of funds.
2. Saturday, October 23rd: Stop America's Other War.
March for Social Justice and Against Measure Y,
beginning at 11AM at Lake Merrit (Macarthur and Grand)
3. Monday, October 25th, No on Measure Y: Rally
Against Police Brutality, Racial Profiling and
Harrassment: 10:30AM at the Oakland Police
Headquarters, 7th Str. and Washington St.
Make a Donation...
If you can't make it to the fundraiser or the other
events, you can still help out by donating money to
the No on Measure Y campaign. Any amount of money would
be appreciated! Checks can be made payable to
No on Measure Y.org and sent to: No
on Measure Y, 3746 39th Ave, Oakland, CA 94619
A BLACK OAKLAND YOUTH SPEAKS OUT AGAINST MEASURE Y
Please pass this on to your friends (not to other
listservs). Please sign it at the bottom with your
name and organization to show that you are endorsing
No on Measure Y. If you are signature # 5,10,15 etc.
please also send the e-mail to noonmeasurey@yahoo.com
http://sf.indymedia.org/news/2004/10/1703950.php
What Are You Doing in the Hall?
by Laurence Ashton/PoorNewsNetwork Youth in Media
One Black youth speaks out against Measure Y and the
march toward a whiter, richer more militarized Oakland
" What are you doing in the hall?" A mechanical voice
shot through the cavernous hall of Oakland Technical
High School. It couldn't have been for me, I thought,
I had a hall pass and wasn't causing no trouble for
noone
"Â…Â…did you hear meÂ…what are doing in the hall?" And
then it hit me , it was for me and this time it was
accompanied the dreaded click click noise of police
heels studded with metal tips for that almost
like-a-gun sound.
"I have a pass," I turned around and faced two Oakland
Police Officers who by this time were now fingering
their guns and coming toward me, clicking in unison.
"Let me see it" They had reached me now and one of
them was less than five inches away from my face"
I fumbled for my jacket pocket, as I did 'the other
cop began whispering into his shoulder, "codeÂ… call
for back-up"
Suddenly before my nervous hands could find the pass,
I was against the wall and they were patting me down.
Within seconds instead of weapons, they found the pass
and after a short cough, one of them helped me up and
said, "you should of spoke up sooner, next time keep
your pass in your hand" With that, they both walked on
down the hall ready to harass the next unsuspecting
student who happened in their path.
Later that day I found out that the Oakland Police
Department had been called on campus for "a
disturbance" which turned out was nothing, so I
figured just to make their day not a complete waste of
time, they decided to get me on a casual WWB (Walking
While Black) violation. But of course what they failed
to differentiate was the fact that I wasn't just
"walking" I was a 16 year High School student walking
through The Halls of my school and, in my opinion,
they had absolutely no right in there in the first
place.
This disgusting experience, one of many I have
encountered as young African Descendent male living in
Amerikka, happened almost 3 years ago, and it all came
back to me in living sickening color when my editor at
PNN asked me to write about the proposed legislation
Measure Y, which aims to put at least 63 more cops on
the streets in Oakland funding it with a new flat tax
on Oakland homeowners.
Measure Y will go on November's ballot because it was
approved by a majority vote of the Oakland City
Council, and instead of funding the already poverty
stricken Oakland schools will direct 60 percent of the
newly raised taxes to hire more police officers in
Oakland.
Education Not Incarceration reported that just like in
my case, cops don't prevent violence, they cause
violence, they instigate problems where there aren't
any. When there were less cops on Oakland's streets
such as between 1995 - 1996 when there approximately
100 less cops on the streets, homicides decreased from
152 to 102 and a similar situation occurred from 1999
to 2000, when homicide rates decreased when the number
of Oakland police officers decreased.
Those of us who deal on the frontline of racism and
poverty have known all of this for a long time, in my
case, not only is it my situation but my fathers' who
is a houseless, mentally ill Black man. He lives
homelessly in LA and the Bay Area and gets harassed,
abused and profiled by cops every day. He doesn't get
accepted into over-filled supportive housing or access
to scarce mental health treatment just because he is
arrested for sleeping in a park at night. And
similarly, I don't get a better public education
because I get harassed in my school's hall. Police
don't get at the root causes of poverty and racism;
they just make life harder for the poor folks and the
folks of color unlucky enough to be on their radar
screen that day.
Now I am not saying that all cops are bad, only most
of them, but the idea that getting more cops will
solve Oakland's' problems is just more Jerry Drowning
of our scarce resources and services to supposedly
make life better for scared rich folks who want to
move foreword with the march towards a whiter, richer,
more militarized Oakland.
www.poormagazine.org
I ENDORSE NO ON MEASURE Y:
*Organization Names are for identification purpose
1. Jonah Zern, Education not Incarceration and Oakland
Education Association
2. Zachary Runningwolf, Native American Leader
3. Tommy Escarcega, Proyecto Common Touch
4. Alice DoValle, Justice Now
5. Wilson Riles Jr., Oakland Community Action Network
6. David Laub, Oakland Education Association
7. Desley Brooks, Oakland Citycouncilwoman
8. Greg Hodge, School Board Member
9. Patricia Loya, Centro Legal de la Raza
10. Lisa Gutierez Guzman, Teachers for Social Justice
11. Fannie Brown, state co-chair, ACORN
12. Heath Maddom, Education not Incarceration
13. Cici Malin. Education not Incarceration
14. Jumoke Hinton Hodge
15. Dwayne Wiggins
16. Ricardo Barba
Benefit , Film Showing And Music
For San Francisco Unite-HERE Local 2 Locked Out Hotel Workers
Hotel Workers Battle For Justice
A series of films/videos celebrating the struggle of hotel and restaurant
workers.
Friday October 29, 2004 6:30 PM
New College Of California rm 4
777 Valencia St.
San Francisco
Sliding Scale $5.00-$10.00
Join labor supporters and activists when LaborFest will
screen hotel worker videos from
1946 Hotel Workers Strike with striking workers "Beauty
Pageant" at the Mark Hopkins
"Walking Out" a video of the Zim's restaurant workers strike
"Union Town" of the 1980 hotel workers strike
Sponsored by
LaborFest
P.O. Box 40983
San Francisco, CA 94140
(415)642-8066
laborfest@laborfest.net
Co-sponsored by
Labor Video Project
P.O. Box 425584
San Francisco, CA 94142
(415)282-1908
---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
5) A Call to Action:
The following Call to Action was raised from the stage at
the Million Worker March on Sunday, and supported by a
meeting of the Million Worker March Committee on Monday,
October 18.
We forward this to you in lieu of a full report of this
historic and important event, which has formed a new level
of unity between the antiwar movement and the workers'
struggle.
We encourage activists across the country to begin
discussing December 3-10. Send us your ideas and feedback
as soon as possible.
There has been a suggestion that Friday, December 3 might
be a perfect day for student walkouts--this is something
that student activists will know best.
In the coming days, this web page will report on the
specific proposals for action on the various days, Dec.
3-10, including actions planned by labor activists and
unions, by students and youth, and by community
organizers.
Please contact us to endorse, to offer feedback, and to
share your ideas:
stopthewar@antiwar4themillionworkermarch.org
***ENOUGH!
A Call to Action
Dec 3 - Dec 10
"The War Must Stop Now!" Week
Not one more life - or U.S. bullet or bomb - or new war to
pacify Iraq.
It is with a shared sense of seriousness and urgency that
we appeal to all antiwar forces, including: those of us
who are based in the union/workers movement; organizations
that are fighting for jobs, health care and housing; youth
and student organizations; veterans; military families;
military resisters; solidarity movements; and all the
other progressive movements - to make the week of Friday
Dec. 3 - Friday Dec. 10 (International Human Rights Day) a
time for truly mass action across the country to Stop The
War Now! including job actions, student walkouts,
boycotts, and business closings.
The U.S. has started a new war to conquer Iraq - It Will
Not Work - But it will be deadly - UNLESS we say, "No
More!"
The bombing raids on Falluja and other Iraqi cities have
been intensifying, and after the U.S. presidential
elections, the occupation forces are preparing a
full-scale new war to "pacify" Iraq in preparation for
phony U.S.-controlled elections in January. This assault
will not subdue the Iraqi people; they have made it clear
that they want the U.S., and U.S.-led occupation forces to
leave immediately.
However, this new desperate and deadly plan to conquer a
people who refused to be conquered will cause enormous
death and destruction unless we make it clear that the war
will no longer be tolerated.
The War & Occupation must end now! And the People can end
it!
Our challenge, especially for those of us who have marched
against the war, and those of us who have worked hard to
organize those marches, to remind ourselves that the
election is not going to stop the war, and that waiting
for something beyond our control to stop the war only
weakens our movement. The majority of the people want the
war and occupation to end immediately. It is up to us to
act with a sense of urgency, immediacy, passion, and
determination. It is time to say “No More!”
Jobs - Unions - Healthcare - Education - Housing - Bring
the Troops Home Now!
stopthewar@antiwar4themillionworkermarch.org
Million Workers March Audio and Video by Ryme Katkhouda,
Fred Nguyen and the dc-radio-coop
http://dc.indymedia.org/feature/display/107031/index.php
Read the Washington Post article about the Million Worker
March:
http://www.antiwar4themillionworkermarch.org/washingtonpost.htm
http://www.antiwar4themillionworkermarch.org
To Donate: http://www.peoplesrightsfund.org
Other Upcoming Actions:
Dec. 4 - No Draft, No Way Conference in New York in NYC
Dec. 5 - Indoor Solidarity Rally with Haiti in NYC
Jan. 20 - Counter-Inaugural in Washington, DC
Anyone can subscribe.
Send an email request to
AntiWar4theMillionWorkerMarch-subscribe@organizerweb.com
To unsubscribe AntiWar4theMillionWorkerMarch-unsubscribe@organizerweb.com
Subscribing and unsubscribing can also be done on the Web at
http://www.organizerweb.com/mailman/listinfo/antiwar4themillionworkermarch
---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
6) Bush Signs $136 Billion
Corporate Tax Cut Bill
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
WASHINGTON
Filed at 3:51 p.m. ET
October 22, 2004
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Corporate-Taxes.html?oref=login
WASHINGTON (AP) -- With no fanfare, President Bush on Friday
signed the most sweeping rewrite of corporate tax law in nearly
two decades, showering $136 billion in new tax breaks on businesses,
farmers and other groups.
Intended to end a bitter trade war with Europe, the election-year
measure was described by supporters as critically necessary to aid
beleaguered manufacturers who have suffered 2.7 million lost jobs
over the past four years.
But opponents charged that the tax package had grown into a massive
giveaway that will add to the complexity of the tax system and end up
rewarding multinational companies that move jobs overseas.
There was no ceremony for the bill-signing. White House press
secretary Scott McClellan announced it on Air Force One as Bush flew
to a campaign appearance in Pennsylvania.
Bush mentioned the new tax law at the beginning of a health care
event in Canton, Ohio.
``I signed a bill that's going to help our manufacturers -- that will
save $77 billion over the next 10 years for the manufacturing sector
of America,'' Bush said. ``That will help keep jobs here.''
The handling of the corporate tax bill was in contrast to Bush's action
on Oct. 4 when he sat before television cameras on a stage in Des Moines,
Iowa, to sign three tax-cut breaks popular with middle-class voters and
reviving other tax incentives for businesses.
Bush's campaign rival, Sen. John Kerry, missed the vote on the corporate
tax breaks. Kerry spokesman Phil Singer said there were many important
things in the bill but that ``George Bush filled the bill up with corporate
giveaways and tax breaks for multinational companies that send jobs
overseas. In his first budget, John Kerry will call for the repeal of all
the
unwarranted international tax breaks that George Bush included in this
bill.''
The Joint Tax Committee said the overall bill would not increase the
deficit because the $136 billion in tax cuts were balanced by $136 billion
in tax increases. Democrats contended the true costs of the tax cuts would
be nearly $80 billion higher because Republicans used accounting gimmicks
such as having popular provisions expire after a few years.
The original purpose for the legislation was to repeal a $5 billion annual
tax break provided to American exporters that was ruled illegal by the
Geneva-based World Trade Organization. Repeal of the tax break was
needed to lift retaliatory tariffs that are now being imposed on more than
1,600 American manufactured products and farm goods exported to
Europe.
The bill replaces the $49.2 billion export tax break with $136 billion in
new tax breaks over the next decade for a wide array of groups from
farmers, fishermen and bow and arrow hunters to some of America's
largest corporations.
The legislation also includes a $10.1 billion buyout of quotas held by
tobacco farmers. However, a Senate provision that would have coupled
this buyout with regulation of tobacco by the Food and Drug
Administration was dropped by the conference committee that
resolved differences between the two chambers.
The measure is the most sweeping overhaul of corporate tax law
since 1986. It provides a wide range of tax benefits for native Alaskan
whalers, importers of Chinese ceiling fans and NASCAR race track
owners.
The centerpiece is $76.5 billion in new tax relief for the battered
manufacturing sector, but manufacturing is broadly defined to include
not just factories but also oil and gas producers, engineering,
construction and architectural firms and large farming operations.
The bill was seen as must-pass legislation because it repeals a
$5 billion annual subsidy for U.S. exporters that has been ruled
illegal by the World Trade Organization. Because of that ruling,
1,600 American exports to Europe have been hit by penalty tariffs
that now stand at 12 percent and are rising by 1 percentage point
a month.
In addition to the $76.5 billion in tax relief for manufacturing, the
measure would also provide $42.6 billion in tax relief to multinational
companies.
Supporters argued that the tax relief for multinational corporations
would boost the competitiveness of U.S. companies, but opponents
argued that it would simply provide more tax benefits to support the
movement of U.S. jobs overseas.
To pay for the $136 billion total of new tax relief over the next decade,
the legislation would rely on the savings from repealing the export
subsidy and would close corporate loopholes and tax shelters --
thereby raising an estimated $82 billion over the next decade.
Copyright 2004 The Associated Press
---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
7) Why Didn't Anyone Tell Us?
Environmental Racism Threatens the Lives of our Babies
By Ebony Colbert
http://www.sfbayview.com/102004/why102004.shtml
Ebony holds little Shana, with Shawn beside
them and Keshawn standing behind, in this Christmas 2003 family
portrait.
Part 1 of the San Francisco Chronicle's major
front page exposé on California neighborhoods with unusually high
rates of infant death gave us a glimpse into the lives of Bay View
Hunters Point residents Tuli and Walter Hughes, a couple whose six-year
marriage had been burdened with several miscarriages and the depression
that follows. After five such losses, Tuli's doctor informed her
that she had a weak cervix, for which she was treated and given
much needed attention. She eventually conceived and carried to term
a beautiful baby girl, who just turned a year old. Their story is
one that is all too familiar for many young people of child bearing
age in Bay View Hunters Point, including myself.
This is why I felt compelled to write this article: Also a BVHP
resident, I am the mother of a happy, healthy 17-month-old baby
girl and am expecting a baby boy in January of 2005. My fiancé and
I, though ecstatic, are being very cautious. Together since March
1999, we experienced miscarriages once in the year 2000 and twice
in 2001 - all before the third month of pregnancy.
I was diagnosed, by a nurse practitioner at Kaiser, as having
polycystic ovaries, a reproductive disorder that affects the hormones
responsible for ovulation and conception. It causes lapses in your
menstrual cycle and spontaneous abortion (miscarriage) along with
a host of other problems. After getting a second opinion at San
Francisco General Hospital, I was told by a fertility specialist
that the disorder was not only hereditary but common among women
of color and those who are overweight.
He also told me that he had treated quite a few cases in women
who lived in Hunters Point for the same disorder. It wasn't until
my fiancé and I moved away from the Bay View in 2002 that we were
able to conceive and carry a child to term.
April 24, 2003, the day my daughter was born, was the happiest
day of my life.
For many women in Bay View Hunters Point, the confusion and
embarrassment of reproductive disorders and infertility have heard
many cases of them losing their unborn children before they feel the first
kicks. Erin McCormick, who wrote the Chronicle's five-part series,
"Too young to die" (10/3-7/04, www.sfgate.com/infantmortality/),
surmised that the "stress of racism, environmental problems, poverty
and crime may explain why so many babies die young."
Her article shed light on a problem whose cause could literally
be "up in the air." Until now, no one, not even the San Francisco
Department of Public Health, has disclosed to residents how these
issues may also be the cause of hundreds of cases of infertility
among BVHP's female population. To date, no studies on the matter
have been published.
Even those young women in our community who are not interested
in having children any time in the near future may find it interesting
to know that their chances for even conceiving a child may be lower
than those in other neighborhoods in the city.
In the past 10 years, we have learned of high instances of breast
cancer and asthma in BVHP, zip code 94124. However, no stretch of
the imagination could prepare us for the reality that not only are
our children at higher risk for death due to violence, they are
also less likely to even be born - and more than twice as likely
to perish before their first birthday than those who are merely
living in a nearby zip code.
Infant mortality rates have dropped significantly throughout the
United States in the past 16 years. San Francisco, in fact, has
the lowest rate of infant death of any large city in the U.S. However,
according to the Chronicle, which studied 10 years of state data,
Black babies in Bay View Hunters Point are three times more likely
to die than white babies born throughout California! The mortality
rate for all infants in BVHP is 2.5 times higher than for San Francisco
citywide.
So how it is possible for a woman to have a healthy pregnancy
and uneventful birth and still lose a child - who seems perfectly
healthy - before he utters his first word? One young woman I spoke
with recalls the funeral of a friend's "healthy" baby boy. "It was
so sad, and everyone was wondering how it could have happened. My
friend doesn't smoke, she doesn't drink. The baby slept in his own
crib. He shouldn't have died. His parents said they woke up and
he just wasn't breathing. He was fine before he went to sleep. He
always slept through the night. When she woke up to check on him
to see if he needed changing, he didn't have a pulse. He was only
5 months old." Until the Chronicle's study was released, most of
us would have called it the will of God. Now it's open to speculation.
So-called experts in the field would expect you to believe that
young mothers in the Bay View don't get adequate pre-natal care,
don't eat right, use drugs and alcohol or are uneducated when it
comes to parenting. They put the blame on the victims. New moms
and their families tend to disagree with these opinions. Of the
infant death cluster the Chronicle found - five families who had
lost a total of eight babies around Double Rock, near the Shipyard
- only one mother had a history of drug abuse.
Many new mothers complain that when they visit their doctors'
offices, they are immediately referred to social workers. They are
often treated as statistics and even insulted by doctors who question,
"Are you sure of the paternity of the baby?"
"I feel like they're trying to intimidate me," said Porshe, 16.
"I know that I'm young to be having a baby. But the point is that
I'm pregnant and I should be treated the same way as any pregnant
woman - with respect. They shouldn't just assume that I'm not with
my baby's daddy or that I'm ignorant and don't know how to take
care of my baby. That's what makes people not even want to go to
the doctors until they go into labor. They make you feel ashamed
when you should be happy."
Although some of these mommies are busy with school and work and
are discouraged - once treated poorly by their doctors - from returning,
they still make the trip, often across town, to make sure their
babies are healthy. In addition, more young fathers are committed
to attending the appointments than ever before. Mothers, fathers
and even grandparents are also getting more involved in the care
of the pregnancy. So why hasn't anyone informed them that though
their pregnancy may not be "high risk," the very life of their newborn
child may be?
One mother says that the answer lies within the healthcare system.
Latiesha Bermont, 31, says that she didn't know she was pregnant
the first time until she was three months along. She was only 20
years old. "I never had regular periods and the doctor never made
a big deal out of it, so neither did I. I went to the doctor's,
and the pregnancy test was negative. I started cramping one night
really bad and was bleeding heavy, so I went to emergency. That's
when they decided to give me a blood test. It was positive," she
sighed.
"By the time I found out I was pregnant, I was already miscarrying.
They said there was nothing they could do. I felt confused." Like
many young women, Latiesha admits that she didn't expect to ever
have a miscarriage. She also says that she visited the doctor regularly
because she had "issues with her cycle." She swears they should
have been able to tell her something, but her doctors remained
indifferent.
She was never given an answer to her many questions about her
problems with infertility. She is convinced that not knowing is
what put her at risk. Not stress or poverty. She changed her insurance
and eventually was told she had a non-working right ovary that wasn't
producing enough estrogen. After years of treatment and trying,
at 24 years old she finally conceived a child, who died of SIDS
just four months later. At 26, she saw another specialist who helped
her to safely deliver her daughter, Unique, who is almost 5 years
old. Even though she and her husband have been trying for three
years, though, they have yet to be blessed with another pregnancy.
"I guess the medicine isn't working anymore. I think we may just
give up," she says.
How is it possible that our neighborhood and a few other neighborhoods
of color in the most populous state in the country have held the
record for infant mortality for over 10 years? Some who have lived
in the Bay View for decades are convinced, as is the Chronicle,
that environmental racism looms just below the surface of this problem.
For years, residents have complained about the stench coming from
the sewage treatment plant on Phelps Avenue. "That can't be healthy,"
one non-Bay View resident exclaimed as the No. 19 bus passed the
facility. "It smells like death over here. How can anyone breathe?"
Residents have complained to the Department of Public Health about
the abundance of respiratory problems and cancers in the areas surrounding
the Hunters Point Naval Shipyard. All to no avail. If nothing has
been done about these issues, how can we be sure that a problem
as monumental as infant mortality won't be swept under the rug?
How is it possible that the same things are happening in predominately
Black or Latino neighborhoods in both Oakland and Richmond, yet
no one has bothered to bring it to the forefront? The Naval Shipyard,
the city sewage plant, the PG&E and Mirant power plants and
several other toxic dumping grounds and waste facilities in or around
BVHP have yet to be investigated as causes for not only the death
of dozens of babies, but the reproductive disorders and cancers
plaguing the young women who will eventually give them life. There
are also hot spots of infant death in South Central LA and in Fresno
and Shafter, Calif., in the Central Valley, all in low-income neighborhoods
populated by Blacks or Latinos and exposed to highly polluted air.
The Chronicle reports: "Studies published in the past few years
link pesticides, carbon monoxide and tiny airborne particles with
birth defects, prematurity, low birth weight and respiratory ailments
that can lead to an infant's demise." Nevertheless, the blame has
continued to be laid at the feet of the parents. Already deemed
incompetent by their lack of income, these moms and dads often blame
themselves.
"Stuff like this wasn't even discussed when we were growing up,"
says 50-year-old grandmother Sylvia Gross. "If your baby died, it
was crib death. This has been happening for years, babies dying,
and nobody blamed nobody. We didn't even contemplate that the very
air we were breathing could be the cause. It's amazing that no one
has even mentioned that it was a possibility until now."
This is what our local government wants. They take no responsibility
for the environmental genocide being unleashed upon our community
and don't anticipate confrontation because we have been conditioned
to believe our suffering is ultimately our own fault.
We've been taught that the best way to have a safe pregnancy is
to eat right and exercise, not indulge in drugs or alcohol and get
prenatal care as early as possible. Our doctors have continued to
us the standard "Put your baby on his back to sleep," "Don't
smoke in the house," "Breastfeeding is best" script when we become
new parents. Never once are you told, "If you live near power plants,
sewage plants and landfills, your baby may die ... but even if you
try your best to be a good parent, if your baby gets sick or dies,
we'll blame you." If someone had had the forethought to warn us,
perhaps this issue would have been brought to the front page long
ago and those who really deserve the blame could have been held
accountable.
While local politicians give Bay View Hunters Point gentrification-inducing
perks like Muni Light Rail, they should be fighting to make the
city's air safe for all its residents to breathe - not just for
those who live in Diamond Heights, Nob Hill or the Castro. They
should shut down plans to build housing in the Hunters Point Shipyard,
which is unfit for human habitation, investigate how the release
of toxins and particulates into the air from the city's sewage plant
and PG&E's power plant are affecting the quality of life in
our community, and provide our citizens with programs that will
educate them about how to live healthier lives. Instead, they continue
to target our young mothers as potential CPS cases, hire corrupt
companies to fill the most unsafe land with homes that will ultimately
be our coffins, and ignore or block our own efforts to rebuild our
community.
One brand new mommy of twins agreed to give me her opinions on
the topic but only if she could challenge me with some questions
of her own: "Has everyone been so blinded by the bad media coverage
about HP that they can't see that this is bigger than any shooting
on the 10 o'clock news? What makes our children's lives less important
than the babies born in Fillmore or in Chinatown? Why is it okay
for so many of them to die, and nobody does anything about it?"
I couldn't even begin to give her the answers she was looking
for, but I suggested that in her quest to find them, she start with
answering this one first: "Why didn't anyone tell us?"
I'm not sure we'll get any closure on the pain this issue has
caused any time soon. But I am confident that with hard work and
research, we'll have the answers we're looking for. I doubt that
our local government will be happy to answer them for us. I am hopeful
that with patience and diligence on the part of myself and my family,
my unborn son will survive these statistics, and I pray that with
the grace of God, others will as well.
Email Ebony at efcolbert@yahoo.com.
San Francisco Bay View
National Black Newspaper
4917 Third Street
San Francisco California 94124
Phone: (415) 671-0789
Fax: (415) 671-0316
Email:
editor@sfbayview.com
---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
8) A Schoolgirl Riddled with Bullets. And No One is to Blame
Questions remain after Israeli unit commander is cleared
of Palestinian pupil's death
By Chris McGreal in Rafah
Published on Thursday, October 21, 2004 by the Guardian/UK
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/1021-03.htm
The undisputed facts are these: it was broad daylight, 13-year-old Iman
al-Hams was wearing her school uniform, and when she walked into the
Israeli army's "forbidden zone" at the bottom of her street she was
carrying her satchel. A few minutes later the short, slight child was
pumped with bullets. Doctors counted at least 17 wounds and said
much of her head was destroyed.
Beyond that there is little agreement between the army top brass and
Palestinian witnesses as to how Iman came to die last week, or even
among members of the military unit responsible for killing the child
in Gaza's Rafah refugee camp.
Palestinian witnesses described the shooting as cold-blooded. They
say soldiers could not have failed to see they were firing at a child,
and she was killed as she already lay wounded and helpless.
"Some soldiers were lying on the ground and shooting very heavily
toward her," said Basim Breaka, who saw the killing from her living
room. "Then one of the soldiers walked to her and emptied his clip
into her. For sure she died on the second or third bullet. I could see
her lying on the ground, not moving. I can't imagine why that soldier
wanted to shoot her after she was dead."
This week an army investigation cleared the unit's commander after
some of his own soldiers accused him of giving the order to shoot
knowing the target was a young girl, and of then emptying the clip
of his automatic rifle into her.
On the day she died, Iman left home shortly before 7am for the short
walk to school in Rafah's Tal al-Sultan neighborhood. The school,
facing the heavily militarized border with Egypt, is under the shadow
of a towering camouflaged Israeli gunpost.
Like almost every other building in the area, Iman's school is
pockmarked by bullets. Last year, a 13-year-old boy was shot
dead by the army outside the school. This year, two pupils and
a teacher were wounded by bullets inside the grounds.
Iman walked past her school with her satchel over her shoulder,
crossed the road and climbed down a small sandy bank to an area
that was an olive and citrus orchard until the army's bulldozers
flattened it in April. She had entered the "forbidden zone" next
to the watchtower where any Palestinian risks being shot.
The schoolgirl kept on walking toward the tower but was still several
hundred meters away when two shots caught her in the leg. She
dropped her bag, turned, tried to hobble away, and fell.
Four or five soldiers emerged from the army post and shot at her
from a distance. Palestinian witnesses and some Israeli soldiers
say that the platoon commander moved in closer to put two bullets
in the child's head. They say that he then walked away, turned back
and fired a stream of bullets into her body.
Iman's corpse was taken to Rafah's hospital and inspected by
Dr Mohammed al-Hams. "She has at least 17 bullets in several
parts of the body, all along the chest, hands, arms, legs," he said.
"The bullets were large and shot from a close distance. The most
serious injuries were to her head. She had three bullets in the head.
One bullet was shot from the right side of the face beside the ear.
It had a big impact on the whole face. Another bullet went from the
neck to the face and damaged the area under the mouth."
The doctor said that the nature of the wounds suggested that
Iman was already dead when some of the bullets hit her. The
army swiftly blamed Iman for her own death by entering the forbidden
zone. At first, the military said soldiers suspected the girl was carrying
a bomb in her satchel. When it turned out there was no bomb, it said
she was being used by Palestinian combatants to lure troops from
their post.
But some soldiers in the unit responsible, the Shaked battalion, were
outraged at what they saw as a cover-up. One told Yedioth Ahronoth
newspaper that a soldier in the watchtower had told the company
commander that he was about to shoot a child: "Don't shoot, it's
a little girl".
"The company commander approached her, shot two bullets into her,
walked back towards the force, turned back to her, switched his
weapon to automatic and emptied his entire magazine into her.
We were in shock. We couldn't believe what he was doing. Our
hearts ached for her. Just a girl of 13," a soldier told the newspaper.
Other soldiers said that if the company commander was not
dismissed they would refuse to serve under him: "It is a disgrace
that he is still in his position. We want him kicked out."
The accounts of Palestinian witnesses back the claims of the
protesting soldiers.
Fuad Zourob was working at a small brick factory overlooking
the area where Iman was shot. "The girl was walking in the sand.
She was shot from the army post. She was hit in the leg and she
was crawling.
"Then she stood up and started to try and run and then she fell.
The shooting went on. The soldiers arrived by foot. One came close
to the girl and started to shoot. He walked away, turned back and
then shot her some more," he said.
Yousef Breaka watched from the balcony of his second floor flat.
He owns the 12 acres of bulldozed land beside the building which
Iman crossed minutes before she was shot.
"The first shot came from the army post. It hit her in the leg. She
was starting to walk on and then fell. She dropped her bag. They
were firing, heavy shooting. I am sure she died before the two
soldiers came and shot her bag and then her," he said.
Mr Breaka's living room wall is decorated with the holes of nine
bullets fired from the Israeli army watchtower two years ago.
A tenth bullet killed his 80-year-old mother, Jindiya.
Neither Iman's father, Samir al-Hams, nor the witnesses know why
the girl walked into the forbidden zone.
"I can't explain why she was there. I've asked everyone and no one
can explain it. Perhaps she just wanted to walk on the sand. Perhaps
she was confused. I don't know," said Mr al-Hams.
Mr Zourob was surprised to see Iman walking at the back of his
factory. "I was astonished. I didn't know why she was there. No
one goes toward that area. She was alone but some of the school
children were calling her: Iman, why are you there?" he said.
The watchtower sits atop a large hill of sand. It is surrounded by
barbed wire and other defenses. Even before she was hit in the leg,
it would have taken Iman 10 minutes or more to scramble up the
hill. Once she was wounded, there was little chance she could have
got to the watchtower.
If she was carrying a bomb, it could have harmed Israeli troops
had she got close enough to them. But after Iman was shot in the
leg she dropped her school bag.
Palestinian witnesses say soldiers pumped it full of bullets,
establishing that it was not a bomb, but still went on to shoot
the girl.
The Israeli army's rules of engagement permit soldiers to wound
a person who enters a security zone and does not heed warning
shots to leave. But once the person is wounded, soldiers are only
permitted to kill if there is an imminent threat to their lives.
Witnesses say Iman was helpless and posed no such threat.
Her father is a teacher at a primary school neighboring his daughter's.
"The day Iman was killed, the headmistress of her school called me
at 8.15 and asked why she wasn't at school. I said I had no idea.,"
he said.
"I ran to the school. The teachers and headmistress told me the
army shot toward a small girl but she was fine, don't worry. I calmed
down a bit when I heard that and thought maybe they shot toward
her to make her afraid and arrested her for interrogation and they
will release her. But then they declared her dead. That was the worst
moment in my life."
This week, the officer responsible for the Gaza strip, Major General
Dan Harel, completed his investigation and pronounced that the
company commander had not acted unethically in the shooting
of Iman but was being suspended for losing the confidence of his
soldiers.
The speed of the investigation has revealed once again the cursory
nature of the army's inquiries into such shootings. A more thorough
investigation usually only follows if there is external pressure, such
as in the case of three Britons shot dead by Israeli soldiers over the
past two years.
The military has quietly dropped an investigation into the killing by
an Israeli sniper of a brother and sister, both teenagers, in Rafah in
May. The army falsely claimed that the pair were killed by a Palestinian
bomb and only began the investigation after journalists found the
bodies of the children and reported that both had a single shot to
the head.
Under pressure from the revelations of the Shaked battalion soldiers,
the military police has launched a separate investigation into the
death of Iman al-Hams. The soldiers say they will insist that it
is completed.
(c) Guardian Newspapers Limited 2004
(c) Copyrighted 1997-2004
www.commondreams.org
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9) Cancer and the Environment
What the Bill Moyers Program "Trade Secrets" Revealed
By Roland Sheppard
On March 26, 2001, a "Bill Moyers PBS Special" titled "Trade Secrets"
documented the chemical industry's conspiracy of silence and refusal
to properly inform hundreds of thousands of workers about the risks
of cancer and other diseases associated with the manufacturing of
vinyl chloride (VC) and its polyvinyl chloride (PVC) product.
The program was based on a Houston Chronicle article written by
Jim Morris in 1998 titled "Rules for hazardous chemicals evolve
slowly-Industry challenges frustrate regulation'
According to www.mycounsel.com, "a trade secret is any piece of
information used in a business that isn't generally known to the public.
This is valuable because the information is kept secret. Trade secret
law can apply to a broad variety of information, including formulas,
patterns, business plans, designs and procedures. The law provides
some protection against others from misappropriating, or improperly
obtaining, your secret.' Companies in the industry have applied "Trade
Secret Protection' to their study of health effects caused by the
chemicals they produce.
Usually, these "Trade Secrets" or "Smoking Guns" do not become
known until a successful lawsuit is filed against a company and their
files are opened. This was the case with the Tobacco Companies and
was the case with the manufacturers of vinyl chloride. The PBS show
made it clear that the drive for profits superceded precaution for
workers lives in particular and life in general.
The show was a good introduction to the hazards of capitalist
production. It demonstrated the endemic problems of capitalist
production and its effects on the environment. It will help increase
the general awareness of the causes of cancer and other diseases.
However, the program only showed the "tip of the iceberg' about the
daily catastrophe of production for profit at the expense of human
lives and the future of humanity.
The chemical industry is well aware of the environmental health
consequences of its products. The following is from "Environmental
Illness Briefing Paper" published by the Chemical Manufactures
Association, Washington D.C. (1990)
"There is no doubt these patients are ill...and deserving of
compensation, understanding and expert medical care (...) The
primary impact on society would be the huge cost associated with
the legitimization of environmental illness"
The conclusion in the above statement is absolutely correct. There is
currently a huge cost in human life and the pursuit of happiness.
The cost they talk about are the huge costs, in compensation for victims
of chemical diseases, if all of the "Trade Secrets" become public
knowledge forcing the recognition and "legitimization of
environmental illness!"
In reality, Trade Secrets only get exposed after a sufficient number
("body count") of workers and others die from a common exposure
to a chemical. The increase in cancer begins with the expansion
and development of the chemical industry sine World War II. The
development and production of synthetic organic chemicals, used
in everyday life, has increased over 100 fold since World War II in
the United States. The increase has been geometric, doubling every
seven to eight years. In the United States, by the late 1980s,
production had reached over 200 billion pounds per year. Many
of these new compounds and medicines have been to the benefit
of humanity.
Unfortunately, only approximately 3 percent of these chemicals
have been tested for their toxicity and potential long-range harm.
Under the banner of "Better Living Through Chemistry," life and
production changed. The "miracle fiber" asbestos was used
everywhere and everything was dusted with DDT. Twenty years
after their introduction, the death toll from cancer caused by these
two substances began to come in. The development and production
of synthetic organic chemicals, used in everyday life, has increased
over 100 fold since World War II in the United States. The increase
has been geometric, doubling every seven to eight years. In the
United States, by the late 1980s, production had reached over
200 billion pounds per year.
In her book Living Downstream, Sandra Steingraber wrote:
"In 1964, two senior scientists at the National Cancer Institute,
Wilhelm Hueper and W.C. Conway, wrote, 'Cancers of all types
and all causes display even under already existing conditions,
all the characteristics of an epidemic in slow motion.' The
unfolding epidemic was being fueled, they said in 1964, by
"increasing contamination of the human environment with
chemical and physical carcinogens and with chemicals supporting
and potentiating their action."
"And yet the possible relationship between cancer and what
Hueper and Conway called 'the growing chemicalization of the
human economy' has not been pursued in any systematic,
exhaustive way....
"Industrialized countries have far more cancers than countries
with little industry (after adjusting for age and population size).
One-half of all the world's cancers occur among people living in
industrialized countries, even though such people are only one-
fifth of the world's population. From these data, WHO (the World
Health Organization) has concluded that at least 80 percent of
all cancer is attributable to environmental influences."
One of the most alarming factors is that the original safety standards
that the Occupation Health and Safety Administration (OSHA) adopted
in 1971 were the standards set by a private organization called the
American Conference of Governmental Industrial Hygienists (ACGIH).
The ACGIH is a group composed of industrial hygienists from state
and local governments, plus academics and industry consultants.
From that point on it has been nearly impossible to improve the
standards to protect lives.
In the late 1970's OSHA administrators estimated that the agency's
proposed legislation would produce a 20 percent drop in cancer
rates. Since all such regulations are a battle between businesses with
their "Trade Secrets' and science independent of corporations the proposed
legislation to eliminate 20% of all cancer was never approved by the
capitalist politicians. In fact, the current "body count' for cancer is
over 40% of the people in the United States will get cancer. Such is
the tragedy of "Trade Secrets."
The most glaring example is the occupational environment, where
workplaces have become "killing fields." In the United States, in 1990
the American Public Health Association estimated that at least 350,000
workers get occupational diseases (cancer, etc.) and 50,000-70,000
workers will die each year from these diseases. Given the steady
decline in occupational health these estimates are now most likely
much higher!
Blue-collar workers and agricultural workers all have higher rates of
cancer and other diseases because they receive higher doses of the
toxic chemicals at the workplace than the rest of the population.
Eventually, these toxins spread to the entire working class as they
become part of the environment.
An example of this fact is the population living "downwind" from the
many Oil Refineries in Contra Costa County in the San Francisco Bay
Area. People living near these refineries have very high rates of cancer.
In EPA terms, this is called a cancer cluster.
The EPA , in its corporate manner, determined that the high rates of
cancer were caused by high rates of smoking in the area-not from the
refineries carcinogenic pollutions! However, under the rules of
Proposition 65 in California and after several years of litigation, the
entire Gasoline Refining Industry, in California, had to post this
warning in the February 24, 1999 issue of the San Francisco Chronicle:
"WARNING: Chemicals known to the State to cause cancer, birth
defects, or other reproductive harm are found in gasoline, crude oil,
and many other petroleum products and their vapors, or result from
their use. Read and follow label directions and use care when handling
or using all petroleum products.
"Chemicals known to the State to cause cancer, birth defects, or
other reproductive harm are found in and around gasoline stations,
refineries, chemical plants, and other facilities that produce, handle,
transport, store, or sell crude oil and petroleum and chemical products.
"Other facilities covered by this warning include, for example, oil and
gas wells, oil and gas treating plants, petroleum and chemical storage
tanks, pipeline systems, marine vessels and barges, tank trucks and
tank cars loading and unloading facilities, and refueling facilities."
The contradiction between governmental agencies agencies is part
and parcel of the overall problem of "Trade Secrets." By keeping
most of the old pre-OSHA standards and by not even enforcing
the regulations that exist due to understaffing and underfunding,
the government regulatory agencies are not protecting workers or
the public-they are protecting the polluters who are poisoning
humanity.
The following is an article that I wrote on this subject that was
published in San Francisco Painters District Council l#8's Newspaper
"The Voice" and was also published in Organized Labor, the newspaper
of the San Francisco Building and Construction Trades Council.
Why Painters Should Wear Respirators and Skin Protection At All Times
In our safety classes you are taught to read "MSDS sheets." For
prevention of cancer, these sheets are of no value. The reason is
that NIOSH, the scientific part of OSHA, does not set the permissible
legal (OSHA) limits of particles in the air while you are working.
From the following examples from the 1994 NIOSH Pocket Guide
To Chemical Hazards, one can see what is wrong with OSHA.
SUBSTANCE NIOSH PEL OSHA PEL
Benzene. 1 ppm 1 ppm
Ethylene Oxide .1 ppm 1 ppm
Formaldehyde .0165 ppm 0.75 ppm
From Page 342 of the "Pocket Guide": "NIOSH has not identified
thresholds that will protect 100% of the population. NIOSH usually
recommends that occupational exposures to carcinogens be limited
to the lowest feasible concentration.'(In an occupational health video,
"Before Their Time," produced by the Windsor Occupational Health
Information Service, Windsor Canada, Peter Infante, the Director of
Standards for OSHA, stated that NIOSH includes one more cancer
per 1000 workers exposed as feasible.)
From these facts about two known carcinogens and one probable
carcinogen, common in paints, one can tell that OSHA can not
prevent occupational cancer. Especially in painters who are
exposed to over 150 known and suspected carcinogens and over
3000 hazardous substances daily. As you can see people getting
cancer are part of the equation; OSHA pel's are at least ten times
higher than NIOSH; therefore, the OSHA "feasible" risk for cancer
is at least ten times higher. (This is the usual difference between
NIOSH and OSHA.)
Cancer being a part of painting is guaranteed by OSHA.
Children and spouses of painters also have high rates for cancer.
One must also remember that ethylene glycol is the base for most
latex paints and radiator fluid. NIOSH recommends when working
with ethylene glycol that you should prevent skin and eye contact,
wash when contaminated and change clothes daily.
OSHA and MSDS sheets can not protect you from occupational
diseases. Work safe! Be smart! Wear respirators, gloves, goggles,
and long sleeve shirts at all times when painting. Protect yourself
and your family from occupational diseases.
OSHA tried to correct itself in the 1970's but with no success. If, as
OSHA administrators estimated, during the Carter presidency, that their
proposed legislation would produce a 20 percent drop in cancer rates,
then Ronald Reagan was a carcinogen, and a potent one at that.
Today, one can add Clinton to the list.
Scientific technology exists to prevent the high rate of occupational
diseases, but the profit motive and capitalist competition prevent
the implementation of preventive action and proper safety precautions.
Science and technology are not an obstacle to maintaining a safe
environment. The barrier to a safe environment is capitalism and
its paramount principle of production and science for profit. Most
environmental studies demonstrate that environmental destruction
has become globally intertwined within our society and that the
globalization of capitalism has quickened the destruction of the planet.
The struggle for environmental health and safety is directly against
the very fibre of capitalist production. In fact, environmental illness
is so intertwined within our society that it requires all of humanity to
act, in their overall interests for survival as a species, to correct the
problem. It requires a society where humanity has social control
over the entire environment, social, economic, and political-
a socialist society in which science is in the interests of humanity
in harmony with nature.
---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
10) Ogallala Aquifer
Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/sci/tech/3754520.stm
Published: 2004/10/20 07:48:58 GMT
[map on url]
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/sci/tech/3754520.stm
Map: The world's water hotspots
From disappearing lakes and dwindling rivers to military threats over
shared resources, water is a cause for deep concern in many parts of the
world. Click on the map to read about some of the world's water hotspots.
Ogallala Aquifer
Ninety-five percent of the United States' fresh water is underground.
One crucial source is a huge underground reservoir, the 800-mile
Ogallala aquifer which stretches from Texas to South Dakota and provides
an estimated third of all US irrigation water.
The aquifer was formed over millions of years, but has since been cut
off from its original natural sources and is being steadily depleted. In
some areas its level is dropping by three to five feet (90 - 150cm) a
year. Estimates for its remaining lifespan vary in different areas,
ranging from 60 to 250 years.
Many farmers in the Texan High Plains, which rely particularly on the
underground source, are now turning away from irrigated agriculture as
they become aware of the hazards of over-pumping.
Mexico City
Mexico City is sinking because of the amount of water being pumped out
from beneath its foundations.
One of the largest and most populous cities in the world, it was once a
lush land of lakes.
The city draws 80% of its water from aquifers below it, and has sunk an
estimated nine metres into the soft, drained lake bed since the 1900s.
It already buys in a third of its water from surrounding areas, and an
estimated million people are dependent on water trucks.
Although work is being done on its rusting pipe system, 27% of the
city's water is still wasted through leaks.
Spain
The battle to provide water for Spain's parched southern coast has
generated major controversy in recent years.
A 4.2 billion euro plan to divert water from the River Ebro to supply
the area around Valencia, Almeria and Murcia was abandoned by the
incoming Socialist government in 2004.
Tens of thousands had protested against the project, which was
criticised by environmentalists concerned that it would encourage misuse
of water and that the Ebro's fragile delta would suffer.
Work had already begun and developers were planning new tourist
developments and golf courses when the project was scrapped.
The new government plans to build several desalination plants instead to
provide water for the near-desert region.
Chad
Lake Chad, once a huge lake straddling the borders of Chad, Niger,
Nigeria and Cameroon, has shrunk by 95% since the mid 1960s.
The region's climate has changed during that time, with the monsoon
rains which previously replenished the lake now greatly reduced.
Local weather changes, rather than global warming, are blamed, but human
activities such as overgrazing and crop irrigation are thought to have
made the situation worse.
Nine million farmers, fishermen, and herders in the region now face
water shortages, crop failure, livestock deaths, collapsed fisheries,
soil salinity and increasing poverty.
There are plans to divert water from a tributary to the Congo to
replenish the lake, and also to establish better management of the
remaining water.
Oil has recently been found in the Chadian sector of the lake, raising
hopes of a longer-term solution to the region's economic problems.
River Nile
The Nile is vitally important to the survival of 160 million people in
10 countries who share the basin in which it flows.
To Egypt in particular, the river is a matter of life and death as the
country has almost no other source of water.
A 1929 treaty between Britain and Egypt said no work would be done on
the river that would reduce the volume of water reaching Egypt.
But tensions have been rising as neighbouring countries question the
treaty - Tanzania, for example, is building a pipeline to extract
drinking water and Ethiopia is planning to use the water for irrigation.
Cairo has said in the past that it was ready to use force to protect its
access to the 7,000km-long river. Talks took place in 2004, but an
agreement is yet to emerge.
Israel
With 5% of the world's population trying to survive on 1% of its water,
there is strong competition for water in the Middle East.
A series of dry years - together with population growth - has recently
increased the pressure. Both Israel and Jordan rely on the River Jordan
- but Israel controls it and has cut supplies during times of scarcity.
The level of the Sea of Galilee has dropped in recent years, sparking
fears that Israel's main reservoir will become salinated.
The Palestinians - whose water supply is also controlled by Israel - say
supplies are intermittent and expensive, and that the underground
aquifer which they share with Israel has become depleted and damaged
through overuse. Israeli settlers in the West Bank use several times
more water than their Palestinian neighbours.
To help ease the crisis, Israel has agreed to buy water from Turkey and
is investigating building desalination plants.
Iraq
Drainage and irrigation schemes carried out by the government of Saddam
Hussein in southern Iraq have led to the loss of an estimated 90% of one
of the world's most significant wetlands.
A vast network of canals has diverted water from the 20,000 square
kilometres of marsh land between the Tigris and Euphrates, in places
leaving nothing but salty, crusted earth behind.
Turkish dams upstream are also thought to have reduced the water flow
and contributed to the wetlands' fate.
Most of the Marsh Arabs fled, facing both political persecution under
Saddam Hussein's regime and the loss of the freshwater which sustained
their way of life.
Since the US-led invasion of Iraq, local people have attempted to
restore water flow, but there are reports that this has led to disease
as much of the water is contaminated.
A UN project to restore the area was announced in July 2004.
Turkey
Water-rich by Middle-Eastern standards, Turkey has in recent years
undertaken an ambitious project to sell water from its Manavgat river
across the region.
It is still vulnerable to shortages, however - just a few weeks after
Turkey agreed to sell water to Israel, officials were warning of a water
crisis.
Turkey has spent billions of dollars in the past decades building dams
to increase its water reserves and boost its hydroelectric capabilities.
Two particular projects the Ilisu and Yusefeli dams, have faced delays
after several Western companies withdrew funding following bad publicity
over human rights concerns.
Another project, a system of 22 dams on the Tigris and Euphrates rivers,
has provoked criticism from downstream neighbours Iraq and Syria.
Aral Sea
The Aral Sea in Central Asia was once the world's fourth biggest inland
sea, and one of the world's most fertile regions. But economic
mismanagement has turned the area into a toxic desert.
The two rivers feeding the sea, the Amu Darya and the Syr Darya, were
diverted in a Soviet scheme to grow cotton. Between 1962 and 1994, the
level of the Aral Sea fell by 16 metres.
The surrounding region now has one of the highest infant mortality rates
in the world, and anaemia and cancers caused by chemicals blowing off
the dried sea bed are common.
China
China is undertaking two huge projects to tackle flooding in the south
and drought in the north.
The Three Gorges Dam under construction on the Yangtze River aims to
control flood waters and generate power.
The dam will provide 10% of the country's electricity when finished.
More than 600,000 have been moved to make way for a reservoir longer
than Lake Michigan behind the $25bn dam.
In the north, all three rivers feeding China's Northern Plain are
severely polluted, damaging health and limiting irrigation.
The lower reaches of the Yellow River, which feeds China's most
important farming region, run dry for at least 200 days every year.
In the north China plain, 30 cubic kilometres more water is being pumped
to the surface each year by farmers than is replaced by the rain.
As groundwater is used to produce 40% of the country's grain, experts
warn that water shortages could make the country dependent on grain
imports.
To counter this, work has begun on China's biggest ever construction
project - a massive scheme to channel billions of cubic metres of water
from the Yangtze to the replenish the dwindling Yellow River.
The River Ganges
The most sacred Hindu river, the Ganges, is suffering from depletion,
pollution and has been the source of a long-running dispute between
India and Bangladesh.
The Gangorti glacier at the head of the River Ganges is retreating at a
rate of 30 metres per year - experts blame climate change.
Deforestation in the Himalayas has caused subsoil streams flowing into
the river to dry up.
Downstream, India controls the flow to Bangladesh with the Farakka
Barrage, 10km on the Indian side of the border.
Until the late 1990s, India used the barrage to divert the river to
Calcutta to stop the city's port drying unds and mangrove forests at the
river's delta seriously threatened.
The two countries have now signed an agreement to share the water more
equally.
Water quality, however, remains a huge problem, with high levels of
arsenic and untreated sewage in the river water.
Southern Australia
Australia is the continent with the least rainfall, apart from Antarctica.
Its two largest rivers, the Murray and the Darling, have been
extensively dammed for power and irrigation, reducing flows to the sea
by three-quarters - but providing three million people and 40% of
Australia's farms with water.
Salt rising to the surface as the lower reaches of the Murray dried out
has destroyed prime agricultural land. Wetlands have shrunk, species
numbers have dropped and the Australian National Trust has declared the
whole river an "endangered area".
In the east, the Snowy River was dammed and diverted to the Murray basin
decades ago to water the country's dry interior. But the ecological
impact on the depleted river was so great that some flow was restored in
2002.
Water extraction from the Murray river was capped in 1995 and programmes
to repair some of the destruction are now under way.
---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
11) I Was Robbed Last Sunday
My Personal Reflections After the Washington DC.
Million Workers March and
the Armed Robbery Happened to Me
By: Lee Siu Hin
October 20, 2004
Last Sunday, October 17 at
D.C. I was participating at the
historical Million Workers March's
(MWM) and organized the immigrant workers tent.
After the march, around 9:50 PM
when I left the post-MWM event and walk back
to my sleeping space, at the
corner of O & 11th Street of the D.C.
neighborhood (just few blocks
away from the event). I was robbed by two
African-American youths who were
drunk and claimed to have "weapons"
on their pocket. They stole my wallet
with approx. $80.00 cash, remarkably
they didn't stole my cell phone and
I was not injured, and I immediately
used my cell phone to call the police.
I am not here to write my 30 seconds
experience of how being robbed; rather
I want to talk about why it happened.
The experience last Sunday night didn't
frightened me at all, rather I felt very sad,
because at the earlier same
day we just had a labor march to
demand justice for the working class & the
poor, and demand to hold the
corrupt corporations & government
accountable, just
few hours and less then
2 miles ways away I was robbed. How I can convince
the skeptics who caused the
problems of poor, and how
I can tell the pro-gun,
pro-death penalty advocates
that more cops and jail is not the answer? And to
assume black=criminals is
reasonable self-protection on the mean street
since I was robbed by two African-American youths?
It was ironic that I went to a poor
African American neighborhood to attend
the post MWM-anarchist event--
who organized by a group of white youths who
are not even came from the neighborhood,
I was robbed by two black teenagers
from the neighborhood, and no choice
but need to call white cops for the
help, and they didn't help me too much.
We need to ask, why this neighborhood?
Anyone living in will understand this is
the so-called the North eastern
part of the D.C., where most poor
African-American family lives. It's famous for
their impoverishment, high crime, high
unemployment rates with crack house,
street prostitute, robbery are at every
corner. While wealthy and powerful
white D.C. politicians and power
brokers working just few blocks away from the
area (The infamous F.B.I. headquarters
are just 10 blocks south at the same
11th street), they are living at the north
-western part of the city or
Maryland suburbs.
With the rapid gentrifications of the
neighborhood for the past ten years,
many white middle and upper class
are moving back to the city, forcing the
poor black families out, with the newly
build 3-blocks long Washington
Convention center had opened recently
across the street, this neighborhood
will soon become the next Dupont
circle kind of the wealthy neighborhood for the white
middle classes, with the streets are
getting "better" and "safer," the lucky
ones from the community will get
a job to work at the nearby convention
center or newly build shopping
establishments, the unlucky one will be eventually
force out from the neighborhood.
I had so many mixed feelings
about the labor and social justice
movements--When we were talking
about the workers right for the bottom
of our society, except beautiful slogans,
we still doesn't seem have able to help
anyone to win their struggles. Sadly, we
spend more time to fight within ourselves then
fight for our real enemy-the multi-national
corporations, the imperialism and
corrupt government policies. Think about
it! I was thinking about it deeply
when I was walking alone at this
neighborhood at the same moment when two
teenagers jump from the dark ally to robbed me....
It's ironic that we fight more often
within ourselves then to fight against
our true enemy-the corporations and
the government policies. Just like what
happened these days when the AFL-CIO
working with right-wing business and
CIA-funded sources to launch racists
China-bashing campaign, and mobilized the
American workers instead to held
corporations and the government policy
accountable, we blindfully blame China
is the reason who American jobs were lost.
However, beside thankful that I was
not hurt, by miracle they also dropped
my lucky half U.S. dollar coin from
my wallet, this coin had been following me
every step of my life, my work and
places I visited for the past 5 years,
included Iraq, Mexico and China, it
gives a sense of hopes that like what
Martin Luther King, Jr. said before--
our dreams will come true one of these days.
ActionLA
Action for World Liberation Everyday!
Tel: (213)403-0131
URL: http://www.ActionLA.org
e-mail: Info@ActionLA.org
Please join our ActionLA Listserv
go to: http://lists.riseup.net/www/subscribe/actionla
or send e-mail to: actionla-subscribe@lists.riseup.net
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
12) DOCUMENTARY: 'A Killing in Choctaw' tells an extraordinary
American story of murder and forgiveness
[Carl Ray's refusal to say "sir" to a white man in the deep South one summer
night in 1962 led to his father's murder by a white neighbor in 1962. He
continued his education and became a successful engineer, but was haunted by
depression and nightmares. For years no one who knew him, including his own
wife and children, knew about what had happened. But years later, after he
had given up a successful career as an engineer to become a stand-up
comedian,
Carl Ray found a way to tell about this experience through performance art
--
and now, a documentary film by Chike C. Nwoffiah called "A Killing in
Choctaw:
The Power of Forgiveness." Below: (1) An Oct. 20, 2004, *New York Times*
story on the film and Carl Ray's story; (2) a description of the original
play, from Carl Ray's web site; (3) a review of the play that appeared in a
San Jose, CA, magazine in 1999; (4) a description of the documentary, from
the
web site; (5) the press release for the documentary, dated Aug. 10, 2004;
(6)
a detailed account in an Oct. 3, 2004, *Mobile Register* (Mobile, AL) story;
(7) Carl Ray's biography; (8) booking information. --Mark]
1.
HAUNTED BY HIS FATHER'S MURDER AT THE HANDS OF A RACIST
By Carol Pogash
New York Times
October 20, 2004
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/20/movies/20kill.html
SAN JOSE, Calif. -- Amelia Ray was 22 when she sat in a darkened theater,
watching her father, Carl Ray, perform his autobiographical one-man show, "A
Killing in Choctaw." Only then did she discover that he had witnessed the
murder of his father decades before, killed because Carl had refused to say
"sir" to a white man.
After a scene in which Mr. Ray begs his dead father to rise and see him go
to
college, a friend who was at the theater that night in 1999 leaned over and
whispered: "Did you know about this?" Ms. Ray shook her head no. She
didn't
even think it was odd, she explained recently in an interview. "I guess I'd
grown accustomed to the silence."
At first it was only on stage that Mr. Ray, now 60, could give voice to his
experience. Recently that story has been made into a documentary by Chike
C.
Nwoffiah, a filmmaker and executive director of the Oriki Theater, a
nonprofit
community theater here in Silicon Valley. Called "A Killing in Choctaw: The
Power of Forgiveness," after the Alabama county where Mr. Ray was born, the
film had its premiere last month at the Montgomery Theater here. Explaining
why he was moved to make the documentary, Mr. Nwoffiah said, "It's an
important enough story that it needs to get out there."
That story began in Butler, Ala., on Sept. 6, 1962, when Carl was 18 and
preparing to leave for the Tuskegee Institute to major in engineering. With
his bags packed, he and a cousin shot off firecrackers near his house. The
echoing booms attracted their neighbor, Bill Carlisle, who pulled up in his
pickup and blasted the boys with angry questions. After Carl replied with a
series of yeses and nos, Mr. Carlisle asked if Carl didn't know that he
should
say "yes, sir" and "no, sir" to a white man.
"No," Carl said.
Mr. Carlisle knocked him to the ground and pulled out a knife. "I was
looking
straight in his eyes," Mr. Ray says in the film, remembering the moment.
"Just before he plunged the knife in my throat, he stopped." Mr. Carlisle
rose, Mr. Ray recalled, returned to his truck and drove away.
Carl went home, and with his father, George, waited. "I knew Bill was
coming.
My daddy knew Bill was coming," Mr. Ray says in the documentary.
George Ray moved his family next door to a relative's house, and then pushed
the television set onto the porch. Father and son sat outside watching
"Douglas Edwards With the News" while they waited.
Carl Ray says he remembers the crunch of the truck tires as Mr. Carlisle
arrived. After angry words and a scuffle, Mr. Carlisle cocked his .45
automatic.
In a segment of his show, which is part of the documentary, Carl Ray slowly
re-enacts the events: "Each time the bullet hit, Daddy's body would flinch.
The dust particles from his clothes began to float up and mix with the smoke
from the gun barrel. Bill continued to fire. Pop! Pop! Pop! Pop! Daddy
falls in slow motion. He takes his last breath."
"When I saw his body at the church," Mr. Ray says in the film, "reality set
in. When they took him outside and put him in the ground, I began a
nightmare
that lasted a lifetime."
For the documentary Mr. Ray returned to the Alabama courthouse where Mr.
Carlisle was tried.
"It was like a one-day circus come to town," Mr. Ray recalls as he sits on
the
witness stand retelling what happened some four decades earlier. Joe
Thompson, Mr. Carlisle's defense attorney, accused Carl Ray of murdering his
father. Mr. Ray impersonates Mr. Thompson: "You killed your daddy because
you don't know how to talk to white people! If you knew how to talk to
white
people he would still be alive. Isn't that so?"
"No, sir," Mr. Ray said.
"Damn uppity negra," Mr. Thompson said to the judge and jury.
At intervals Mr. Nwoffiah was so overcome that the camera trembles. "As a
director," he said in an interview, "you wonder at what point do you stop?
Mr. Ray always said: 'Keep going. We have to get through this.' "
Mr. Ray recalled blacks sitting upstairs in the courthouse crying as if the
trial were a funeral, while downstairs whites laughed.
The jury found Mr. Carlisle guilty of first-degree manslaughter and
sentenced
him to nine years in prison. Although the state has no record of Mr.
Carlisle's having served any time, Mr. Ray's oldest brother, Lindsey, and
Mike
Dale, a former Butler resident who knew the Carlisle family, said he had
heard
that Mr. Carlisle served less than a year.
Mr. Ray said that he has always felt responsible for his father's death, and
worried that his siblings blamed him as well. He suffered from severe
depression and nightmares. For years he told no one what had happened. He
felt "a silent scream," he said.
His wife, Brenda Hampton-Ray, learned of her husband's history 10 years ago,
when she came across an old clipping about the killing.
"He had this facade for so many years," Ms. Hampton-Ray says in the
documentary. "We really didn't know who the real husband and real father
was."
Despite his troubles, Mr. Ray graduated from Tuskegee, then began working as
an engineer at the Lockheed Corporation in California. Then this haunted
man,
who as a child had used humor to ward off bullies, decided to become a
comedian.
The documentary blends portions of his show with Mr. Ray's commentary and
interviews with others. At one point a split screen shows a thinner Mr. Ray
darting onstage, wowing a Southern California crowd with his comedy. On the
other half of the screen, Mr. Ray's old, sad eyes barely move: "You walk
back
off that stage," he says, "you walk back into that prison where all the
demons
are waiting for you."
Mr. Ray began finding his voice in 1998 when an exhibition of civil rights
photos from the Smithsonian Institution were displayed at the San Jose
Museum
of Art, and an official there who knew Mr. Ray was a comedian from Alabama
asked him to speak about the civil rights era there.
"She didn't really know what she was getting," Mr. Ray said recently. Among
those who listened was Tommy J. Fulcher Jr., president of Economic and
Social
Opportunities Inc., a nonprofit organization in the area. Mr. Fulcher told
Mr. Ray that his story was more moving than all the famous photos from the
civil rights exhibition. He made Mr. Ray an offer: Mr. Fulcher would back
a
one-man play written and acted by Mr. Ray. A year later, Mr. Ray was
telling
his story onstage.
Since then Mr. Ray has traveled the country, performing his play before
college audiences and in community theaters. Wanting to make a documentary,
he searched for the right filmmaker. He contacted Mr. Nwoffiah after seeing
his 2000 documentary about a black hospital, "A Jewel in History." With no
financing, Mr. Ray raised $150,000 himself. Amelia, one of his five
children,
wrote the accompanying music and designed the Web site, www.carlraye.com.
Mr.
Nwoffiah said he plans to submit "A Killing in Choctaw" to film festivals
and
show it at community theaters and colleges. No New York showings have been
scheduled yet.
Theaters in Choctaw County probably won't be too eager to show it though,
said
Tommy Campbell, the editor and publisher of The Choctaw Sun, who knows both
the Carlisle and Ray families. "This is not the South of the 1960's
anymore,"
he said. Residents "would just like to let it alone,'' he said.
Mr. Ray wanted to expose what happened 42 years ago, but he was not quite
ready to watch the documentary. During the premiere he stood silently in the
back of the theater, seeing snippets of his life, before fleeing outside.
2.
[The play]
A KILLING IN CHOCKTAW
Performed by: Carl Ray
Directed by: Ann Johnson
http://www.carlraye.com/story.shtml
"A Killing In Choctaw" is a one-man, two-act play written and performed by
Carl Ray. The play is about his life growing up in Alabama. In 1962, while
being questioned by a white man, Carl responded by saying "yes" and "no,"
instead of "yes sir" and "no sir," which was the customary response when
addressing white people. Carl was severely beaten for being disrespectful.
An hour later, that man went to Carl's home and shot his Father eight times
as
Carl looked on.
The play deals with the years following the tragedy, beginning with the
trial,
in which Carl was blamed for his Father's death because he did not know how
to
respect whites. It was suggested to the court that Carl be taken to the
Mississippi State Line and thrown out of the state of Alabama, and not
allowed
back until he knew how to talk to white people.
After the trial, the traumatized and guilt-ridden 18-year old was taken to
Tuskegee Institute where four faculty members spent a year counseling him
through nervous breakdowns and depression. Due to shock, Carl had shut down
and refused to talk. He remained in a zombified state. As a result of the
incident, Carl developed three different personalities. One of the
personalities was prone to blackouts and violent behavior.
Carl graduated from Tuskegee in Electrical Engineering and worked for
thirteen
years in the Aerospace Industry before pursuing a career as a stand-up
comedian. On the surface, Carl appeared to be a normal, successful
individual. After 22 years of trying to manage his secret of his Father's
death, his states of depression, guilt, and multiple personalities, Carl was
still suffering.
In 1984, Carl met a man who talked to him about the power of forgiveness.
Carl attributes the act of forgiving the man who killed his Father as saving
his life. He describes it as being the most enjoyable moment of his life --
a
day of freedom from his self-imposed prison.
In the play, Carl takes the audience through his personal agony of being
humiliated in a Jim Crow court trial to being locked in a hotel room and
being
harassed by eight members of the Klan, the night before George Wallace stood
in the door of the University of Alabama to keep black students out; he
gives
you a peek into the struggles of being a polio victim attending grade
school;
how his Father's killer became his imaginary enemy and friend; the nurturing
environment at Tuskegee Institute, his changes in careers -- from engineer
to
taxi driver to stand-up comedian -- and more.
3.
"A KILLING IN CHOCTAW": A WALK IN THE SHOES OF CARL RAY
By Joe Aytch
City Flight News (San Jose, CA)
August 1999
http://www.carlraye.com/walkinshoes.shtml
SAN JOSE -- "Why must we suffer? Why are we here? God I'm not complaining,
I'm just asking why . . ." pleads Comedian/Actor Carl ray at the end of his
one-man play "A Killing in Choctaw."
"A Killing in Choctaw" is a biography that chronicles the incredible
struggle
to success of a young Black man from Alabama after witnessing the brutal
murder of his father in 1962, and how forgiveness changed his life. This
particular young person happened to be named Carl Ray. But he or she could
have been the child of a lynching victim, or a relative of the 200 to 300
killed during the Oklahoma Race riots of 1921, or one of the people beaten
or
murdered during the Civil Rights movement.
It's a play that demonstrates the essence of African American theatre. It's
Our Story, told as only we can tell it. From Jim Crow to status quo -- it's
a
drama, and documentary. It's a horrendous family tragedy, an abject lesson
on
racism in America, and its sprinkled with the topical down-home humor that
Carl Ray is known for.
CARL RAY'S JOURNEY
Not only did 18-year old Carl witness the murder of his father -- he was
left
feeling responsible.
"All because I didn't say 'sir' to a white man," says Carl, referring to an
encounter he had with Bill Carlisle, a white neighbor, earlier that fateful
day. "Don't you know you're supposed to say sir to a white man?" demands an
angry Carlisle when Carl responded with yes or no answers to the man's
questioning on September 6, 1962.
After beating Carl to the ground for being uppity, the angry man later
followed the battered youth home. There, in front of Carl and his family,
Carlisle argued, then emptied a 45-caliber gun into the chest of George Ray.
The subsequent trial was a sham. Even so, the trial of Bill Carlisle was
considered by many to be the first time a white man was sentenced for
killing
a black man in that part of Alabama.
Attempting to put the past behind him, after attending Tuskegee Institute,
Carl went on to 13 successful years as an engineer in the aerospace
industry.
He retired in 1980 to pursue his dream of being a stand-up comic. He went
to
comedy school in San Francisco, and began touring the country performing at
colleges and comedy clubs. Eventually, he recorded an album in 1989, and
hosted "The Carl Ray Comedy Show" on cable TV. He also continued to perform
on TV and in comedy clubs throughout the country.
Carl is also a successful motivational speaker, a husband going on 20 years,
and a father of five.
Still, others know him for his very successful Black College Tour that for
12
years has taken dozens of college bound Black youth on tours of Black
Colleges.
Back in Butler, Alabama he was known as a smallish child with polio, often
referred to as that "flicted kid". A young Carl used humor to disarm school
bullies. Others may still think he's the uppity colored boy who caused the
death of his father, as he was portrayed during the trial of Bill Carlisle.
"People don't know the aftermath of the time of survival. I felt guilty
[responsible]," says Carl Ray today. "It ate away at me and did a lot of
damage. There were many years of turmoil."
THE PLAY
Last year, the San Jose Museum hosted a display of approximately 75 pictures
on loan from the Smithsonian documenting the Civil Rights Movement. Carl
Ray
and several others served as tour guides at the exhibit, sharing their
stories
before the tour in hopes of giving the pictures more meaning.
After one particular tour, Tommy Fulcher, Jr., Founder/President of the
Economic & Social Opportunity (ESO), approached Carl and suggested he do a
play based on his life. Fulcher graciously offered to assist with the
financing.
Carl sat down and began to write. Then he enlisted the aid of local
Actress/Director Ann Johnson, President of the Board of Directors for the
San
Jose Multicultural Actors Guild.
Ann, best known for her work with San Jose's Tabia African American Theatre
Ensemble, has over 15 years of directing and acting credits. "Ann knew how
to
put my story into a play form," says Carl. "The sections were broken up and
staged. She put an order to it, a flow."
Although Ann had directed five plays previously, "A Killing in Choctaw"
presented a different set of challenges. "Initially it was just one big
story," says Ann. "I had to have an understanding of what it meant to Carl,
then visualize and stage it, getting what he wanted and getting what was
good
for the audience. He really was still dealing with a lot of [emotional]
stuff
during the whole process . . . [it was] a way of working towards healing."
About the comedy portions of the play she adds, "Yes we had to show his
suffering, but we knew people would come expecting to see Carl Ray the
comedian. We used the comedy to make people comfortable."
The play may be good for the Ray family. A family still struggling to
understand why. It may be good for all to see, especially in a nation that
continues to be confounded by the destructive nature of bigotry.
Look for [a] . . . showing of "A Killing In Choctaw" . . . and prepare to
have
what promises to be one of your best theatrical experiences in years.
4.
[The documentary]
"A KILLING IN CHOCTAW"
Directed by: Chike Nwoffiah
"A Killing In Choctaw" is a documentary based on the one-man, two-act play
written and performed by Carl Ray. The play is about his life growing up in
Alabama. In 1962, while being questioned by a white man, Carl responded by
saying "yes" and "no," instead of "yes sir" and "no sir," which was the
customary response when addressing white people. Carl was severely beaten
for
being disrespectful. An hour later, that man went to Carl's home and shot
his
Father eight times as Carl looked on.
"A Killing In Choctaw" is an enthralling documentary on Ray's life and how
the
dreadful incident of 1962 defined his life and held him prisoner in his own
skin for over 20 years. Ray's compelling story comes alive under Nwoffiah's
masterful direction. Nwoffiah effectively blends narration, reenactment,
archival footage, and interviews with actual witnesses of the murder and
trial
participants. The documentary takes us back to the 1960s and sets the social
context that bred many such horrific crimes. We then follow the subsequent
trauma, depression, and denial that young Ray suffered and endured for over
20
years until he met a man in 1984 that taught him about the power of
forgiveness. Ray attributes the act of forgiving the man who killed his
Father
as saving his life. He describes it as being the most enjoyable moment of
his
life and a day of freedom from his self imposed prison.
"A Killing In Choctaw is a haunting awakening to the affects of America's
age-long racial injustice," said Nwoffiah. "It is a documentary that
celebrates the triumph of light over darkness."
Carl graduated from Tuskegee in Electrical Engineering and worked for
thirteen
years in the Aerospace Industry before pursuing a career as a stand-up
comedian. On the surface, Carl appeared to be a normal, successful
individual.
After 22 years of trying to manage his secret of his Father's death, his
states of depression, guilt, and multiple personalities, Carl was still
suffering.
1984, Carl met a man who talked to him about the power of forgiveness. Carl
attributes the act of forgiving the man who killed his Father as saving his
life. He describes it as being the most enjoyable moment of his life - a day
of freedom from his self-imposed prison.
In the court, Carl takes the audience through his personal agony of being
humiliated in a Jim Crow court trial; the nurturing environment at Tuskegee
Institute, his changes in careers - from engineer to taxi driver to stand-up
comedian - and more.
For production and distribution information, contact Chike Nwoffiah at
ChikeCN@aol.com
5.
Press Release: Art/Entertainment, Education, Features, Event Calendars
CARL RAY'S SPELLBINDING AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL MOVIE DOCUMENTARY
** Premieres September 19th at Montgomery Theater, San Jose, CA; Film
Adaptation of Ray's Critically-acclaimed Stage Production **
--Carl Ray carried scars from witnessing his father's brutal 1962 murder in
segregated Choctaw County, Alabama; a white man's retaliation for
18-year-old
Ray's having responded to the man's questioning by saying "yes" and "no"
instead of "yes, sir" and "no, sir," which were the customary responses when
addressing white people. In 1984 -- more than twenty years after the
incident
-- Ray met a man from whom he learned about the power of forgiveness.
August 10, 2004
http://www.carlraye.com/docpr.shtml
Thousands of viewers have raved about the critically acclaimed
autobiographical play by and about comedian, activist and educator Carl Ray.
Della Productions now brings a candid and soul stirring documentary
adaptation
of Ray's spellbinding play "A Killing in Choctaw" directed by award winning
filmmaker Chike Nwoffiah, co-founder and artistic director of the celebrated
Oriki Theater. While being questioned by a white man in 1962, in the small
town of Butler, Choctaw County, Alabama, an 18-year-old Ray responded by
saying "yes" and "no" instead of "yes sir" and "no sir," which was the
customary response when addressing white people. He was severely beaten for
being disrespectful. An hour later, the man went to Ray's home and shot his
father eight times as Ray looked helplessly on. "A Killing In Choctaw" will
premiere on Sunday, September 19, 2004 at Montgomery Theater, 291 So. Market
Street, San Jose, Ca. Tickets for the 4:00 p.m. premiere are $30. Tickets
may be purchased online at www.urbanevents.com or by calling 408-668-2578 or
408-259-6516.
"A Killing In Choctaw" is an enthralling documentary on Ray's life and how
the
dreadful incident of 1962 defined his life and held him prisoner in his own
skin for over 20 years. Ray's compelling story comes alive under Nwoffiah's
masterful direction. Nwoffiah effectively blends narration, reenactment,
archival footage, and interviews with actual witnesses of the murder and
trial
participants. The documentary takes us back to the 1960s and sets the
social
context that bred many such horrific crimes. We then follow the subsequent
trauma, depression, and denial that young Ray suffered and endured for over
20
years until he met a man in 1984 that taught him about the power of
forgiveness. Ray attributes the act of forgiving the man who killed his
Father as saving his life. He describes it as being the most enjoyable
moment
of his life and a day of freedom from his self-imposed prison.
"A Killing In Choctaw is a haunting awakening to the affects of America's
age-long racial injustice," said Nwoffiah. "It is a documentary that
celebrates the triumph of light over darkness."
ABOUT CARL RAY:
In 1967, Carl Ray graduated from Tuskegee Institute with a B.S. Degree in
Electrical Engineering. After graduation, he traveled to California to
begin
a career in the Aerospace Industry. Early in his career, he was sidetracked
by a yearning to perform stand-up comedy.
Carl Ray started a Youth Opportunity Program in East Palo Alto in 1968;
began
recruiting youth to attend Historically Black Colleges and Universities in
1970; then undertook sponsoring tours to the colleges. Ray continues to
host
Spring and Fall tours to Historically Black Colleges and Universities
(HBCU).
To date, he has chaperoned more than 2,000 students on HBCU tours.
In 1988, Ray, together with his wife, founded Courtland Esteem School -- a
private school in San Jose, California -- where they continue to educate
young
African American children in grades one through six.
Carl Ray has performed "A Killing in Choctaw" live nearly 100 times at
theaters, churches, colleges, museums and other venues throughout the United
States.
To learn more about Ray's fascinating biography, please visit
www.carlraye.com
###
MEDIA CONTACT: PR, et Cetera, Inc. -- Toni Beckham -- 408-499-3664 --
Toni@PRetCetera.com
6.
ALABAMIAN SPREADS MESSAGE OF FORGIVENESS WITH DOCUMENTARY
By Casandra Andrews
Mobile Register (Mobile, AL)
October 3, 2004
http://www.carlraye.com/candrews.shtml
SAN JOSE, Calif. -- Even before Carl Ray appeared on screen, his voice
reverberated through the Montgomery Theater here, mimicking the sounds of
gun
fire that repeatedly pierced his father's chest.
"Pop! Pop! Pop!" he shouted as some in the audience gasped, then grimaced at
the cruel image his words conjured. "Pop! Pop! Pop!"
Then silence.
Forty-two years ago, an 18-year-old Ray watched as his father's body was
riddled with bullets in Choctaw County because the youth hadn't addressed a
white neighbor as "sir."
After the shots rang out, witnesses said the shooter, William "Bill"
Carlisle,
lowered his .45-caliber handgun, stumbled to his truck, then drove away.
George Ray, a 62-year-old farmer, lay dying in the yard of a friend's home
near Butler.
That moment, and much of Ray's life since, has become the subject of a
documentary that premiered here in late September, thousands of miles from
the
spot where the engineer-turned-comedian-turned-actor-turned-activist grew
up.
Despite rain and unseasonably cool conditions, several hundred people packed
into the theater in Silicon Valley to see the film chronicling Ray's pain,
plight and path to forgiveness.
Speckled with comedic as well as somber moments, the autobiographical
documentary, "A Killing in Choctaw, the Power of Forgiveness," follows Ray's
life through a series of interviews with friends, family and journalists.
It
also includes clips from the one-man play, "A Killing in Choctaw," that Ray
began performing five years ago.
Now 60, he's presented the play nearly 100 times at community theaters and
college campuses across the country. The production chronicles his life
growing up in a racially divided Alabama, including his father's 1962 death
and the years he spent blaming himself for the slaying.
The play, as well as the film adaptation, details the strange set of
circumstances that led Ray to forgive the man who killed his father. The
documentary digs deeper and brings viewers into Ray's struggle for peace.
"As I was watching, I was thinking it was a personal story, but it really
does
reach out to other people," said Orpheus Crutchfield, 37, from Hercules,
Calif. "It's a horrible story, but it's a universal story."
Crutchfield, who literally sat on the edge of his seat through most of the
film, met Ray a few years back at a conference on race relations.
"I think it's going to Sundance," he said, referring to the independent film
festival in Utah started by actor Robert Redford. For Crutchfield, the
film's
message was clear: "We all think we have problems, but they can be
overcome."
Ray is living proof of that, he said.
The film opens with Ray describing his past in a monologue interspersed with
photos from his childhood.
The youngest of five children, he was born two months premature. He
contracted polio at age 4. Ray said he was known as "that 'flicted boy"
throughout his elementary school years.
Ray grew up just outside the tiny town of Butler, Ala., a spot close to
nowhere in particular, about 120 miles north of Mobile.
Fate had divided the population about evenly between black and white there,
and the state of Alabama, by custom and law, had guaranteed privilege for
only
one side.
Ray's parents, who never made it much past sixth grade, saw to it that their
children all went to college. It wasn't a subject for debate in the Ray
household.
As the youngest, Ray was the last to leave home.
On Sept. 6, 1962, a teenage Ray was packing his bags for Tuskegee Institute,
about 150 miles east in Tuskegee. He found some old fireworks in a
footlocker
as he rummaged around, he said.
In his documentary, Ray describes what happened next:
Done with his packing, Ray and a younger cousin went out to a nearby dirt
road
to light the fireworks. They weren't long without company.
Carlisle rambled up in his truck and asked them about what he thought was
gunfire. Ray explained that the loud noise was just fireworks, answering
the
man's questions with "yes" and "no."
Because Ray didn't respond with "yes, sir" and "no, sir," as was the custom
then in much of the rural South, Carlisle violently beat him, stopping just
short of cutting his throat, Ray said.
For reasons Ray still doesn't understand, the man spared his life, climbed
back in his pickup and roared away. Ray, bruised and bleeding, went home
and
told his family what happened.
About an hour later, Ray and his parents went down the road to a friend's
home
to watch the evening news. Instead of staying inside, George Ray placed the
television in the doorway and sat outside to watch.
It wasn't long before Carlisle came calling.
The white man told George Ray his son needed to leave town, explaining that
he
needed to be taught how to talk to white folks. The elder Ray said his son
was leaving for college in just a few days.
George Ray's words only seemed to enrage Carlisle.
The white man slammed his pistol into George Ray's head more than once.
Bleeding, the black man fell into a flower bed.
Trying to protect his father, Ray picked up an empty glass bottle and
shattered it against Carlisle's head. That's when the white man began
firing
his weapon at George Ray.
Originally charged with the murder of George Ray, Carlisle was convicted of
manslaughter in 1963 in circuit court in Butler, and sentenced to nine
years.
All of the jurors were white. Ray thinks the case marked the first time a
white man was sent to jail for killing a black man in Choctaw County.
Nine years later, Carlisle, who by then was out of jail, was shot in the
chest
and killed by his father-in-law in during an argument in 1973, according to
a
news story in the *Choctaw Advocate*, a weekly newspaper.
Two years ago, while filming the movie about his life, Ray walked up the
worn
steps inside the Choctaw County Courthouse, then took a seat in the wooden
witness box where he'd been questioned some 40 years earlier.
It wasn't long before the past became the present.
"I'm sitting here and he's ripping me apart," Ray recalled in the film of
the
day he testified in Carlisle's trial. As the camera moved in closer, Ray
looked down, then wiped at his cheeks.
Many in the audience at the film premiere did the same.
"I'd never seen so much hatred," Ray said, looking into the camera again
after
a few moments, then gesturing to where the all-white spectators sat on the
first floor of the courtroom. "It was like, how could somebody hate like
that? I'll never understand. It was just a sea of hate."
His older brother, Lindsey, who lives in Montgomery, said the treatment Ray
received at the trial was "a lynching without a rope" in the documentary.
Ray said Carlisle's attorney, who is now deceased, blamed him for his
father's
death. "In my mind I had subconsciously accepted that fact," he said of the
way he held himself responsible for the killing.
Bracing for Carlisle's trial and staying in school proved difficult. After
dropping out of Tuskegee, Ray eventually went back to college. Before
leaving
Alabama in 1967, he had a bachelor's degree from Tuskegee and a job in
engineering in San Jose.
But comedy tugged at him, even with a wife and five children to support. He
broke into the comedy scene at northern California clubs in the late 1970s.
By 1984, he was in Los Angeles, working comedy stints and driving a cab for
the money and because he liked being around people.
One day he picked up a man in Hollywood and dropped him off at the airport.
About a week later, he got a call to pick up someone at a hotel. It was the
same man, country songwriter Wil Hinkson. Within weeks, he found himself
driving Hinkson for a third time. The cabbie and his paying rider were
amazed
at the coincidences.
As they talked during their third meeting, a news item on the radio sparked
a
solemn turn in their conversation. Out of the blue, Ray said, the
songwriter
started talking about forgiveness. Ray offered bits of his own life story,
explaining his lingering anger.
The white man told Ray to simply forgive Carlisle.
It was then, Ray said, that he stated he forgave Carlisle, if for no other
reason than to silence Hinkson. "After I said the words," Ray says in the
film, "it was as if I had been instantly moved from one planet to another
planet."
While much of the anger and pain had vanished, Ray says in the film he was
still left with emotional scars: "There's no such thing as closure. You
get
to different levels of peace."
After more than two years of performing the story of his life for audiences
around the country, the play's subject matter was taking its toll.
Ray said that 2001 was one of the toughest years he's ever endured,
comparing
the time period to when he first started college just after his father's
death.
Things got so bad that his wife, Brenda, tried to make him stop performing
the
one-man show. "I felt like if I didn't do the play, Bill would win," Ray
said. "I'd been in a battle with him all my life."
Eventually, he sought help from a psychologist.
"The forgiveness part freed me," Ray said, "but it didn't get rid of my
depression. I forgave Bill for killing my father but I still had my own
guilt
and I was trapped. The hardest part to do was to forgive myself."
A few years back, looking to elevate his play to another level, Ray went in
search of a director. After attending a film festival in California, he met
filmmaker Chike Nowffiah, who had recently completed a documentary about the
closure of black hospitals in America.
The two hit it off.
As producer of the documentary, Ray spent more than two years working with
Nowffiah to make the 90-minute adaptation.
Ray accompanied the director and a film crew to Alabama several times,
interviewing those who lent perspective to the production, including Choctaw
County residents, his guidance counselor at Tuskegee and some of his
siblings.
Ray sold shares in the production as a way to maintain control over the
finished product.
Another Alabama resident who took part in the film was Hollis Curl, a former
newspaper reporter in Choctaw County who arrived on the scene of the
shooting
shortly after it happened. Curl, who is white, was interviewed at length in
the film about what he saw that day and his feelings about segregation.
"I thought the races were getting along pretty good," Curl says in the film.
"I thought that separate but equal worked for me."
The term "separate but equal" meant that blacks didn't eat in the same
restaurant dining rooms as whites, didn't use the same bathrooms, didn't
share
the same schools.
Ray's plan is to enter the project at various film festivals across the
country. He also is working to market a shorter version of the documentary
to
cable television companies and universities. Ray said he would like to tour
with the film, much like he has done with the play, introducing audiences to
his life story and path to forgiveness.
Mike Dale, a former Choctaw County resident who went to high school in
Butler
during the turbulent 1960s, knew one of Carlisle's sons.
"I think it's good to remember all this stuff," said Dale, who now lives in
Michigan and attended the film premiere. "The world's a better place than
it
was in Choctaw County in 1964. It's a better place and people are better
than
they were."
In the Montgomery Theater's lobby in San Jose, famous black-and-white images
from the South's segregated past sat on large easels for the premiere. News
photographs of Ku Klux Klansmen, a burning cross and a group crossing a
bridge
in Selma set the scene for Ray's documentary.
Inside the 500-seat arena, blacks and whites sat side by side to see the
film.
Rick Callender, president of the San JosSilicon Valley branch of the NAACP,
addressed the audience before the presentation. "It's not only the story of
one man," Callender said. "It is our collective story. It's the story of
our
strength."
After a standing ovation at the end of the film, a beaming Ray took the
stage,
chest out and thumbs through his belt loops.
He was ready to answer questions.
There were many.
People who traveled from as far away as Michigan and Mississippi wanted to
know more about the man who shot his father. They wanted to know what
became
of the lawyer who blamed Ray for his father's death. They also wanted to
reassure him that the shooting wasn't his fault.
"If white America could change places with you, what do you think they would
have learned?" someone eventually asked.
Ray's answer was immediate.
"It's hell being a black man in America," he said.
"Should we forget?" a man from the balcony wondered aloud.
Ray, along with others in the audience, responded almost in unison: "We
should forgive but we should never forget."
It's the kind of dialogue Ray hopes to spark in communities across the
country.
"We have to share our problems," he said. "We have to talk to each other."
7.
[Carl Ray's biography]
http://www.carlraye.com/bio2.shtml
In 1967, Carl graduated from Tuskegee Institute with a B.S. Degree in
Electrical Engineering. After graduation he traveled to California to begin
a
career in the Aerospace Industry. During the morning commutes, he listened
to
comedians on the "Freeway Funnies" morning show and enjoyed it immensely.
After hearing a commercial for a comedy school, he enrolled in a comedy
class
in San Francisco.
After two years of honing his comedy skills in comedy clubs in the Bay Area
clubs, Carl left his engineering career for comedy, and headed to Hollywood.
Upon arriving in Hollywood, Carl found himself competing with hundreds of
aspiring entertainers searching for part-time employment to support their
dreams. Thus, Carl became a taxi driver with Celebrity Cabs.
His dream began to materialize, and four years later he was working in
comedy
clubs throughout the country. In 1989, he was host and producer of his own
cable television show, "The Carl Raye Comedy Show." In 1990, while working
the college circuit, Carl discovered he had a talent for public speaking.
He
added motivational speaking to his resumé. It was a motivational speaking
engagement that led him to performing the one-man play about his life.
After speaking at the San Jose Museum of Art about his life and the Civil
Rights Movement, he was approached by one of the guests in the audience.
The
guest shared a vision that entered his mind while Carl was speaking. The
vision was a one-man play about Carl's experiences. Carl was made an offer
he
couldn't refuse. If he would agree to perform his life story, the guest
would
finance the production. That was the birth of the play, "A Killing In
Choctaw."
8.
[Booking information]
FOR BOOKINGS CONTACT:
Della Productions
Dellap44@aol.com
408.206.1768 - phone
408.259.6516 - phone/fax
---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
13) Dear Readers
Here is the digest for October 21, 2004
1-Two killed in the northern Gaza Strip, another dies
of wounds sustained on Wednesday
2-231 Palestinians, including 88 children, killed in
Khan Younis in four year
1- Two killed in the northern Gaza Strip, another dies of wounds
sustained on Wednesday
Saed Bannoura -IMEMC & Agencies, October 21, 2004
An Israeli military source claimed that two residents were shot dead
overnight near Nahal Oz settlement in the Gaza Strip, in addition to
another resident who died of wounds sustained on Wednesday in
Jabalia refuge camp.
The source claimed that soldiers spotted two activists crawling
towards a restricted zone, near the border fence, under cover of
fog, and shot them dead, suspecting that they intended to carry out
shootings in settlement blocs near the fence.
Meanwhile, Dr. Moaweya Hassanein, head of the Emergency Unit in the
Ministry of Health, said that Mohammad Zaki Abu Hliyyil, 31 years
old, died of critical wounds sustained on Wednesday, after soldiers
fired several shells at a number of homes in Jabalia refugee camp
killing four residents and wounding four others.
The Army continued its military operations in several areas in the
Gaza Strip despite their claims that 'Operation Days of Penitence'
had officially ended. Soldiers shelled several areas in the Gaza
Strip especially in Jabalia refugee camp, in the north, and Rafah in
the south of the Gaza Strip.
On Wednesday, soldiers shot dead a youth near Salah Ad-Deen Street,
in Rafah, in the south of the Gaza Strip, after claiming that two
men had attempted to place an explosive charge near the Egyptian
Borders.
According to the army, a third activist managed to escape.
Moreover, also on Wednesday, in Rafah, in the south of the Gaza
Strip, soldiers fired several shells at homes in Tal Zo'rob area,
south of Rafah, in the south of the Gaza Strip killing one youth and
causing damages to tens of homes, in addition to raiding Beit
Hanoun, in the north of the Gaza Strip, and firing several shells
causing large scale damages on Wednesday at dawn.
In addition, UNRWA said on Tuesday, that the number of homes
demolished in the latest military operation in Jabalia refugee camp,
in the north of the Gaza Strip, exceeded 90 homes. more than 140
residents were killed, 30 among them children, and approximately 400
residents were wounded.
2- 231 Palestinians, including 88 children, killed in Khan Younis in
four years
Saed Bannoura -IMEMC & Agencies, October 21, 2004, 14:12
The Public Relations Office at Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis
revealed that soldiers killed more than 231 Palestinians, mainly
children and women, in Khan Younis, since the outbreak of Al-Aqsa
Intifada, in September 30, 2000.
The office said in a report published on Thursday that soldiers
killed 321 Palestinians from Khan Younis in four years, in addition
to hundreds of residents who sustained different kinds of injuries
among the residents including children and elderly.
The published report revealed that more the 88 children were killed,
199 under the age of 39, and 34 residents between the ages of 40-70.
Moreover, the number of wounded residents exceeded 413 residents;
most of them sustained moderate and critical wounds; most of the
injuries were to the head and upper parts of the body.
The report of the Hospital revealed that 1701 Palestinians were
admitted to surgery in several branches of the hospital, and that
soldiers shot wounded four medics, three ambulance drivers, and
three administrators, in addition to destroying three ambulances
which belongs to the hospital.
It is worth mentioning that soldiers lately increased the military
attacks and violations against the medical teams, and shelled the
hospital causing damages in the reception Desk, Physiotherapy
Section, Surgery Branch, Kidney Section, in addition to other
branches in the hospital.
The damages were estimated with more than one million Dollars.
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---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
14) Return of the Class Struggle: Hotel Workers National
Battle, One We Can't Afford to Lose
By Gene Pepi
craigslist.org/cgi-bin/search?areaID=1&subAreaID=1&query=san+francisco&cat=o
ff&minAsk=500&maxAsk=1000&minSqft=600&neighborhood=
On September 29, 2004, 1400 San Francisco hotel workers (members of
UNITE-HERE Local 2) hit the streets at four of fourteen major San Francisco
hotels for a two-week strike. Two days later, the other ten hotels in the
San Francisco Major Employers Group (SFMEG-who bargain together
against UNITE-HERE Local 2) responded by locking out the other 2600
San Francisco UNITE-HERE members covered under the SFMEG contract.
A week earlier, Local 2 members had authorized a strike by a 97% vote
of more than 3000 members. As of September 23, 2004, in cities across
the US, over 14,000 hotel and casino workers had passed resolutions to
authorize strikes by margins and numbers similar to those in San Francisco.
And on October 1, 2004, 10,000 union casino workers in Atlantic City,
New Jersey, struck with massive picket lines against seven of the twelve
major Atlantic City casinos. This is the start of a new wave of class
struggle, one we should win.
Hotel union labor contracts began to expire last June for 2800 Los
Angeles workers and in August for San Francisco hotel workers.
Contracts have expired for casino workers at the 12 major Atlantic
City gaming palaces, 12 major hotels in Washington, DC and on the
casino boats and casino facilities in cities of Indiana: Gary, Michigan
City and East Chicago.
Across the country in every hotel, casino, and union restaurant UNITE-
HERE members face similar issues. The bean counters at the hotel,
restaurant and gambling conglomerates want workers to pick up the
increased costs of healthcare for their families and retirees, to hold
the line on pension contributions, and to accept increased workloads
without increases in wages.
They absolutely do not want to have major hotel contracts expire in
2006, the common expiration date that UNITE-HERE members and
leaders are fighting for.
The 2006 expiration date would align the contract negotiations
for somewhere near 50,000 to 70,000 hotel workers from New York
City, up and down the East Coast, through Chicago and the Midwest,
up and down the West Coast, and across the Pacific Ocean to Hawaii.
It also reflects the merger of the unions that now make up UNITE-
HERE, possible changes in the leadership of the AFL-CIO union
confederation and the massive restructuring and consolidation of
the hotel, restaurant and gambling industries as represented by
the conglomerates that own, run and franchise what is now a multi-
billion dollar industry. The hotel and casino conglomerates adamantly
oppose the 2006 common contract expiration date, as reflected in
the San Francisco lockout and "bad-faith bargaining" legal action
by SFMEG taken against UNITE-HERE Local 2.
Merger Mania
On July 8, 2004, two existing AFL-CIO affiliated unions merged to
form UNITE-HERE. They were the Union of Needletrades, Textiles
and Industrial Employees (UNITE) and the Hotel Employees and
Restaurant Employees International Union (HERE).
The combined unions now number almost 500,000 active members
and 400,000 retirees throughout North America. More than half of
the current active members are women and the combined union has
organized more than 100,000 new workers in the last five years.
Three things preceded this union merger. UNITE itself was created
by the merger of two unions: the International Ladies Garment
Workers Union (ILGWU) and the Amalgamated Clothing and Textile
Workers Union (ACTWU), both famous for their struggles in textile
manufacturing and US politics. However in the years since the 1950s,
the two unions have lost a combined total of 850,000 members, as
clothing and textile manufacturing jobs were exported from the US.
By 2004 their combined membership totaled only 180,000.
The Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees International Union
(HERE) was originally formed in the 1890s. Its membership peaked
in the 1980s. Just before September 11th, 2001 its membership was
272,000. Following the 2001 terrorist attacks union membership
dropped to 180,000, as much of the tourism industry collapsed.
The collapse was aggravated by the bursting of the 1990s economic
bubble. However by 2004 HERE membership had grown again to 260,000.
To support its call for the 2006 expiration date, UNITE-HERE points
out that in the last two decades, hotel lodging companies have
undergone a major consolidation. Hotels that used to be locally
owned are now parts of huge transnational corporations.
According to information provided by the union, 75% of UNITE-
HERE Local 2 workers in San Francisco are employed by national
chains (like Hilton, Hyatt, InterContinental, Marriott and Starwood).
These 5 transnational conglomerates together run 60% of San Francisco
hotels. Local companies run only 5% of San Francisco hotels.
The largest conglomerate, InterContinental, owns or franchises
3500 hotels in 100 countries and in San Francisco operates the
Mark Hopkins hotel and others. In 2003 InterContinental reported
an operating profit of more than one-half billion dollars.
In a like manner, in 2003 the Hilton Corporation reported over
$160 million profits on $4 billion in revenues, Marriott reported
$500 million profits on $9 billion in revenues, and Starwood reported
over $309 million profits on $3.8 billion in revenues.
Power in 2006
On Friday, August 13th, Hyatt Chicago Regency hotel workers
marched into management offices wearing their new red and black
"2004 Unity, 2006 Power" buttons. They presented managers with
a 500-signature petition. Five workers were sent home for wearing
the "2004 Unity, 2006 Power" buttons.
On Saturday, August 14th, in the face of 1400 guest check-outs,
82 button wearing hotel workers, including the main kitchen crew
and the main luncheon banquet server crew, were sent home when
they refused to remove their "2004 Unity, 2006 Power" buttons.
Food service at the hotel all but collapsed.
Management had to scramble to serve food buffet style and serve
a VIP luncheon using managers and other hotel staff. On Sunday
Hyatt Regency hotel managers asked UNITE-HERE Local 1 hotel
workers to come back to work and said that it was OK to wear the
"2004 Unity, 2006 Power" buttons.
"We sent a message to the hotels in Chicago and the giant
corporations that run them that this is a national fight and
we are ready for it," Francine Jones, a Hyatt Chicago Room
Attendant said.
UNITE- HERE Local 2 Vice-president Lamoin Werlein-Jean, told
San Francisco news-media reporters that, "We're fighting to build
a national movement to unite our brother and sister hotel workers
across the country so we may be able to negotiate with more
balance with these multinational hotel corporations."
Ignacio Ruiz, a food server at the Los Angeles Century Plaza, told
an LA reporter that hotel workers had learned from the super-market
strike that they need national coordination to win these battles against
international hotel chains.
UNITE- HERE Local 2 President Mike Casey told us that UNITE- HERE
is trying to avoid the problems that UFCW grocery workers in Southern
California had with their contracts. Casey also said they are trying to
connect with Northern California UFCW Grocery workers and SEIU-
represented hospital workers, who face similar issues in their
contracts that are expiring and are being negotiated now.
Post 911 Recovery
The tourism industry suffered an economic blow immediately
following the 911 terrorist attacks. That was on top of the economic
downturn already taking place. In San Francisco, about one third of
union hotel workers were laid off and many of the rest had their work
hours reduced. However in the last year, the industry has been
experiencing a recovery to levels at or above those of 2001,
particularly in San Francisco and New York.
In Washington, D.C. both room occupancy and rates have increased
in the last year. The Washington Post, reported on September 3, 2004
that Smith Travel Research Inc. states that area hotels reported revenue
per room to be up from $75.77 in 2003 to $86.45 in 2004, over
a similar time period.
This figure is also higher than the same period preceding the
terrorist attacks in 2001. However employment levels in the
hotels have not kept pace with increased workloads. Fewer
workers are now doing more work than they did in 2001.
As Mike Casey, President of UNITE- HERE Local 2 puts it, "We
won't allow the hotels to balance their books on our backs ..."
In San Francisco (and around the country), UNITE-HERE Local 2
is also fighting to defend immigrant workers, arguing that employers
should join the union in the fight to change US immigration laws.
UNITE-HERE unions are also proposing to increase the hiring rates
of black workers, which are underrepresented in the hotel work
force. UNITE-HERE Local 2 also has endorsed San Francisco Ballot
Initiative F, which would allow non-citizens, with children in public
schools, to vote in school board elections.
The contracts expiring in San Francisco affect other San Francisco
hotels, where contracts will expire soon. Which is why we see SFMEG
(and all other hotel employers across the country) proposing
increased employee contributions to health insurance costs,
meager wage proposals, inadequate pension contributions, and
finally, more than anything else, opposition to the 2006 contract
expiration date. In fact the fight for the 2006 expiration date is
the main reason that negotiations broke down and that UNITE-
HERE Local 2 called the strike.
In every hotel across the country, if their regular employees strike
or employers lock union workers out, hotel managers and executives
say they will keep their hotels open. It remains to be seen if they can
do this if union workers put up the fight necessary to shut down the
hotels despite the use of strikebreakers.
Words are cheap. What the striking workers need is massive solidarity.
The AFL-CIO and all local Labor Councils and individual unions must
help the Hotel Workers with money, food and, more importantly, labor
actions such as boycotts of hotel chains and massive support for picket
lines. Supporters must enforce the premise that picket lines are not to
be crossed.
Politicians, especially those running for office, should be put on the spot
and in the spotlight. They must speak out in favor of the mostly
immigrant strikers and avoid the trap of "mediating" in favor of the
hotel owners-as San Francisco's Mayor Gavin Newsom has hinted at doing.
On September 29, 2004, 1400 San Francisco hotel workers (members of
UNITE-HERE Local 2) hit the streets at four of fourteen major San Francisco
hotels for a two-week strike. Two days later, the other ten hotels in the
San Francisco Major Employers Group (SFMEG-who bargain together
against UNITE-HERE Local 2) responded by locking out the other 2600
San Francisco UNITE-HERE members covered under the SFMEG contract.
A week earlier, Local 2 members had authorized a strike by a 97% vote
of more than 3000 members. As of September 23, 2004, in cities across
the US, over 14,000 hotel and casino workers had passed resolutions
to authorize strikes by margins and numbers similar to those in San
Francisco. And on October 1, 2004, 10,000 union casino workers in
Atlantic City, New Jersey, struck with massive picket lines against seven
of the twelve major Atlantic City casinos. This is the start of a new wave
of class struggle, one we should win.
Hotel union labor contracts began to expire last June for 2800 Los
Angeles workers and in August for San Francisco hotel workers.
Contracts have expired for casino workers at the 12 major Atlantic
City gaming palaces, 12 major hotels in Washington, DC and on the
casino boats and casino facilities in cities of Indiana: Gary, Michigan
City and East Chicago.
Across the country in every hotel, casino, and union restaurant UNITE-
HERE members face similar issues. The bean counters at the hotel,
restaurant and gambling conglomerates want workers to pick up the
increased costs of healthcare for their families and retirees, to hold
the line on pension contributions, and to accept increased workloads
without increases in wages.
They absolutely do not want to have major hotel contracts expire in
2006, the common expiration date that UNITE-HERE members and
leaders are fighting for.
The 2006 expiration date would align the contract negotiations for
somewhere near 50,000 to 70,000 hotel workers from New York City,
up and down the East Coast, through Chicago and the Midwest, up
and down the West Coast, and across the Pacific Ocean to Hawaii.
It also reflects the merger of the unions that now make up UNITE-HERE,
possible changes in the leadership of the AFL-CIO union confederation
and the massive restructuring and consolidation of the hotel, restaurant
and gambling industries as represented by the conglomerates that own,
run and franchise what is now a multi-billion dollar industry. The hotel
and casino conglomerates adamantly oppose the 2006 common contract
expiration date, as reflected in the San Francisco lockout and "bad-faith
bargaining" legal action by SFMEG taken against UNITE-HERE Local 2.
Merger Mania
On July 8, 2004, two existing AFL-CIO affiliated unions merged to
form UNITE-HERE. They were the Union of Needletrades, Textiles
and Industrial Employees (UNITE) and the Hotel Employees and
Restaurant Employees International Union (HERE).
The combined unions now number almost 500,000 active members
and 400,000 retirees throughout North America. More than half of
the current active members are women and the combined union has
organized more than 100,000 new workers in the last five years.
Three things preceded this union merger. UNITE itself was created
by the merger of two unions: the International Ladies Garment Workers
Union (ILGWU) and the Amalgamated Clothing and Textile Workers
Union (ACTWU), both famous for their struggles in textile manufacturing
and US politics. However in the years since the 1950s, the two unions
have lost a combined total of 850,000 members, as clothing and textile
manufacturing jobs were exported from the US. By 2004 their combined
membership totaled only 180,000.
The Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees International Union
(HERE) was originally formed in the 1890s. Its membership peaked in
the 1980s. Just before September 11th, 2001 its membership was
272,000. Following the 2001 terrorist attacks union membership
dropped to 180,000, as much of the tourism industry collapsed.
The collapse was aggravated by the bursting of the 1990s economic
bubble. However by 2004 HERE membership had grown again to
260,000.
To support its call for the 2006 expiration date, UNITE-HERE points
out that in the last two decades, hotel lodging companies have
undergone a major consolidation. Hotels that used to be locally
owned are now parts of huge transnational corporations.
According to information provided by the union, 75% of UNITE-HERE
Local 2 workers in San Francisco are employed by national chains
(like Hilton, Hyatt, InterContinental, Marriott and Starwood). These
5 transnational conglomerates together run 60% of San Francisco
hotels. Local companies run only 5% of San Francisco hotels.
The largest conglomerate, InterContinental, owns or franchises
3500 hotels in 100 countries and in San Francisco operates the
Mark Hopkins hotel and others. In 2003 InterContinental reported
an operating profit of more than one-half billion dollars.
In a like manner, in 2003 the Hilton Corporation reported over
$160 million profits on $4 billion in revenues, Marriott reported
$500 million profits on $9 billion in revenues, and Starwood
reported over $309 million profits on $3.8 billion in revenues.
Power in 2006
On Friday, August 13th, Hyatt Chicago Regency hotel workers
marched into management offices wearing their new red and
black "2004 Unity, 2006 Power" buttons. They presented managers
with a 500-signature petition. Five workers were sent home for
wearing the "2004 Unity, 2006 Power" buttons.
On Saturday, August 14th, in the face of 1400 guest check-outs,
82 button wearing hotel workers, including the main kitchen crew
and the main luncheon banquet server crew, were sent home when
they refused to remove their "2004 Unity, 2006 Power" buttons.
Food service at the hotel all but collapsed.
Management had to scramble to serve food buffet style and serve
a VIP luncheon using managers and other hotel staff. On Sunday
Hyatt Regency hotel managers asked UNITE-HERE Local 1 hotel
workers to come back to work and said that it was OK to wear the
"2004 Unity, 2006 Power" buttons.
"We sent a message to the hotels in Chicago and the giant corporations
that run them that this is a national fight and we are ready for it,"
Francine Jones, a Hyatt Chicago Room Attendant said.
UNITE- HERE Local 2 Vice-president Lamoin Werlein-Jean, told San
Francisco news-media reporters that, "We're fighting to build
a national movement to unite our brother and sister hotel workers
across the country so we may be able to negotiate with more
balance with these multinational hotel corporations."
Ignacio Ruiz, a food server at the Los Angeles Century Plaza,
told an LA reporter that hotel workers had learned from the
super-market strike that they need national coordination to win
these battles against international hotel chains.
UNITE- HERE Local 2 President Mike Casey told us that
UNITE- HERE is trying to avoid the problems that UFCW grocery
workers in Southern California had with their contracts. Casey
also said they are trying to connect with Northern California UFCW
Grocery workers and SEIU-represented hospital workers, who face
similar issues in their contracts that are expiring and are being
negotiated now.
Post 911 Recovery
The tourism industry suffered an economic blow immediately
following the 911 terrorist attacks. That was on top of the
economic downturn already taking place. In San Francisco,
about one third of union hotel workers were laid off and many
of the rest had their work hours reduced. However in the last year,
the industry has been experiencing a recovery to levels at or above
those of 2001, particularly in San Francisco and New York.
In Washington, D.C. both room occupancy and rates have increased
in the last year. The Washington Post, reported on September 3, 2004
that Smith Travel Research Inc. states that area hotels reported
revenue per room to be up from $75.77 in 2003 to $86.45 in 2004,
over a similar time period.
This figure is also higher than the same period preceding the terrorist
attacks in 2001. However employment levels in the hotels have not
kept pace with increased workloads. Fewer workers are now doing
more work than they did in 2001.
As Mike Casey, President of UNITE- HERE Local 2 puts it, "We won't
allow the hotels to balance their books on our backs ..."
In San Francisco (and around the country), UNITE-HERE Local 2 is also
fighting to defend immigrant workers, arguing that employers should
join the union in the fight to change US immigration laws. UNITE-HERE
unions are also proposing to increase the hiring rates of black workers,
which are underrepresented in the hotel work force. UNITE-HERE Local 2
also has endorsed San Francisco Ballot Initiative F, which would allow
non-citizens, with children in public schools, to vote in school board
elections.
The contracts expiring in San Francisco affect other San Francisco hotels,
where contracts will expire soon. Which is why we see SFMEG (and all
other hotel employers across the country) proposing increased employee
contributions to health insurance costs, meager wage proposals,
inadequate pension contributions, and finally, more than anything
else, opposition to the 2006 contract expiration date. In fact the fight
for the 2006 expiration date is the main reason that negotiations broke
down and that UNITE-HERE Local 2 called the strike.
In every hotel across the country, if their regular employees strike or
employers lock union workers out, hotel managers and executives say
they will keep their hotels open. It remains to be seen if they can do this
if union workers put up the fight necessary to shut down the hotels
despite the use of strikebreakers.
Words are cheap. What the striking workers need is massive solidarity.
The AFL-CIO and all local Labor Councils and individual unions must help
the Hotel Workers with money, food and, more importantly, labor actions
such as boycotts of hotel chains and massive support for picket lines.
Supporters must enforce the premise that picket lines are not to be
crossed.
Politicians, especially those running for office, should be put on the spot
and in the spotlight. They must speak out in favor of the mostly immigrant
strikers and avoid the trap of "mediating" in favor of the hotel owners-as
San Francisco's Mayor Gavin Newsom has hinted at doing.
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