BAUAW NEWSLETTER-FRIDAY, OCTOBER 29, 2004

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ANTI-WAR MARCH AND RALLY
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
ASSEMBLE AT POWELL AND MARKET-
MARCH TO 24TH & MISSION ST., S.F.
END THE OCCUPATION - OUT OF IRAQ NOW!
No matter who is elected, we say no to war and repression!

On November 3rd we will still be against the unjust war and
occupation, the police state restrictions of the Patriot Acts,
and the continuing attacks on our immigrant communities.

Bring flashlights, drums, and noisemakers. Permitted event
featuring the Loco Bloco Drum and Dance Ensemble.

Event initiated by Not in Our Name, and endorsed by Siafu,
Middle East Children's Alliance, Veterans for Peace-SF,
International ANSWER-SF, American Muslim Voice, Nor Cal RAWA
Supporters, American Friends Service Committee-SF, Bay Area
United Against War, CodePink, Central Committee for
Conscientious Objectors, Korean Americans United for Peace,
Blue Triangle Network, Socialist Action, Queers for Peace and
Justice, Jewish Voice for Peace, Lake Merritt Neighbors
Organized for Peace, International Socialist Organization,
Refuse & Resist!, Act Up East Bay, Korea Solidarity Committee,
War Resisters League-West, South Bay Mobilization to Stop the
War, East Bay Food Not Bombs, Alameda Peace Network, Bay Area
Radical Women, Peninsula Peace and Justice Center, and United
for Peace and Justice-Bay Area.

Rock the boat - not just the vote!

For more info: http://bayarea.notinourname.net Or call 510-601-8000

| Also on Nov. 3: "Health Care NOT Warfare!"
| 9 AM gathering at Justin Herman Plaza, SF
| followed by march to the Fed Bldg for a
| noon rally. Sponsored by Beyond Voting,
| Code Blue, and Direct Action to Stop the War.
| For more info: http://www.actagainstwar.org

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NEXT BAUAW MEETING:
TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 9TH, 7:00 P.M.
1380 VALENCIA STREET
(BETWEEN 24TH & 25TH STREETS)

We will be tabling on 24th Street in front of the Farmers
Market beginning at Noon this Saturday, Oct. 30th. Come help
hand out posters, buttons and flyers for Yes on N and the
Nov. 3rd march and rally against the war.

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1) Will there be a War Against the World after November 2?
By John Pilger
http://207.44.245.159/article7167.htm

2) U.S. Forces Prepare to Attack Falluja and Ramadi
By Michael Georgy
NEAR FALLUJA, Iraq (Reuters)
Fri Oct 29, 2004 08:23 AM ET
http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=topNews&storyID=6659827&src=eD
ialog/GetContent§ion=news

3) At Least 100,000 Dead in Iraq
U.S. War is a Blood Bath for the Iraqi People
Pledge to Take Action to End the War

4) THE ROOTS & OUR LYRICAL WARRIORS!
Mumia Under Attack .... Again!
By Sis. Marpessa Kupendua (10/04)

5) Marijuana Arrests at All-Time High,
Far Exceed Violent Crime Arrests 10/29/04
http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/360/arrests.shtml

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1) Will there be a War Against the World after November 2?
By John Pilger
http://207.44.245.159/article7167.htm


10/28/04 -- There is a surreal quality about visiting the United
States in the last days of the presidential campaign. If George W Bush
wins, according to a scientist I met who escaped Nazi-dominated
Europe, America will surrender many of its democratic trappings and
succumb to its totalitarian impulses. If John Kerry wins, according
to most Democrat voters, the only mandate he will have is that he
is not Bush.

Never have so many liberal hands been wrung over a candidate
whose only memorable statements seek to out-Bush Bush. Take Iran.
One of Kerry's national security advisers, Susan Rice, has accused Bush
of 'standing on the sidelines while Iran's nuclear programme has been
advanced'. There is not a shred of evidence that Iran is developing
nuclear weapons, yet Kerry is joining in the same orchestrated frenzy
that led to the invasion of Iraq. Having begun his campaign by
promising another 40,000 troops for Iraq, he is said to have a 'secret
plan to end the war' which foresees a withdrawal in four years. This is
an echo of Richard Nixon, who in the 1968 presidential campaign
promised a 'secret plan' to end the war in Vietnam.


The statement that Nixon in 1968 "promised a 'secret plan' to end the
war in Vietnam" fails to correct the myth that US popular opposition to
the war against Vietnam developed gradually until, finally, it reached
a critical mass that ended the war. The truth is that opposition (albeit
divided generationally and, later, by class) was widespread and intense,
from the outset of public knowledge of what was happening. It reached
its greatest breadth and intensity in 1968 when, magnified and multiplied
by assassinations, uprisings, and the foretaste of a police state witnessed
in Chicago, it added considerably to the determining pressure of the
Vietnamese, forcing the US govt. to Paris to treat for peace. Then Nixon,
with Kissinger who was numbered among the negotiators, committed
treason, undermining those negotiations (as Johnson knew, although
he said nothing, making him an accomplice), ongoing during the
tumultuous 1968 presidential campaign. The price of this treasonous
conspiracy was the prolongation for the six and a half years Pilger
mentions below, six and a half years beyond when popular opposition,
here and throughout the world, and astonishing Vietnamese resistance,
had truly won the peace. During that artificial extension of a criminal
war, most (and I believe worst) casualties occurred (the average age for
US casualties was 19). Would that extension have been conceivable
without media (and personal) self-censorship? -- BD


Once in office, Nixon accelerated the slaughter and the war dragged
on for six and a half more years. For Kerry, like Nixon, the message is
that he is not a wimp. Nothing in his campaign or his career suggests
he will not continue, even escalate, the 'war on terror', which is now
sanctified as a crusade of Americanism like that against communism.
No Democratic president has shirked such a task: John Kennedy on
the cold war, Lyndon Johnson on Vietnam.

This presents great danger for all of us, but none of it is allowed to
intrude upon the campaign or the media 'coverage'. In a supposedly
free and open society, the degree of censorship by omission is staggering.
The New York Times, the country's liberal standard-bearer, having
recovered from a mild bout of contrition over its abject failure to
challenge Bush's lies about Iraq, has been running tombstones of
column-inches about what-went-wrong in the 'liberation' of that
country.

It blames mistakes: tactical oversights, faulty intelligence. Not a word
suggests that the invasion was a colonial conquest, deliberate like any
other, and that 60 years of international law make it 'the paramount war
crime', to quote the Nuremberg judges. Not a word suggests that the
American onslaught on the population of Iraq was and is systematically
atrocious, of which the torture of prisoners at Abu Ghraib was merely
a glimpse.

The coming atrocity in the city of Fallujah, in which British troops,
against
the wishes of the British people, are to be accessories, is a case in point.
For American politicians and journalists -- there are a few honourable
exceptions -- the US marines are preparing for another of their "battles".
Their last attack on Fallujah, in April, provides a preview. Forty-ton
battle tanks and helicopter gunships were used against slums. Aircraft
dropped 500-lb bombs: marine snipers killed old people, women, and
children; ambulances were targets. The marines closed the only hospital
in a city of 300,000 for more than two weeks, so they could use it as
a military position.

When it was estimated they had slaughtered 600 people, there was no
denial. This was more than all the victims of the suicide bombs the
previous year. Neither did they deny that their barbarity was in revenge
for the killing of four American mercenaries in the city; led by avowed
cowboys, they are specialists in revenge. John Kerry said nothing; the
media reported the atrocity as 'a military operation', against 'foreign
militants' and 'insugents', never against civilians and Iraqis defending
their homes and homeland.

Moreover, the American people are almost totally unaware that the
marines were driven out of Fallujah by heroic street fighting. Americans
remain unaware, too, of the piracy that comes with their government's
murderous adventure. Who in public life asks the whereabouts of
the 18.46 bn dollars which the US Congress approved for reconstruction
and humanitarian aid in Iraq?

As Unicef reports, most hospitals are bereft even of pain-killers, and
acute malnutrition among children has doubled since the 'liberation'.
In fact, less than 29m dollars has been allocated, most of it on British
security firms, with their ex-SAS thugs and veterans of South African
apartheid. Where is the rest of this money that should be helping to
save lives? Non-wimp Kerry dares not ask.

Neither does he nor anybody else with a public profile ask why the
people of Iraq have been forced to pay, since the fall of Saddam,
almost 80m dollars to America and Britain as 'reparations'. Even Israel
has received an untold fortune in Iraqi oil money as compensation for
its 'loss of tourism' in the Golan Heights -- part of Syria it occupies
illegally. As for oil, the 'o-word' is unmentionable in the contest for
the world's most powerful job. So successful is the resistance in its
campaign of economic sabotage that the vital pipeline carrying oil to
the Turkish Mediterranean has been blown up 37 times. Terminals
in the south are under constant attack, effectively shutting down all
exports of crude oil and threatening national economies. That the
world may have lost Iraqi oil is enveloped by the same silence that
ensures Americans have little idea of the nature and scale of the
blood-letting conducted in their name.

The most enduring silence is that which guards the system that has
produced these catastrophic events. This is Americanism, though it
dares not speak its name, which is strange, as its opposite, anti-
Americanism, has long been successfully deployed as a pejorative,
catch-all response to critical analysis of an imperial system and its
myths. Americanism, the ideology, has meant democracy at home,
for some, and a war on democracy abroad.

From Guatemala to Iran, from Chile to Nicaragua, to the struggle for
freedom in South Africa, to present-day Venezuela, American state
terrorism, licensed by both Republican and Democrat administrations,
has fought democrats and sponsored totalitarians. Most societies
attacked or otherwise subverted by American power are weak and
defenceless, and there is a logic to this. Should a small country
succeed in breaking free and establish its own way of developing,
then its good example to others becomes a threat to Washington.

And the serious purpose behind this? Madeleine Albright, Bill
Clinton's secretary of state, once told the United Nations that America
had the right to 'unilateral use of power' to ensure 'uninhibited access
to key markets, energy supplies, and strategic resources'. Or as Colin
Powell, the Bush-ite laughably promoted by the media as a liberal, put
it more than a decade ago: "I want to be the bully on the block."
Britain's imperialists believed exactly that, and still do; only the
language is discreet.

That is why people all over the world, whose consciousness about these
matters has risen sharply in the past few years, are 'anti-American'.
It has nothing to do with the ordinary people of the United States, who
now watch a Darwanian capitalism consume their real and fabled
freedoms and reduce the 'free market' to a fire-sale of public assets.
It is remarkable, if not inspiring, that so many reject the class- and
race-based brainwashing, begun in childhood, that such a class- and
race-based system is called 'the American dream'.

What will happen if the nightmare in Iraq goes on? Perhaps those
millions of worried Americans, who are currently paralysed by wanting
to get rid of Bush at any price, will shake off their ambivalence,
regardless of who wins on 2 November. Then, will a giant awaken,
as it did during the civil rights campaign and the Vietnam war and
the great movement to freeze nuclear weapons? One must trust so;
the alternative is a war on the world.

John Pilger is currently a visiting professor at Cornell University,
New York. His latest book is Tell Me No Lies: investigative journalism
and its triumphs (Jonathan Cape)

***NOTICE: In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this
material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed
a prior interest in receiving the included information for research
and educational purposes.***


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2) U.S. Forces Prepare to Attack Falluja and Ramadi
By Michael Georgy
NEAR FALLUJA, Iraq (Reuters)
Fri Oct 29, 2004 08:23 AM ET
http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=topNews&storyID=6659827&src=eD
ialog/GetContent§ion=news

NEAR FALLUJA, Iraq (Reuters) - U.S. marines prepared on Friday for
big assault on Sunni Muslim rebels and Arab fighters in the Iraqi cities
of Falluja and Ramadi.

"We are gearing up for a major operation," Brigadier General Denis
Hajlik told reporters at a base near Falluja. "If we do so, it will be
decisive and we will whack them."

Hajlik, deputy commander of the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force,
said the expected assault would involve Iraqi forces.

Iraq's U.S.-backed interim government has vowed to pacify the whole
country before nationwide elections due in January.

U.S. planes have launched almost daily air strikes on what the military
says are safe houses used by a network of Iraqi and foreign fighters
led by Jordanian Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.

But a full-scale U.S.-led assault could be as devastating as a marine
offensive in April that Washington called off after a world outcry over
civilian casualties in Falluja. Local doctors reported more than 600
dead in the fighting.

Interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi urged the people of Falluja on
Thursday to seize what he said could be the "last chance" for a peaceful
solution. He set no deadline for them to meet his demands for Zarqawi's
group to be handed over.

Falluja leaders say they know nothing of Zarqawi's network. In on-off
talks with the government, they have said Iraqi security forces can
return to the city, but not U.S. troops.

Marine Colonel Michael Schupp dismissed the sputtering dialogue as
a sham. "The negotiations are a ruse. They are just stalling for time,"
he told reporters near Falluja.

U.S.-led troops would have to support Iraqi forces inside Falluja after
rebels were dislodged, he said. He ruled out any repeat of the "terrible
experience" of the peace deal which ended the April fighting by turning
the city over to a "Falluja Brigade" led by former Baathist army officers.

"The insurgents probably were the Falluja Brigade," Schupp said.

Zarqawi's al Qaeda-allied group threatened on Tuesday to behead
a Japanese hostage within 48 hours unless Tokyo withdrew its 550
non-combat troops from Iraq. Japan rejected the demand.

MYSTERY BODY

The deadline passed without any firm word on the fate of 24-year-old
traveler Shosei Kado, but Japan's Foreign Ministry said it was checking
a report that the body of an Asian had been found in Tikrit, Saddam
Hussein's hometown.

Police in Tikrit confirmed on Friday they had found an unidentified
body, but its description did not fit Koda.

Zarqawi's network has beheaded several foreigners and claimed
responsibility for many suicide bombings and attacks, including
last week's killing of 49 unarmed Iraqi army cadets.

Marine intelligence officer Major James West said guerrilla violence
could continue even if the Jordanian was eliminated.

"Even if we get Zarqawi, that doesn't necessarily mean it's over," he
told reporters near Falluja.

West said Falluja's population had dropped to 50,000 or 60,000
from 350,000 because many families had fled for safety.

Falluja, 50 km (30 miles) west of Baghdad, and Ramadi, 110 km
(70 miles) from the capital, have been cauldrons of anti-U.S.
insurgency since last year's war toppled Saddam Hussein.

A previously unknown Islamist group said on Thursday it had
kidnapped a Polish-Iraqi woman and demanded that Poland take
its troops out of Iraq. Warsaw said its contingent would stay.

Kidnappers in Iraq also hold a British-Iraqi woman, two French
journalists and a score of other foreigners from a dozen countries.
Some may be held for ransom, others as part of a campaign to
drive foreign troops and workers from Iraq.

Gunmen killed the driver of a Turkish truck in the northern city
of Mosul on Friday and set it ablaze, witnesses said. It was not
immediately clear if the driver was a Turk, but the truck, carrying
bottled water, had Turkish plates and markings.

In a separate incident, a car bomb blew up near a U.S. military
convoy in southern Mosul, killing an Iraqi civilian and slightly
wounding three, hospital officials said. The U.S. military said
two soldiers were slightly wounded.

Militants seized two truck drivers from Sri Lanka and Bangladesh,
Al Jazeera television said on Thursday. Police said three Iraqi
contractors working at a U.S. military base near the northern town
of Baiji were abducted the same day.

Assassins killed Aqil Hamed al-Adeli, deputy governor of Diyala
province, northeast of Baghdad, on Friday, police said.

(Additional reporting by Maher al-Thanoon in Mosul, Faris
al- Mahdawi in Baquba and Fadel al-Badrani in Falluja)

(c) Copyright Reuters 2004

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3) At Least 100,000 Dead in Iraq
U.S. War is a Blood Bath for the Iraqi People
Pledge to Take Action to End the War


In a medical study being published today, scientists have concluded
that the U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq has resulted in the deaths
of at least 100,000 Iraqis, "and may be much higher." It further revealed
that most of the 100,000 Iraqis who died were killed in violent deaths,
primarily carried out by U.S. forces airstrikes. "Most individuals
reportedly killed by coalition forces were women and children,"
according to the study. The study was designed and conducted by
researches at Johns Hopkins University, Columbia University and the
Al-Mustansiriya University in Baghdad (The Lancet, October 29, 2004).

The population of Iraq is approximately 25 million people. Were this
slaughter carried out on an equivalent scale in the United States, it
would be comparable to a death toll of one million people. Even the
youngest and most vulnerable have not been spared: as a consequence
of the U.S. war against the people of Iraq, infant mortality rose from
29 deaths per 1,000 live births before the war to 57 deaths per 1,000
afterward.

The Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of
Genocide, 78 U.N.T.S. 277, executed in 1948, and ratified by the
United States, and which carries the binding force of the law of
nations, prohibits genocide or complicity in genocide. See, also,
18 U.S.C. 1091.

"In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts
committed with intent to destroy, in whole or part, a national, ethnical,
racial or religious group, as such:
(a) Killing members of the group;
(b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of
the group;
(c) Deliberately inflicting upon the group conditions of life
calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part..."
This is a criminal war just as the Vietnam war was a criminal war.
It isn't enough to advocate that replacing Bush with Kerry should
be the goal of anti-war advocates. The Pentagon is preparing to
rain down their favored "shock and awe" violence on the devastated
people of Fallujah who have already been subject to terrorizing
bombing raids and the killings of entire families night after night
for months. By demanding the unconditional withdrawal from Iraq
we are sending a message to the Iraq people that we respect their
right to determine their own destiny and we send a message to the
U.S. soldiers that their lives and dignity are too important to be
used in the commission of war crimes or to serve as cannon fodder
in a war that only benefits corporate and banking elite.

Bush and Kerry have pledged to continue this violent occupation
in order to "win" in Iraq. The people of Iraq are desperately trying
to regain their sovereignty and right to determine their own futures
without outside intervention. While some feel that the "final stretch"
is in these next few days culminating at the polls, for the people of
Iraq and all those around the world who stand in solidarity with them,
the "final stretch" is from now until the U.S. troops and all occupation
forces are removed from that sovereign land.

We must deepen the fight in the United States to bring this war to an
end unconditionally. It is completely bogus to insist the intervention
must continue based on some humanitarian argument that since U.S.
intervention wrought so much devastation, the U.S. must now stay the
course in order to prevent "civil war," "chaos," or "a blood bath." These
were the same arguments that were used to justify the prolongation of
the U.S. war in Vietnam. The only thing that happened when the U.S.
finally left Vietnam was that the real blood bath ended. That's why
thousands of people are planning to take action starting on November 3
and culminating in a mass action all along the route of the Inaugural
parade on January 20 in Washington, DC.

Only the anti-war movement will end the criminal war in Iraq. We urgently
need your support to carry out these activities to stop the blood bath in
Iraq. Please make a contribution now online through the secure server
by clicking here.

Anti-war activists who are out in the streets, both before the election
fighting against racist disenfranchisement and after the election, are
prominently displaying the most important anti-war message of our
time: Bring the Troops Home Now! on T-shirts, stickers and signs --
which you can get at the VoteNoWar Resource Center, along with
ANSWER's beautiful own "End All Occupations" shirt by clicking here.

Pledge now to support the January 20 demonstration against the war
- no matter who is elected. Click here to endorse and say Bring the
Troops Home Now!



Click here to unsubscribe from the ANSWER e-mail list.

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4) THE ROOTS & OUR LYRICAL WARRIORS!
Mumia Under Attack .... Again!
By Sis. Marpessa Kupendua (10/04)

A recent Cybercast News Service article condemns the musical group The
Roots for Bro. Black Thought's participation in the Mumia 911 CD, which
was created in 1999 during an extraordinary organizing campaign leading
up to international demonstrations demanding freedom for Mumia Abu-Jamal
on September 11, 1999. During this time period, any and all musicians,
artists, and critical thinkers who spoke out for Mumia were targeted for
harassment from everyone from then-NJ Governor Christie Whitman to the
entire Fraternal Order of Police. The FOP staged protests, attempted to
shut down venues hosting artists who rapped, sang, stomped and cried out
for the liberation of Mumia... but organizers, attendees and bands stood
strong in the face of the massive police efforts of intimidation!!
These cops used physical protests, anonymous phone calls, and called for
a boycott of every artist who participated, threatening their careers by
using any and every media resource at their disposal to vent their
hatred. But what's lost to CNS and their sweaty-palmed cronies is that
this is about much more than any one group of musicians, this activity
is a historic example of what can happen when fired-up everyday people,
activists and artists take a strong and uncompromising stance during the
height of police terror tactics!

Mumia 911 was a tremendous undertaking, which is obvious due to it's
even being mentioned out of the face of *Nathan Burchfiel, a journalism
student at the University of Maryland, via the Cybercast News Service.
Burchfiel attempts to revive the FOP's musty, corny-ass boycott campaign
by claiming that the Mumia 911 CD is an "unreleased" endeavor of The
Roots. Burchfiel furthered this mania by enlisting a fellow student's
dissent against The Roots and twisting it into an opportunity to light
the fires of the lynch mob who want to see Mumia dead. However, young
Nathan obviously didn't do his homework, as he was so busy spewing the
vitriol of his mentors and googling lyrics, he neglected to show any
pretense of truth-telling by citing the plain and obvious FACT that
Mumia Abu-Jamal has NEVER had a fair trial, and making the absurd
assertion that a 6-year old compilation CD has yet to be released! This
definitely makes him a perfect candidate for today's totally co-opted
"fair and balanced" corporate-sponsored, perpetually lying media!

Mumia 911 was a revolutionary act of defiance to those powers that be
who decided that Mumia had been on this earth long enough. In
*Revolutionary Worker* #1005 (5/9/99) Michael Slate writes about the 17
artists who came together to bless the mic for Mumia, including:
Aceyalone from Freestyle Fellowship, Zack de la Rocha from Rage Against
the Machine, Dead Prez, Black Thought, Afu Ra, Goldii Loks (Mumia's
daughter), Pharoahe Monch from Organized Konfusion, Wise Intelligent
from Poor Righteous Teachers, Chuck D of Public Enemy, Slimkid Tre from
Pharcyde, Gene Gray (aka What? What?), Channel Live, Divine Styler,
Sayeed, Tragedy, The Last Emperor, and p.e.a.c.e. from Freestyle
Fellowship. Slate wrote that "Mumia 911 is a posse cut, a musical
bonfire lit in response to the system's rush to execute Mumia Abu-Jamal."

The producer of Mumia 911 and the Unbound album, Frank Sosa, told
Slate: "So two weeks before the session I just started calling everyone
I knew who had shown some interest in doing conscious hip-hop. We
started calling artists and telling them what it was for and sending
them 1-sheets on Mumia. We got confirmation from about 25 artists and we
really only expected about half of them to show up. At that session that
day there were actually more artists than we could accommodate. People
wanted to speak about the issue, they were adamant about it. When
everybody got in a room with each other and saw who was going to be on
the track, everybody started rewriting because there were lyrical kings
in that room, legends. Chuck D was there. Channel Live was there. Poor
Righteous Teachers was there. A lot of these people had never been in
the same room together. But they came up on each other's music. The
pressure was really on. And also when they heard Diamond D's beat
too--he put together a beat that was kind of unorthodox. He wanted to
come up with something that had a really urgent feel to it at a time
when people aren't really making beats like that. He wanted it to be
like a revolution song. When people heard the beat they were like `oh my
god' and they just started rewriting and they were writing all the way
up to when we told them to go in the vocal booth."

We have to make it known that we are NOT gonna stand for any attacks on
these brave warriors, their fire will not be suffocated by fake puritans
whose hypocrisy must be exposed for what it is. When they accuse us of
supporting a "killer" we have to recognize exactly who it is that is
advocating murder. The same people who call for the head of one of our
most brilliant African journalists and anybody who speaks on his behalf
are the same people who support mass murdering bloody wars across the
globe! In these Patriot Act days, we have to step to ANYBODY who claims
to speak on what we should or should not be listening to, especially
when we are accosted by their crazed filth 24/7, whether it comes from
the white house or any of these O'Reilly wannabees being cranked outta
these colleges! Unh, unh, we ain't havin' it! The way these artists
closed ranks for our brotha during some of the most intense attacks on
him was stupendous! Those artists who are out there leading and not
following, fearless and determined, should be duplicated 10,000 fold til
radio cannot EVER ignore them again! We want some TRUTH up in here and
that's just what we're gonna have!

Slate continued: "Mumia 911 has already electrified artists and others
across the country who have heard about it or heard a preview of it.
When well-known graffiti artist Mear heard about the single he offered
up a beautiful piece he had created for the Mumia 911 National Day of
Art as the cover art for the single. Mumia 911 has already made hip-hop
history with the largest number of artists ever recorded on a posse cut.
But history is more than facts and figures. And Mumia 911 is making that
kind of history too. As Sosa puts it, 'When everybody was in that room I
really, for the first time ever in my life, felt the spirit of history.
People knew that what they were putting down was going to have a mass
social impact and the reason that they were there was much greater than
themselves. It was a very emotionally intense day for everybody. When
you have so many people with so many different audiences coming together
in that room and doing something that is really going to draw attention
to what is going on in their community--that's when you really have the
spirit of history in effect.'"

We stand in *complete solidarity* with all of the artists who
contributed to Mumia 911 and every voice of truth who stands up and
speaks out for real justice. You will NOT silence us and we WON'T leave
our lyrical warriors hanging! We honor their boldness in a time when
this government has locked up millions of our people in their hellholes,
stealing the bulk of their lives and murdering many of them. We honor
them for giving voice to the pain and rage WE LIVE EVERYDAY, so don't
tell us how to talk our talk little man Burchfiel, we are
SELF-DETERMINED. We are extremely proud of our warrior artists and love
and support them completely. So.... we know what time it is, right?!

SUPPORT THE ROOTS AT THE UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND ON
NOVEMBER 14 (tickets
are $28.00 for the general public and $14.00 for
U of MD ID'd students)
and SPREAD THE WORD FAR AND WIDE!

FREE ALL POLITICAL PRISONERS AND POW'S!!

*More on Nathan Burchfiel at: http://right-magazine.com/author/burchfiel/
http://lists.topica.com/lists/nattyreb/read/message.html?mid=1717726972&sort
=d&start=671
http://www.cnsnews.com/ViewCulture.asp?Page=%5CCulture%5Carchive%5C200410%5C
CUL20041014a.html

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5) Marijuana Arrests at All-Time High,
Far Exceed Violent Crime Arrests 10/29/04
http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/360/arrests.shtml

The FBI reported Saturday that the number of arrests for violations
of the marijuana laws hit an all-time high of 755,186 in 2003.
Despite a decade of marijuana law reforms and protestations by
police chiefs across the land that marijuana is not a priority, that
figure is nearly double the number of people arrested for pot in 1993.
The number of people arrested on marijuana charges last year also
exceeds the number arrested for violent crimes by more than
150,000.

With only a couple of hiccups, the number of people arrested on
marijuana charges has trended steadily upward in the past decade,
no matter which party controls the levers of government. The previous
peak of 735,500 was recorded in 2000, with 724,000 arrested in
2001 and 697,000 in 2002.

To illustrate the scope of the problem, the number of those arrested
for marijuana is more than the entire population of the state of South
Dakota (pop. 754,844). Or, for those for whom it is too easy to picture
South Dakota as a empty wasteland, the number of pot arrests is
greater than the populations of San Francisco (pop. 751,682),
Jacksonville (pop. 735,617), or Columbus (pop. 711,470).

As has been the case in past years, the vast majority of marijuana
arrests -- some 88% -- were for simple possession. Arrests for
marijuana offenses constituted a whopping 45% of all drug arrests.

The numbers appeared in the FBI's annual Uniform Crime Report
and were grist for the mill for pro-reform organizations. "With
marijuana arrests exceeding 750,000 a year, it's safe to say that
the drug war isn't preventing people from using marijuana," said
Rob Kampia, executive director of the Marijuana Policy Project
( http://www.mpp.org ) in Washington, DC. "It's time to acknowledge
this reality by taxing and regulating marijuana. A responsible system
of regulation will do a better job of keeping marijuana away from kids
and end the pointless persecution of adults who use marijuana
responsibly."

"These numbers belie the myth that police do not target and arrest
minor marijuana offenders," said Keith Stroup, Executive Director of
the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws
( http://www.norml.org ), who noted that at current rates, a marijuana
smoker is arrested every 42 seconds in America. "This effort is
a tremendous waste of criminal justice resources, costing American
taxpayers approximately $7.6 billion dollars annually. These dollars
would be better served combating serious and violent crime,
including the war on terrorism."

While simple marijuana possession offenses typically draw light
punishment, such as fines or suspended sentences, except in the
most conservative or rural jurisdictions, the consequences of
a marijuana arrest or conviction go far beyond having to pay a fine
or submit to probationary drug testing. "Some people are lucky and
just get a slap on the wrist," said Bruce Mirken, MPP director of
communications. "But we also have horrifying cases like that of
Jonathan Magbie, who died in the Washington, DC, jail earlier this
month while serving a 10-day marijuana sentence. Or the young
man in Florida who was raped in jail while serving a weekend
sentence for a minor marijuana violation. One case like either
of those is one case too many," he told DRCNet. "There is simply
no rational reason why we should subject people to that sort of
risk for private adult responsible use of a substance that is well-
documented to be less harmful than alcohol."

While horror stories like that of Jonathan Magbie are thankfully
the exception rather than the rule, everyone convicted of a marijuana
crime is subject to a raft of continuing punishments beyond those
exacted by the criminal justice system. "It can literally haunt them
for the rest of their lives," said Mirken. "They lose access to federal
benefits, they lose job opportunities because of the arrest record,
they can't get student loans." According to the US Department of
Education, over 150,000 college students or would-be students have
lost access to federal financial aid because of drug crimes, the vast
majority of them for simple marijuana possession.

"The bottom line," said Mirken, "is that none of this makes any sense.
Even if people think we should be trying to curb marijuana use,
arresting all these people hasn't done that, either."

While some 662,886 people were charged with simple marijuana
possession, an additional 92,301 were charged with the more
serious offense of "sale/manufacture." That number includes
all those arrested for selling or growing marijuana, even those
who were growing for their own use or for medical reasons.

While marijuana arrests are a large part of the drug war, they are
by no means all of it. According to the FBI, nearly a million
(923,006) people were arrested on other drug charges, with the
vast majority of those being for simple possession. The Uniform
Crime Report notes that the overall trend in all drug arrests is up
22% since 1994.

The number of drug arrests in 2003 (1,678,192) was greater than
for any other major crime category. All property crimes combined
totaled 1,605,127 arrests, while all violent crimes combined totaled
597,026. The number of drug arrests was also greater than the
number of driving while intoxicated arrests (1,448,148) or the
seemingly popular offense of simple assault (1,246,698). Drug
arrests made up 12.3% of all arrests nationwide.

To read the FBI's 2003 Uniform Crime Report, visit
http://www.fbi.gov/ucr/03cius.htm online.

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