---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
1) STOP MILITARY RECRUITING AT OUR SCHOOLS!
LETS HIT THE U.S. WAR MACHINE WHERE IT REALLY HURTS!
STOP THE WAR! BRING ALL THE TROOPS HOME NOW!
COME TO THE NEXT BAUAW MEETING:
SATURDAY, APRIL 2, 11:30AM
474 VALENCIA STREET, SF
(FIRST FLOOR, TO THE LEFT AND ALL THE WAY BACK
TO THE COMPAÑEROS DEL BARRIO CHILDREN'S CENTER)
The High Schools are the meat and potatoes of military
recruitment. JROTC puts them up close and personal with
our kids. We want education not militarization!
The San Francisco Unified School district should cut
all ties to the military!
2) STOP THE CONDO CONVERSIONS!
FROM: TOMMI MECCA
Dear Friends:
STOP THE GIVEAWAY!!!
Wednesday, March 30, 12 Noon at City Hall
(Polk St. Steps).
3) Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger will be in San Francisco on
APRIL 5th at the Ritz Carlton Hotel at 6:30pm.
600 California at Stockton at 6pm.
4) MILITARY RECRUITERS WILL BE AT THE CAREER FAIR AT
GEORGE WASHINGTON HIGH SCHOOL
600 32nd Avenue between Geary and Balboa Sts.
TUESDAY, APRIL 5TH, 9:50AM-12:20PM
Come to the BAUAW meeting April 2 and help plan ways to
keep the military out all the career fairs and out
of our schools!
SAT. APRIL 2, 11:30 a.m.
474 VALENCIA STREET, SF
(FIRST FLOOR, TO THE LEFT AND ALL THE WAY BACK
TO THE COMPAÑEROS DEL BARRIO CHILDREN'S CENTER)
5) Military Out of Our Schools-Bay Area Network
Regional Counter Recruitment Conference
NEXT ORGANIZING MEETING:
Wed. April 6, 7pm
American Friends Service Committee
65-9th St, San Francisco (near Civic Center BART)
Be There!
For more info: (510) 465-1617 x4, awe@objector.org
To visit your group on the web, go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/MOOS-BAY/
6) Justice for New Americans Fundraiser
Sunday, April 17, 2005 2:00 p.m.
San Jose Repertory Theatre
"Making Tracks" is a rock muscial that tells stories
of seven generations of Asian Americans in America.
See www.makingtracks.com
J4na mailing list
J4na@justicefornewamericans.org
http://justicefornewamericans.org/mailman/listinfo/j4na
7) Benefit for Military Resisters
and Iraq Veterans Against the War
Old-Time Square Dance with LIVE Music! Saturday, April 30, 2005
Potrero Hill Neighborhood House
953 De Haro St., San Francisco
(at 22nd St. overlooking SF General Hospital)
Social & Introductions: 6 pm - 7:30 pm
Dance: 7:30 pm - 11 pm
$10-$30 sliding scale / $5 students
FEATURING
The Stairwell Sisters
http://www.stairwellsisters.com
with calling by Evie Ladin
"wild, hard dance music...infectious" - Oakland Tribune
AND
The Squirrelly Stringband
http://www.spectacularopticals.com/SQUIRRELLY.swf
The Bernal Hill Stringband and other special guests!
8) PATRIOT ACT AT SFSU: ADMINISTRATION
DEMANDS SECRET MEETINGS TO
THREATEN STUDENTS
See what you can do below:
*Please Forward Widely*
9) Build a High-Tech Force
Hits Cost Snags
By TIM WEINER
March 28, 2005
"The Army is asking Congress to approve Future Combat
while it is fighting wars in Iraq and Afghanistan whose costs,
according to the Congressional Research Service, now
exceed $275 billion. Future Combat is one of the biggest
items in the Pentagon's plans to build more than 70 major
weapons systems at a cost of more than $1.3 trillion."
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/28/politics/
28weapons.html?hp&ex=1112072400&en=b63cc5e6c827507f&ei=5094&partner=
homepage
---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
1) STOP MILITARY RECRUITING AT OUR SCHOOLS!
LETS HIT THE U.S. WAR MACHINE WHERE IT REALLY HURTS!
STOP THE WAR! BRING ALL THE TROOPS HOME NOW!
COME TO THE NEXT BAUAW MEETING:
SATURDAY, APRIL 2, 11:30AM
474 VALENCIA STREET, SF
(FIRST FLOOR, TO THE LEFT AND ALL THE WAY BACK
TO THE COMPAÑEROS DEL BARRIO CHILDREN'S CENTER)
"The Army is asking Congress to approve Future Combat while
it is fighting wars in Iraq and Afghanistan whose costs,
according to the Congressional Research Service, now exceed
$275 billion. Future Combat is one of the biggest items in
the Pentagon's plans to build more than 70 major weapons
systems at a cost of more than $1.3 trillion." From an article
in today's NYT (see #9 below.)
At the same time we are told that the schools can't offer
enough classes for the number of students who need the
credits to graduate. They claim there is no money for enough
teachers to fulfill the needs of the required classes so; instead,
they pay the military one million dollars to substitute JROTC
for those needed classes and credits in order for students
to graduate. Effectively forcing kids into military classes!
Those who support JROTC claim that without the federal funds
from JROTC and military recruitment access to our children
in the high schools many kids will not graduate and will
have to make up the classes later. Similar arguments are
given for ROTC at the college campuses.
The truth is, the high schools are the meat and potatoes
of military recruitment and the colleges are the gravy. The
voters of the city of San Francisco voted to stop the war in
Iraq and to bring all the troops home now! This is a mandate
to the San Francisco Unified School District to CUT ALL TIES
WITH THE MILITARY! We want ZERO recruitment levels in
San Francisco. We don't even want the military in San
Francisco and we encourage people all over the country to
do the same. We must demand that our schools get the
money they need to supply enough courses so that
students can earn their graduation credits without
military training and brainwashing.
Trillions of dollars are going to maintain and advance our
military capability. Trillions! This is a budget that could
feed, clothe, educate, house, every homeless person in
the world. This is a budget that could end poverty for all!
This is a budget that could supply all human needs and
carefully guard the health of the planet at the same time!
You know, the life of our children's children depend on it.
---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
2) STOP THE CONDO CONVERSIONS!
FROM: TOMMI MECCA
Dear Friends:
STOP THE GIVEAWAY!!!
Wednesday, March 30, 12 Noon at City Hall
(Polk St. Steps).
This is a rally against legislation (by Sups.
Dufty and Alioto-Pier) which would gut the condo conversion law.
Their legislation will let thousands of units become condominiums
instantly. It will increase Ellis Act evictions and reward
landlords for evicting senior and disabled tenants. Their measure
also sets a way for landlords to quickly convert units to
condominiums as a way to repeal rent control (rented condominiums
are exempt from rent control under state law!).
At 1 PM, the Supervisors will hold a public hearing on the
proposed legislation (Room 263, City Hall). Come to the hearing,
too, and testify against the measure.
---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
3) Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger will be in San Francisco on
APRIL 5th at the Ritz Carlton Hotel at 6:30pm.
600 California at Stockton at 6pm.
Labor and community groups will be welcoming him with
a huge protest initiated by the California Nurses Association.
On April 5 San Francisco's corporate leaders will gather at the
Ritz Carlton to line Arnold's pockets. Join nurses, working
families, patients and Californians from around the state to
stop his corporate sell-out!
Tell the Governor and his donors: "Not in Our Town!"
For more information: 510-273-2240.
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4) MILITARY RECRUITERS WILL BE AT THE CAREER FAIR AT
GEORGE WASHINGTON HIGH SCHOOL
600 32nd Avenue between Geary and Balboa Sts.
TUESDAY, APRIL 5TH, 9:50AM-12:20PM
Come to the BAUAW meeting April 2 and help plan ways to
keep the military out all the career fairs and out
of our schools!
SAT. APRIL 2, 11:30 a.m.
474 VALENCIA STREET, SF
(FIRST FLOOR, TO THE LEFT AND ALL THE WAY BACK
TO THE COMPAÑEROS DEL BARRIO CHILDREN'S CENTER)
---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
5) Military Out of Our Schools-Bay Area Network
Regional Counter Recruitment Conference
NEXT ORGANIZING MEETING:
Wed. April 6, 7pm
American Friends Service Committee
65-9th St, San Francisco (near Civic Center BART)
Be There!
For more info: (510) 465-1617 x4, awe@objector.org
To visit your group on the web, go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/MOOS-BAY/
---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
6) Justice for New Americans Fundraiser
Sunday, April 17, 2005 2:00 p.m.
San Jose Repertory Theatre
"Making Tracks" is a rock muscial that tells stories
of seven generations of Asian Americans in America.
See www.makingtracks.com
J4na mailing list
J4na@justicefornewamericans.org
http://justicefornewamericans.org/mailman/listinfo/j4na
Then followed by a fundraiser with reading of transcripts of the case that
highlights FBI's interrogation of Wen Ho Lee and Judge Parker's apology,
followed by an award ceremony and a reception.
Ticket available for sale at www.j4na.org
Cecilia L. Chang
Justice for New Americans
P.O. Box 120
Fremont, CA 94537
510 537-2929
510 537-3340 fax
www.j4na.org
J4na mailing list
J4na@justicefornewamericans.org
http://justicefornewamericans.org/mailman/listinfo/j4na
---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
7) Benefit for Military Resisters
and Iraq Veterans Against the War
Old-Time Square Dance with LIVE Music! Saturday, April 30, 2005
Potrero Hill Neighborhood House
953 De Haro St., San Francisco
(at 22nd St. overlooking SF General Hospital)
Social & Introductions: 6 pm - 7:30 pm
Dance: 7:30 pm - 11 pm
$10-$30 sliding scale / $5 students
FEATURING
The Stairwell Sisters
http://www.stairwellsisters.com
with calling by Evie Ladin
"wild, hard dance music...infectious" - Oakland Tribune
AND
The Squirrelly Stringband
http://www.spectacularopticals.com/SQUIRRELLY.swf
The Bernal Hill Stringband and other special guests!
ANTI WAR EVENT TO SUPPORT A CONSCIENTIOUS OBJECTOR:
All dances taught! Beginners welcome!
The most fun you could have for the best cause!
All proceeds to benefit the defense of Pablo Paredes
(swiftsmartveterans.com) and Iraq Veterans Against the War
(ivaw.net). To protest the Iraq War, Petty Officer Third Class
Pablo Paredes publicly refused to deploy to the Middle East and
is now facing military courts martial. IVAW is a newly formed
organization of recent Iraq veterans opposed to the ongoing war
and occupation.
Benefit hosted by Not in Our Name, Code Pink, Iraq Veterans
Against the War, International Socialist Organization, College
Not Combat, Courage to Resist, Freedom Socialist Party, Queers
for Peace and Justice/SF, Radical Women, and Bay Area United
Against War.
Public transit: Muni 19 bus from Civic Center BART (8th Street) -
outbound toward Hunters Point.
"Combine this band's vocal prowess with skilled
multi-instrumental chops and a hellbent-for-leather attitude, and
you have a wild funky recording... Brittle, hard-edged, exciting
ensemble singing... in which the Stairwell Sisters rocket into
the high lonesome stratosphere." - Old-Time Herald
For more information and leaflets:
http://bayarea.notinourname.net
510-601-8000
---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
8) PATRIOT ACT AT SFSU: ADMINISTRATION
DEMANDS SECRET MEETINGS TO
THREATEN STUDENTS
See what you can do below:
*Please Forward Widely*
On Wednesday, March 9th, students from New York to San Francisco rallied to
protest military recruiters on their campuses. The students were expressing
their outrage at the military's anti-gay "don't ask, don't tell" policy, the
diversion of federal funding away from education into military spending, and
the war in Iraq. At San Francisco State University, the administration has
responded with police action and secret meetings.
At SFSU over 150 students joined Students Against War -- the school's Campus
Antiwar Network chapter -- and other groups to protest Air Force recruiters
and Army Corps of Engineers attending a school sponsored career fair. The
crowd flooded the fair, surrounding their tables and chanting. When Air Force
recruiters tried to wait out the protest, students staged a peaceful anti-war
sit-in and teach-in.
POLICE INTIMIDATION AND UNIVERSITY THREATS
The following day, recruiters returned to the SFSU career fair. As soon as two
activists entered the career fair, eight police officers forcibly removed them
from their own student center, pushing them and twisting one activist's arm.
When the other activist asked why she was being forced to leave, she was
pushed into a doorway, told she was causing a fire hazard by standing there,
and then kicked out of the building.
A number of members of Students Against War have received official notices of
appointment from the Coordinator of Judicial Affairs dated March 18, 2005. The
letters state that the administration has received a complaint from the Chief
of Public Safety and that each student must meet individually with Judicial
Affairs the week of April 4th. The letter specifically states that the
meetings are confidential and none of the students have been informed of
nature of the charges against them. Failure to respond the summons may
jeopardize the student's status at San Francisco State University.
Disciplinary action by the administration could result in probation,
suspension or expulsion from the university.
The university demanding secret meetings with students is unacceptable. The
actions of the police and the San Francisco State administration are a blatant
attempt to stifle dissent and create a climate of intimidation. The
administration is purposely singling out the leading organizers of the student
antiwar movement on campus to prosecute.
San Francisco State University should be ashamed that they are a shell for the
US military. They undermine their own anti-discrimination policies and
commitments to diversity by allowing a racist, sexist and anti-gay institution
to recruit on campus. When the administration refuses to defend it own
policies, students are forced to be the moral backbone of the university. The
students, who participated in the March 9th demonstration, where defending
their classmates and refusing to let one more person become cannon fodder in
an illegal war.
These attacks are an attempt to go after one of the leading campuses in the
growing counter recruitment movement around the country. If they can punish
students at San Francisco State for protesting, it will be easier to arrest,
sanction and intimidate students on other campuses.
WHAT YOU CAN DO
We ask the public to speak-out against the administration's plans to limit
free speech rights, and demand that no sanctions be placed on students that
helped to plan the March 9th protest. Please contact:
Robert A. Corrigan, SFSU President
Phone: (415) 338-1381, Fax: (415) 338-6210
Email: corrigan@sfsu.edu
please CC your email to: cansfsu@hotmail.com
Penny Saffold, SFSU Vice President/Dean of Students
Phone: (415) 338-2032, Fax: (415) 338-0900
Email: psaffold@sfsu.edu
please CC your email to: cansfsu@hotmail.com
Also, please sign our online petition at
http://www.petitiononline.com/sfsu/petition.html/
For more information about the March 9th protest:
http://xpress.sfsu.edu/archives/breaking/003099.html
http://www.insidebayarea.com/localnews/ci_2603424
http://kpix.dayport.com/launcher/4122/?tf=video_player.tpl
Watch a video of the protest at
http://www.indybay.org/uploads/collegenotcombat.mov.
We urgently need your help. Please lend your support to anti-war student
activists and activists who are fighting the militarization of our schools by
letting the administration know that their actions are not supported by
members of the community, students, alumni, faculty, and staff.
Sincerely,
Students Against War
cansfsu@hotmail.com
To visit your group on the web, go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/MOOS-BAY/
---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
9) Build a High-Tech Force
Hits Cost Snags
By TIM WEINER
March 28, 2005
"The Army is asking Congress to approve Future Combat while it
is fighting wars in Iraq and Afghanistan whose costs, according to the
Congressional Research Service, now exceed $275 billion. Future
Combat is one of the biggest items in the Pentagon's plans to build
more than 70 major weapons systems at a cost of more than
$1.3 trillion."
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/28/politics/
28weapons.html?hp&ex=1112072400&en=b63cc5e6c827507f&ei=5094&partner=
homepage
The Army's plan to transform itself into a futuristic
high-technology force has become so expensive that some
of the military's strongest supporters in Congress are questioning
the program's costs and complexity.
Army officials said Saturday that the first phase of the program,
called Future Combat Systems, could run to $145 billion.
Paul Boyce, an Army spokesman, said the "technological bridge
to the future" would equip 15 brigades of roughly 3,000 soldiers,
or about one-third of the force the Army plans to field, over
a 20-year span.
That price tag, larger than past estimates publicly disclosed
by the Army, does not include a projected $25 billion for the
communications network needed to connect the future forces.
Nor does it fully account for Army plans to provide Future
Combat weapons and technologies to forces beyond those
first 15 brigades.
Now some of the military's advocates in Congress are asking
how to pay the bill.
"We're dealing today with a train wreck," Representative Curt
Weldon, Republican of Pennsylvania and vice chairman of
the House Armed Services Committee, said at a March 16
Congressional hearing on the cost and complexity of Future
Combat Systems.
"We're left with impossible decisions," said Mr. Weldon,
a strong supporter of Pentagon spending who was
lamenting the trillion-dollar costs for the major weapons
systems the Pentagon is building. One of those decisions,
he warned, might cut back Future Combat.
The Army sees Future Combat, the most expensive weapons
program it has ever undertaken, as a seamless web of
18 different sets of networked weapons and military robots.
The program is at the heart of Defense Secretary Donald
H. Rumsfeld's campaign to transform the Army into a faster,
lighter force in which stripped-down tanks could be put on
a transport plane and flown into battle, and information
systems could protect soldiers of the future as heavy armor
has protected them in the past.
Army officials say the task is a technological challenge as
complicated as putting an astronaut on the moon. They
call Future Combat weapons, which may take more than
a decade to field, crucial for a global fight against terror.
But the bridge to the future remains a blueprint. Army
officials issued a stop-work order in January for the network
that would link Future Combat weapons, citing its failure
to progress. They said this month that they did not know
if they could build a tank light enough to fly.
The Army is asking Congress to approve Future Combat
while it is fighting wars in Iraq and Afghanistan whose
costs, according to the Congressional Research Service,
now exceed $275 billion. Future Combat is one of the
biggest items in the Pentagon's plans to build more
than 70 major weapons systems at a cost of more
than $1.3 trillion.
The Army has canceled two major weapons programs,
the Crusader artillery system and the Comanche helicopter,
"to protect funding for the Future Combat System," said
Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona and a member
of the Armed Services Committee. "That is why we have
to get the F.C.S. program right."
David M. Walker, the comptroller general of the United
States, said in an interview that the Pentagon's future
arsenal was unaffordable and Congress needed "to make
some choices now."
"There is a substantial gap between what the Pentagon
is seeking in weapons systems and what we will be able
to afford and sustain," said Mr. Walker, who oversees the
Government Accountability Office, the budget watchdog
of Congress. "We are not going to be able to afford all of this."
He added, "Every dollar we spend on a want today is
a dollar we won't be able to spend on a need tomorrow."
Paul L. Francis, the acquisition and sourcing management
director for the accountability office, told Congress that the
Army was building Future Combat Systems without the data
it needed to guide it. "If everything goes as planned, the
program will attain the level of knowledge in 2008 that it
should have had before it started in 2003," Mr. Francis said
in written testimony. "But things are not going as planned."
He warned that Future Combat Systems, in its early stages
of research and development, was showing signs typical of
multibillion-dollar weapons programs that cost far more
than expected and deliver fewer weapons than promised.
Future Combat is a network of 53 crucial technologies,
he said, and 52 are unproven.
Brig. Gen. Charles A. Cartwright, deputy director for the
Army research and development command, said in an
interview that Future Combat was a work in progress,
evolving in an upward spiral from the drawing board to
the assembly line.
"We are working through the affordability," General Cartwright
said. He acknowledged that the Army's cost estimates could
spiral upward as well.
The Army's publicly disclosed cost estimates for Future Combat
stood at $92 billion last month. That excluded research and
development, which the G.A.O. says will run to $30 billion.
Mr. Boyce, the Army spokesman, said on Saturday that Future
Combat costs were estimated at $25 billion for research
and development and from $6.1 billion to $8 billion for
each of 15 future brigades, or as high as $145 billion.
The Army wants Future Combat to be a smaller, faster force
than the one now fighting in Iraq. Tanks, mobile cannons
and personnel carriers would be made so light that they could
be flown to a war zone. But first they must be stripped of heavy
armor. In place of armor, American soldiers in combat would
be protected by information systems, so they could see and
kill the enemy before being seen and killed, Army officials say.
Future Combat soldiers, weapons and robots are to be linked
by a $25 billion web, Joint Tactical Radio Systems, known as
JTRS (pronounced "jitters"). The network would transmit the
battlefield information intended to protect soldiers. It is not
included in the Future Combat budget.
If JTRS does not work, Future Combat will fail, General
Cartwright said. The Army halted production on the first
set of JTRS radios in January, saying they were not
progressing as planned.
"The principle of replacing mass with information is
threatened," Mr. Francis said in an interview. "Now you'd
have light vehicles fighting the same way as the current
force, without the protection. This is one reason why we
don't know yet if Future Combat Systems will work."
Another factor is the weight of the new weapons. Future
Combat's tanks and mobile cannons, all built on similar frames,
were supposed to weigh no more than 19 tons each. At that
weight, they could be flown to a war zone in a few days, rather
than taking weeks or months to deploy.
They will weigh "less than 50 tons, perhaps less than 30 tons,"
Claude M. Bolton Jr., the Army's acquisition executive, told
Congress at the March 16 hearing. "Will it be 20 tons or 19?
I don't know the answer to that."
That doubt may damage a conceptual underpinning for Future
Combat: the ability to deploy armed forces quickly in a crisis.
Unless the weapons are as light as advertised, they will have
to arrive in a theater of war by ship.
Boeing, best-known for making commercial aircraft and
military space systems, is designing Future Combat Systems
in the role of lead systems integrator, acting as architect and
general contractor. It is also responsible for the JTRS radios.
Boeing is being paid $21 billion through 2014 for its work
on Future Combat Systems. "It's certainly a key element of
our defense business," said Dennis Muilenburg, the vice
president and general manager for Future Combat Systems
at Boeing. The Army's Future Combat contract with Boeing,
which has suffered several Pentagon contracting scandals
in the last few years, exempts the company from financial
disclosures demanded under the federal Truth in
Negotiations Act.
The challenge for the Army and Boeing is to build "an
entirely new Army, reconfigured to perform the global policing
mission," said Gordon Adams, a former director for national
security spending at the Office of Management and Budget,
"and that is enormously expensive."
Mr. Rumsfeld told the House Defense Appropriations
subcommittee last month about the challenge of remaking
an Army in the middle of a war. "Abraham Lincoln once compared
reorganizing the Union Army during the Civil War to bailing out
the Potomac River with a teaspoon," he said. "I hope and trust
that what we are proposing to accomplish will not be that
difficult."
Copyright 2005 The New York Times
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