BAUAW NEWSLETTER-MONDAY, JUNE 20, 2005

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Cut all Public School ties to the military!
Speak up and Picket the S.F. Board of Education
the fourth Tuesday of each month starting,
June 28TH, 7:00 P.M.
555 Franklin St., S.F,
To get on the speakers list call:
415-241-6427, 241-6493 or 241-6000

Bay Area United Against War (BAUAW) will be picketing the San
Francisco Unified School District (SFUSD) Board of Education
meetings the 4th Tuesday of each month beginning June 28th until
the district cuts all school ties to the military.

San Francisco voters passed Proposition N for the immediate
withdrawal of troops from Iraq by a 63 percent majority last
November. And this November 2005 we will pass an anti-recruitment
resolution initiated by College Not Combat, a coalition of groups
and individuals opposed to the U.S. militaries' school recruitment
program.

We are currently gathering the necessary signatures to place
this counter-recruitment proposition on the ballot. The
proposition says, "The people of San Francisco oppose U.S.
military recruiters using public school, college and university
facilities to recruit young people into the armed forces.
Furthermore, San Francisco should oppose the military's "economic
draft" by investigating means by which to fund and grant
scholarships for college and job training to low-income students
so they are not economically compelled to join the military!"

Proposition N, passed last November, already mandates the
SFUSD to cut all school ties to the military. Yet S.F. children
are still being actively recruited at schools throughout the
district by direct military recruitment, and through the Junior
Reserve Officer Training Corps (JROTC) programs.

Many students are forced into JROTC in order to get the necessary
Physical Education credits they need to graduate High School. JROTC
now fulfills this requirement-and the district actually pays
a million dollars a year to the Army to support JROTC. (JROTC, by
the way, is totally managed and controlled by the U.S. Army. The
Army writes the curriculum and appoints the teachers. The district
has no say in this program.)

In fact, the U.S. military maintains a presence in the schools
at all grade levels from kindergarten on up. And now the Military
is beginning to set up JROTC "Military Academies" in the Middle
Schools. At these "academies" children are taught how to obey
orders and to practice military maneuvers with realistically
functioning toy guns.

As a result of the board's open door military policy, many San
Francisco high school graduates are currently serving in Iraq.
This must end. Schools must not be used to recruit youngsters to
kill or be killed in this illegal, immoral war! The following
resolution was presented to the board several months ago.
They still have not acted on it!

CUT ALL SCHOOL TIES TO THE MILITARY!
Resolution for San Francisco Board of Education

WHEREAS, the United States military is actively recruiting high
school students into the military to fight in Iraq; and
WHEREAS, many young San Francisco high school alumni are
presently serving in military units fighting in Iraq; and
WHEREAS, it is San Francisco City policy by virtue of
Proposition N, to bring all U.S. troops home from Iraq now; and
WHEREAS, over 1,700 U.S. soldiers and approximately
100,000 Iraqis have been killed in this war and over
10,000 U.S. soldiers and unknown thousands of Iraqis have
been wounded; and
WHEREAS, the hundreds of billions of dollars spent on the
war have robbed our children of resources that should be
spent on education and other human needs; and
WHEREAS, military presence in our schools legitimizes the
message that violence is acceptable; THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED THAT:
It shall be the policy of the San Francisco Board of Education
to cut all ties with the United States military, including, but
not limited to: Ending military recruitment on campuses; ending
the Junior Reserve Officer Training Corps (JROTC); and guaranteeing
that all students and parents are informed of their right to deny
military recruiters access to their names, addresses and
telephone numbers.

Come to the next planning meeting of Bay Area United Against War (BAUAW)
Saturday, July 9, 11:30 a.m. at 474 Valencia Street
between 15th & 16th Streets, S.F.

Bay Area United Against War (BAUAW) • www.bauaw.org
P.O. Box 318021,
San Francisco, CA 94131-8021 •
414-824-8730

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Phil Ochs "I Ain't Marching Anymore"

Oh I marched to the battle of New Orleans
At the end of the early British war
The young land started growing
The young blood started flowing
But I ain't marchin' anymore

For I've killed my share of Indians
In a thousand different fights
I was there at the Little Big Horn
I heard many men lying I saw many more dying
But I ain't marchin' anymore

(chorus)
It's always the old to lead us to the war
It's always the young to fall
Now look at all we've won with the saber and the gun
Tell me is it worth it all

For I stole California from the Mexican land
Fought in the bloody Civil War
Yes I even killed my brothers
And so many others But I ain't marchin' anymore

For I marched to the battles of the German trench
In a war that was bound to end all wars
Oh I must have killed a million men
And now they want me back again
But I ain't marchin' anymore

(chorus)

For I flew the final mission in the Japanese sky
Set off the mighty mushroom roar
When I saw the cities burning I knew that I was learning
That I ain't marchin' anymore

Now the labor leader's screamin'
when they close the missile plants,
United Fruit screams at the Cuban shore,
Call it "Peace" or call it "Treason,"
Call it "Love" or call it "Reason,"
But I ain't marchin' any more,
No I ain't marchin' any more

Of course, this has to be the best Soldier's songs
(at leats my dad sez so):

Creedence Clearwater Revival "Fortunate Son"

Some folks are born, made to wave the flag,
Ooh, they're red, white and blue.

And when the band plays "Hail to the chief",
Ooh, they point the cannon at you, Lord,
It ain't me, it ain't me, I ain't no senator's son, son.
It ain't me, it ain't me; I ain't no fortunate one, no,
Yeah!

Some folks are born silver spoon in hand,
Lord, don't they help themselves, oh.

But when the taxman comes to the door,
Lord, the house looks like a rummage sale, yes,
It ain't me, it ain't me, I ain't no millionaire's son, no.
It ain't me, it ain't me; I ain't no fortunate one, no.
Yeah!

Some folks inherit star spangled eyes,
Ooh, they send you down to war, Lord,

And when you ask them, "How much should we give?"
Ooh, they only answer More! more! more! yoh,
It ain't me, it ain't me, I ain't no military son, son.
It ain't me, it ain't me; I ain't no fortunate one, one.
It ain't me, it ain't me, I ain't no fortunate one, no no no,
It ain't me, it ain't me, I ain't no fortunate son, no no no,

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COLLEGE NOT COMBAT PETITION CAMPAIGN
16TH & MISSION STREET
SATURDAYS, 12:30 P.M.
TUESDAYS AND THURSDAYS, 5 & 7 P.M.

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HANDS OFF VENEZUELA SAN FRANCISCO BAY AREA FILM
SHOWING: 7:00 PM, FRIDAY JULY 15
Center for Political Education
522 Valencia, Third Floor,
Near 16th Street, SF
(not wheelchair accessible)
Close the 16th Street BART
$5/$3 Students, Seniors, Unemployed

With the Poor of the World
Con los pobres de la Tierra (2003) 56 minutes.
by Marta Harnecker on Venezuela
In Spanish with English Subtitles
This video gives the background and context of the
current struggles in Venezuela since 1993. Using TV
news footage and archival video, this film documents
the rise of Chavez and the Oligarchy's three attempts
to overthrow him.

May Day in Caracas
(2005) 22 minutes.
by a J. Carlos Flores.
In Spanish with English Subtitles
A short documentary about international labor day in
Venezuela

Hands off Venezuela will show these films as a benefit
to bring Stalin Peres Borges, a leader of the National
Union of Workers of Venezuela (UNT) a dynamic new
Venezuelan Trade Union federation.

Call Adam at 415 864 3537 or email sfbay@ushov.org for
more info or to arrange a speaker to talk about the
inspiring events in Venezuela and the need to protect
it from US attack.

Also Come To The Next Hands Off Venezuela Organizing
Meeting (all welcome): 7:00 PM, Thursday, June 30,
Socialist Action Bookstore, corner Valencia and 14th,
SF

www.handsoffvenezuela.org

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SAN FRANCISCO MIME TROUPE
PRESENTS: "DOING GOOD"
A play based loosely on the book, "Confessions
of an Economic Hit Man", by John Perkins.
July 2, 3 & 4, DOLORES PARK
JULY 16, PRECITA PARK
MUSIC: 1:30 P.M.
SHOW: 2:00 P.M.

(I saw a preview of this play.
It's fresh and new, brilliantly performed,
insightful, full of content, and the music is great!...BW)

SPONSORED BY BAY AREA UNITED AGAINST WAR

COME HELP GATHER SIGNATURES FOR THE
COLLEGE NOT COMBAT BALLOT INITIATIVE TO GET THE MILITARY
OUT OF OUR SCHOOLS AND PROVIDE SCHOLARSHIPS AND GRANTS
TO STUDENTS WHO CAN'T AFFORD TO GO TO COLLEGE SO THEY
DON'T HAVE TO JOIN THE MILITARY DUE TO ECONOMIC HARDSHIP.
WE WILL BE PETITIONING BEFORE AND AFTER THE PERFORMANCES.
LOOK FOR OUR TABLE TO PICK UP PETITIONS. FREE ANTIWAR POSTERS!
WE ONLY HAVE A FEW WEEKS TO GO!

FREE!

************************************************************

SAVE THE DATES: AUGUST 4, 5 & 6, 2005 FOR
PRESENTATION OF HOWARD ZINN'S ONE MAN SHOW,
"MARX IN SOHO" PERFORMED BY JERRY LEVY
LOCATION TO BE ANNOUNCED
TO BENEFIT BAY AREA UNITED AGAINST WAR
WWW.BAUAW.ORG
(FOR MORE INFORMATION CALL: 415-824-8730)

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BAUAW NEWSLETTER UPDATE-MONDAY, JUNE 20, 2005
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1) INTERNATIONALIZING U.S. ROADS
Phyllis Spivey
June 10, 2005
NewsWithViews.com
Imagine this: your state government puts a transportation
corridor in your neighborhood. It's nearly a quarter-mile wide.
It will serve vehicles and trains and incorporate oil, gas,
electric and water lines. Try to fight it and you'll not only
face the combined might of your local, state, and federal
governments, but foreign interests as well.
The internationalization of U.S. roads has begun.
We're not just talking about isolated instances of
privately-built toll roads with foreign management, as
we've seen in Southern California. We're talking about
networks of toll roads that may be built by foreign builders,
managed by foreign operators, function primarily to accommodate
foreign goods, and connect U.S. roads to similar networks
in Canada, Mexico and, later, Central and South America.
Interstate 69, for example, is a planned 1600 mile national
highway connecting Mexico, the U.S., and Canada. Eight states
are involved in the project: Once completed, I-69 will extend
from Port Huron, Michigan to the Texas/Mexico border.
http://www.newswithviews.com/Spivey/phyllis3.htm

2) US lied to Britain over use of napalm in Iraq war
By Colin Brown, Deputy Political Editor
17 June 2005
http://news.independent.co.uk/low_res/story.jsp?story=647397&host=3&dir=62

3) Halliburton to build new
$30 mln Guantanamo jail
Thu Jun 16, 2005 07:21 PM ET
http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=topNews&storyID=8817044

4) Telling the Story

5) Radioactive contamination
at Hanford is on the move
It is 'not just staying
in place,' warns report
by watchdog group
By LISA STIFFLER
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTER
Wednesday, June 15, 2005
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/228573_hanford15.html

6) City Schools and Teachers
Revise Plan on Workday
By DAVID M. HERSZENHORN
Published: June 17, 2005
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/17/education/17teach.html?

7) THE STATE OF OUR MOVEMENT
by Van Gosse
[Based on a talk given at
Purdue University, April 20, 2005]
published by portside
June 17, 2005
http://people-link5.inch.com/pipermail/portside/Week-of-Mon-20050613/015410.html

8) Building Unity at a Time of Possibility
By Ted Glick
Future Hope column, June 20, 2005

9) The Thinking Behind a Close Look
at a C.I.A. Operation
By BYRON CALAME
June 19, 2005
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/19/opinion/19public.html

10) To Fill Ranks, Army Acts
To Retain Even Problem Enlistees
By GREG JAFFE
Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
June 3, 2005
To keep more soldiers in the
service, the Army has told battalion
commanders, who typically command
800-soldier units, that they can
no longer bounce soldiers from the
service for poor fitness, pregnancy,
alcohol and drug abuse or generally
unsatisfactory performance.
Typically such decisions are made
at that level. Instead, the
battalion commanders must send the
problem soldiers' cases up to
their brigade commander, who typically
commands about 3,000 soldiers.
http://online.wsj.com/public/article/0,,SB111776400852250138-rYue9OsHO9i0IaNz4uApoo5WJ80_20060603,00.html?mod=rss_free

11) Supreme Court Orders
New Trial in 17-Year-Old
Murder Case
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: June 20, 2005
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Scotus-Death-Penalty.html?hp&ex=1119326400&en=82194b1d0546fa1a&ei=5094&partner=homepage

12) Someone Else's Child
By BOB HERBERT
June 20, 2005
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/20/opinion/20herbert.html?hp=&adxnnl=1&adxnnlx=1119285163-kNizkcTjuoB851nYp3vQ6g

13) Libraries Say Yes, Officials
Do Quiz Them About Users
By ERIC LICHTBLAU
Published: June 20, 2005
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/20/politics/20patriot.html

14) G-8 Draft on Global Warming
Is Weakened at U.S. Behest
By ANDREW C. REVKIN
Published: June 18, 2005
"WASHINGTON, June 17 - Drafts
of a joint statement being prepared
for the leaders of the major
industrial powers show that the Bush
administration has succeeded in
removing language calling for prompt
action to control global warming."
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/18/politics/18climate.html

15) The Asbo Generation
More children than adults given antisocial orders
By Robert Verkaik, Legal Affairs Correspondent
20 June 2005
http://news.independent.co.uk/low_res/story.jsp?story=648302&host=3&dir=60

15) The Asbo Generation
More children than adults given antisocial orders
By Robert Verkaik, Legal Affairs Correspondent
20 June 2005
http://news.independent.co.uk/low_res/story.jsp?story=648302&host=3&dir=60

---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

1) INTERNATIONALIZING U.S. ROADS
Phyllis Spivey
June 10, 2005
NewsWithViews.com
Imagine this: your state government puts a transportation
corridor in your neighborhood. It's nearly a quarter-mile wide.
It will serve vehicles and trains and incorporate oil, gas,
electric and water lines. Try to fight it and you'll not only
face the combined might of your local, state, and federal
governments, but foreign interests as well.
The internationalization of U.S. roads has begun.
We're not just talking about isolated instances of
privately-built toll roads with foreign management, as
we've seen in Southern California. We're talking about
networks of toll roads that may be built by foreign builders,
managed by foreign operators, function primarily to accommodate
foreign goods, and connect U.S. roads to similar networks
in Canada, Mexico and, later, Central and South America.
Interstate 69, for example, is a planned 1600 mile national
highway connecting Mexico, the U.S., and Canada. Eight states
are involved in the project: Once completed, I-69 will extend
from Port Huron, Michigan to the Texas/Mexico border.
http://www.newswithviews.com/Spivey/phyllis3.htm

---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

2) US lied to Britain over use of napalm in Iraq war
By Colin Brown, Deputy Political Editor
17 June 2005
http://news.independent.co.uk/low_res/story.jsp?story=647397&host=3&dir=62

---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

3) Halliburton to build new $30 mln Guantanamo jail
Thu Jun 16, 2005 07:21 PM ET
http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=topNews&storyID=8817044

---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

4) Telling the Story

Those of us who are still alive
carry the burden of telling the story.
Because this life that we follow,
this reality,
gets sliced, quartered and salted
by unexpected tears,
from songs long forgotten,
like haunting lullabies
conjuring up vengeful hopes
betrayed by the collective amnesia.

Yet the story must be told.
Because time is relentless
and memory is fragile...so fragile.

I weave bits and pieces,
each strand, a chord, a muscle, a piece of flesh,
tightened to remake the world that once was.

I sing those songs,
and the words, oh those precious words,
uprooted, torn out, taken someplace to die
have come back like zombies in Ford commercials.
And in my rage, my voice has forgotten how to sing.

Like a Rock. It gets stuck in my throat.
There's no way to make those sounds.
I can only hear them in my heart.

Yet the story must be told.
Because before this cold, calculated first,
second, third strike world, there was warmth.

Even amidst the blinding heat of that war,
there were hands that held each other,
eyes that cried for napalmed children across the sea,
and hearts that became horrified by the true white
face of hatred.

Televised lairs lost their masks
and truth in all its painful courage
ran in our young blood.

Our young eyes cared not what color the flag
only that they were draped over coffins
of someone's brother, father, son.

In telling this story I am not alone.
Thousands of silent partners
pull me from different directions,
each with their own dreams of the lives they led
and of the future that should have been,
and of the lessons we should have learned by now.

---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

5) Radioactive contamination at Hanford is on the move
It is 'not just staying in place,' warns report by watchdog group
By LISA STIFFLER
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTER
Wednesday, June 15, 2005
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/228573_hanford15.html

---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

6) City Schools and Teachers
Revise Plan on Workday
By DAVID M. HERSZENHORN
Published: June 17, 2005
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/17/education/17teach.html?

---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

7) THE STATE OF OUR MOVEMENT
by Van Gosse
[Based on a talk given at Purdue University, April 20, 2005]
published by portside
June 17, 2005
http://people-link5.inch.com/pipermail/portside/Week-of-Mon-20050613/015410.html

I want to begin this talk by focusing on the notion of a
'conjuncture,' or what dictionaries call rather blandly
'A critical set of circumstances; a crisis.'

This is a term widely used in Latin America and Europe
to get at the particular 'balance of forces,' what I
would call the set of contingencies, that define a
historical moment. And not just any and all moments
either (as in daily life)-but those important defining
periods when things change decisively.

For historians, there are no 'models' to understand
reality, there is no predictability: contingency is all.
So no matter how eerily familiar a time might seem, we
have to always begin with the understanding that it is
truly new. Which is why the emphases on specificity,
originality and exceptionality built into the concept of
the conjuncture are really useful.

Let me give an example to underline how new is our
particular conjuncture. We all know how the war in Iraq
is constantly, even necessarily compared with the U.S.
war in Vietnam. But let's imagine that right now, we
could actually reproduce all the key circumstances of
that disastrous military adventure:

* Not 150,000 but 535,000 troops 'in country' at peak

* Not over 1,700 dead Americans and at least 20,000
total casualties so far, but eventually over 58,000
dead and over 200,000 total casualties

* Instead of the probably tens of thousands of dead
Iraqis (no one will tell us the numbers, they refuse
to count), the three million who eventually died in
the Indochinese wars

* Not a decentralized, mostly anonymous, ideologically
fragmented insurgency with no political program but
one of the most tightly-organized, popular and
disciplined political-military movements in modern
history, the National Liberation Front of South
Vietnam, backed by a sovereign state, the Democratic
Republic of Vietnam, with a very clear program for
national unification and independence

Well, let's suppose that Iraq escalates into a similar
situation. And it could, possibly, if this war lasts as
long as Vietnam. But even if it does, it will make no
difference: our movement must and will be completely
different. Think about all the other factors:

* The Vietnam war has already happened and the U.S. has
been defeated, an experience from which in a literal
sense we have never recovered

* the Soviet Union no longer exists as an insurance
agency for both grassroots revolutions like Vietnam's
and military dictatorships like Saddam Hussein's that
need a friend

* the Left and the antiwar movement no longer face a
powerfully hegemonic New Deal Democratic Party in
power, to say the least

* the civil rights movement is now a great but fading
memory of mass mobilization and political victory
instead of being as immediate as Terry Schiavo's
passing, and so on and on.

So what is the current conjuncture in U.S. politics? And
why should we start there? Why not just pass over to the
state of our antiwar movement? Isn't the U.S. political
scene always somewhere between 'bad' and 'worse,' and we
can't really do much about it?

That was apparently the response when an outline of this
talk was given at a meeting of the new Steering
Committee of United for Peace and Justice on April 8. I
had five minutes, and started off talking about 'the
conjuncture,' and the leader of an important national
organization jumped in as soon as I finished, saying 'I
thought we were going to hear about the state of the
antiwar movement!'

Well, that's my point. If all we do is talk about our
movement, and in passing refer to the larger political
world, we have begun wrong and are unlikely to right
ourselves. We have to start with the larger frame of
politics, because it almost totally defines our space
for effective action, our possibilities for
intervention. That may mean paying close attention to
people we don't like, and politics that many among us
find unpleasant, meaningless and seedy, but if we don't
pay attention, we're flying blind. Thus, the importance
of 'the conjuncture.'

Right now, U.S. politics is exceptionally and
dangerously fluid. We have clearly passed into what the
great Marxist theorist Perry Anderson, building on older
texts of military and political theory, called the 'war
of maneuver.' In electoral democracies with highly
institutionalized political systems like ours, politics
is almost always defined as the 'war of position,' akin
to trench warfare: a small gain here, pushing a salient
out there, the occasional large-scale offensive (as in a
presidential campaign) that costs a great deal but may
or may not pay off. Not that much changes in any short-
term.

Occasionally, however, things break apart and down, and
the 'war of maneuver' begins: the rapid charges, chaotic
routs, and amazing changes of fortune that characterize
great battles.

This is the situation we have faced since George W. Bush
got his war vote in late October 2002, and two weeks
later won control of both houses of Congress-but by what
is historically a very narrow margin in the Senate, and
the most precarious margin imaginable in the House
(essentially the same bare majority they've held since
1994, but never been able to build on). Since then, he
and his cohort of rightist operatives have skated on the
thinnest of ice, and yet have always managed to avoid
falling through-if only by skating faster.

You may not be surprised that this is the most
controversial of my many speculations: that the
Republican hold on power, while apparently commanding,
is extremely fragile, as I argued last January in a web-
essay called 'Twelve Theses on the War in Iraq and the
Future of U.S. Politics.' Many people on the Left are
shocked and humbled, and for good reason, by the scope
and determination of the right, how they operate
effectively at every level of our politics, how they
seem to command everything. Yet I'll still reiterate my
thesis: the Right's apparent hegemony is illusory, there
is no realignment (yet), their control of the
institutional levers of power is real but insecure.

This is not a matter of the raw numbers last November 4.
Certainly it matters that GW Bush's majority of 51% was
the narrowest re-election victory by a Republican in a
century, and shockingly narrow for a 'war president.'
That's beside the point, however. We should concentrate
on Congress, where exists the real power to implement,
to delay, to harass, to force change.

By any historical standard, the Republican control of
the upper and lower houses hangs by a thread-what would
normally be considered a mere handful of seats.
Remember: in the New Deal years, the Democrats had a 3
to 1 majority in the House over three terms, peaking at
334 to 88 in 1937-39. Well into most of our lifetimes,
we took for granted huge Democratic majorities. Between
the fabled Watergate class of 1974 (that produced a
better than 2-1 majority) and 1994, the Democrats had an
average margin of 88 seats-a figure beyond Tom Delay's
wildest dreams. But we all know there was no real
parliamentary discipline. After all, Bill Clinton
entered the White House in 1993 with solid Democratic
majorities in both houses-and what good did it do him?
They disappeared in 1994. That would be a useful lesson
for GWB, if he was prepared to listen. Under political
pressure, the center will not hold, and I think the
debacle over Social Security, Bush's 'cratering' poll
numbers, the Schiavo fiasco, Delay's mess, and more to
come all suggest that this wafer-thin political
dominance may well prove its fragility over the next two
years.

To complicate matters even more, we have the first
really 'open' presidential campaign approaching since
1952: not only no incumbent, but no heir apparent in the
form of a vice-president eager to run (as in 2000, 1988,
1968, and 1960). Under these circumstances, the degree
of self-interested maneuvering we can normally
anticipate with no incumbent running will be many times
greater. 2008 will be a circus and the lions and tigers
in the Republican hierarchy are already lining up, red
in tooth and claw, ready to climb over each other to
power.

My main point is that we should be very careful about
assuming any stability at all to the current alignment
of power in U.S. national politics. If past patterns
mean anything, one can easily imagine yet another
Democratic president, with a Democratic majority in one
if not both houses of Congress, come 2008.

But this 'fragility,' if reassuring, is very much a two-
edged sword. Simply because of all the advantages of
being the default party, as the Republicans were for so
long, there are powerful compulsions encouraging the
Democrats to find the easiest common denominator (as in
Social Security), and the simplest kind of populistic
appeal (Republicans as out of touch with ordinary
Americans and too long in power, as corrupt 'big
government' and so on, all the charges Gingrich used to
undermine the Democrats over the years). With all these
easy outs, why would the Democratic leadership ever
confront an aggressive Republican machine around a
complex, dangerous issue like the war in Iraq? If
history tells us anything, it is that politicians
dependent on votes will only take that kind of stand
when the crisis is compelling enough to knock them
adrift from their traditional moorings, or when they
feel intense anger and pressure from engaged
constituencies. Minus the latter, what we can expect
from many Democrats is the kind of opportunism
manifested by John F. Kennedy in 1960, when he
relentlessly attacked Richard Nixon as soft on Red China
(Quemoy and Matsu), the Soviet Union (the phony 'missile
gap') and Cuba ('I am not the Vice President who lost
Cuba'). It was a long, drawn-out exercise in avoidance
until now-President Kennedy finally faced the great
domestic political crisis of his time on June 10, 1963,
and spoke with passion of the 'peaceful revolution' in
civil and human rights that all Americans had to accept
and undertake. And he got there only because of a
movement that never let up and because southern
Democratic leaders like George Wallace were openly
defying federal authority.

All these contingencies contribute to the regime of
brutal or vulgar partisanship which has reigned in
national politics since the mid-1990s at least. Rather
than ideological conflict, the confrontation is reduced
to strictly personal terms: Bill Clinton's sexual
dalliances, for instance. This is the worst possible
scenario for the Left in general, and certainly for the
antiwar movement. It reduces politics to simple
polarities: no matter how much I wanted Bush repudiated
for his war upon the world, an 'ABB' attitude was
foolish.

Let's turn to the state of the antiwar movement, the
historical subject seeking to act within the apparently
objective frame of US politics.

We have to begin by with a proviso, and a warning: our
opponents devoutly want to 'Iraqize' this war, and at
every point we have to be ready for a strategy which
will seek visible reductions in the US troop presence to
placate domestic opinion, just as Richard Nixon
'Vietnamized' his failing war in 1969 and after.

Having made that stipulation, there are three criteria
for a successful movement to oppose US foreign policy,
as I see it.

First, a successful movement is one that constantly
spreads into new geographic and demographic spaces (and
sectors), so as to keep structures of power on the
defensive, and hem them in.

Second, it will manifest a multi-strategy and multi-
tactics approach to swarm conventional structures of
power and policy-making elites, never letting up and
wearing them down, in the political equivalent of
guerrilla warfare.

Third, it will focus on opportunities to connect to so-
called 'mainstream,' more properly called conventional,
legislative and electoral politics, since this is the
arena where a movement must register its gains--and if
it doesn't, it can win only by dumb luck or the
intervention of an exterior force, the proverbial act of
god.

Where is the antiwar movement today, by these
benchmarks?

First, let's openly acknowledge the astonishing weakness
and failure exhibited by the various national
organizations and networks of the peace and solidarity
movement in the 1990s, which allowed for the rise of
ANSWER. Like nature, sectarians are eager to fill a
vacuum, and they did so with great energy. Since 2002,
United for Peace and Justice and a host of new
organizations (most of which belong to UFPJ) have worked
to overcome that entropy, with considerable success. The
need to come together as a broad and nonsectarian
movement in the streets, to find a unity in action,
helps explain why the overwhelming emphasis since late
2002 has been on large mobilizations (like February 15,
2003 and August 29, 2004), but now we need to move
beyond that stage of organizing and greatly diversify
both our overall strategies and our specific tactics for
ending the war.

Second, having largely overcome the problem posed by
ANSWER and the absence of a genuine, democratically-run
coalition, we can see that our movement is clearly
consolidating for the long haul. It is spreading
steadily into new spaces and sectors. But we have a very
long way to go-we as a movement have to take seriously
the challenge of simultaneous growth in all these areas:
*becoming a truly multiracial movement, a real necessity
if we ever hope to change the direction of US foreign
policy;
*consolidating a national student infrastructure with
staff and funding that will build upon the leadership of
the National Youth and Student Peace Coalition;
*making the various communities of faith a highly
visible component of our movement, a process now under
way with the founding of Clergy and Laity Concerned
About Iraq;
*developing targeted organizing and real outreach to all
those people and groups in the South, the mountain West
and rural areas in general who agree with us but are
surrounded by 'red state' rightists, and need support.

Third, we are still at a very early stage of developing
a sophisticated multi-strategy, multi-tactical approach.
In this regard the most positive signs are the strong
growth of groups like Military Families Speak Out, the
National Guard campaigns, and the burgeoning counter-
recruitment campaigns aimed at high school youth. The
decision by UFPJ to commit to a multi-pronged fall
mobilization in Washington DC, embracing a mass rally,
an interfaith service, large-scale civil disobedience,
and a coordinated national lobby day, is a major step in
the right direction.

Finally, in terms of leveraging our weight into the
conventional political (electoral and legislative)
arena, our movement has a long way to go, but is making
rapid steps. The recent vote on Rep. Lynne Woolsey's
amendment requesting that the President "develop a plan
as soon as practicable ... to provide for the withdrawal
of United States Armed Forces from Iraq" and "transmit
to the congressional defense committees a report that
contains the plan" showed how much space actually exists
to surface dissent within Congress and the structures of
power. Despite the near-absence of any coordinated
congressional pressure strategy, 122 Democrats (that's a
majority of their caucus) and 5 Republicans voted 'yes.'
We should take this as a clear signal that Congress is
prepared to respond to the mounting public
dissatisfaction, if given the kind of hard push that is
needed. Indeed, we should take this vote as a signal
that victories are ready to be won, if we will act
audaciously.

To push along an audacious perspective, here's a kind of
provocation. I want to pose a set of possible tactical
wins that would actually have an impact on the world of
conventional politics. Plenty of people assert that
thinking in these terms is premature, but to me if we
don't start thinking in these terms we will never really
move forward. So here goes:

A state legislature passes an 'Out Now' resolution
calling for immediate withdrawal (even getting a vote on
such a resolution is a victory of sorts)

A command rank officer resigns as an act of dissent from
the war

A prominent Republican elected official breaks ranks
with the President

A member of Congress loses his or her seat because of
support for the war

A major national institution (a large religious
denomination, a big union, a major association) calls
for immediate withdrawal

A citywide campaign gets recruiters kicked out of
schools

Celebrities from the (poor, people of color and/or
rural) constituencies that provide the troops speak
directly to potential volunteers, urging them not to
participate in an unjust occupation

More state legislatures follow Montana's lead and call
for bringing home their National Guard units
Churches start creating sanctuaries for soldiers who
refuse to fight

A top religious leader urges youths not to enlist, and
the right of military dissent from an unjust war
The count of members of Congress who oppose so-called
'supplemental aid' to fund the war consistently
increases

A resolution supporting immediate withdrawal is placed
on the ballot in California or elsewhere-and wins
More and more state Democratic Party organizations
follow California's in calling for immediate withdrawal
[kudos to Progressive Democrats of America on that win!]
Congress passes a non-binding resolution opposing 'stop
loss' orders as a form of involuntary servitude

The biggest win of all, of course, would be a candidate
in 2008 who repudiates not only this war, but the entire
doctrine of pre-emptive military domination of the
world, as immoral and disastrous-and not only gets the
Democratic nomination but wins the general election. A
pipe dream? Certainly, at this point, but this is how we
need to start thinking about ourselves; this is the
level of responsibility we need to accept for what our
government is doing to the world.

In conclusion, let's think about the challenge that
faces us now, not just the antiwar movement but the Left
as a whole, the challenge to take ourselves completely
seriously. This is the painful lesson we need to learn
from the no-longer-New Right's fifty-year process of
movement-building, ever since Joe McCarthy drank himself
to death and a new type of 'Southern Republicanism'
began to stir, seeking to pick up the pieces of the
Dixiecrat revolt.

The first lesson we can learn from the New Right is that
they have never allowed the immediate constraints of the
mainstream political world to define or limit them,
while at the same time they have remained intensely
focused on every possible gain and intervention in (and
manipulation of) that world. And bit by bit they have
taken it over, first within the Republican Party, and
then through the Republican Party.

Contrast this with the Left. On the one hand, we have
many formations and organizations wholly defined by and
limited by the constraints of institutional Democratic
Party politics. On the other, we have whole swathes of
activists who are deeply anti-electoral and even
abstentionist, preferring to stand aside from the impure
world of partisan activism. I know activists with
decades of experience who have never met a Member of
Congress, and know very little about how our government
actually works, its gears and levers. And there are lots
of people in-between, who participate in conventional
politics while holding their noses, wading in only up to
their knees (I would have to answer to this description,
if I'm being honest). This is why the Right, and even
many in the anemic Democratic center, mock us-and they
are correct to do so.

The second lesson is that even though the Right is just
as divided up into many different movements as we are,
with their own decades of sectarian baggage, they have
learned over time how to bring their movements together
into a common front. It would behoove us to study how
they did that-what kinds of compromises, and
institutional adjustments were necessary. At the same
time, we have to recognize that their common glue is
largely unavailable to us. In fundamental ways, people
on the right are linked by race, and by a racially and
ethnically-based (and sexualized) fear and loathing of a
whole set of 'others.' We may have common fears and
antipathies on the Left, we may all detest oppression
and militarism, but these are of a different order. So
we have to find our own common vision, one based not in
fear and the narrowest definitions of community and
patriotism, but in hope and an expansive,
internationalist love of the country we want to become,
not the country we have been. That's a tall order but
again, utterly necessary.

To really learn this second lesson, we're going to have
do something to which we as Americans are almost
congenitally averse. To build the powerful, united,
broad Left the world demands of us we are going to have
to embrace complexity-our own complexity as the historic
Left in America. We aren't at all the same kinds of
people, not just racially or sexually but in terms of
our ideologies, even our spiritualities. Pluralism is
here with a vengeance. Under no foreseeable
circumstances are we all going to become socialists, or
pacifists, or anarchists. We are Christian and Muslim
and Jewish and Buddhist, atheist and nationalist (of one
sort or another), black, brown, yellow, red and white,
working-class and middle-class. But if we can actually
come together as a movement, we have a world to gain-or
save.

Van Gosse teaches history at Franklin and Marshall
College in Lancaster, PA. He serves on the Steering
Committees of Historians Against the War and United for
Peace and Justice. The views expressed in this essay are
entirely personal.

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8) Building Unity at a Time of Possibility
By Ted Glick
Future Hope column, June 20, 2005

"Narrow approaches are a dead-end for our
movement. . . What is needed is an approach that can appeal
to millions of people, that connects with and draws strength
from the deep-seated traditions of struggle for justice
among the peoples who make up this country. This is what we
need to fight against the sham 'war on terrorism,' U.S.
support of Israeli occupation, attacks on our civil
liberties and civil rights, racism in all its forms, and the
economic terrorism experienced by people from Watts to the
Mississippi Delta to Harlem to Colombia, Africa, Argentina,
Afghanistan and elsewhere in the world."

I wrote these words in a column, "On Leftist
Parties," in January of 2003. They're still very relevant.

Since that time there have been a number of
changes as far as the make-up of the national peace and
justice movement. Back then United for Peace and Justice
(UFPJ) was just getting off the ground, and International
ANSWER was the predominant national coalition mobilizing
anti-war demonstrations. But today, following a split about
a year ago within the Workers World Party-a group with
significant influence within ANSWER--there is now a Workers
World Party-less ANSWER, and there is a newly-formed Troops
Out Now Coalition (TONC) within which WWP and its
International Action Center play a major role. Both
coalitions are significantly weaker, even taken together,
than they used to be before the WWP split.

UFPJ, on the other hand, has become the major
national peace and justice coalition. It has more than 1,000
member groups and a million dollar budget. 10 months ago it
organized a demonstration of ∏ million people outside the
Republican National Convention, and on May 1st of this year
it organized an anti-nuke, anti-war demonstration in New
York City of approximately 30,000. On the same day in NYC,
the Troops Out Now Coalition organized a demonstration of
around 1,000.

UFPJ is also undergoing some qualitative changes. One
example is the election a couple of months of ago of three
national co-chairs of color, George Friday, George Martin
and Judith LeBlanc. At its national assembly in St. Louis in
February, it adopted as one of its top priorities a
Grassroots Education Campaign "to reach potential new allies
and expand our base. . . An education working group will be
created to develop the long-term educational strategy to
reach new constituencies." This decision was made, and there
has been follow-up since, in response to internal criticism
that UFPJ was not taking seriously enough the importance of
outreach to communities of color and a linking of
international and domestic issues as they are experienced by
people at the grassroots.

It is within this context that, once again,
there is contention over UFPJ and ANSWER/TONC calls for a
massive demonstration on September 24th in Washington, D.C.
and elsewhere.

There's a lot of "déjà vu all over again" to
this contention. It reminds me of an extremely difficult and
problematic political process in the first part of 2002 as
various groups struggled to organize a united mass action on
April 20th of that year. We ended up doing so, with great
difficulty, but two aspects to the way ANSWER, supported by
TONC, are attempting to build support for their approach are
very similar to what they did then.

It is troubling that ANSWER/TONC is, ostensibly,
conducting what it calls a quest for "unity" via the
internet. So far this spring I've received at least five
emails from one or the other group trumpeting how committed
they are to achieving "unity" with UFPJ as they put forward
the correctness of their approach to making it happen. Three
and a half years ago, following some initial contact between
reps of ANSWER and reps of the April 20th Mobilization
coalition (the predecessor of UFPJ), ANSWER sent out an
email announcing that a "unity statement" had been adopted.
This false email was issued rather than ANSWER responding to
the April 20th Mobilization's putting forward of several
ideas on a possible way to have a unified day of action on
April 20th. These ideas were given with an explicit
request/understanding that ANSWER would respond to them so
that we could further process this question within our
coalition. And up until two weeks before April 20th, ANSWER
continued to use the internet to attempt to force a "unity"
on terms most favorable to them.

This is most definitely not the way to build
principled and effective unity, if that is truly the
objective.

It is also troubling that ANSWER has put forward
the demand, "Support the Palestinian People's Right of
Return" as a major demand. TONC held a conference earlier
this month on the topic, "Building a United Front to Stop
the War," and the first bulleted point that they made in
their website report of that conference was that "Support
for the Right of all Palestinian refugees and their
descendants to return to their original homes and property
in all of historic Palestine is not negotiable."

I personally understand and support the right of
Palestinian organizations to put this demand forward as they
struggle to end the Israeli occupation of Gaza, the West
Bank and East Jerusalem. When the state of Israel has been
aggressively acting upon the position that any Jew anywhere
in the world has the right to emigrate to Israel and take up
residence there, creating "facts on the ground" that lead to
more land grabs and building of settlements to accommodate
these immigrants, no one can legitimately deny this just
demand of the Palestinians. It must be dealt with as part of
the process of serious negotiations between the Palestinian
and Israeli government representatives, leading to an end to
the Israeli occupation.

But to put this particular demand forward rather
than, say, a demand to end U.S. support for Israeli
occupation, can only have the effect of confusing,
alienating or turning away potential participants in and
organizers of September 24th, and not just in the white
community. It is not a demand broadly understood or
supported within the United States, even within the U.S.
progressive movement. In the context of the movement to
force the United States to pull its military troops and
military bases out of Iraq and end its neo-colonial plans to
control Iraqi oil, this is a demand that will weaken and
narrow that movement. It is just plain strategically wrong
for ANSWER/TONC to put this forward in the way that they
are.

This is a very key political moment for our movement to get
the U.S. out of Iraq. The conservative North Carolina
Republican Congressman Walter Jones, who got "French fries"
in the Congressional cafeteria changed to "freedom fries,"
has joined with another Republican and two Democrats to put
forward a bill calling for a plan to begin withdrawing U.S.
troops next year. John Conyers has just convened a very
successful public hearing in Congress calling attention to
the Downing Street memo which has led to widespread media
coverage about that memo and has helped to strengthen the
peace movement. Public opinion polls report that almost 60%
of the U.S. American people are against the war and want to
begin bringing troops home. Amnesty International is
standing up to Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld and their ilk and
calling them out for the systematic torture and abuse in
their gulag of prisons at Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib and
elsewhere. The Bush/Cheney gang is on the defensive.

The last thing any group on the left which purports to be
against the war should be doing right now is conducting
itself in such a way that it divides, not unites, the broad
range of people of all colors and cultures who are prepared
to come out in massive numbers to demand an end to this war.

Ted Glick works with the Independent Progressive Politics
Network (www.ippn.org) and the Climate Crisis Coalition
(www.climatecrisiscoalition.org), although these ideas are
solely his own. He can be reached at indpol@igc.org or P.O.
Box 1132, Bloomfield, N.J. 07003.

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9) The Thinking Behind a Close Look
at a C.I.A. Operation
By BYRON CALAME
June 19, 2005
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/19/opinion/19public.html

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10) To Fill Ranks, Army Acts
To Retain Even Problem Enlistees
By GREG JAFFE
Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
June 3, 2005
To keep more soldiers in the service, the Army has told
battalion commanders, who typically command 800-soldier
units, that they can no longer bounce soldiers from the
service for poor fitness, pregnancy, alcohol and drug
abuse or generally unsatisfactory performance. Typically
such decisions are made at that level. Instead, the
battalion commanders must send the problem soldiers'
cases up to their brigade commander, who typically
commands about 3,000 soldiers.
http://online.wsj.com/public/article/0,,SB111776400852250138-rYue9OsHO9i0IaNz4uApoo5WJ80_20060603,00.html?mod=rss_free

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11) Supreme Court Orders
New Trial in 17-Year-Old
Murder Case
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: June 20, 2005
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Scotus-Death-Penalty.html?hp&ex=1119326400&en=82194b1d0546fa1a&ei=5094&partner=homepage

---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

12) Someone Else's Child
By BOB HERBERT
June 20, 2005
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/20/opinion/20herbert.html?hp=&adxnnl=1&adxnnlx=1119285163-kNizkcTjuoB851nYp3vQ6g

It has become clearer than ever that Americans do not want
to fight George W. Bush's tragically misguided war in Iraq.

You can still find plenty of folks arguing that we have to
stay the course, or even raise the stakes by sending more
troops to the war zone. But from the very start of this war
the loudest of the flag-waving hawks were those who were safely
beyond military age themselves and were unwilling to send their
own children off to fight.

It's easy to be macho when you have nothing at risk. The hawks
want the war to be fought with other people's children, while
their own children go safely off to college, or to the mall.
The number of influential American officials who have children
in uniform in Iraq is minuscule.

Most Americans want no part of Mr. Bush's war, which is why Army
recruiters are failing so miserably at meeting their monthly
enlistment quotas. Desperate, the Army is lowering its standards,
shortening tours, increasing bonuses and violating its own
recruitment regulations and ethical guidelines.

Americans do not want to fight this war.

Times Square in Midtown Manhattan is the most heavily traveled
intersection in the country. It was mobbed on V-E Day in
May 1945 and was the scene of Alfred Eisenstaedt's legendary
photo of a sailor passionately kissing a nurse on V-J Day
the following August. There is currently an armed forces
recruiting station in Times Square, but it's a pretty lonely
outpost. An officer on duty one afternoon last week said no
one had come in all day.

Vince Morrow, a 10th grader from Allentown, Pa., was
interviewed across the street from the recruiting station,
on Broadway. He said he had once planned to join the
military after graduating from high school, but had changed
his mind. "It's the war," he said. "Going over and never
coming back. Before the war you'd just go to different
places and help people. Now you go over there and you fight."

His mother, Michelle, said: "I'd like to see him around
awhile. It was different before the war. It's the fear
of not coming home. Our other son just graduated Saturday
and he was planning to go into the Air Force. They told
him college was included and made him all kinds of promises.
They almost made him sign papers before we had decided.
We thought about it and researched it and decided against it."

Last week's New York Times/CBS News Poll found that the
mounting casualties and continuing turmoil in Iraq have
made Americans increasingly pessimistic about the war.
A majority said the U.S. should have stayed out of Iraq
and only 37 percent approved of the president's handling
of the war.

What hasn't changed is the fact that the vast majority
of the parents who support the war do not want their
children to fight it. A woman in the affluent New York
suburb of Ridgewood, N.J., who has a daughter in high
school and a younger son, said: "I would not want my
children to go. If there wasn't a war it would be
different. I support the war and I think we need to
be there. But it's not going well. It's becoming like
Vietnam. It's a very bad situation. But we can't leave."

I don't know how you win a war that your country doesn't
want to fight. We sent too few troops into Iraq in the
first place and the number of warm bodies available for
Iraq and other military missions going forward is dwindling
alarmingly. The Bush crowd may be bellicose, but for most
Americans the biggest contribution to the war effort is
a bumper sticker that says "support our troops," and maybe
a belligerent call to a talk radio station.

The home-front "warriors" who find it so easy to give
the thumbs up to war endanger the truly valorous men and
women who are actually willing to put on a uniform, pick
up a weapon and place their lives on the line.

The president and these home-front warriors got us into
this war and now they don't know how to get us out. Nor
do they have a satisfactory answer to the important ethical
question: how do you justify sending other people's children
off to fight while keeping a cloak of protection around
your own kids?

If the United States had a draft (for which there is no
political sentiment), its warriors would be drawn from
a much wider swath of the population, and political leaders
would think much longer and harder before committing the
country to war.

E-mail: bobherb@nytimes.com

Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company

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13) Libraries Say Yes, Officials
Do Quiz Them About Users
By ERIC LICHTBLAU
Published: June 20, 2005
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/20/politics/20patriot.html

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14) G-8 Draft on Global Warming
Is Weakened at U.S. Behest
By ANDREW C. REVKIN
Published: June 18, 2005
"WASHINGTON, June 17 - Drafts of a joint statement being prepared
for the leaders of the major industrial powers show that the Bush
administration has succeeded in removing language calling for prompt
action to control global warming."
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/18/politics/18climate.html

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15) The Asbo Generation
More children than adults given antisocial orders
By Robert Verkaik, Legal Affairs Correspondent
20 June 2005
http://news.independent.co.uk/low_res/story.jsp?story=648302&host=3&dir=60

Children are the subject of more antisocial behaviour orders
than adults, leading commentators to warn that the Government
is in danger of making it a "crime to become a child".

Latest figures show that children have become the prime target
of antisocial behaviour orders with more than half of Asbos
issued between June 2000 and March 2004 against children
- 1,177 against children and 1,143 against adults.

Childcare charities are concerned that some of the orders, which
if breached can result in detention in a young offenders'
institution, are being imposed for inappropriate reasons. One
15-year-old boy with Asperger's syndrome was given an Asbo
which stated he was not to stare over his neighbours' fence
into their garden. Another 15-year-old with Tourette's syndrome,
which can involve an inability to stop shouting profanities,
received an Asbo banning him from swearing in public.

Children aged between 10 and 15 are now four times more
likely to be the subject of an Asbo than when the orders were
first used in 1999.

Shami Chakrabarti, director of Liberty, said: "In Britain today
there is no question that people need protecting from crime,
but we must not become an Asbo land, where it is a crime to
be irritating and a crime to become a child."

Juvenile justice groups and childcare organisations say that
it is too easy for the courts to impose these civil orders on
children which result in criminal punishments if breached.

Neighbourhood groups and community leaders are urging
police and local authorities to make greater use of Asbos
in an effort to stamp out nuisance behaviour. But what worries
children's groups and civil rights organisations is that this
policy is criminalising misbehaviour by imposing orders
against the softest targets - children.

In the past few months, boys as young as 10 have been
served with Asbos.

This month Siobhan Blake became the youngest girl to be
served with an Asbo. The 11-year-old was given a two-year
order banning her from throwing missiles, spitting, assaulting
anyone, using abusive language, damaging property and
harassing people. Blake had "terrorised" residents in Hastings,
East Sussex, by smashing windows and hurling eggs and stones.

The Council of Europe's human rights commissioner, Alvaro
Gil-Robles, said this month that Britain's policy on antisocial
behaviour was criminalising children. He said no juvenile
under 16 should be at risk of imprisonment for breaching
an antisocial behaviour order. Asbos should be "restricted
to serious cases".

Civil liberties groups have raised concerns that local
authorities are using the powers of the orders as a short
cut to imposing criminal punishments. An Asbo is granted
as a civil power, but a breach of the order is treated as
an offence punishable by up to five years in prison, or
a young offenders' institution.

The wide terms of the legislation mean that a magistrate
can grant an Asbo by being satisfied only on a balance
of probabilities that the accused's behaviour is "likely
to cause alarm, harassment or distress".

Groups such as the British Institute for Brain Injured Children,
a charity working with young people with behavioural difficulties,
say that the Government's targeting of "families from hell"
could lead to the demonising of children with Asperger's
syndrome or other problems.

In the first year of the Asbo, 1999, only a few dozen
applications were made to the courts. Since then, Labour
has introduced laws to strengthen their use while giving
councils and police more money to fund applications.
In many cases, an Asbo against a child is now accompanied
by a naming and shaming order.

The Children's Society has said that it is "very concerned
about the Government policy to "name and shame" children
who receive Asbos. Liz Lovell, a policy adviser at the society,
said: "The policy is not only counter-productive, it puts
children and young people at risk. We are also opposed
to the proposed extension of this policy in the Serious
Organised Crime and Police Bill.

"Although an Asbo is a civil order, breaching it is a criminal
offence, the penalty for which can be imprisonment. Asbos
were not designed with children in mind."

In the six years since the first Asbos were granted, evidence
is emerging that they no longer have a deterrent impact on
antisocial behaviour. Children are more likely to breach an
order - resulting in a criminal record - than an adult,
figures show.

Liberty has told the Commons Select Committee on Home
Affairs that such an "indiscriminate and excessive" use of
the legislation is "undermining any benefit they might bring".
Ms Chakrabarti said: "We are aware of anecdotal evidence of
Asbos being treated as a badge of honour. If that is so, then
what must be the principal purpose of Asbos, deterrence from
antisocial behaviour, is undermined. Displacement of
aggressive youths from one estate to a neighbouring one
does not address the cause of their behaviour."

Earlier this year, the Home Affairs Select Committee concluded
that the Government's Asbo policy was about right.

A spokesman for the Home Office said: "Asbos are about the
protection of the community. They are civil orders, not criminal.
As long as a young person abides by the order, there are no
further consequences and they will not get a criminal record.

"Asbos are not the first stop on the line. There have usually
been a range of interventions to attempt to modify behaviour.

"There's no evidence that Asbos are leading to an increase
in youth custody. Individual support orders and parent orders
are used to help modify youngsters' antisocial behaviour
when they are given an Asbo."

The spokeswoman added: "Breaching an Asbo is a serious
offence and it's important for the confidence of the community
that breaches are acted upon."

The Home Office was conducting research on the impact of
Asbos on the individual and the community, the spokeswoman
said, although it was important to understand that Asbos were
a "relatively new tool".

Asbo facts

* Of those who breached Asbos in 2004, 46 per cent were
given custodial sentences

* Forty-two per cent of all Asbos were breached up to
December 2003, compared to 36 per cent for the period
up to December 2002

* A Mori poll this month found that while 89 per cent of
people support Asbos, only 39 per cent feel they are effective

* The British Institute for Brain-Injured Children says at least
five children with autism and other brain disorders have
been given Asbos

Eoghan Williams

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Lineker libel trial collapses after jury fails to reach verdict
Central government 'still obstructive' over FOI

(c) 2004 Independent Digital (UK) Ltd
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