1) Pastors for Peace Friendshipment
Caravan to Cuba being held up at
US-Mexico Border!
EMERGENCY NETWORKS AND PRESS CONTACTS:
2) Order your advance tickets to Howard Zinn's Marx in Soho
Send check for $10.00 for each advance ticket to:
Bay Area United Against War
P.O. Box 318021
San Francisco, CA 94131-8021
Please indicate which show:
Thursday, August 4, 7:00 p.m.
Friday, August 5, 7:00 p.m.
Saturday, August 6, 2:00 p.m.
Jon Sims Center for the Performing Arts
1519 Mission Street between 11th Street
and South Van Ness, S.F.
3) Cut all Public School Ties to the Military!
Speak up and Picket the S.F. Board of Education
the Fourth Tuesday of Each Month.
Next picket line: Tuesday, July 27, 6:30 P.M.-7:30 P.M.
(The July Board of Ed. meetings have been cancelled. But we
will still hold a picket July 27 at 6:30 p.m.-7:30 p.m.
in front of the Board of Education building.)
The next picket line after July 27 is August 23, 6:30 P.M.
-7:30 P.M. (just before school starts back.)
August 23, 6:30 p.m.-7:30 P.M.
555 Franklin St., S.F,
To get on the speakers list call:
415-241-6427, 241-6493 or 241-6000
(For more info call: 415-824-8730)
4) Where the Arab and Muslim Community Will Stand on
September 24
From Al-Awda-DC list:
5) Army Likely To Fall Short in Recruiting,
General Says
By ERIC SCHMITT
July 24, 2005
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/24/politics/
24recruit.html?hp&ex=1122177600&en=724df10ec5c825fc&ei=5094&partner=hom
epage
6) Government Defies an Order
to Release Iraq Abuse Photos
By KATE ZERNIKE
Published: July 23, 2005
Lawyers for the Defense Department are refusing to cooperate with a federal judge's
order to release secret photographs and videotapes related to the Abu Ghraib prison
abuse scandal.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/23/politics/23abuse.html
7) Uncle Sam wants you - even if you're 42 years old
By Rick Maze
Times staff writer
July 19, 2005
http://www.armytimes.com/story.php?f=1-292925-983408.php
8) Bombs hit London two weeks after deadly blasts
Thu Jul 21, 2005 10:08 AM ET
http://go.reuters.com/
newsArticle.jhtml?type=topNews&storyID=9136128&src=eDialog/GetContent
9) Defend a Woman‚s Right to Choose!
Stop the anti-abortion „Crusade for Life‰
10) Antiwar Activists Reach U.S. Sailors In Australia
The creativity that these antiwar activists used in reaching
active-duty military personnel--and the friendly reception they
received from the sailors--is inspiring. They provided a shining
example of what's possible at a time when Bush's war for oil
is growing increasingly unpopular--in the U.S., around the
world and even within the ranks of the U.S. military.
11) Recruiters Pursue Student Data
Military recruiters are seeking to access to student
lists before families have been given a chance to opt out.
By Brian McNeill/The Connection
July 21, 2005
http://www.connectionnewspapers.com/printarticle.asp?article=53499
12) Riot control ray gun worries scientists
By Reuters
http://www.news.com/
http://news.com.com/Riot+control+ray+gun+worries+scientists/2100-7337_3-
5796749.html
13) Some Guantánamo Prisoners
Have Gone on Hunger Strike
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: July 22, 2005
WASHINGTON, July 21 (AP) - Some 50 prisoners at the
American naval base at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, have
been on a hunger strike for three days, a Pentagon
spokesman said Thursday.
Forum: National Security
The spokesman, Bryan Whitman, said he did not
know why the prisoners, detained as terrorism
suspects, were refusing food, adding that their
health was being monitored. Some have already
begun eating again, Mr. Whitman said.
The Pentagon's account of the protest contrasted
somewhat with that of two Afghans released on
Monday from Guantánamo. The two, Habir Russol and
Moheb Ullah Borekzai, said on Wednesday that more
than 180 Afghans were on a hunger strike to
protest mistreatment.
Mr. Russol and Mr. Borekzai estimated that the
men were in the 14th or 15th day of their fast.
Mr. Borekzai later said of the hunger strikers:
"Some of these people say they were mistreated
during interrogation. Some say they are innocent."
"They are protesting that they have been in jail
nearly four years, and they want to be released," he said.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/22/politics/22gitmo.html?
14) Pentagon Proposes Rise
in Age Limit for Recruits
By DAMIEN CAVE
Published: July 22, 2005
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/22/politics/22recruit.html
15) GI Special 3B97 ThomasFBarton@earthlink.net
July 21, 2005 By DENNIS HUSPENI, THE GAZETTE
16) House Votes to Keep Anti-Terror Law
But Senate version puts more limits on federal agents
by Edward Epstein
Published on Friday, July 22, 2005 by the San Francisco Chronicle
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines05/0722-07.htm
17) 'Every Mother's Son' filmmaker
Tami Gold in Bayview!
by mesha Monge-Irizarry
On June 7, Tami Gold, co-producer of the nationally
acclaimed film "Every Mother's Son,"
came to the Idriss Stelley Foundation on Third Street
in Bayview to touch base and
exchange ideas on how to impact police brutality nationwide.
http://www.sfbayview.com/072005/everymothersson072005.shtml
18) How a Trip to Film in Iraq
Ended in a Military Jail Cell
By TIM GOLDEN
Published: July 24, 2005
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/24/national/nationalspecial3/24detainee.html
19) House's NASA Bill Embraces
Bush Plan
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: July 23, 2005
WASHINGTON, July 22 (AP) - The House overwhelmingly
endorsed President Bush's vision of sending people
back to the Moon and eventually to Mars as it passed
a bill on Friday to set NASA policy for the next two years.
The bill was approved by a 383-to-15 vote after a collegial
debate in which lawmakers emphasized their commitment not
only to Mr. Bush's space exploration plans but also to
traditional programs at the National Aeronautics and
Space Administration, like science and aeronautics.
Originally, the measure would have shifted $1.3 billion
from exploration to other NASA programs. But after
administration objections, lawmakers restored the
money for exploration during floor debate by adding
to the bill's bottom line, which is at $34.7 billion.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/23/politics/23nasa.html
---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*--------
1) Pastors for Peace Friendshipment
Caravan to Cuba being held up at
US-Mexico Border!
EMERGENCY NETWORKS AND PRESS CONTACTS:
SPREAD THE WORD FAR AND WIDE!
http://www.commerce.gov
202-482-2000
Secretary of Commerce Carlos Gutierrez
cgutierrez@doc.gov
As of 1:30 pm EDT, The Pastors for Peace
Friendshipment Caravan to Cuba is
being held up at the US-Mexico border
by US Commerce Department officials.
They are threatening to search every
vehicle and every item of humanitarian
aid. They are telling us that "only
licensable goods will be allowed to
cross into Mexico."
Pastors for Peace does not accept
or apply for a license to deliver
humanitarian aid to Cuba.
There are 130 US citizens
traveling with the caravan. They and the
humanitarian aid are traveling
in eight busses, a box truck and two small
cars. It will take days to inspect
the 140 tons of aid. We are prepared to
do whatever we need to do to
deliver our humanitarian aid to Cuba. Stay
posted...
Marxism mailing list
Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu
http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism
---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*--------
2) In honor of Karl Marx, the BBC Radio 4's "In Our Time
Greatest Philosopher Vote" winner, Bay Area United Against
War is presenting a Benefit Presentation of Howard Zinn's
one man play, MARX IN SOHO
Starring Jerry Levy as Karl Marx
Directed by Michael Fox Kennedy.
Thursday, August 4, 7:00 p.m.
Friday, August 5, 7:00 p.m.
Saturday, August 6, 2:00 p.m.
Jon Sims Center for the Performing Arts
1519 Mission Street between 11th Street
and South Van Ness*
Advance tickets: $10
Door: $20.00
For advance tickets: Send a check to:
Bay Area United Against War
P.O. Box 318021
San Francisco, CA 94131-8021
Please indicate which performance.
Call: 415-824-8730
The premise of the play is that after Marx dies in 1883, he
is able to see what's happening on earth for next 100 years
and comes back to talk about it. Imagine all Karl Marx would
have to say after one hundred years of just being able to watch...
The single actor in this one-man play is Jerry Levy,
who has been teaching sociology at Marlboro College
and been acting with the Actors' Theater of Brattleboro
since he moved there from Chicago in 1975. Originally
directed by Michael Fox Kennedy of the Actors' Theater,
Levy has been on the road with Zinn's version of Karl
Marx for a year, performing at benefits, colleges, small
theaters and other venues around the state. At Middle
Earth he was sponsored by the Bradford-based Coos Peace
and Justice Alliance and performed free of charge but
charged with mighty talent and a bottomless love of the play.
www.bauaw.org
Contact person: Bonnie Weinstein 415-824-8730-office/home
415-990-4237-cell
*The Jon Sims Center is located at 1519 Mission Street
(between 11th Street and South Van Ness), South of Market,
San Francisco, CA 94103
BY CAR:
From the East Bay: Take 80 North then 101 North to the
Mission Street exit. Stay on the right hand side of the exit.
Turn right off the exit, and stay on Mission Street. The Jon
Sims Center is two blocks past Van Ness, next to Firestone.
From the South Bay: Take 101 North to the Mission Street
Exit. Stay on the right hand side of the exit. Turn right off
the exit, and stay on Mission Street. The Jon Sims Center
is two blocks past Van Ness, next to Firestone.
From the North Bay: Take 101 South to Lombard, make
a right on Van Ness and then a left onto Mission. Jon Sims
Center is two blocks past Van Ness, next to Firestone.
Parking: Daytime parking is very difficult. We encourage
day users to take public transportation. In the evening,
street parking along Mission Street, Minna Street and
11th Street is not horrible (in San Francisco terms) after
6:00 PM, but the closer you are to 6:00 PM, the better
your chances of finding parking. There is no parking
along Mission between 4-6 PM, and you will be
promptly towed.
VIA BART/MUNI/SAMTRANS:
Go to http://www.transitinfo.org for more information
about Bay Area public transportation.
BART: Take BART to the Civic Center station, then transfer
to the outbound Muni J,K,L,M or N train. Exit at the next
stop (Van Ness Station). Walk 1 block south, cross Mission,
and the Jon Sims Center is next to Firestone.
MUNI: The Jon Sims Center is 1 block south of the Van
Ness Muni underground station, accessible from any Muni
streetcar. Additionally, the 14 Mission, 42 Loop 49 and
47 Van Ness bus stop at Mission and 11th Street, only
1/2 block from the Jon Sims Center. Current Muni fare is $1.25.
SamTrans: The SamTrans DX, KX, MX, NX, PX, RX and
TX buses stops at Mission and 9th Streets. Walk three
blocks west (towards Sutro tower) to reach the Jon Sims
Center. Current SamTrans fare is $1.10. Please note that
SamTrans buses to the City only run during rush hours.
---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*--------
3) Cut all Public School Ties to the Military!
Speak up and Picket the S.F. Board of Education
the Fourth Tuesday of Each Month.
Next picket line: Tuesday, July 27, 6:30 P.M.-7:30 P.M.
(The July Board of Ed. meetings have been cancelled. But we
will still hold a picket July 27 at 6:30 p.m.-7:30 p.m.
in front of the Board of Education building.)
The next picket line after July 27 is August 23, 6:30 P.M.
-7:30 P.M. (just before school starts back.)
August 23, 6:30 p.m.-7:30 P.M.
555 Franklin St., S.F,
To get on the speakers list call:
415-241-6427, 241-6493 or 241-6000
(For more info call: 415-824-8730)
---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*--------
4) Where the Arab and Muslim Community Will Stand on
September 24
From Al-Awda-DC list:
On September 24 in Washington, DC the Arab American
and the Muslim community will stand united with all
targeted communities against the onslaught of the
National Security State at home and abroad, as we
declare a clear opposition to the war on Iraq. We
will assemble from far and wide in a unified
mobilization at the White House under the banner of
the "September 24 National Coalition for the March on
Washington" with thousands of people from every
community, region, sector and background to send a
message to the Bush administration that its illegal
war and occupation must come to an end. In addition
to Washington, DC, we will also simultaneously
mobilize in Los Angeles and San Francisco to send a
powerful national message on a massive scale.
Emphasizing the consensus of the movement worldwide
that war is neither singular in nature nor narrow in
goals, we will inextricably support the struggle of
the Palestinian people for freedom and return. As
people in Palestine march the streets in support of
their Iraqi brothers and sisters and as the
Palestinian flag is waved in Iraq, we fully understand
that those struggles cannot be disconnected from each
other.
We are honored to insist on standing with our brothers
and sisters in Haiti as they face off ongoing
assaults, for their struggle is also ours. It should
not be any other way. As such, we will stand in
solidarity with all those targeted by Empire as we
collectively share the wrath of its violence. We will
defend civil rights and liberties, and reject any
attempt to falsely position Muslims and Arab Americans
as outsiders in this society.
Indeed, forty-two years ago, the 1963 March on
Washington carried the bitter struggle of generations
as it announced that the violence and hatred of racism
and segregation have no place in our midst. That
march continues to this very day, as we in turn
announce that war and occupation also have no place in
our midst.
As we march in the footsteps of those who have
preceded us in the streets of Washington, DC, and
despite repeated attempts by the leadership of United
for Peace and Justice (UFPJ) to create political
segregation under various false pretexts, we will not
be shunned nor will we start from separate rallies or
segregated points of departure. We are angered that
UFPJ leadership would attempt to divert activists
headed for Washington, DC on that day away from where
our community will be standing. Those days of
separation, we believed, are over. We are saddened
that the leadership of the very organization to which
we extended a sincere invitation of partnership, UFPJ,
would instead respond 11 days later by calling for a
rival and segregated protest on the same day and in
the same place, simply to spite our community, oust
Haiti and Palestine from the slogans of the anti-war
movement, and remove Arabs and Muslims from positions
of leadership.
Under the pretext of reaching out to a wider
population, it is we, the targeted communities, who
are being squeezed out and shunned aside by those
calling for a separate march. And under the guise of
minimalist slogans, it is the political demands of
those at the receiving end of war that are being muted
and silenced.
In its behavior, the leadership of UFPJ is fanning the
flames of separation and is unnecessarily pitting
trusting movement activists against our community and
people. Last year, hundreds of organizations and
thousands upon thousands of activists took a clear
stand against the marginalization of the Arab and
Muslim community, and in favor of a principled
political position. Yet, here we are again, facing
the same attempts of separation by the same leadership
of UFPJ.
It has become too common for some sectors in the US
anti-war movement to be selective about opposition to
Empire for their own political gains and demand that
various targeted communities must "wait". But today's
war on and occupation of Iraq, against which we all
stand from the first day of sanctions until now, is a
manifestation of an ongoing larger quest for dominance
targeting all. Consider the Palestinian people's
perspective - what more can they wait for? Their land
has been colonized through a racist Zionist political
program; the vast majority of the Palestinian people
has been expelled and remains in exile for nearly six
decades; more than 550 villages and towns have been
erased and the destruction continues; at least 650,000
have been jailed so far; massacres upon massacres have
been committed; and the killing of Palestinian Arabs
has been normalized. All with full US backing and
total cover, as an integral component of that same
overall strategy of Empire. And all while the same
sectors of the movement still say, "wait." What else
must we "wait" for?
Because we are at the primary receiving end of war,
and in spite of its systematic violence and
persecution here and abroad, we will neither wait, be
sidelined, tokenized or be spoken for. We will not
re-live the past. As we in the US join a galvanized
world against the occupation of Iraq, our inextricable
demands for justice must be put forward.
And as we march on to realize a dream long deferred,
we are reminded of what Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
wrote in his Letter from Birmingham Jail: "For years
now I have heard the word 'Wait!'...This 'Wait' has
almost always meant 'Never.' We must come to see...that
'justice too long delayed is justice denied'...Perhaps
it is easy for those who have never felt the stinging
dark of segregation to say, 'Wait.'"
The streets of Washington, DC for decades have
witnessed the struggles for ending hegemony over our
communities and against separation and isolation. To
us, purposely assembling apart and marching away from
our young and old can only have one meaning!!
What does the leadership of UFPJ gain by continuing to
pit activists and communities against each other?
Unity with those facing Empire should not just be an
option; it should be a must!
We call on every community center and place of
worship, on every student group and grassroots
organization to join the thousands who will assemble
at the White House on September 24.
We call on all to leave behind the era of separation
and to join in unity.
All Out on September 24!
Muslim American Society (MAS) Freedom Foundation
National Council of Arab Americans
Imam Johari Abdul-Malik, Chairman, Coordinating
Council of Muslim Organizations
Al-Awda: The Palestine Right to Return Coalition
Arab Muslim American Federation
The Palestine Right of Return Congress
Free Palestine Alliance
Palestinian American Women Association
Middle East Cultural and Information Center
UNITED FOR PEACE & JUSTICE | 212-868-5545
To engage in online discussion of UFPJ matters, j
oin our discussion list by sending a blank email to
ufpj-disc-subscribe@yahoogroups.com
Yahoo! Groups Links
<*> To visit your group on the web, go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ufpj-news/
---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*--------
5) Army Likely To Fall Short in Recruiting,
General Says
By ERIC SCHMITT
July 24, 2005
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/24/politics/
24recruit.html?hp&ex=1122177600&en=724df10ec5c825fc&ei=5094&partner=hom
epage
---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*--------
6) Government Defies an Order
to Release Iraq Abuse Photos
By KATE ZERNIKE
Published: July 23, 2005
Lawyers for the Defense Department are refusing to cooperate with a federal judge's
order to release secret photographs and videotapes related to the Abu Ghraib prison
abuse scandal.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/23/politics/23abuse.html
---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*--------
7) Uncle Sam wants you - even if you're 42 years old
By Rick Maze
Times staff writer
July 19, 2005
http://www.armytimes.com/story.php?f=1-292925-983408.php
---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*--------
8) Bombs hit London two weeks after deadly blasts
Thu Jul 21, 2005 10:08 AM ET
http://go.reuters.com/
newsArticle.jhtml?type=topNews&storyID=9136128&src=eDialog/GetContent
---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*--------
9) Defend a Woman‚s Right to Choose!
Stop the anti-abortion „Crusade for Life‰
The „Crusade for Life‰ is in the Bay Area disrupting
our community by harassing women at health clinics
from July 15-27. See below for a report about what
happened when they hit town last Saturday and the
successful defense of Planned Parenthood Golden Gate.
We need your help to defend our clinics and to send
the message that the Bay Area is pro-choice and stands
up for reproductive rights!
Call your local Bay Area clinic and let them know
you are willing to help. Sign up for escort or clinic
defense training. The anti-abortionists will be in
San Francisco from July 15-24. They are planning to
be in Oakland on July 22, Berkeley on July 26, and
Richmond on July 27.
Drive by local reproductive health centers on a
regular basis (especially at night) to ensure the
safety of the facility.
Support the Abortion Rights and Reproductive Justice
Network by sending tax-deductible donations payable to
Women‚s Choice Clinic, 570 14th St. #3 Oakland, CA
94612. Call 415-864-1278 for information on Network
meetings. The next meeting is Monday, July 25,
6:00-8:00pm at the Women‚s Building in San Francisco,
on 18th Street between Valencia and Guerrero.
· Anyone who wants to help coordinate this week‚s
clinic defense activities, help organize a proposed
press conference on Saturday morning, and get the word
out, meet Radical Women and other activists at 6:30pm
at City Blend Café, 3087 16th Street (near the corner
of Valencia) in San Francisco‚s Mission District.
*
Here‚s an eyewitness report from the streets about the
very successful clinic defense that happened when the
anti-abortion rights „Crusade for Life‰ youth, on a
tour to harass clinics and women from San Diego to
Sacramento, hit San Francisco this past Saturday.
As predicted, the „Crusade‰ showed up at Planned
Parenthood on Eddy Street with their Vatican flag,
vials of holy water, small plastic fetus figurines,
rosaries and a bullhorn. There were about 25 of them,
all college-aged. (Go to www.crusadeforlife2005.com to
get more information about this group and their
sponsors, the American Life League and the Catholic
Church).
Thanks to quick mobilizing, a vibrant, disciplined and
militant group of reproductive rights activists were
prepared to meet them. Planned Parenthood had lined
up a number of escorts for the day, who did a great
job. We also had about 40 other folks out at 8am,
ready to surround and drown out the bigots' prayers
and rightwing propaganda. There were only a few older
local „'regulars‰ out with their rosaries and
doctored-up posters, but then ''Crusaders'' arrived at
10am, clearly not expecting to be greeted by such
staunch opposition!
Representatives of Radical Women, the Freedom
Socialist Party, the International Socialist
Organization, Code Pink, the Abortion Rights and
Reproductive Justice Network, and a number of
individuals of all races, ages, and genders who got
news about the need for clinic defense came out to
confront the „'Crusaders.‰ We were there from the
moment the clinic opened until it closed for the day,
making sure that these emboldened young bigots didn't
have a moment of silence to hear themselves praying or
spouting their anti-choice, anti-feminist hogwash. We
had a lot of chants ready, such as „Your crusade is
broken! We‚ll keep this clinic open!‰ and „Not the
church, not the state! Women will decide our fate!‰
We also held signs with slogans defending abortion as
a healthcare issue, calling for an end to forced
sterilization and forced maternity, and demanding
every person‚s non-negotiable right to control their
own body ˆ these got lots of honks and waves from Muni
buses and cars passing by. Virtually everything the
Crusaders did was met with effective counter
protesting. When they sang, we chanted louder; when
they held up „abortion is homicide‰ signs, we held our
multi-issue ones higher, and when they started
chalking the sidewalk with their sexist graffiti
rhetoric, we poured water and wiped it out.
Many of the Crusaders staged a „die-in‰ right in front
of the doors of Planned Parenthood and started giving
sermons over the bullhorn full of lies about the
health effects of abortion and other misleading
propaganda, meant to intimidate women and make them
feel as guilty as possible. We corralled them and
made it clear throughout the day that San Francisco is
a pro-choice town.
With this in mind, we need more groups and individuals
to participate in clinic defense this Friday and
Saturday. Since we expect the „Crusaders‰ to hit
Oakland clinics on Friday, July 22 and San Francisco
clinics again this Saturday, July 23, we want to try
to keep them as far away from the clinic doors and the
clients and as possible, so Radical Women and our
allies will be right out there at 8am again. We need
your help! Call 415-864-1278 for details.
*
Issued by Radical Women
415.864.1278 rwbayarea@yahoo.com
www.radicalwomen.org
---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*--------
10) Antiwar Activists Reach U.S. Sailors In Australia
The creativity that these antiwar activists used in reaching
active-duty military personnel--and the friendly reception they
received from the sailors--is inspiring. They provided a shining
example of what's possible at a time when Bush's war for oil
is growing increasingly unpopular--in the U.S., around the
world and even within the ranks of the U.S. military.
July 22, 2005 By Eric Ruder, Socialist Worker
ANTIWAR ACTIVISTS in Sydney, Australia, turned the harbor
area surrounding three U.S. Navy ships into a huge, open-air
theater--and found that U.S. sailors warmly received their
leaflets and the antiwar documentary they projected.
Using a projector and huge sound system, organizers used the
side of a shipping container next to the Navy ships to
project Sir, No Sir, a new documentary by David Zeiger
about the revolt in the U.S. military during the Vietnam War.
"We estimate that at least 700 personnel saw some of the
movie," wrote James Courtney, a peace activist and member
of Greenpeace, in a report he sent to the Internet
newsletter GI Special.
"Around 200 or so watched it for 10 to 15 minutes. The U.S. MPs
and around 15 plainclothes U.S. military staff watched
the whole movie (it was right in their face so they didn't
have much choice). The sound system was very loud, so we
expect that possibly thousands of personnel heard what
was happening."
U.S. Navy officers asked local police to stop the activists,
but the police replied that they had a democratic right
to protest.
Activists also found other ways to reach out to the
sailors. "At the main gates of the naval base through
which all service personnel coming or going passed...we
laid out candles in the shape of the peace symbol," wrote
Courtney. "The response was moving and inspiring. We had
naval personnel helping to light candles and taking photos.
Many words of thanks from ships' crew--some with tears
welling in their eyes.
"We had nothing but positive feelings from the ships' crew
that spoke with us. "We managed to hand out around 200
copies of Traveling Soldier, but noticed that that this
was mostly from crew going ashore, and that many were
cautious about taking it..."
"This was a very moving and inspirational experience for
the small group of people that made it happen. We felt moved
by the plight of the young men and women that we met. There
was one line that we heard from many: 'Sometimes, I feel
that we are fighting for the wrong reason.'"
The creativity that these antiwar activists used in reaching
active-duty military personnel--and the friendly reception
they received from the sailors--is inspiring. They provided
a shining example of what's possible at a time when Bush's
war for oil is growing increasingly unpopular--in the U.S.,
around the world and even within the ranks of the
U.S. military.
GI SPECIAL 3B96
---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*--------
11) Recruiters Pursue Student Data
Military recruiters are seeking to access to student
lists before families have been given a chance to opt out.
By Brian McNeill/The Connection
July 21, 2005
http://www.connectionnewspapers.com/printarticle.asp?article=53499
The 'Do No Recruit' List
Section 9528 of the federal "No Child Left Behind" law
requires public high schools to provide military recruiters
with a list of student names, addresses and phone numbers.
To remove a teenager's information from the military recruitment
list, the student or a parent must sign an opt-out form - which
Fairfax County Public Schools mails to every high school
student's home in August.
The FCPS opt-out form is also available throughout the year at http://www.fcps.edu/
mediapub/publicat/familygram/optout/hsmilitary.htm.
Any high school student - even those under the age of 18 –
are permitted to remove their name from the military
recruiting list.
During the 2004-2005 school year, approximately 14 percent
of Fairfax County high school students requested that their
names be excluded from the recruiting list.
Photo by Brian McNeill/The Connection
Sgt. Mike Watson, a National Guard recruiter, sought
military volunteers last fall at South Lakes High
School in Reston.
Facing pressure to recruit young volunteers during
wartime, U.S. military recruiters have been increasing
their efforts to identify potential recruits in
Fairfax County high schools.
Over the past three months, recruiters have sought
student names, addresses and phone numbers at the
county's 25 high schools - before families have
been given the opportunity to remove their student's
name from the recruiting list.
"Recruiters want to complete their mailings this
summer, but it is important that families be able
to choose whether or not to opt out," said
a Fairfax County Public Schools e-mail alert
sent Wednesday to principals and guidance directors.
The No Child Left Behind law of 2002 requires
schools to provide recruiters with student
contact information.
But the federal law also allows families to
remove the teenager's name from the recruiting
list. Fairfax County Public Schools mails out
military recruitment opt-out forms to each
student's home in August.
It is not clear if military recruiters have
been wrongly allowed to access information
about next year's student population.
In at least one recent case, however, a U.S.
Marine Corps recruiter told a high school
principal that she had already obtained student
information from several other Fairfax County schools.
"I have some serious concerns about this," said
School Board Member Janet Oleszek (at large).
"These recruiters are doing everything they can
to get access to student information."
SGT. JIMMIE PERKINS, a spokesman for the Marine
Corps Recruiting Command in Quantico, said military
recruiters have the right to ask high schools for
the student contact information.
"If parents are upset, they need to take that up with
the school system," Perkins said.
Lynn Terhar, president of the Fairfax County Council
of PTAs, said she has heard several complaints about
military recruiters contacting students that asked
to be removed from the list.
Recruiters will often purchase student telephone
directories in Fairfax County high schools to
acquire more contact information - including data
on those students who opted out, Terhar said.
"A lot of parents in this county feel its
inappropriate and intrusive for recruiters to
contact students who don't want to be contacted,"
she said.
Additionally, military recruiters have access to
a nation-wide database of information on nearly
12 million students between the ages of 16 and 18
and all college students, according to a May 23
notice in the Federal Register.
The database - compiled from commercial and
government documents - includes each student's
date of birth, gender and address. If available,
it also lists the student's ethnicity, e-mail
address, grade point average and course of study.
OLESZEK SAID federal law should require
families to ask to be included on recruiting
lists, rather than requiring families to be removed.
"We should have to opt-in, not opt-out," she said.
Some members of Congress agree. The Student Privacy
Protection Act of 2005, sponsored by U.S. Rep.
Michael Honda (D-Calif.), would amend No Child
Left Behind by requiring families to specifically
ask to be contacted by military recruiters.
The bill has 53 co-sponsors in Congress, including
U.S. Rep. Jim Moran (D-8).
Not everyone believes the current law is problematic.
School Board Member Stephen Hunt (at large) said the
nation needs recruits to complete its military missions
in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere.
Hunt, a former U.S. Navy flight officer, said student
contact information helps recruiters convey their
message that the military is a valuable experience.
"There are many young people out there who are willing
to defend our nation's freedom, but who wouldn't
otherwise know about the opportunity the military
provides," he said.
Hunt said he is disappointed that some families do
not want to hear from military recruiters.
"We're talking about the same annoyance as telemarketers,"
he said. "To hear people say that they've got to protect
their kid from the evil military recruiters just saddens me."
---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*--------
12) Riot control ray gun worries scientists
By Reuters
http://www.news.com/
http://news.com.com/Riot+control+ray+gun+worries+scientists/2100-7337_3-
5796749.html
Story last modified Wed Jul 20 12:22:00 PDT 2005
Scientists are questioning the safety of a Star Wars-style
riot control ray gun due to be deployed in Iraq next year.
The Active Denial System weapon, classified as "less lethal"
by the Pentagon, fires a 95GHz microwave beam at rioters to
cause heating and intolerable pain in less than five seconds.
The discomfort is designed to prompt people caught in the
microwave beam to move away from it, thereby allowing riot
-control personnel to break up and manage a crowd.
But New Scientist magazine reported Wednesday that during
tests carried out at Kirtland Air Force Base in New Mexico,
participants playing the part of rioters were told to
remove glasses and contact lenses to protect their eyes.
In another test they were also told to remove metal objects
such as coins from their clothing to prevent local hot
spots from developing on their skin.
"What happens if someone in a crowd is unable for whatever
reason to move away from the beam?" asked Neil Davison,
coordinator of the nonlethal weapons research project at
Britain's Bradford University.
"How do you ensure that the dose doesn't cross the
threshold for permanent damage? Does the weapon cut
out to prevent overexposure?"
The magazine said a vehicle-mounted version of the
weapon named Sheriff was scheduled for service in Iraq
in 2006 and that U.S. Marines and police were both
working on portable versions.
Story Copyright (c) 2005 Reuters Limited .
All rights reserved.
Copyright (c)1995-2005 CNET Networks, Inc. All rights reserved.
---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*--------
13) Some Guantánamo Prisoners
Have Gone on Hunger Strike
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: July 22, 2005
WASHINGTON, July 21 (AP) - Some 50 prisoners at the
American naval base at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, have
been on a hunger strike for three days, a Pentagon
spokesman said Thursday.
Forum: National Security
The spokesman, Bryan Whitman, said he did not
know why the prisoners, detained as terrorism
suspects, were refusing food, adding that their
health was being monitored. Some have already
begun eating again, Mr. Whitman said.
The Pentagon's account of the protest contrasted
somewhat with that of two Afghans released on
Monday from Guantánamo. The two, Habir Russol and
Moheb Ullah Borekzai, said on Wednesday that more
than 180 Afghans were on a hunger strike to
protest mistreatment.
Mr. Russol and Mr. Borekzai estimated that the
men were in the 14th or 15th day of their fast.
Mr. Borekzai later said of the hunger strikers:
"Some of these people say they were mistreated
during interrogation. Some say they are innocent."
"They are protesting that they have been in jail
nearly four years, and they want to be released," he said.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/22/politics/22gitmo.html?
---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*--------
14) Pentagon Proposes Rise
in Age Limit for Recruits
By DAMIEN CAVE
Published: July 22, 2005
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/22/politics/22recruit.html
---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*--------
15) GI Special 3B97 ThomasFBarton@earthlink.net
July 21, 2005 By DENNIS HUSPENI, THE GAZETTE
A Fort Carson soldier has been convicted of intent to avoid hazardous
duty ˜ what amounts to desertion ˜ and is serving time in a military
prison after trying to declare himself a conscientious objector.
Army officials also have filed a felony charge against his wife,
alleging she was „enticing, abetting a deserter,‰ her attorney said.
Spc. Dale Bartell, assigned to the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment, didn‚t
always oppose war.
He enlisted almost three years ago and served a tour in Iraq.
But Bartell and his wife, Amy Bartell, joined a Mennonite church, and
their philosophies changed, she said Wednesday outside a U.S. District
courtroom in Colorado Springs where she was scheduled for a hearing.
„He‚s changed since joining. If he knew the teachings then that we know
now, he never would have joined,‰ Amy Bartell said. „He knew there was
going to be consequences for his stance.
„I didn‚t know I‚d get into trouble for being a housewife.‰
As his unit was preparing to go back to Iraq, Bartell‚s commanding
officers would not help him ˜ and even hindered him ˜ in filing the
paperwork to become a conscientious objector, said Amy Bartell‚s
attorney, Bill Durland.
„He knew that once they got him over there, they would have their way,‰
Amy Bartell said, noting officers offered to let him use „non-lethal‰
ammunition in Iraq. „He would have to ignore his religious convictions.
What choice did he have? He went AWOL.‰
Soldiers have filed about 150 conscientious-objector applications since
2002, the Los Angeles Times reported recently using Pentagon figures.
About 71 of those applications were approved. During the Vietnam War ˜
where many soldiers were drafted ˜ there were some 17,000 applications
from active-duty soldiers, according to the Times report.
Bartell, who has been transferred to a military prison in Fort Sill,
Okla., was unavailable for comment Wednesday.
The first time Bartell went absent without leave was from March 7
through April 8, according to Durland. During that time, Bartell never
left Fort Carson, where the couple lived on base with their four
children, ages 1 to 11.
Amy Bartell received a letter saying all pay and benefits were being cut
off.
The second time Bartell went AWOL was on the day he thought his unit was
to ship out, April 17. He met with a military defense attorney May 12
and turned himself in.
By that time, the couple had moved to the Cañon City area to be near
their church, the Skyline Mennonite Church.
Military police showed up in early May and served Amy Bartell with the
felony charge of „enticing, abetting a deserter,‰ Durland said.
That charge could result in punishment of up to three years in prison,
Durland said.
Prosecutors charged Spc. Bartell with „intent to avoid hazardous duty,‰
which is basically the same as desertion, Durland said. On advice from
his military attorney, Bartell pleaded guilty to the charge in hopes his
conscientious objector position could mitigate a harsh prison sentence.
„He pleaded guilty because he accepted responsibility for what he had
done,‰ Bartell said. „It was his only option. He was not going to say
Œno‚ to God.‰
Bartell‚s military attorney told a Fort Carson public affairs officer
Wednesday she would have to get permission from her client before
answering any questions.
The spokesman for the U.S. Attorney‚s Office in Denver declined comment
on the case Wednesday.
On July 12, Spc. Bartell was sentenced to four months in prison, after
which he will be dishonorably discharged.
Rev. Loren Miller, of Skyline Mennonite, said the church is for pacifist
Christians. Church officials and volunteers have helped the Bartells,
and were at the hearing Wednesday ˜ which was postponed until Aug. 17.
„We are harmless, peaceloving people,‰ Miller said, noting Mennonites
take the Scriptures literally.
Amy Bartell is worried about the felony charge she faces. And she‚s
worried about her husband.
„He‚s going through a lot,‰ she said. „It does affect him. He‚s sitting
in prison knowing I‚m getting into trouble for what we believe.‰
[Thanks to CS and Tom Joad, who sent this in. CS writes: That wife out
at Ft Carson is a first to my knowledge. They need support.]
Marxism mailing list
Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu
http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism
---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*--------
16) House Votes to Keep Anti-Terror Law
But Senate version puts more limits on federal agents
by Edward Epstein
Published on Friday, July 22, 2005 by the San Francisco Chronicle
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines05/0722-07.htm
---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*--------
17) 'Every Mother's Son' filmmaker
Tami Gold in Bayview!
by mesha Monge-Irizarry
On June 7, Tami Gold, co-producer of the nationally
acclaimed film "Every Mother's Son,"
came to the Idriss Stelley Foundation on Third Street
in Bayview to touch base and
exchange ideas on how to impact police brutality nationwide.
http://www.sfbayview.com/072005/everymothersson072005.shtml
---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*--------
18) How a Trip to Film in Iraq
Ended in a Military Jail Cell
By TIM GOLDEN
Published: July 24, 2005
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/24/national/nationalspecial3/24detainee.html
---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*--------
19) House's NASA Bill Embraces
Bush Plan
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: July 23, 2005
WASHINGTON, July 22 (AP) - The House overwhelmingly
endorsed President Bush's vision of sending people
back to the Moon and eventually to Mars as it passed
a bill on Friday to set NASA policy for the next two years.
The bill was approved by a 383-to-15 vote after a collegial
debate in which lawmakers emphasized their commitment not
only to Mr. Bush's space exploration plans but also to
traditional programs at the National Aeronautics and
Space Administration, like science and aeronautics.
Originally, the measure would have shifted $1.3 billion
from exploration to other NASA programs. But after
administration objections, lawmakers restored the
money for exploration during floor debate by adding
to the bill's bottom line, which is at $34.7 billion.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/23/politics/23nasa.html
---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*--------
---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*--------
---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*--------
---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*--------
Saturday, July 23, 2005
Wednesday, July 20, 2005
BAUAW NEWSLETTER-WEDNESDAY, JULY 20, 2005
URGENT- PLEASE CONTACT
THE COMMERCE DEPARTMENT
YOUR CONGRESSIONAL REPRESENTATIVES,
EMERGENCY NETWORKS AND PRESS CONTACTS:
SPREAD THE WORD FAR AND WIDE!
http://www.commerce.gov
202-482-2000
Secretary of Commerce Carlos Gutierrez
cgutierrez@doc.gov
As of 1:30 pm EDT, The Pastors for Peace
Friendshipment Caravan to Cuba is
being held up at the US-Mexico border
by US Commerce Department officials.
They are threatening to search every
vehicle and every item of humanitarian
aid. They are telling us that "only
licensable goods will be allowed to
cross into Mexico."
Pastors for Peace does not accept
or apply for a license to deliver
humanitarian aid to Cuba.
There are 130 US citizens
traveling with the caravan. They and the
humanitarian aid are traveling
in eight busses, a box truck and two small
cars. It will take days to inspect
the 140 tons of aid. We are prepared to
do whatever we need to do to
deliver our humanitarian aid to Cuba. Stay
posted...
Marxism mailing list
Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu
http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism
---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*--------
Order your advance tickets to Howard Zinn's Marx in Soho
Send check for $10.00 for each advance ticket to:
Bay Area United Against War
P.O. Box 318021
San Francisco, CA 94131-8021
Please indicate which show:
Thursday, August 4, 7:00 p.m.
Friday, August 5, 7:00 p.m.
Saturday, August 6, 2:00 p.m.
Jon Sims Center for the Performing Arts
1519 Mission Street between 11th Street
and South Van Ness, S.F.
---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*--------
1) In honor of Karl Marx, the BBC Radio 4's "In Our Time
Greatest Philosopher Vote" winner, Bay Area United Against
War is presenting a Benefit Presentation of Howard Zinn's
one man play, MARX IN SOHO
Starring Jerry Levy as Karl Marx
Directed by Michael Fox Kennedy.
Thursday, August 4, 7:00 p.m.
Friday, August 5, 7:00 p.m.
Saturday, August 6, 2:00 p.m.
Jon Sims Center for the Performing Arts
1519 Mission Street between 11th Street
and South Van Ness
Advance tickets: $10
Door: $20.00
For advance tickets: Send a check to:
Bay Area United Against War
P.O. Box 318021
San Francisco, CA 94131-8021
Please indicate which performance.
Call: 415-824-8730
The premise of the play is that after Marx dies in 1883, he
is able to see what's happening on earth for next 100 years
and comes back to talk about it. Imagine all Karl Marx would
have to say after one hundred years of just being able to watch...
The single actor in this one-man play is Jerry Levy,
who has been teaching sociology at Marlboro College
and been acting with the Actors' Theater of Brattleboro
since he moved there from Chicago in 1975. Originally
directed by Michael Fox Kennedy of the Actors' Theater,
Levy has been on the road with Zinn's version of Karl
Marx for a year, performing at benefits, colleges, small
theaters and other venues around the state. At Middle
Earth he was sponsored by the Bradford-based Coos Peace
and Justice Alliance and performed free of charge but
charged with mighty talent and a bottomless love of the play.
www.bauaw.org
Contact person: Bonnie Weinstein 415-824-8730-office/home
415-990-4237-cell
2) Cut all Public School Ties to the Military!
Speak up and Picket the S.F. Board of Education
the Fourth Tuesday of Each Month.
Next picket line: Tuesday, July 27, 6:30 P.M.-7:30 P.M.
(The July Board of Ed. meetings have been cancelled. But we
will still hold a picket July 27 at 6:30 p.m.-7:30 p.m.
in front of the Board of Education building.)
The next picket line after July 27 is August 23, 6:30 P.M.
-7:30 P.M. (just before school starts back.)
August 23, 6:30 p.m.-7:30 P.M.
555 Franklin St., S.F,
To get on the speakers list call:
415-241-6427, 241-6493 or 241-6000
(For more info call: 415-824-8730)
3) In this message:
* Emergency Protest: Stop Massacres In Haiti!
* ANSWER/Haiti Action Committee Forum: Eyewitness Haiti
4) FROM PROTEST TO RESISTANCE: OUR GENERATION WON'T GO! National
Student Counter-Recruitment Conference October 22-23 at
UC-Berkeley Sponsored by the Campus Antiwar Network
www.campusantiwar.net
5) Join ADC-SF and Dr. Hatem Bazian to watch and discuss the
documentary "Falluja -April 2004". In April 2004, the U.S.
forces invaded Falluja with several thousands of soldiers.
About 730 people were killed, and 2,800 were injured in the
siege and subsequent attacks by U.S. forces over the next
month. Falluja has become a symbol of the resistance movement
against the occupation of Iraq by U.S. forces. Come see
never before seen footage of this tragic event. This
documentary investigates the causes of, conditions during,
and damages of the US attack. Footage was recorded in
August 2003 (four months after the invasion of Iraq )
and in May 2004 shortly after the siege of Falluja.
(DVD, 55 minutes). Discussion afterwards with Dr. Hatem Bazian.
Monday, July 25 @ 7pm
3rd floor Auditorium
522 Valencia
San Francisco
Donations welcome.
For more info contact:
adcsf@adcsf.org
6) What: Update Community Notification Plan
Hunters Point Shipyard
When :Wednesday, July 27, 2005
Where: Anna E. Waden Library on Third street ,Community Room
7) SUNDAY, JULY 31 citywide strike against
Tenancies-In-Common(TIC) sales.
Shut down TIC Open Houses all across the city!
Meet at the SF Tenants Union, 558 Capp St/21st at 12 Noon .
Food/coffee and transportation available to the targeted Open Houses.
Volunteers needed to arrive by 11 to help out. Drivers also needed.
For more info, call 282-6656 or see www.sftu.org
8) "Operation Field of Thorn"
From Shraga Elam
9) Gen. Westmoreland, Who Led U.S. in Vietnam, Dies
By ERIC PACE
Published: July 19, 2005
Gen. William C. Westmoreland, who commanded the United
States forces in Vietnam from 1964 to 1968, overseeing
the vast troop buildup and the height of the fighting,
died last night in a retirement home in Charleston, S.C.,
his son, James Ripley Westmoreland, announced.
The general was 91. (The General was called, "General
WasteMoreLand" during Vietnam War era...BW)
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/19/international/asia/
19westmoreland.html?hp&ex=1121832000&en=5cd346e7b5088634&ei=5094&part
ner=homepage
10) How Long Can Workers Tread Water?
By EDUARDO PORTER
July 14, 2005
"Profit has roughly doubled in the last year on revenue
growth of about 40 percent," said Alex Mann, co-owner of
Clicktime.com , a company in San Francisco that sells
time-sheet applications over the Internet. "The top-line
growth was very satisfying. There's been very strong
growth in the amount left for compensation of the owners
and for profits." ...Corporate profits jumped 35 percent
from 2002 to 2004, as increases in revenue dropped
unhindered to companies' bottom lines. Income from
workers' compensation, including wages and benefits,
grew 9.5 percent....In the first quarter of 2005 profits
grew a further 15 percent, compared with the period
last year, twice the pace of compensation for employees.
And what growth there has been in compensation for workers
has mostly concentrated at the top. At the bottom end,
income growth has mainly come from an increase in
employment - not better wages.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/14/business/14income.html?
11) Why Marx is Man of the Moment
He had globalization sussed 150 years ago
by Francis Wheen
Published on Sunday, July 17, 2005 by the Observer/UK
http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0717-28.htm
12) OCCUPATION: DREAMLAND
San Francisco - Begins July 29th, and runs for one week
at the Roxie Theatre at 16th and Valencia
13) Please forward widely Please forward widely
JUSTICE FOR Sheila Detoy and Cammerin Boyd
COMMUNITY RALLY
5:00-6:00 PM
WEDNESDAY, JULY 20, 2005
SAN FRANCISCO CITY PLAZA
DR. GOODLETT DR. (ACROSS FROM S.F. CITY HALL)
For ten years San Francisco Police Offices have killed with
impunity.
14) "How Peace Activists Saved the World from Nuclear War"
You are cordially invited to.......
A discussion with historian and author Lawrence Wittner:
"How Peace Activists Saved the World from Nuclear War"
This Thursday, July 21
7 PM, UC-Berkeley campus
141 McCone Hall
(map: http://www.berkeley.edu/map/maps/AB45.html
Please see attached flyer for more information on
Lawrence Wittner, and to help us spread the
word.
Questions? Contact Josh Kearns with questions:
jkearns@eps.berkleley.edu
mailto:jkearns@eps.berkleley.edu
15) Baghdad Hospital Doctors on Strike
Against Soldiers
By REUTERS
July 19, 2005
Filed at 9:28 a.m. ET
http://nytimes.com/reuters/international/international-iraq-
hospital.html?pagewanted=print
16) Mayor Blames Middle East Policy
Decades of British and American
intervention in the oil-rich Middle East
motivated the London bombers, Ken Livingstone has suggested.
Published on Wednesday, July 20, 2005 by the BBC
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines05/0720-07.htm
17) Military resister Camilo Mejía:
"I pledge my allegiance to the poor and oppressed"
July 22, 2005
FROM: http://www.socialistworker.org
18) Call to Action: Keep up the pressure!
Monday, August 29
National Day of Action
Extradite Luis Posada Carriles
to Venezuela - No to Asylum!
Free the Cuban Five!
Regional demonstration in
El Paso, TX
outside of Posada's trial
Locally coordinated protests
in cities and towns across the country
19) AFX News Limited
Ex-US general says Iraq attacks
to peak in 6 months; US troops out in a year
07.19.2005, 04:55 AM
http://www.forbes.com/home/feeds/afx/2005/07/19/afx2144536.html
20) Nature Deficit
Richard Louv
Orion, July/August
http://www.oriononline.org/pages/om/05-4om/Louv.html
21) Karl Marx Voted Most Revered Philosopher On BBC Web Site
July 14, 2005 By Fred Weston, Marxist.com
Our readers will recall that
The Economist called on its readers to vote
Marx off the top of the list
of the most revered philosophers. We appealed
to our readers to vote for Marx
and keep him at the top. In spite of The
Economists best attempts Marx won!
22) Two-Thirds Believe London Bombings are Linked to Iraq War
by Julian Glover
Published on Tuesday, July 19, 2005 by the Guardian/UK
Two-thirds of Britons believe there is a link between Tony
decision to invade Iraq and the London bombings despite
government claims to the contrary, according to a
Guardian/ICM poll published today.
The poll makes it clear that voters believe further
attacks in Britain by suicide bombers are also
inevitable, with 75% of those responding saying
there will be more attacks.
The research suggests the government is losing the
battle to persuade people that terrorist attacks
on the UK have not been made more likely by the invasion of Iraq.
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines05/0719-10.htm
23) 25,000 Civilians Killed Since Iraq Invasion, Says Report
by Simon Jeffery
Published on Tuesday, July 19, 2005 by the Guardian/UK
The number of Iraqi civilians who met violent deaths in the
two years after the US-led invasion was today put at
24,865 by an independent research team.
The figures, compiled from Iraqi and international media
reports, found US and coalition military forces were
responsible for 37% of the deaths, with anti-occupation
forces and insurgents responsible for 9%. A further
36% were blamed on criminal violence.
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines05/0719-12.htm
24) PLEASE FORWARD ** PLEASE FORWARD WIDELY ** PLEASE FORWARD
FREE HIP HOP SHOW AND RALLY
TO CLOSE CYA YOUTH PRISONS!
Join us as we bring the community together with amazing Bay
Area talent to speak out against the California Youth
Authority and the prison industrial complex!
WHAT: 4th Annual "Not Down with the Lockdown"
Hip Hop Show and Rally to Close the CYA Youth Prisons
WHERE: Frank Ogawa Plaza, 14th St. and Broadway
(Downtown Oakland)
WHEN: Saturday, July 16, noon-2pm
FREE! ALL AGES!
Sponsored by Books Not Bars and
Let's Get Free and The Beat Within.
Contact Books Not Bars:
bnb@ellabakercenter.org
510.428.3939
The Ella Baker Center can't survive
without the support of people like you.
Please take a moment to support us today.
---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*--------
1) In honor of Karl Marx, the BBC Radio 4's "In Our Time
Greatest Philosopher Vote" winner, Bay Area United Against
War is presenting a Benefit Presentation of Howard Zinn's
one man play, MARX IN SOHO
Starring Jerry Levy as Karl Marx
Directed by Michael Fox Kennedy.
Thursday, August 4, 7:00 p.m.
Friday, August 5, 7:00 p.m.
Saturday, August 6, 2:00 p.m.
Jon Sims Center for the Performing Arts
1519 Mission Street between 11th Street
and South Van Ness*
Advance tickets: $10
Door: $20.00
For advance tickets: Send a check to:
Bay Area United Against War
P.O. Box 318021
San Francisco, CA 94131-8021
Please indicate which performance.
Call: 415-824-8730
The premise of the play is that after Marx dies in 1883, he
is able to see what's happening on earth for next 100 years
and comes back to talk about it. Imagine all Karl Marx would
have to say after one hundred years of just being able to watch...
The single actor in this one-man play is Jerry Levy,
who has been teaching sociology at Marlboro College
and been acting with the Actors' Theater of Brattleboro
since he moved there from Chicago in 1975. Originally
directed by Michael Fox Kennedy of the Actors' Theater,
Levy has been on the road with Zinn's version of Karl
Marx for a year, performing at benefits, colleges, small
theaters and other venues around the state. At Middle
Earth he was sponsored by the Bradford-based Coos Peace
and Justice Alliance and performed free of charge but
charged with mighty talent and a bottomless love of the play.
www.bauaw.org
Contact person: Bonnie Weinstein 415-824-8730-office/home
415-990-4237-cell
*The Jon Sims Center is located at 1519 Mission Street
(between 11th Street and South Van Ness), South of Market,
San Francisco, CA 94103
BY CAR:
From the East Bay: Take 80 North then 101 North to the
Mission Street exit. Stay on the right hand side of the exit.
Turn right off the exit, and stay on Mission Street. The Jon
Sims Center is two blocks past Van Ness, next to Firestone.
From the South Bay: Take 101 North to the Mission Street
Exit. Stay on the right hand side of the exit. Turn right off
the exit, and stay on Mission Street. The Jon Sims Center
is two blocks past Van Ness, next to Firestone.
From the North Bay: Take 101 South to Lombard, make
a right on Van Ness and then a left onto Mission. Jon Sims
Center is two blocks past Van Ness, next to Firestone.
Parking: Daytime parking is very difficult. We encourage
day users to take public transportation. In the evening,
street parking along Mission Street, Minna Street and
11th Street is not horrible (in San Francisco terms) after
6:00 PM, but the closer you are to 6:00 PM, the better
your chances of finding parking. There is no parking
along Mission between 4-6 PM, and you will be
promptly towed.
VIA BART/MUNI/SAMTRANS:
Go to http://www.transitinfo.org for more information
about Bay Area public transportation.
BART: Take BART to the Civic Center station, then transfer
to the outbound Muni J,K,L,M or N train. Exit at the next
stop (Van Ness Station). Walk 1 block south, cross Mission,
and the Jon Sims Center is next to Firestone.
MUNI: The Jon Sims Center is 1 block south of the Van
Ness Muni underground station, accessible from any Muni
streetcar. Additionally, the 14 Mission, 42 Loop 49 and
47 Van Ness bus stop at Mission and 11th Street, only
1/2 block from the Jon Sims Center. Current Muni fare is $1.25.
SamTrans: The SamTrans DX, KX, MX, NX, PX, RX and
TX buses stops at Mission and 9th Streets. Walk three
blocks west (towards Sutro tower) to reach the Jon Sims
Center. Current SamTrans fare is $1.10. Please note that
SamTrans buses to the City only run during rush hours.
---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*--------
2) Cut all Public School Ties to the Military!
Speak up and Picket the S.F. Board of Education
the Fourth Tuesday of Each Month.
Next picket line: Tuesday, July 27, 6:30 P.M.-7:30 P.M.
(The July Board of Ed. meetings have been cancelled. But we
will still hold a picket July 27 at 6:30 p.m.-7:30 p.m.
in front of the Board of Education building.)
The next picket line after July 27 is August 23, 6:30 P.M.
-7:30 P.M. (just before school starts back.)
August 23, 6:30 p.m.-7:30 P.M.
555 Franklin St., S.F,
To get on the speakers list call:
415-241-6427, 241-6493 or 241-6000
(For more info call: 415-824-8730)
---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*--------
3) In this message:
* Emergency Protest: Stop Massacres In Haiti!
* ANSWER/Haiti Action Committee Forum: Eyewitness Haiti
Thursday, July 21
EMERGENCY PROTEST!
STOP U.N. "PEACEKEEPER" MASSACRES IN HAITI!
Gather: 4 P.M. - Powell and Market, San Francisco
March to Brazilian Consulate, 300 Montgomery: 4:30 P.M.
Followed by Picket at the Brazilian Consulate.
On the morning of July 6, 2005, more than 350 heavily armed
United Nations "peacekeeping" forces killed at least 23 unarmed
people in the densely populated Port-au-Prince neighborhood of
Cite Soleil. Some estimates indicate that 50 or more may have
died. The UN Force Commander, Brazilian Lt. General Augusto
Heleno, claims there was a "firefight," yet there were no UN
deaths or injuries.
THIS WAS A MASSACRE. Photographic evidence and eyewitness
testimony confirm that the U.N. murdered unarmed civilians,
including a 4-year old child, shot through the head.
Cite Soleil has been the focus of attacks by both UN forces
and the Haitian police because it remains a powerful base of
support for the democratically elected President Jean-Bertrand
Aristide and the Lavalas movement. The U.N. operation targeted
and killed Emmanuel "Dred" Wilme, a well-known community
leader in Cite Soleil, who had been in the forefront of the
neighborhood's resistance to the illegal coup regime. The
attack came just a few days after U.S. Ambassador to Haiti
James Foley labeled Haitian grassroots activists as
"terrorists" and "gang members", sending a clear signal
that it was now open season on civilians.
Since a U.S.-orchestrated coup overthrew the democratic
government in February 2004, a United Nations force of 7500
troops has occupied Haiti. The U.N. has supported the coup
regime, which has killed and imprisoned thousands of innocent
people. As the U.N. mouths its concerns for human rights
around the world, it attacks the poorest communities in
Haiti and backs up the violent repression carried out by
the Haitian police. Brazil continues to do the bidding
of the United States by heading-up this brutal U.N. military
operation in Haiti.
On July 21, there will be coordinated protests in many U.S.
and Canadian cities to condemn the U.N. massacre in Cite
Soleil. Please join us!
END THE U.S./U.N. OCCUPATION OF HAITI!
RESTORE DEMOCRACY AND PRESIDENT ARISTIDE!
Sponsored by the HAITI ACTION COMMITTEE. Endorsed by the
ANSWER Coalition.
For more information: visit www.haitiaction.net or
contact haitiaction@yahoo.com or 510.483.7481.
Tuesday, August 2, 7pm
ANSWER/Haiti Action Committee Forum: EYEWITNESS HAITI
San Francisco Women's Building, 3543 18th St.
(btwn Valencia and Guerrero, near 16th St. BART)
Join us for a special forum, co-sponsored by the ANSWER
Coalition and the Haiti Action Committee, featuring
a report back from a Bay Area delegation recently
returned from Haiti. The delegation witnessed the
aftermath of the massacre by UN forces in Cite Soleil.
$3-10 donation (no one turned away for lack of funds)
Wheelchair accessible. Call to reserve free childcare.
For more info, call 415-821-6545.
---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*--------
4) FROM PROTEST TO RESISTANCE: OUR GENERATION WON'T GO! National
Student Counter-Recruitment Conference October 22-23 at
UC-Berkeley Sponsored by the Campus Antiwar Network
www.campusantiwar.net
The last year has seen an amazing surge of counter-recruitment
efforts on campuses across the country - with students
kicking recruiters off campuses from Seattle Central
Community College and UC-Santa Cruz on the West Coast,
to Southern Connecticut State University and City College
of New York on the East Coast, and a whole host of
schools in between.
Students have found myriad ways of taking the military to
task for the lies it tells us, for the bigotry of its 'Don't
Ask Don't Tell' policy, and most of all, for asking our
generation to become cannon fodder in an occupation the
majority of Americans oppose. As young people increasingly
reject being recruited, according to Major General Michael
Rochelle, the US Army's recruiting commander, "Today's
conditions represent the most challenging conditions we
have seen in recruiting in my 33 years in this uniform."
It's time for students to figure out how to take this
movement even further. This October, join hundreds of
college and high school students from around the country
as we discuss and debate the future of this movement -
and plan to reclaim our schools from recruitment for an
unjust war.
For more information: http://www.campusantiwar.net
This listserve acts as a common ground for national CAN
organizational discussion; please reserve this list for
important organizing annoucements, reports, or questions
that are intended for a national audience. The CAN
listserve is not a posting place for articles or
announcements of local events that do not directly
effect the network nationally... www.campusantiwar.net
<*To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/
CampusAntiwarNetwork/
Charles Jenks
Web Manager and Past President
Traprock Peace Center
103A Keets Road
Deerfield, MA 01342
413-773-7427
fax 413-773-7507 http://www.traprockpeace.org
---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*--------
5) Join ADC-SF and Dr. Hatem Bazian to watch and discuss the
documentary "Falluja -April 2004". In April 2004, the U.S.
forces invaded Falluja with several thousands of soldiers.
About 730 people were killed, and 2,800 were injured in the
siege and subsequent attacks by U.S. forces over the next
month. Falluja has become a symbol of the resistance movement
against the occupation of Iraq by U.S. forces. Come see
never before seen footage of this tragic event. This
documentary investigates the causes of, conditions during,
and damages of the US attack. Footage was recorded in
August 2003 (four months after the invasion of Iraq )
and in May 2004 shortly after the siege of Falluja.
(DVD, 55 minutes). Discussion afterwards with Dr. Hatem Bazian.
Monday, July 25 @ 7pm
3rd floor Auditorium
522 Valencia
San Francisco
Donations welcome.
For more info contact:
adcsf@adcsf.org
---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*--------
6) What: Update Community Notification Plan
Hunters Point Shipyard
When :Wednesday, July 27, 2005
Where: Anna E. Waden Library on Third street ,Community Room
Who: Radiological and Risk Assessment subcommittee
of the Hunters Point Shipyard Restoration Advisory Board
to update the Community Notification Plan of the Shipyard
Why: The original CNP for the shipyard was completed after
a years work on August 17, 2005. The current plan is outdated
and in need of expansion to include over 20 schools and daycare
centers within a one mile radius of the shipyard. Additionally,
protocols for dust control during excavation, demolition and
deconstruction activities on the federal superfund site need
to be incorporated. Of vital importance is the need to
develop protocols for the sitting of human occupants in
radiologically impacted buildings on the base that have not
been released for unrestricted use by the California
Department of Health Services. Additionally, there is
a need to integrate the plan with the City and County
of San Francisco's Disaster Management Plan and to
incorporate post 9/11 bioterrorism considerations
posed by the shipyard as a former naval base, radiation
laboratory and its proximity to the San Francisco Bay.
Who is invited: Representatives from the
Bay Area Air Quality Management District
and an expert in emergency management plan development
have been invited to attend.
Bayview Hunters Point residents are invited to attend,
as is the broader community and representatives of the
media and city government .
---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*--------
7) SUNDAY, JULY 31 citywide strike against
Tenancies-In-Common(TIC) sales.
Shut down TIC Open Houses all across the city!
Meet at the SF Tenants Union, 558 Capp St/21st at 12 Noon .
Food/coffee and transportation available to the targeted Open Houses.
Volunteers needed to arrive by 11 to help out. Drivers also needed.
For more info, call 282-6656 or see www.sftu.org
Dear Friends:
I've been writing a lot about TICs (tenancies-in-common) over
the past few years. While the real-estate industry touts them as
"homes for the middle class," the terrible truth is that they
displace working-class people (including large numbers of people
color), seniors, people with AIDS and others who don't have the
economic means to relocate in this expensive city. They are huge
profit makers for real-estate speculators, and that is the real
motive behind the TIC explosion: Flipping a building over in a
few months nets a speculator anywhere from half a million to a
million and a half dollars, money that can be used to buy another
building and evict another group of tenants.
In the Castro, TICs have meant people with AIDS and seniors being
displaced...in the Mission, Latinos and artists, in Chinatown,
immigrant Chinese folks... TICs are a form of economic cleansing,
an assault on the working people of San Francisco.
The latest twist in the TIC war: no building is now safe from
a TIC attack. It used to be that only buildings of 6 units or
under would be targeted. Now with a newly announced willingness
by banks and lending agencies to finance larger buildings, TICs
will happen in buildings with more than 6 units. And that means
no renter is safe!
The Tenants Union is striking back.
The TU has been picketing TIC Open Houses with great success
this Summer. When prospective buyers learns that tenants were
evicted, they choose not to look at the TIC units. Over 90% of
prospective buyers have been turned away. The pickets have
forced realtors to shut down and cancel Open Houses. San
Francisco buyers--when educated that units are empty because
of evictions--are socially conscious buyers. If they won't buy,
the real-estate speculators have no motivation to evict and
sell. We need to step up the campaign!
Please make a commitment to be there. We closed down San
Francisco on the day the Iraq War began. We can close down
every TIC sale on July 31. Si se puede! It can be done. All
we need is about 100 people.
Commit yourself now to the fight against displacement of
the working class and the further gentrification of our city.
See you on July 31!!
Que siga la lucha! Let the struggle continue!
tommi
PS Remember, my new e-mail, as of July 27, is avimecca@yahoo.com.
---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*--------
8) "Operation Field of Thorn"
From Shraga Elam
I want to draw your attention to what I consider to be the
blue print of the Israeli army's strategy against the
Palestinian, "Operation Field of Thorn" (FoT). As you can
see from enclosed quotations, many of the recommended measures
have been already implemented. The implementation has been
always conditioned by the prevailing political and military
circumstances and a next round is now imminent (see further
down the intention of the Israeli army for a for massive
sweep into Gaza).
It is interesting to see that the plan developed in 1996
talked about "temporary" withdrawal of Israeli settlers and,
eliminating the PA and forced evacuations of Palestinian
from "sensitive areas.", or in Israeli common terminology:
"transfer".
The enclosed quotations pertaining to FoT are out of
a study from the renown US expert Anthony H. Cordesman,
"Israel versus the Palestinians: The "Second Intifada" and
Asymmetric Warfare"
http://www.csis.org/burke/sa/israelvspale_intafada.pdf,
2002, which was originally published already in October 2000.
Shraga Elam
Zurich/Switzerland
Anthony H. Cordesman, "Israel versus the Palestinians: The
"Second Intifada" and Asymmetric Warfare" http://www.csis.org/burke/sa/
israelvspale_intafada.pdf, 2002:
Page 183-184
Israeli Tactics in a West Bank Conflict
Since the beginning of the Second Intifada, the IDF has shown
its very real military options and it is clear it prepared to
exercise them long before the fighting began. The IDF spokesman
provided some of the possible details of such Israeli contingency
plans to reoccupy large parts of the West Bank in a statement
June 1997. 456 Many of these details tracked closely with the
plans tested in "Operation Field of Thorns," a plan the IDF
spokesman had made public in September 1996, and Israel began
to apply many of these measures in September 2000. They include:
• Mobilization and deployment of armored and other land forces
in the face of a massive Palestinian rising.
• Massive reinforcement of IDF troops at points of friction.
• Use of armor and artillery to isolate major Palestinian
population areas, and to seal off Palestinian areas, including
many areas of Zone A.
• Use of other forces to secure settlements, key roads, and
terrain points.
• Use of helicopter gunships and snipers to provide mobility
and suppressive fire.
• Use of extensive small arms, artillery, and tank fire to
suppress sniping, rock throwing and demonstrations.
• Bombing, artillery strikes, and helicopter and combat
aircraft strikes on high value Palestinian targets and
infrastructure, to punish Palestinian elements for attacks.
• Search and seizure interventions and raids into Palestinian
areas in the Gaza and West Bank to break up organized
resistance, capture, or kill key leaders.
• Penetrations into Palestinian-controlled territory to
destroy buildings and houses from which attacks have originated
or to prevent future attacks, and to uproot trees from which
mortar attacks have originated.
• Selective assassinations of suspected leaders and
instigators of conflict, including, through stand-off
tactics such as drones and remote-controlled explosive
devices.
• Use of military forces trained in urban warfare to
penetrate into cities if necessary - most probably in
cases where there were Jewish enclaves like Hebron .
• Arrest PA officials and imposition of a new military
administration .
• Isolation of key Palestinian cities and towns and use
of surrounding IDF troops to turn them into military
cantonments.
• Introduction of a simultaneous economic blockade with
selective cuts offs of financial transactions, labor
movements, and food/fuel shipments.
• Selective destruction of high value Palestinian
facilities and clearly of strong points and fields of
fire near Palestinian urban areas.
• Use of Israeli control of water, power, communications,
and road access to limit the size and endurance of
Palestinian action.
• Regulation and control of media access and conduct
a major information campaign to influence local and
world opinion.
•Carrying out "temporary" withdrawal of Israeli
settlers from exposed and strategically low value
isolated settlements like Hebron [or Gush Katif - se] .
• Creation of fences, security zones, bypasses,
and other measures to separate Israelis and Palestinians.
•Forced evacuations of Palestinian from "sensitive areas."
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/600721.html
www. haaretz.com
Last update - 02:32 17/07/2005
IDF poised for massive sweep into Gaza
By Haaretz Staff
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/600721.html
The Israel Defense Forces late last night massed thousands
of troops on the Gaza Strip border for two purposes -
a possible operation in the Strip to halt the Qassam rocket
fire and a move to block the right-wing activists' march
to Gush Katif.
Hundreds of settlers clashed last night with a large force
of police and IDF troops at the Kissufim checkpoint. The
settlers came to demonstrate against the decision to close
Gush Katif and were planning to break through the barricade.
Settlers blocked the crossing with vehicles and resisted
the police's attempt to remove them. Several protesters
were injured, and others were arrested. Demonstrators
also tore up a number of fences that the IDF built in
the area.
U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said yesterday
that she was arriving at the end of the week to try to
defuse the tension between Israel and the Palestinians
and to ensure the disengagement's implementation.
Israel resumed its policy of targeted assassinations in
the territories on Friday, killing seven Hamas activists
in two air force operations in Gaza and in Salfit, in the
West Bank. At the same time, large infantry and armored
forces concentrated near the northern Gaza Strip. However,
Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz ordered the IDF not to enter
the Strip at present "to give the Palestinian Authority
a last chance to take care of the terror organizations."
A senior officer told Haaretz yesterday that in the last
two days, the PA was taking real action against the terror
groups and its policemen were clashing with Hamas activists.
Prime Minister Ariel Sharon stated last week that the
disengagement would be carried out as scheduled and
would not be postponed due to the terror.
"There is no connection between the evacuation of Gaza,
which is vital to Israel, and terror. Terror will not
stop the disengagement plan," Sharon told Channel 2.
Israel has advised the Americans, Egyptians and
Palestinians of its plans and said that it was increasing
pressure on the PA. Mofaz told special U.S. envoy General
William Ward that Israel sees the PA's action against
the terrorists as the test of whether a coordinated
disengagement is possible.
"Start taking serious action and don't force us to enter
[the Gaza Strip]," Mofaz told Palestinian Interior
Minister General Nasser Yousef.
Qassam rockets and mortar shells continued to fall in
Sderot, in communities in the northern and western Negev
and in Gush Katif. Since Thursday evening, some 40 Qassam
rockets and some 70 mortar shells were fired, constituting
the largest attack since the cease-fire started in February.
A woman, 18, and a girl, 4, were lightly injured by mortar
shrapnel in their home in Neveh Dekalim in Gush Katif.
A Nisanit resident, 59, was lightly injured when his
home was directly hit by a mortar shell.
Ambulances evacuated 13 other people suffering from
shock to hospitals.
In another incident, a mortar shell caused serious
damage to a house in Neveh Dekalim, minutes after the
father had left the room. The settlement's residents
were asked to remain in shelters for several hours
on Friday night.
Most of the Qassam rockets fired over the weekend
fell in open areas, causing no casualties or damage.
However, before dawn yesterday, one rocket struck
the swimming pool at Sha'ar Hanegev, causing serious
damage. Another rocket landed in the yard of a house
in Sderot. Four family members suffering from shock
received medical treatment, the family's dog was
killed and the house was damaged. Yesterday afternoon
another Sderot resident suffered shock after
a rocket landed close to her, near the town's cemetery.
On Friday afternoon, 22-year-old Dana Glakowitz
of Netiv Ha'asara, who was killed a day earlier
by a mortar shell in the moshav, was buried in
Kibbutz Brur Hayil.
Sharon gave the go-ahead to assassinate Hamas
activists in the Gaza Strip and West Bank on
Friday, a day after the fatal Qassam rocket
attack in Netiv Ha'asara.
A Jerusalem source said the action plans had
been prepared in advance and Sharon only confirmed
carrying them out on the telephone. After the
suicide bombing in Netanya that killed five people
on Tuesday, the decision was made to assassinate
Islamic Jihad activists in Tul Karm, who were
responsible for the attack. On Thursday the
assignment expanded to include members of
Hamas, which was responsible for the Qassam launching.
Seven Hamas activists were killed and eight
others were lightly wounded during two IDF
targeted assassination operations in the Salfit
area and in the Gaza Strip. These were the first
assassinations since the cease-fire began.
Palestinian sources said that close to 3 P.M. on
Friday, IDF gunships fired several missiles and
machine gun volleys toward a cave near Salfit,
killing two Hamas activists. A third activist
managed to escape, but was killed later by IDF
troops. About an hour later, in another assassination
in the Gaza Strip, four Hamas activists were killed
while traveling in a Volkswagen van laden with
explosives, probably Qassam rockets. Gunships
fired missiles at the car west of Gaza City,
blowing it up.
Chief of Staff Dan Halutz said in Tel Aviv on Friday,
"Hamas has excluded itself from the truce, at least
for the time being." Noting that the truce in the
territories was falling apart, he warned, "If the
PA fails to take care of the [armed] organizations,
we will first deal with terror and only then
complete the disengagement."
---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*--------
9) Gen. Westmoreland, Who Led U.S. in Vietnam, Dies
By ERIC PACE
Published: July 19, 2005
Gen. William C. Westmoreland, who commanded the United
States forces in Vietnam from 1964 to 1968, overseeing
the vast troop buildup and the height of the fighting,
died last night in a retirement home in Charleston, S.C.,
his son, James Ripley Westmoreland, announced.
The general was 91. (The General was called, "General
WasteMoreLand" during Vietnam War era...BW)
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/19/international/asia/
19westmoreland.html?hp&ex=1121832000&en=5cd346e7b5088634&ei=5094&part
ner=homepage
---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*--------
10) How Long Can Workers Tread Water?
By EDUARDO PORTER
July 14, 2005
"Profit has roughly doubled in the last year on revenue
growth of about 40 percent," said Alex Mann, co-owner of
Clicktime.com , a company in San Francisco that sells
time-sheet applications over the Internet. "The top-line
growth was very satisfying. There's been very strong
growth in the amount left for compensation of the owners
and for profits." ...Corporate profits jumped 35 percent
from 2002 to 2004, as increases in revenue dropped
unhindered to companies' bottom lines. Income from
workers' compensation, including wages and benefits,
grew 9.5 percent....In the first quarter of 2005 profits
grew a further 15 percent, compared with the period
last year, twice the pace of compensation for employees.
And what growth there has been in compensation for workers
has mostly concentrated at the top. At the bottom end,
income growth has mainly come from an increase in
employment - not better wages.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/14/business/14income.html?
---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*--------
11) Why Marx is Man of the Moment
He had globalization sussed 150 years ago
by Francis Wheen
Published on Sunday, July 17, 2005 by the Observer/UK
http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0717-28.htm
---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*--------
12) OCCUPATION: DREAMLAND
San Francisco - Begins July 29th, and runs for one week
at the Roxie Theatre at 16th and Valencia
Hi,
This film depicts the daily life of a group of soldiers in
Fallujah before the heavy-duty, criminal bombing began
in November of 2004.
It's not a "fun" or "relaxing" film to watch. It is probably
a very good film for National Guard, reserve soldiers, vets,
teenagers, parents, and those interested in what the life
is like for the ordinary soldier in a combat zone.
Especially good for those thinking of enlisting,
joining ROTC, etc.
I think what amazed me most was that the soldiers seemed
connected to a central command that didn't know what was
going on, couldn't be relied upon, and yet, was making
the decisions. Also, the soldiers seemed very disconnected
from knowing where and what their targets were.
It's an interesting film, but I'm not sure what idea the
filmmakers were trying to get across or what its goals are.
I'd really be interested in people's thoughts about.
I also have a DVD of the film.
Marti Hiken
OCCUPATION: DREAMLAND
San Francisco - Begins July 29th, and runs for one week
at the Roxie Theatre at 16th and Valencia
********************
RUMUR RELEASING, cordially invites you to the screening of
its inaugural feature release, the documentary OCCUPATION:
DREAMLAND.
An unflinchingly candid portrait of a squad of American
soldiers deployed in the doomed Iraqi city of Falluja
during the winter of 2004, OCCUPATION: DREAMLAND chronicles
the daily grind of young recruits as they patrol an environment
of low-intensity conflict creeping steadily towards catastrophe.
The film documents the city's waning stability before a final
series of military assaults began in the spring of 2004 that
effectively destroyed it.
A real opportunity to see the war from a soldier's
perspective, OCCUPATION: DREAMLAND provides an intimate
examination of the escalating tension in the unstable
region. The narrative follows a downward spiral of civil
destabilization and personal frustration, borne by
individuals trapped on both sides of the conflict, and
unflinchingly addresses the soldiers' operational and
moral ambivalence about the war effort itself.
Filmmakers Garrett Scott and Ian Olds were given access
to all operations of the Army's 82nd Airborne. They lived
with the unit 24/7, giving voice to soldiers held under
a strict code of authority as they cope with an ambiguous,
often lethal environment. The result is a revealing,
sometimes surprising look at Army life, operations and
the complexity of American war in the 21st century.
OCCUPATION: DREAMLAND is not yet rated and has a running
time of 79 minutes.
RUMUR RELEASING, a new paradigm in independent releasing,
was formed by Michael Galinsky, Jeff Sanders, David
Beilinson and Suki Hawley with a mission to efficiently
build audiences for thought provoking films. In addition
to OCCUPATION:DREAMLAND, upcoming releases include
MARDI GRAS: MADE IN CHINA and CODE 33.
National Lawyers Guild
Military Law Task Force
Marguerite Hiken, co-chair
318 Ortega Street
San Francisco, CA 94122
415-566-3732
mlhiken@pacbell.net
www.nlg.org/mltf
Kathleen Gilberd, co-chair
1168 Union Street, Ste. 302
San Diego, CA 92101
619-233-1701
KathleenGilberd@aol.com
---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*--------
13) Please forward widely Please forward widely
JUSTICE FOR Sheila Detoy and Cammerin Boyd
COMMUNITY RALLY
5:00-6:00 PM
WEDNESDAY, JULY 20, 2005
SAN FRANCISCO CITY PLAZA
DR. GOODLETT DR. (ACROSS FROM S.F. CITY HALL)
For ten years San Francisco Police Offices have killed with
impunity.
We say no more
We call on the San Francisco Police
Commission to end this reign of terror.
Sheila Detoy: On May 13, 1998 San
Francisco Police Officers Shot Up
a car full of Unarmed Teenagers and
killed 17 year Old Sheila Detoy.
SFPD then tried to blame her friends for her death.
Cammerin Boyd: On Wednesday, May 5, 2004,
San Francisco police officers shot and
killed 29 year-old Cammerin Boyd in front
of dozens of witnesses. Cammerin, who was
disabled, was clearly and vocally surrendering.
He had his hands above his head.
But the police shot him anyway.
In the coming weeks the San Francisco
Police Commission will begin holding
hearings on both of these cases, come
out and let them know we will accept
nothing less than justice.
For more information call (510)428-3939 x, 242 or e-mail
malaika@ellabakercenter.org
---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*--------
14) "How Peace Activists Saved the World from Nuclear War"
You are cordially invited to.......
A discussion with historian and author Lawrence Wittner:
"How Peace Activists Saved the World from Nuclear War"
This Thursday, July 21
7 PM, UC-Berkeley campus
141 McCone Hall
(map: http://www.berkeley.edu/map/maps/AB45.html
Please see attached flyer for more information on
Lawrence Wittner, and to help us spread the
word.
Questions? Contact Josh Kearns with questions:
jkearns@eps.berkleley.edu mailto:jkearns@eps.berkleley.edu
---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*--------
15) Baghdad Hospital Doctors on Strike
Against Soldiers
By REUTERS
July 19, 2005
Filed at 9:28 a.m. ET
http://nytimes.com/reuters/international/international-iraq-
hospital.html?pagewanted=print
---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*--------
16) Mayor Blames Middle East Policy
Decades of British and American
intervention in the oil-rich Middle East
motivated the London bombers, Ken Livingstone has suggested.
Published on Wednesday, July 20, 2005 by the BBC
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines05/0720-07.htm
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17) Military resister Camilo Mejía:
"I pledge my allegiance to the poor and oppressed"
July 22, 2005
FROM: http://www.socialistworker.org
CAMILO MEJIA was the first U.S. soldier who served in Iraq to go
public with his refusal to continue fighting George Bush's war for oil
and empire.
Camilo refused to be redeployed to Iraq before the revelations about
torture at the Abu Ghraib prison came to light, but these abuses
didn't take him by surprise. One of his first assignments when he
arrived in Iraq in 2003 was to detain--and abuse--Iraqi prisoners by
depriving them of sleep and using mock executions to terrify them.
A military court forced Camilo to serve seven months' confinement for
his decision to abide by his conscience. Since his release, Camilo has
thrown himself into building the antiwar movement and
counter-recruitment efforts--and speaking about how his time in Iraq
has changed his thinking about the world.
On July 3, Camilo spoke at an evening rally against war and empire at
the Socialism 2005 conference in Chicago. Here, Socialist Worker
prints an extended version of his speech.
THOSE OF us in the GI antiwar movement, whether we know it or not,
face a powerful enemy. When I say antiwar movement, it is assumed that
I mean the war in Iraq, but the war in Iraq should be seen as part of
something far bigger and far more devastating.
The powerful enemy is the corporations that finance congressional and
presidential campaigns, the corporations in control of our privatized
government. This is the same enemy that charges the American people a
billion dollars per week to send their children to fight a criminal
war against the children of Iraq.
Our struggle is the struggle against those who say "support our
troops" while turning their backs on returning veterans. It is rather
comfortable to say support the troops while keeping their reality in
Iraq a mystery.
Support the troops by waving flags and slapping yellow ribbons on the
bumpers of SUVs. Support the troops while they are killing their
brothers and sisters in Iraq--meanwhile, hiding the flag-draped
coffins some of them are coming home in, and keeping the horror of
their wounds out of the public's view.
We struggle against those who create terrorism through the spread of
hunger and poverty, so they can spread war and reap the profits. We
struggle against those who invade and occupy a land for its resources,
and then call its people terrorists for refusing to be conquered.
This "terrorism" in Iraq is in reality a fight for freedom and
self-determination. It is by twisting the concept of this legitimate
struggle into the concept of terrorism, with help from the corporate
media, that our puppet government further creates resentment and
racism against the oppressed to further its conquest. It is by means
of this imperial conquest that a small terrorist network is turned
into a global terrorist mentality.
No longer able to rely on the rhetoric of the Cold War, the corporate
warmongers need this global terrorism to justify the spread of its
empire. So the war we oppose is the war waged by corporations on the
billions of people around the world who live in utter misery.
We fight an enemy that can only be made powerful through the
systematic exploitation of natural resources and through the constant
and systematic poisoning of the environment across the world. This
enemy does not need war to spread death and destruction.
We fight a system that feeds on poverty and lack of options to fill
the ranks of its imperialist military.
The United States of America is the only superpower on earth--a nation
rich and powerful beyond anything ever seen or heard of in history.
There is no reason why everyone in this nation should not live a
comfortable and stable life. Yet more than 40 million people live
without health insurance. The public school system is overcrowded and
failing, but to get help from the government, public schools must open
their doors to military recruiters.
The so-called American Dream, to many poor people, is tied to the
obligation to fight in a war for corporate domination.
They call it an all-volunteer army. But to them, I say: Show me a
society where everyone has access to health care. Show me a society
where everyone has access to an education. Show me a society where
everyone has access to decent wages, where everyone lives a dignified
life, and then I will show you an all-volunteer army.
Poverty and oppression around the world provide the building blocks
for an empire. Poverty and oppression at home provide the building
blocks to build an imperial army.
In saying no to that imperial army--in refusing to fight an imperial
war against our brothers and sisters of Iraq--I pledge my allegiance
to the poor and oppressed of the world. In saying no to an imperial
army and in refusing to fight an imperial war against our brothers and
sisters of Iraq, I pledge my allegiance to the working class of the
world.
Their struggle--which is your struggle--is my struggle as well.
Marxism mailing list
Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu
http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism
---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*--------
18) Call to Action: Keep up the pressure!
Monday, August 29
National Day of Action
Extradite Luis Posada Carriles
to Venezuela - No to Asylum!
Free the Cuban Five!
Regional demonstration in
El Paso, TX
outside of Posada's trial
Locally coordinated protests
in cities and towns across the country
Since the illegal arrival of the
terrorist Luis Posada Carriles to the United
States in late March, the Bush
administration has been met with
a torrent of opposition and demands
for Posada's extradition to Venezuela.
On August 29, Posada will appear
for trial in El Paso and the A.N.S.W.E.R.
Coalition is calling for demonstrations
outside the immigration court in El Paso
and in cities across the country demanding
that Posada not be granted asylum and
instead be extradited to Venezuela.
Only Bush's government and the Miami
terrorists are opposed to Posada's extradition.
There is virtually universal agreement
that Posada must be denied asylum in
the U.S. and instead be tried in
Venezuela. Posada is principally
responsible, along with Orlando Bosch,
for the 1976 bombing of the Cubana
plane that killed 73 people. That
crime was plotted in Venezuela. The
hand of the CIA is also deeply implicated,
and Posada was a paid CIA agent since 1961.
It is more critical than ever to keep
the pressure on the U.S. government to
demand justice for the families of the
victims of anti-Cuba terrorism, and for
an end to U.S. sponsorship of the Miami
terrorists.
It is essential that the struggle of
the Cuban 5 - five heroic men who
actively opposed terrorism in Miami –
be elevated to national prominence to
help win their freedom from U.S. prison.
There is no more relevant opportunity
than now to demand: Extradite Posada!
Free the Cuban Five!
The more than twenty June 13 protests –
from El Paso to New York City to San
Francisco - helped generate a great deal
of media attention on the terrorist
history of Posada. June 13 was the
first Immigration court date. We believe
that the immigration proceedings, which
will be continued to August 29 in
El Paso, are a diversion from the
real issue: the urgent need for Posada
to be sent to Venezuela, where
an extradition order has been issued.
Since March, A.N.S.W.E.R. has organized
several public actions, including:
* An important April 21 press
conference in Miami together with progressive
Cuban groups under the banner of Alianza
Martiana, which helped break the story
into the national and international media.
* A well-covered May 13 press conference
in Washington DC, featuring Wayne Smith
and family members of Raymond Persaud,
who perished in the 1976 Cubana bombing.
* 40,000 letters sent to Bush & Congress!
A national A.N.S.W.E.R. letter-writing
campaign that generated more than 30,000
letters to members of Congress and more
than 10,500 letters to Bush, demanding
no asylum, and extradition of Posada.
Send a letter - or another letter - today!
* The June 13 protests, that resulted
in more than 20 demonstrations in the United
States, Europe, and Latin America. View
reports and photographs from
June 13 demonstrations.
Join in the A.N.S.W.E.R. Call
for a National Day of Action
on Monday, August 29!
On that day, in El Paso, Judge William
Lee Abbott will hear arguments on
whether Posada is in the United States
illegally. His attorney, Eduardo Soto,
claims that Posada is still a U.S.
resident and therefore entitled to remain
in the U.S. That is a spurious claim, as
Posada relinquished his residency rights
in the 1960s by not residing in the U.S.
since at least that long ago. Also, his
crimes of terrorism and murder would
automatically disqualify him for asylum.
Venezuela's petition for extradition must,
by international, U.S., and Venezuelan law,
take precedence over any immigration consideration.
Here's how you can help keep the pressure on
the U.S. government on August 29:
1) Attend the regional demonstration
in El Paso, Texas outside of Posada's trial.
Starting at 6:30 am, the A.N.S.W.E.R.
Coalition, National Network on Cuba,
South West Organizing Project, Stop the
War Machine Coalition, Latino Movement USA,
Comité de Juárez por la Libertad de los Cinco
Cubanos, National Committee to Free the Cuban
Five, and other regional groups will mobilize
for a mass protest in front of the Immigration
court, at 8915 Montana Rd. (at the corner of
Mattox and Montana Streets) in El Paso.
If you can organize a car caravan, van and
bus from your city to El Paso, fill out the
Transportation Form to help spread the word.
For transportation from Albuquerque, NM to El Paso, email
albuquerquetoelpaso@answercoalition.org or call 505-344-5049.
Contact the A.N.S.W.E.R. Coalition by phone
at 202-544-3389 in Washington DC or 415-821-6545
in San Francisco, or email
info@internationalanswer.org for details and
to get involved. Click here for a downloadable
flyer. If you are in El Paso,
email elpasolocalcontact@answercoalition.org
or call 915-842-0577.
2) Organize a local protest in your city or
town, if possible at a Federal Building or
Federal Courthouse. To list the protest in
your city, fill out the Event Listing Form.
For assistance in organizing a protest in
your area, contact the A.N.S.W.E.R.
Coalition at 202-544-3389 or 415-821-6545,
or email info@internationalanswer.org.
Protests are already planned in several
cities (see above for El Paso details):
* Washington DC: Call 202-544-3389 or
email dc@internationalanswer.org for details.
* San Francisco: Call 415-821-6545 for email
sf@internationalanswer.org or details.
* Miami: Call 305-757-3113 for details.
* Los Angeles: Call 323-464-1636 or email
la@internationalanswer.org for details.
* New York City: Call 212-533-0417 or email
nyc@internationalanswer.org for details.
* Chicago: Call 773-920-7545 or email
chicago@internationalanswer.orgfor details.
* Seattle: Call 206-568-1661 or email
seattle@internationalanswer.org for details.
3) Endorse the Call to Action (endorsements
from individuals and organizations are welcome).
4) Help spread the word! Forward this email
using the "Email this page" button at the top
of the email, or through your email program's
forwarding mechanism. Flyers for protests
around the country will be available soon.
5) Take this opportunity to send a letter –
or another letter - to Bush and Congress.
6) Funds are urgently needed.
Order an organizing video to build the march!
A.N.S.W.E.R. has produced a 20-minute video,
with interviews of the Cuban families of the
victims of Posada's plane bombing, Cuba's
struggle against terrorism, the Cuban Five,
and scenes of the June 13 El Paso march. Send
an $18 check to get a VHS or DVD copy to the
A.N.S.W.E.R. Coalition at 2489 Mission St.,
Room 24, San Francisco, CA 94110. Show it at
your organization's next mobilizing meeting!
To get involved, contact:
A.N.S.W.E.R. Coalition
Act Now to Stop War & End Racism
National Office in Washington DC: 202-544-3889
West Coast Regional Office in San Francisco: 415-821-6545
Website: http://www.answercoalition.org/
Email: info@internationalanswer.org
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19) AFX News Limited
Ex-US general says Iraq attacks
to peak in 6 months; US troops out in a year
07.19.2005, 04:55 AM
http://www.forbes.com/home/feeds/afx/2005/07/19/afx2144536.html
---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*--------
20) Nature Deficit
Richard Louv
Orion, July/August
http://www.oriononline.org/pages/om/05-4om/Louv.html
AS ANY PARENT OR TEACHER PROBABLY KNOWS, the number of children
diagnosed with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD)
has skyrocketed-by 33 percent from 1997 to 2002. Prescriptions
of stimulant medications such as methylphenidate (Ritalin) and
amphetamines (Dexedrine) have risen as well, especially for
preschoolers. From 2000 to 2003, spending on ADHD drugs for
children under five rose 369 percent.
Scientists have yet to definitively explain the trend. Some
critics say the reporting might be skewed-that ADHD may have
been with us all the time but called by other names or missed
entirely. Another theory is that the disorder might be
overdiagnosed; pharmaceutical companies have intensely
marketed medications, and school officials often urge parents
to seek treatment for disruptive children.
Still, the disorder is real. One suspected cause of ADHD
symptoms is overstimulation, especially from television
viewing. But another significant factor in the ADHD
phenomenon-and a potential treatment-could be as close
as our own backyards.
Children diagnosed with ADHD have trouble paying attention,
listening, following directions, and focusing on tasks.
They may also be aggressive, antisocial, and susceptible
to academic failure. Based on high-tech images of the brain,
some scientists report that ADHD children show altered
levels of some neurotransmitters and slight shrinking
in the part of the cerebral cortex that governs attention
and impulse control. But scientists are not clear whether
those differences indicate a cause for the disorder,
perhaps due to a genetic defect, or are simply
manifestations of another cause or causes.
In ongoing studies by the Human-Environment Research
Laboratory at the University of Illinois, researchers
have discovered tantalizing evidence for a new view of
the syndrome. In a 2004 study published in the American
Journal of Public Health , the laboratory found that
children as young as five showed a significant
reduction in ADHD symptoms when they engaged with nature.
Parents and guardians were asked to identify after-
school or weekend activities that left their children
functioning particularly well or poorly. The study
measured responses to two types of activities: those
in green landscapes-such as grassy backyards, parks,
and farmland-and those in indoor playgrounds and paved
recreation areas. The researchers designed the study
to account for any effects of physical exercise so
they could measure only the influence of green settings.
They also factored out age, gender, family income,
geographic region, size of community, and the severity
of diagnosis.
In fifty-four of fifty-six cases, outdoor activities
in more natural settings led to a greater reduction
in ADHD symptoms than activities in less natural areas.
The only instances when symptoms worsened occurred in
the artificial environments. In a related experiment,
the laboratory found that children could focus on
specific tasks better in green settings.
Other researchers have found that engagement with
nature buffers against life stresses, which otherwise
could aggravate ADHD. Although most of their studies
focus on adults, an increasing number gauge the impact
of green settings on children. A 2003 Cornell
University study reported that the more nature
a child encountered at home-including exposure to
indoor plants and window views of natural settings-
the less he or she was affected by negative stresses.
A 2003 study by researchers at the New York State
College of Human Ecology reached similar conclusions.
Nancy Wells, the lead researcher, said that exposure
to nature resulted in "profound differences" in
children's attention capacities and that "green
spaces may enable children to think more clearly
and cope more effectively with life stress." That,
in turn, could strengthen a child's attention and
potentially decrease the symptoms of ADHD.
Photograph | Jason Houston
It's not clear why exposure to nature would have
such an apparently powerful influence on brain
functions related to attention. One theory is that
the experience simply engages a child mentally and
physically in a "natural" way, consistent with how
humans have evolved. In an earlier hunting and
gathering or agricultural society-which is to say,
during most of humankind's history-young people were
more likely to engage in physically demanding,
mentally relaxing activities that immersed most
of their sensory receptors: climbing, hunting small
animals, baling hay, splashing in the swimming hole.
As recently as the 1950s, most U.S. youngsters still
had some kind of agricultural connection. Even in
towns or cities, kids played ball in sandlots or
spent hours building forts in tangled and wild
"vacant" lots. Their unregimented play was steeped
in nature. That kind of exposure to nature has faded
dramatically in recent decades, but our need for
nature-possibly physiological-has not. "Neurologically,
human beings haven't caught up with today's over-
stimulating environment," says Michael Gurian,
a family therapist and author of The Wonder of
Boys . "The brain is strong and flexible, so 70
to 80 percent of kids adapt fairly well. But the
rest don't."
If ADHD has something to do with a lack of nature,
the neurological mechanics could be explained by the
attention-restoration theory developed by Stephen and
Rachel Kaplan, husband-and-wife environmental
psychologists at the University of Michigan. The
Kaplans have taken their inspiration from philosopher
and psychologist William James, who, in 1890, described
two kinds of attention in adults: directed and involuntary.
In the early 1970s, the Kaplans studied the impact of
a range of activities and found too much directed
attention (this could include computer tasks, homework,
studying for a test) leads to what they call
"directed-attention fatigue," marked by impulsive
behavior, agitation, irritation, and inability to
concentrate. Directed-attention fatigue occurs
because neural inhibitory mechanisms become overstressed
by blocking competing stimuli. Subsequent research,
including more than one hundred studies linking exposure
to nature to stress reduction, has supported the Kaplans'
theory-and the salutary influence of what they called
"the restorative environment." According to the Kaplans,
nature can be the most effective source of restorative relief.
The University of Illinois team, while not questioning
the effectiveness of current ADHD treatment methods,
has also suggested that nature therapy could be a third
option, after prescription medications and behavioral
therapy. They recount how one parent began taking her
son to the local park for thirty minutes each morning
before school, which she indicated reduced his ADHD
symptoms. "Come to think of it," she told the researchers,
"I have noticed his attitude toward going to school has
been better, and his schoolwork has been better this
past week." Another parent of a boy with attention-
deficit symptoms began engaging him regularly in
outdoor activities like fishing, with similar results.
"When I read the results of your study," he reported
to the researchers, "they hit me in the face.
I thought, yes, I've seen this!"
If a greener environment can play a role in curing
ADHD, few if any studies have explicitly examined
whether the converse is also true: that ADHD may be
a set of symptoms initiated or aggravated by lack of
exposure to nature. By this line of thinking, many
children may benefit from medications, but the real
disorder lies in the society that has disengaged
children from nature and imposed on them an artificial
environment for which they have not evolved. Viewed
from this angle, children and adults alike would
suffer from what might be called nature-deficit
disorder, not in a clinical sense, but as a condition
caused by the cumulative human costs of alienation
from nature, including diminished use of the senses,
attention difficulties, and higher rates of
physical and emotional illnesses.
If that's the real ailment, a walk in the woods
would be the ideal treatment: it's not stigmatizing,
has no serious side effects, and it's free. But such
reliance on greenery would underscore the need to
scale back industrialism, redesign homes, schools,
and cities, and expand access to nature-which can't
be encapsulated in a pill, but could be equally
powerful medicine.
Richard Louv has written for the New York Times
and the Christian Science Monitor , and is a longtime
columnist for the San Diego Union-Tribune . He is
the author of seven books, including Last Child in
the Woods: Saving Our Children from Nature-Deficit
Disorder , published in April by Algonquin Books of
Chapel Hill. He lives in San Diego.
---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*--------
21) Karl Marx Voted Most Revered Philosopher On BBC Web Site
July 14, 2005 By Fred Weston, Marxist.com
Our readers will recall that
The Economist called on its readers to vote
Marx off the top of the list
of the most revered philosophers. We appealed
to our readers to vote for
Marx and keep him at the top. In spite of The
Economists best attempts Marx won!
This comes as no surprise to us.
We await The Economist's explanation with
interest.
Week after week Karl Marx was at the top of the poll.
Melvyn Bragg organised the poll
for his Radio 4 series, In Our Time, and
every week he would express surprise
that Marx was still ahead of all the
others. The Economist magazine then
intervened appealing to its readers to
vote and knock Marx off the top of the
list and called for a vote for David
Hume. But Marx received 28% of the
votes cast, coming first and beating
David Hume, hands down.
No doubt The Economist editorial
board will be disappointed. They tell us
that Marxism is outdated, that
capitalism works, etc. etc. Unfortunately
for them people have brains and
they can work things out for
themselves. What is happening
today all over the world does not negate
Marx but confirms what he wrote.
As Eric Hobsbawm has explained, trying to
find a reason why Marx won,
"The Communist Manifesto contains a stunning
prediction of the nature and
effects of globalisation."
In fact, Marx is as relevant today
--if not more relevant --as when he
published the Communist Manifesto
150 years ago. Marx's studies of
capitalism and how it works led
him to predict such phenomena as
globalisation, monopolisation,
the growing divide between rich and poor and
the strengthening of the proletariat, and so on.
His philosophical outlook, dialectical
materialism, has stood the test of
time, and is a precious instrument
in our hands to unravel all the complex
mechanisms of economy, politics,
and even science. It allows us to have a
global view of all processes and
thus be able to develop a perspective for
the future development of society.
The problem the bourgeois philosophers
have with Marx is that he not only
analysed all the contradictions of
the capitalist system, he also pointed
to an alternative.
As Marx said, "The philosophers have
only interpreted the world in various
ways. The point, however, is to
change it." Marx explained that capitalism
had to be overthrown and a more
rational system put in its place, Socialism.
So although, the media would like
to portray Britain as a sleepy,
phlegmatic place where the class
struggle belongs to the past, reality is
somewhat different.
In spite of all the attempts to
fill people's heads with incomprehensible
language, the real world is still
out there and people live in it. That
explains why so many people voted
for Marx the revolutionary.
They believe that this society is
not the best that history provides. Far
from it, they believe a new society
is possible. Tony Blair and Gordon
Brown may have a few surprises coming
their way in the coming years!
Tom Condit
tomcondit@igc.org
http://www.peaceandfreedom.org
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22) Two-Thirds Believe London Bombings are Linked to Iraq War
by Julian Glover
Published on Tuesday, July 19, 2005 by the Guardian/UK
Two-thirds of Britons believe there is a link between Tony
decision to invade Iraq and the London bombings despite
government claims to the contrary, according to a
Guardian/ICM poll published today.
The poll makes it clear that voters believe further
attacks in Britain by suicide bombers are also
inevitable, with 75% of those responding saying
there will be more attacks.
The research suggests the government is losing the
battle to persuade people that terrorist attacks
on the UK have not been made more likely by the invasion of Iraq.
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines05/0719-10.htm
---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*--------
23) 25,000 Civilians Killed Since Iraq Invasion, Says Report
by Simon Jeffery
Published on Tuesday, July 19, 2005 by the Guardian/UK
The number of Iraqi civilians who met violent deaths in the
two years after the US-led invasion was today put at
24,865 by an independent research team.
The figures, compiled from Iraqi and international media
reports, found US and coalition military forces were
responsible for 37% of the deaths, with anti-occupation
forces and insurgents responsible for 9%. A further
36% were blamed on criminal violence.
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines05/0719-12.htm
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24) PLEASE FORWARD ** PLEASE FORWARD WIDELY ** PLEASE FORWARD
FREE HIP HOP SHOW AND RALLY
TO CLOSE CYA YOUTH PRISONS!
Join us as we bring the community together with amazing Bay
Area talent to speak out against the California Youth
Authority and the prison industrial complex!
WHAT: 4th Annual "Not Down with the Lockdown"
Hip Hop Show and Rally to Close the CYA Youth Prisons
WHERE: Frank Ogawa Plaza, 14th St. and Broadway
(Downtown Oakland)
WHEN: Saturday, July 16, noon-2pm
FREE! ALL AGES!
Sponsored by Books Not Bars and
Let's Get Free and The Beat Within.
Contact Books Not Bars:
bnb@ellabakercenter.org
510.428.3939
The Ella Baker Center can't survive
without the support of people like you.
Please take a moment to support us today.
---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*--------
---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*--------
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---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*--------
THE COMMERCE DEPARTMENT
YOUR CONGRESSIONAL REPRESENTATIVES,
EMERGENCY NETWORKS AND PRESS CONTACTS:
SPREAD THE WORD FAR AND WIDE!
http://www.commerce.gov
202-482-2000
Secretary of Commerce Carlos Gutierrez
cgutierrez@doc.gov
As of 1:30 pm EDT, The Pastors for Peace
Friendshipment Caravan to Cuba is
being held up at the US-Mexico border
by US Commerce Department officials.
They are threatening to search every
vehicle and every item of humanitarian
aid. They are telling us that "only
licensable goods will be allowed to
cross into Mexico."
Pastors for Peace does not accept
or apply for a license to deliver
humanitarian aid to Cuba.
There are 130 US citizens
traveling with the caravan. They and the
humanitarian aid are traveling
in eight busses, a box truck and two small
cars. It will take days to inspect
the 140 tons of aid. We are prepared to
do whatever we need to do to
deliver our humanitarian aid to Cuba. Stay
posted...
Marxism mailing list
Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu
http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism
---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*--------
Order your advance tickets to Howard Zinn's Marx in Soho
Send check for $10.00 for each advance ticket to:
Bay Area United Against War
P.O. Box 318021
San Francisco, CA 94131-8021
Please indicate which show:
Thursday, August 4, 7:00 p.m.
Friday, August 5, 7:00 p.m.
Saturday, August 6, 2:00 p.m.
Jon Sims Center for the Performing Arts
1519 Mission Street between 11th Street
and South Van Ness, S.F.
---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*--------
1) In honor of Karl Marx, the BBC Radio 4's "In Our Time
Greatest Philosopher Vote" winner, Bay Area United Against
War is presenting a Benefit Presentation of Howard Zinn's
one man play, MARX IN SOHO
Starring Jerry Levy as Karl Marx
Directed by Michael Fox Kennedy.
Thursday, August 4, 7:00 p.m.
Friday, August 5, 7:00 p.m.
Saturday, August 6, 2:00 p.m.
Jon Sims Center for the Performing Arts
1519 Mission Street between 11th Street
and South Van Ness
Advance tickets: $10
Door: $20.00
For advance tickets: Send a check to:
Bay Area United Against War
P.O. Box 318021
San Francisco, CA 94131-8021
Please indicate which performance.
Call: 415-824-8730
The premise of the play is that after Marx dies in 1883, he
is able to see what's happening on earth for next 100 years
and comes back to talk about it. Imagine all Karl Marx would
have to say after one hundred years of just being able to watch...
The single actor in this one-man play is Jerry Levy,
who has been teaching sociology at Marlboro College
and been acting with the Actors' Theater of Brattleboro
since he moved there from Chicago in 1975. Originally
directed by Michael Fox Kennedy of the Actors' Theater,
Levy has been on the road with Zinn's version of Karl
Marx for a year, performing at benefits, colleges, small
theaters and other venues around the state. At Middle
Earth he was sponsored by the Bradford-based Coos Peace
and Justice Alliance and performed free of charge but
charged with mighty talent and a bottomless love of the play.
www.bauaw.org
Contact person: Bonnie Weinstein 415-824-8730-office/home
415-990-4237-cell
2) Cut all Public School Ties to the Military!
Speak up and Picket the S.F. Board of Education
the Fourth Tuesday of Each Month.
Next picket line: Tuesday, July 27, 6:30 P.M.-7:30 P.M.
(The July Board of Ed. meetings have been cancelled. But we
will still hold a picket July 27 at 6:30 p.m.-7:30 p.m.
in front of the Board of Education building.)
The next picket line after July 27 is August 23, 6:30 P.M.
-7:30 P.M. (just before school starts back.)
August 23, 6:30 p.m.-7:30 P.M.
555 Franklin St., S.F,
To get on the speakers list call:
415-241-6427, 241-6493 or 241-6000
(For more info call: 415-824-8730)
3) In this message:
* Emergency Protest: Stop Massacres In Haiti!
* ANSWER/Haiti Action Committee Forum: Eyewitness Haiti
4) FROM PROTEST TO RESISTANCE: OUR GENERATION WON'T GO! National
Student Counter-Recruitment Conference October 22-23 at
UC-Berkeley Sponsored by the Campus Antiwar Network
www.campusantiwar.net
5) Join ADC-SF and Dr. Hatem Bazian to watch and discuss the
documentary "Falluja -April 2004". In April 2004, the U.S.
forces invaded Falluja with several thousands of soldiers.
About 730 people were killed, and 2,800 were injured in the
siege and subsequent attacks by U.S. forces over the next
month. Falluja has become a symbol of the resistance movement
against the occupation of Iraq by U.S. forces. Come see
never before seen footage of this tragic event. This
documentary investigates the causes of, conditions during,
and damages of the US attack. Footage was recorded in
August 2003 (four months after the invasion of Iraq )
and in May 2004 shortly after the siege of Falluja.
(DVD, 55 minutes). Discussion afterwards with Dr. Hatem Bazian.
Monday, July 25 @ 7pm
3rd floor Auditorium
522 Valencia
San Francisco
Donations welcome.
For more info contact:
adcsf@adcsf.org
6) What: Update Community Notification Plan
Hunters Point Shipyard
When :Wednesday, July 27, 2005
Where: Anna E. Waden Library on Third street ,Community Room
7) SUNDAY, JULY 31 citywide strike against
Tenancies-In-Common(TIC) sales.
Shut down TIC Open Houses all across the city!
Meet at the SF Tenants Union, 558 Capp St/21st at 12 Noon .
Food/coffee and transportation available to the targeted Open Houses.
Volunteers needed to arrive by 11 to help out. Drivers also needed.
For more info, call 282-6656 or see www.sftu.org
8) "Operation Field of Thorn"
From Shraga Elam
9) Gen. Westmoreland, Who Led U.S. in Vietnam, Dies
By ERIC PACE
Published: July 19, 2005
Gen. William C. Westmoreland, who commanded the United
States forces in Vietnam from 1964 to 1968, overseeing
the vast troop buildup and the height of the fighting,
died last night in a retirement home in Charleston, S.C.,
his son, James Ripley Westmoreland, announced.
The general was 91. (The General was called, "General
WasteMoreLand" during Vietnam War era...BW)
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/19/international/asia/
19westmoreland.html?hp&ex=1121832000&en=5cd346e7b5088634&ei=5094&part
ner=homepage
10) How Long Can Workers Tread Water?
By EDUARDO PORTER
July 14, 2005
"Profit has roughly doubled in the last year on revenue
growth of about 40 percent," said Alex Mann, co-owner of
Clicktime.com , a company in San Francisco that sells
time-sheet applications over the Internet. "The top-line
growth was very satisfying. There's been very strong
growth in the amount left for compensation of the owners
and for profits." ...Corporate profits jumped 35 percent
from 2002 to 2004, as increases in revenue dropped
unhindered to companies' bottom lines. Income from
workers' compensation, including wages and benefits,
grew 9.5 percent....In the first quarter of 2005 profits
grew a further 15 percent, compared with the period
last year, twice the pace of compensation for employees.
And what growth there has been in compensation for workers
has mostly concentrated at the top. At the bottom end,
income growth has mainly come from an increase in
employment - not better wages.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/14/business/14income.html?
11) Why Marx is Man of the Moment
He had globalization sussed 150 years ago
by Francis Wheen
Published on Sunday, July 17, 2005 by the Observer/UK
http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0717-28.htm
12) OCCUPATION: DREAMLAND
San Francisco - Begins July 29th, and runs for one week
at the Roxie Theatre at 16th and Valencia
13) Please forward widely Please forward widely
JUSTICE FOR Sheila Detoy and Cammerin Boyd
COMMUNITY RALLY
5:00-6:00 PM
WEDNESDAY, JULY 20, 2005
SAN FRANCISCO CITY PLAZA
DR. GOODLETT DR. (ACROSS FROM S.F. CITY HALL)
For ten years San Francisco Police Offices have killed with
impunity.
14) "How Peace Activists Saved the World from Nuclear War"
You are cordially invited to.......
A discussion with historian and author Lawrence Wittner:
"How Peace Activists Saved the World from Nuclear War"
This Thursday, July 21
7 PM, UC-Berkeley campus
141 McCone Hall
(map: http://www.berkeley.edu/map/maps/AB45.html
Please see attached flyer for more information on
Lawrence Wittner, and to help us spread the
word.
Questions? Contact Josh Kearns with questions:
jkearns@eps.berkleley.edu
mailto:jkearns@eps.berkleley.edu
15) Baghdad Hospital Doctors on Strike
Against Soldiers
By REUTERS
July 19, 2005
Filed at 9:28 a.m. ET
http://nytimes.com/reuters/international/international-iraq-
hospital.html?pagewanted=print
16) Mayor Blames Middle East Policy
Decades of British and American
intervention in the oil-rich Middle East
motivated the London bombers, Ken Livingstone has suggested.
Published on Wednesday, July 20, 2005 by the BBC
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines05/0720-07.htm
17) Military resister Camilo Mejía:
"I pledge my allegiance to the poor and oppressed"
July 22, 2005
FROM: http://www.socialistworker.org
18) Call to Action: Keep up the pressure!
Monday, August 29
National Day of Action
Extradite Luis Posada Carriles
to Venezuela - No to Asylum!
Free the Cuban Five!
Regional demonstration in
El Paso, TX
outside of Posada's trial
Locally coordinated protests
in cities and towns across the country
19) AFX News Limited
Ex-US general says Iraq attacks
to peak in 6 months; US troops out in a year
07.19.2005, 04:55 AM
http://www.forbes.com/home/feeds/afx/2005/07/19/afx2144536.html
20) Nature Deficit
Richard Louv
Orion, July/August
http://www.oriononline.org/pages/om/05-4om/Louv.html
21) Karl Marx Voted Most Revered Philosopher On BBC Web Site
July 14, 2005 By Fred Weston, Marxist.com
Our readers will recall that
The Economist called on its readers to vote
Marx off the top of the list
of the most revered philosophers. We appealed
to our readers to vote for Marx
and keep him at the top. In spite of The
Economists best attempts Marx won!
22) Two-Thirds Believe London Bombings are Linked to Iraq War
by Julian Glover
Published on Tuesday, July 19, 2005 by the Guardian/UK
Two-thirds of Britons believe there is a link between Tony
decision to invade Iraq and the London bombings despite
government claims to the contrary, according to a
Guardian/ICM poll published today.
The poll makes it clear that voters believe further
attacks in Britain by suicide bombers are also
inevitable, with 75% of those responding saying
there will be more attacks.
The research suggests the government is losing the
battle to persuade people that terrorist attacks
on the UK have not been made more likely by the invasion of Iraq.
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines05/0719-10.htm
23) 25,000 Civilians Killed Since Iraq Invasion, Says Report
by Simon Jeffery
Published on Tuesday, July 19, 2005 by the Guardian/UK
The number of Iraqi civilians who met violent deaths in the
two years after the US-led invasion was today put at
24,865 by an independent research team.
The figures, compiled from Iraqi and international media
reports, found US and coalition military forces were
responsible for 37% of the deaths, with anti-occupation
forces and insurgents responsible for 9%. A further
36% were blamed on criminal violence.
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines05/0719-12.htm
24) PLEASE FORWARD ** PLEASE FORWARD WIDELY ** PLEASE FORWARD
FREE HIP HOP SHOW AND RALLY
TO CLOSE CYA YOUTH PRISONS!
Join us as we bring the community together with amazing Bay
Area talent to speak out against the California Youth
Authority and the prison industrial complex!
WHAT: 4th Annual "Not Down with the Lockdown"
Hip Hop Show and Rally to Close the CYA Youth Prisons
WHERE: Frank Ogawa Plaza, 14th St. and Broadway
(Downtown Oakland)
WHEN: Saturday, July 16, noon-2pm
FREE! ALL AGES!
Sponsored by Books Not Bars and
Let's Get Free and The Beat Within.
Contact Books Not Bars:
bnb@ellabakercenter.org
510.428.3939
The Ella Baker Center can't survive
without the support of people like you.
Please take a moment to support us today.
---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*--------
1) In honor of Karl Marx, the BBC Radio 4's "In Our Time
Greatest Philosopher Vote" winner, Bay Area United Against
War is presenting a Benefit Presentation of Howard Zinn's
one man play, MARX IN SOHO
Starring Jerry Levy as Karl Marx
Directed by Michael Fox Kennedy.
Thursday, August 4, 7:00 p.m.
Friday, August 5, 7:00 p.m.
Saturday, August 6, 2:00 p.m.
Jon Sims Center for the Performing Arts
1519 Mission Street between 11th Street
and South Van Ness*
Advance tickets: $10
Door: $20.00
For advance tickets: Send a check to:
Bay Area United Against War
P.O. Box 318021
San Francisco, CA 94131-8021
Please indicate which performance.
Call: 415-824-8730
The premise of the play is that after Marx dies in 1883, he
is able to see what's happening on earth for next 100 years
and comes back to talk about it. Imagine all Karl Marx would
have to say after one hundred years of just being able to watch...
The single actor in this one-man play is Jerry Levy,
who has been teaching sociology at Marlboro College
and been acting with the Actors' Theater of Brattleboro
since he moved there from Chicago in 1975. Originally
directed by Michael Fox Kennedy of the Actors' Theater,
Levy has been on the road with Zinn's version of Karl
Marx for a year, performing at benefits, colleges, small
theaters and other venues around the state. At Middle
Earth he was sponsored by the Bradford-based Coos Peace
and Justice Alliance and performed free of charge but
charged with mighty talent and a bottomless love of the play.
www.bauaw.org
Contact person: Bonnie Weinstein 415-824-8730-office/home
415-990-4237-cell
*The Jon Sims Center is located at 1519 Mission Street
(between 11th Street and South Van Ness), South of Market,
San Francisco, CA 94103
BY CAR:
From the East Bay: Take 80 North then 101 North to the
Mission Street exit. Stay on the right hand side of the exit.
Turn right off the exit, and stay on Mission Street. The Jon
Sims Center is two blocks past Van Ness, next to Firestone.
From the South Bay: Take 101 North to the Mission Street
Exit. Stay on the right hand side of the exit. Turn right off
the exit, and stay on Mission Street. The Jon Sims Center
is two blocks past Van Ness, next to Firestone.
From the North Bay: Take 101 South to Lombard, make
a right on Van Ness and then a left onto Mission. Jon Sims
Center is two blocks past Van Ness, next to Firestone.
Parking: Daytime parking is very difficult. We encourage
day users to take public transportation. In the evening,
street parking along Mission Street, Minna Street and
11th Street is not horrible (in San Francisco terms) after
6:00 PM, but the closer you are to 6:00 PM, the better
your chances of finding parking. There is no parking
along Mission between 4-6 PM, and you will be
promptly towed.
VIA BART/MUNI/SAMTRANS:
Go to http://www.transitinfo.org for more information
about Bay Area public transportation.
BART: Take BART to the Civic Center station, then transfer
to the outbound Muni J,K,L,M or N train. Exit at the next
stop (Van Ness Station). Walk 1 block south, cross Mission,
and the Jon Sims Center is next to Firestone.
MUNI: The Jon Sims Center is 1 block south of the Van
Ness Muni underground station, accessible from any Muni
streetcar. Additionally, the 14 Mission, 42 Loop 49 and
47 Van Ness bus stop at Mission and 11th Street, only
1/2 block from the Jon Sims Center. Current Muni fare is $1.25.
SamTrans: The SamTrans DX, KX, MX, NX, PX, RX and
TX buses stops at Mission and 9th Streets. Walk three
blocks west (towards Sutro tower) to reach the Jon Sims
Center. Current SamTrans fare is $1.10. Please note that
SamTrans buses to the City only run during rush hours.
---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*--------
2) Cut all Public School Ties to the Military!
Speak up and Picket the S.F. Board of Education
the Fourth Tuesday of Each Month.
Next picket line: Tuesday, July 27, 6:30 P.M.-7:30 P.M.
(The July Board of Ed. meetings have been cancelled. But we
will still hold a picket July 27 at 6:30 p.m.-7:30 p.m.
in front of the Board of Education building.)
The next picket line after July 27 is August 23, 6:30 P.M.
-7:30 P.M. (just before school starts back.)
August 23, 6:30 p.m.-7:30 P.M.
555 Franklin St., S.F,
To get on the speakers list call:
415-241-6427, 241-6493 or 241-6000
(For more info call: 415-824-8730)
---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*--------
3) In this message:
* Emergency Protest: Stop Massacres In Haiti!
* ANSWER/Haiti Action Committee Forum: Eyewitness Haiti
Thursday, July 21
EMERGENCY PROTEST!
STOP U.N. "PEACEKEEPER" MASSACRES IN HAITI!
Gather: 4 P.M. - Powell and Market, San Francisco
March to Brazilian Consulate, 300 Montgomery: 4:30 P.M.
Followed by Picket at the Brazilian Consulate.
On the morning of July 6, 2005, more than 350 heavily armed
United Nations "peacekeeping" forces killed at least 23 unarmed
people in the densely populated Port-au-Prince neighborhood of
Cite Soleil. Some estimates indicate that 50 or more may have
died. The UN Force Commander, Brazilian Lt. General Augusto
Heleno, claims there was a "firefight," yet there were no UN
deaths or injuries.
THIS WAS A MASSACRE. Photographic evidence and eyewitness
testimony confirm that the U.N. murdered unarmed civilians,
including a 4-year old child, shot through the head.
Cite Soleil has been the focus of attacks by both UN forces
and the Haitian police because it remains a powerful base of
support for the democratically elected President Jean-Bertrand
Aristide and the Lavalas movement. The U.N. operation targeted
and killed Emmanuel "Dred" Wilme, a well-known community
leader in Cite Soleil, who had been in the forefront of the
neighborhood's resistance to the illegal coup regime. The
attack came just a few days after U.S. Ambassador to Haiti
James Foley labeled Haitian grassroots activists as
"terrorists" and "gang members", sending a clear signal
that it was now open season on civilians.
Since a U.S.-orchestrated coup overthrew the democratic
government in February 2004, a United Nations force of 7500
troops has occupied Haiti. The U.N. has supported the coup
regime, which has killed and imprisoned thousands of innocent
people. As the U.N. mouths its concerns for human rights
around the world, it attacks the poorest communities in
Haiti and backs up the violent repression carried out by
the Haitian police. Brazil continues to do the bidding
of the United States by heading-up this brutal U.N. military
operation in Haiti.
On July 21, there will be coordinated protests in many U.S.
and Canadian cities to condemn the U.N. massacre in Cite
Soleil. Please join us!
END THE U.S./U.N. OCCUPATION OF HAITI!
RESTORE DEMOCRACY AND PRESIDENT ARISTIDE!
Sponsored by the HAITI ACTION COMMITTEE. Endorsed by the
ANSWER Coalition.
For more information: visit www.haitiaction.net or
contact haitiaction@yahoo.com or 510.483.7481.
Tuesday, August 2, 7pm
ANSWER/Haiti Action Committee Forum: EYEWITNESS HAITI
San Francisco Women's Building, 3543 18th St.
(btwn Valencia and Guerrero, near 16th St. BART)
Join us for a special forum, co-sponsored by the ANSWER
Coalition and the Haiti Action Committee, featuring
a report back from a Bay Area delegation recently
returned from Haiti. The delegation witnessed the
aftermath of the massacre by UN forces in Cite Soleil.
$3-10 donation (no one turned away for lack of funds)
Wheelchair accessible. Call to reserve free childcare.
For more info, call 415-821-6545.
---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*--------
4) FROM PROTEST TO RESISTANCE: OUR GENERATION WON'T GO! National
Student Counter-Recruitment Conference October 22-23 at
UC-Berkeley Sponsored by the Campus Antiwar Network
www.campusantiwar.net
The last year has seen an amazing surge of counter-recruitment
efforts on campuses across the country - with students
kicking recruiters off campuses from Seattle Central
Community College and UC-Santa Cruz on the West Coast,
to Southern Connecticut State University and City College
of New York on the East Coast, and a whole host of
schools in between.
Students have found myriad ways of taking the military to
task for the lies it tells us, for the bigotry of its 'Don't
Ask Don't Tell' policy, and most of all, for asking our
generation to become cannon fodder in an occupation the
majority of Americans oppose. As young people increasingly
reject being recruited, according to Major General Michael
Rochelle, the US Army's recruiting commander, "Today's
conditions represent the most challenging conditions we
have seen in recruiting in my 33 years in this uniform."
It's time for students to figure out how to take this
movement even further. This October, join hundreds of
college and high school students from around the country
as we discuss and debate the future of this movement -
and plan to reclaim our schools from recruitment for an
unjust war.
For more information: http://www.campusantiwar.net
This listserve acts as a common ground for national CAN
organizational discussion; please reserve this list for
important organizing annoucements, reports, or questions
that are intended for a national audience. The CAN
listserve is not a posting place for articles or
announcements of local events that do not directly
effect the network nationally... www.campusantiwar.net
<*To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/
CampusAntiwarNetwork/
Charles Jenks
Web Manager and Past President
Traprock Peace Center
103A Keets Road
Deerfield, MA 01342
413-773-7427
fax 413-773-7507 http://www.traprockpeace.org
---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*--------
5) Join ADC-SF and Dr. Hatem Bazian to watch and discuss the
documentary "Falluja -April 2004". In April 2004, the U.S.
forces invaded Falluja with several thousands of soldiers.
About 730 people were killed, and 2,800 were injured in the
siege and subsequent attacks by U.S. forces over the next
month. Falluja has become a symbol of the resistance movement
against the occupation of Iraq by U.S. forces. Come see
never before seen footage of this tragic event. This
documentary investigates the causes of, conditions during,
and damages of the US attack. Footage was recorded in
August 2003 (four months after the invasion of Iraq )
and in May 2004 shortly after the siege of Falluja.
(DVD, 55 minutes). Discussion afterwards with Dr. Hatem Bazian.
Monday, July 25 @ 7pm
3rd floor Auditorium
522 Valencia
San Francisco
Donations welcome.
For more info contact:
adcsf@adcsf.org
---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*--------
6) What: Update Community Notification Plan
Hunters Point Shipyard
When :Wednesday, July 27, 2005
Where: Anna E. Waden Library on Third street ,Community Room
Who: Radiological and Risk Assessment subcommittee
of the Hunters Point Shipyard Restoration Advisory Board
to update the Community Notification Plan of the Shipyard
Why: The original CNP for the shipyard was completed after
a years work on August 17, 2005. The current plan is outdated
and in need of expansion to include over 20 schools and daycare
centers within a one mile radius of the shipyard. Additionally,
protocols for dust control during excavation, demolition and
deconstruction activities on the federal superfund site need
to be incorporated. Of vital importance is the need to
develop protocols for the sitting of human occupants in
radiologically impacted buildings on the base that have not
been released for unrestricted use by the California
Department of Health Services. Additionally, there is
a need to integrate the plan with the City and County
of San Francisco's Disaster Management Plan and to
incorporate post 9/11 bioterrorism considerations
posed by the shipyard as a former naval base, radiation
laboratory and its proximity to the San Francisco Bay.
Who is invited: Representatives from the
Bay Area Air Quality Management District
and an expert in emergency management plan development
have been invited to attend.
Bayview Hunters Point residents are invited to attend,
as is the broader community and representatives of the
media and city government .
---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*--------
7) SUNDAY, JULY 31 citywide strike against
Tenancies-In-Common(TIC) sales.
Shut down TIC Open Houses all across the city!
Meet at the SF Tenants Union, 558 Capp St/21st at 12 Noon .
Food/coffee and transportation available to the targeted Open Houses.
Volunteers needed to arrive by 11 to help out. Drivers also needed.
For more info, call 282-6656 or see www.sftu.org
Dear Friends:
I've been writing a lot about TICs (tenancies-in-common) over
the past few years. While the real-estate industry touts them as
"homes for the middle class," the terrible truth is that they
displace working-class people (including large numbers of people
color), seniors, people with AIDS and others who don't have the
economic means to relocate in this expensive city. They are huge
profit makers for real-estate speculators, and that is the real
motive behind the TIC explosion: Flipping a building over in a
few months nets a speculator anywhere from half a million to a
million and a half dollars, money that can be used to buy another
building and evict another group of tenants.
In the Castro, TICs have meant people with AIDS and seniors being
displaced...in the Mission, Latinos and artists, in Chinatown,
immigrant Chinese folks... TICs are a form of economic cleansing,
an assault on the working people of San Francisco.
The latest twist in the TIC war: no building is now safe from
a TIC attack. It used to be that only buildings of 6 units or
under would be targeted. Now with a newly announced willingness
by banks and lending agencies to finance larger buildings, TICs
will happen in buildings with more than 6 units. And that means
no renter is safe!
The Tenants Union is striking back.
The TU has been picketing TIC Open Houses with great success
this Summer. When prospective buyers learns that tenants were
evicted, they choose not to look at the TIC units. Over 90% of
prospective buyers have been turned away. The pickets have
forced realtors to shut down and cancel Open Houses. San
Francisco buyers--when educated that units are empty because
of evictions--are socially conscious buyers. If they won't buy,
the real-estate speculators have no motivation to evict and
sell. We need to step up the campaign!
Please make a commitment to be there. We closed down San
Francisco on the day the Iraq War began. We can close down
every TIC sale on July 31. Si se puede! It can be done. All
we need is about 100 people.
Commit yourself now to the fight against displacement of
the working class and the further gentrification of our city.
See you on July 31!!
Que siga la lucha! Let the struggle continue!
tommi
PS Remember, my new e-mail, as of July 27, is avimecca@yahoo.com.
---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*--------
8) "Operation Field of Thorn"
From Shraga Elam
I want to draw your attention to what I consider to be the
blue print of the Israeli army's strategy against the
Palestinian, "Operation Field of Thorn" (FoT). As you can
see from enclosed quotations, many of the recommended measures
have been already implemented. The implementation has been
always conditioned by the prevailing political and military
circumstances and a next round is now imminent (see further
down the intention of the Israeli army for a for massive
sweep into Gaza).
It is interesting to see that the plan developed in 1996
talked about "temporary" withdrawal of Israeli settlers and,
eliminating the PA and forced evacuations of Palestinian
from "sensitive areas.", or in Israeli common terminology:
"transfer".
The enclosed quotations pertaining to FoT are out of
a study from the renown US expert Anthony H. Cordesman,
"Israel versus the Palestinians: The "Second Intifada" and
Asymmetric Warfare"
http://www.csis.org/burke/sa/israelvspale_intafada.pdf,
2002, which was originally published already in October 2000.
Shraga Elam
Zurich/Switzerland
Anthony H. Cordesman, "Israel versus the Palestinians: The
"Second Intifada" and Asymmetric Warfare" http://www.csis.org/burke/sa/
israelvspale_intafada.pdf, 2002:
Page 183-184
Israeli Tactics in a West Bank Conflict
Since the beginning of the Second Intifada, the IDF has shown
its very real military options and it is clear it prepared to
exercise them long before the fighting began. The IDF spokesman
provided some of the possible details of such Israeli contingency
plans to reoccupy large parts of the West Bank in a statement
June 1997. 456 Many of these details tracked closely with the
plans tested in "Operation Field of Thorns," a plan the IDF
spokesman had made public in September 1996, and Israel began
to apply many of these measures in September 2000. They include:
• Mobilization and deployment of armored and other land forces
in the face of a massive Palestinian rising.
• Massive reinforcement of IDF troops at points of friction.
• Use of armor and artillery to isolate major Palestinian
population areas, and to seal off Palestinian areas, including
many areas of Zone A.
• Use of other forces to secure settlements, key roads, and
terrain points.
• Use of helicopter gunships and snipers to provide mobility
and suppressive fire.
• Use of extensive small arms, artillery, and tank fire to
suppress sniping, rock throwing and demonstrations.
• Bombing, artillery strikes, and helicopter and combat
aircraft strikes on high value Palestinian targets and
infrastructure, to punish Palestinian elements for attacks.
• Search and seizure interventions and raids into Palestinian
areas in the Gaza and West Bank to break up organized
resistance, capture, or kill key leaders.
• Penetrations into Palestinian-controlled territory to
destroy buildings and houses from which attacks have originated
or to prevent future attacks, and to uproot trees from which
mortar attacks have originated.
• Selective assassinations of suspected leaders and
instigators of conflict, including, through stand-off
tactics such as drones and remote-controlled explosive
devices.
• Use of military forces trained in urban warfare to
penetrate into cities if necessary - most probably in
cases where there were Jewish enclaves like Hebron .
• Arrest PA officials and imposition of a new military
administration .
• Isolation of key Palestinian cities and towns and use
of surrounding IDF troops to turn them into military
cantonments.
• Introduction of a simultaneous economic blockade with
selective cuts offs of financial transactions, labor
movements, and food/fuel shipments.
• Selective destruction of high value Palestinian
facilities and clearly of strong points and fields of
fire near Palestinian urban areas.
• Use of Israeli control of water, power, communications,
and road access to limit the size and endurance of
Palestinian action.
• Regulation and control of media access and conduct
a major information campaign to influence local and
world opinion.
•Carrying out "temporary" withdrawal of Israeli
settlers from exposed and strategically low value
isolated settlements like Hebron [or Gush Katif - se] .
• Creation of fences, security zones, bypasses,
and other measures to separate Israelis and Palestinians.
•Forced evacuations of Palestinian from "sensitive areas."
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/600721.html
www. haaretz.com
Last update - 02:32 17/07/2005
IDF poised for massive sweep into Gaza
By Haaretz Staff
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/600721.html
The Israel Defense Forces late last night massed thousands
of troops on the Gaza Strip border for two purposes -
a possible operation in the Strip to halt the Qassam rocket
fire and a move to block the right-wing activists' march
to Gush Katif.
Hundreds of settlers clashed last night with a large force
of police and IDF troops at the Kissufim checkpoint. The
settlers came to demonstrate against the decision to close
Gush Katif and were planning to break through the barricade.
Settlers blocked the crossing with vehicles and resisted
the police's attempt to remove them. Several protesters
were injured, and others were arrested. Demonstrators
also tore up a number of fences that the IDF built in
the area.
U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said yesterday
that she was arriving at the end of the week to try to
defuse the tension between Israel and the Palestinians
and to ensure the disengagement's implementation.
Israel resumed its policy of targeted assassinations in
the territories on Friday, killing seven Hamas activists
in two air force operations in Gaza and in Salfit, in the
West Bank. At the same time, large infantry and armored
forces concentrated near the northern Gaza Strip. However,
Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz ordered the IDF not to enter
the Strip at present "to give the Palestinian Authority
a last chance to take care of the terror organizations."
A senior officer told Haaretz yesterday that in the last
two days, the PA was taking real action against the terror
groups and its policemen were clashing with Hamas activists.
Prime Minister Ariel Sharon stated last week that the
disengagement would be carried out as scheduled and
would not be postponed due to the terror.
"There is no connection between the evacuation of Gaza,
which is vital to Israel, and terror. Terror will not
stop the disengagement plan," Sharon told Channel 2.
Israel has advised the Americans, Egyptians and
Palestinians of its plans and said that it was increasing
pressure on the PA. Mofaz told special U.S. envoy General
William Ward that Israel sees the PA's action against
the terrorists as the test of whether a coordinated
disengagement is possible.
"Start taking serious action and don't force us to enter
[the Gaza Strip]," Mofaz told Palestinian Interior
Minister General Nasser Yousef.
Qassam rockets and mortar shells continued to fall in
Sderot, in communities in the northern and western Negev
and in Gush Katif. Since Thursday evening, some 40 Qassam
rockets and some 70 mortar shells were fired, constituting
the largest attack since the cease-fire started in February.
A woman, 18, and a girl, 4, were lightly injured by mortar
shrapnel in their home in Neveh Dekalim in Gush Katif.
A Nisanit resident, 59, was lightly injured when his
home was directly hit by a mortar shell.
Ambulances evacuated 13 other people suffering from
shock to hospitals.
In another incident, a mortar shell caused serious
damage to a house in Neveh Dekalim, minutes after the
father had left the room. The settlement's residents
were asked to remain in shelters for several hours
on Friday night.
Most of the Qassam rockets fired over the weekend
fell in open areas, causing no casualties or damage.
However, before dawn yesterday, one rocket struck
the swimming pool at Sha'ar Hanegev, causing serious
damage. Another rocket landed in the yard of a house
in Sderot. Four family members suffering from shock
received medical treatment, the family's dog was
killed and the house was damaged. Yesterday afternoon
another Sderot resident suffered shock after
a rocket landed close to her, near the town's cemetery.
On Friday afternoon, 22-year-old Dana Glakowitz
of Netiv Ha'asara, who was killed a day earlier
by a mortar shell in the moshav, was buried in
Kibbutz Brur Hayil.
Sharon gave the go-ahead to assassinate Hamas
activists in the Gaza Strip and West Bank on
Friday, a day after the fatal Qassam rocket
attack in Netiv Ha'asara.
A Jerusalem source said the action plans had
been prepared in advance and Sharon only confirmed
carrying them out on the telephone. After the
suicide bombing in Netanya that killed five people
on Tuesday, the decision was made to assassinate
Islamic Jihad activists in Tul Karm, who were
responsible for the attack. On Thursday the
assignment expanded to include members of
Hamas, which was responsible for the Qassam launching.
Seven Hamas activists were killed and eight
others were lightly wounded during two IDF
targeted assassination operations in the Salfit
area and in the Gaza Strip. These were the first
assassinations since the cease-fire began.
Palestinian sources said that close to 3 P.M. on
Friday, IDF gunships fired several missiles and
machine gun volleys toward a cave near Salfit,
killing two Hamas activists. A third activist
managed to escape, but was killed later by IDF
troops. About an hour later, in another assassination
in the Gaza Strip, four Hamas activists were killed
while traveling in a Volkswagen van laden with
explosives, probably Qassam rockets. Gunships
fired missiles at the car west of Gaza City,
blowing it up.
Chief of Staff Dan Halutz said in Tel Aviv on Friday,
"Hamas has excluded itself from the truce, at least
for the time being." Noting that the truce in the
territories was falling apart, he warned, "If the
PA fails to take care of the [armed] organizations,
we will first deal with terror and only then
complete the disengagement."
---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*--------
9) Gen. Westmoreland, Who Led U.S. in Vietnam, Dies
By ERIC PACE
Published: July 19, 2005
Gen. William C. Westmoreland, who commanded the United
States forces in Vietnam from 1964 to 1968, overseeing
the vast troop buildup and the height of the fighting,
died last night in a retirement home in Charleston, S.C.,
his son, James Ripley Westmoreland, announced.
The general was 91. (The General was called, "General
WasteMoreLand" during Vietnam War era...BW)
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/19/international/asia/
19westmoreland.html?hp&ex=1121832000&en=5cd346e7b5088634&ei=5094&part
ner=homepage
---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*--------
10) How Long Can Workers Tread Water?
By EDUARDO PORTER
July 14, 2005
"Profit has roughly doubled in the last year on revenue
growth of about 40 percent," said Alex Mann, co-owner of
Clicktime.com , a company in San Francisco that sells
time-sheet applications over the Internet. "The top-line
growth was very satisfying. There's been very strong
growth in the amount left for compensation of the owners
and for profits." ...Corporate profits jumped 35 percent
from 2002 to 2004, as increases in revenue dropped
unhindered to companies' bottom lines. Income from
workers' compensation, including wages and benefits,
grew 9.5 percent....In the first quarter of 2005 profits
grew a further 15 percent, compared with the period
last year, twice the pace of compensation for employees.
And what growth there has been in compensation for workers
has mostly concentrated at the top. At the bottom end,
income growth has mainly come from an increase in
employment - not better wages.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/14/business/14income.html?
---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*--------
11) Why Marx is Man of the Moment
He had globalization sussed 150 years ago
by Francis Wheen
Published on Sunday, July 17, 2005 by the Observer/UK
http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0717-28.htm
---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*--------
12) OCCUPATION: DREAMLAND
San Francisco - Begins July 29th, and runs for one week
at the Roxie Theatre at 16th and Valencia
Hi,
This film depicts the daily life of a group of soldiers in
Fallujah before the heavy-duty, criminal bombing began
in November of 2004.
It's not a "fun" or "relaxing" film to watch. It is probably
a very good film for National Guard, reserve soldiers, vets,
teenagers, parents, and those interested in what the life
is like for the ordinary soldier in a combat zone.
Especially good for those thinking of enlisting,
joining ROTC, etc.
I think what amazed me most was that the soldiers seemed
connected to a central command that didn't know what was
going on, couldn't be relied upon, and yet, was making
the decisions. Also, the soldiers seemed very disconnected
from knowing where and what their targets were.
It's an interesting film, but I'm not sure what idea the
filmmakers were trying to get across or what its goals are.
I'd really be interested in people's thoughts about.
I also have a DVD of the film.
Marti Hiken
OCCUPATION: DREAMLAND
San Francisco - Begins July 29th, and runs for one week
at the Roxie Theatre at 16th and Valencia
********************
RUMUR RELEASING, cordially invites you to the screening of
its inaugural feature release, the documentary OCCUPATION:
DREAMLAND.
An unflinchingly candid portrait of a squad of American
soldiers deployed in the doomed Iraqi city of Falluja
during the winter of 2004, OCCUPATION: DREAMLAND chronicles
the daily grind of young recruits as they patrol an environment
of low-intensity conflict creeping steadily towards catastrophe.
The film documents the city's waning stability before a final
series of military assaults began in the spring of 2004 that
effectively destroyed it.
A real opportunity to see the war from a soldier's
perspective, OCCUPATION: DREAMLAND provides an intimate
examination of the escalating tension in the unstable
region. The narrative follows a downward spiral of civil
destabilization and personal frustration, borne by
individuals trapped on both sides of the conflict, and
unflinchingly addresses the soldiers' operational and
moral ambivalence about the war effort itself.
Filmmakers Garrett Scott and Ian Olds were given access
to all operations of the Army's 82nd Airborne. They lived
with the unit 24/7, giving voice to soldiers held under
a strict code of authority as they cope with an ambiguous,
often lethal environment. The result is a revealing,
sometimes surprising look at Army life, operations and
the complexity of American war in the 21st century.
OCCUPATION: DREAMLAND is not yet rated and has a running
time of 79 minutes.
RUMUR RELEASING, a new paradigm in independent releasing,
was formed by Michael Galinsky, Jeff Sanders, David
Beilinson and Suki Hawley with a mission to efficiently
build audiences for thought provoking films. In addition
to OCCUPATION:DREAMLAND, upcoming releases include
MARDI GRAS: MADE IN CHINA and CODE 33.
National Lawyers Guild
Military Law Task Force
Marguerite Hiken, co-chair
318 Ortega Street
San Francisco, CA 94122
415-566-3732
mlhiken@pacbell.net
www.nlg.org/mltf
Kathleen Gilberd, co-chair
1168 Union Street, Ste. 302
San Diego, CA 92101
619-233-1701
KathleenGilberd@aol.com
---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*--------
13) Please forward widely Please forward widely
JUSTICE FOR Sheila Detoy and Cammerin Boyd
COMMUNITY RALLY
5:00-6:00 PM
WEDNESDAY, JULY 20, 2005
SAN FRANCISCO CITY PLAZA
DR. GOODLETT DR. (ACROSS FROM S.F. CITY HALL)
For ten years San Francisco Police Offices have killed with
impunity.
We say no more
We call on the San Francisco Police
Commission to end this reign of terror.
Sheila Detoy: On May 13, 1998 San
Francisco Police Officers Shot Up
a car full of Unarmed Teenagers and
killed 17 year Old Sheila Detoy.
SFPD then tried to blame her friends for her death.
Cammerin Boyd: On Wednesday, May 5, 2004,
San Francisco police officers shot and
killed 29 year-old Cammerin Boyd in front
of dozens of witnesses. Cammerin, who was
disabled, was clearly and vocally surrendering.
He had his hands above his head.
But the police shot him anyway.
In the coming weeks the San Francisco
Police Commission will begin holding
hearings on both of these cases, come
out and let them know we will accept
nothing less than justice.
For more information call (510)428-3939 x, 242 or e-mail
malaika@ellabakercenter.org
---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*--------
14) "How Peace Activists Saved the World from Nuclear War"
You are cordially invited to.......
A discussion with historian and author Lawrence Wittner:
"How Peace Activists Saved the World from Nuclear War"
This Thursday, July 21
7 PM, UC-Berkeley campus
141 McCone Hall
(map: http://www.berkeley.edu/map/maps/AB45.html
Please see attached flyer for more information on
Lawrence Wittner, and to help us spread the
word.
Questions? Contact Josh Kearns with questions:
jkearns@eps.berkleley.edu mailto:jkearns@eps.berkleley.edu
---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*--------
15) Baghdad Hospital Doctors on Strike
Against Soldiers
By REUTERS
July 19, 2005
Filed at 9:28 a.m. ET
http://nytimes.com/reuters/international/international-iraq-
hospital.html?pagewanted=print
---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*--------
16) Mayor Blames Middle East Policy
Decades of British and American
intervention in the oil-rich Middle East
motivated the London bombers, Ken Livingstone has suggested.
Published on Wednesday, July 20, 2005 by the BBC
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines05/0720-07.htm
---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*--------
17) Military resister Camilo Mejía:
"I pledge my allegiance to the poor and oppressed"
July 22, 2005
FROM: http://www.socialistworker.org
CAMILO MEJIA was the first U.S. soldier who served in Iraq to go
public with his refusal to continue fighting George Bush's war for oil
and empire.
Camilo refused to be redeployed to Iraq before the revelations about
torture at the Abu Ghraib prison came to light, but these abuses
didn't take him by surprise. One of his first assignments when he
arrived in Iraq in 2003 was to detain--and abuse--Iraqi prisoners by
depriving them of sleep and using mock executions to terrify them.
A military court forced Camilo to serve seven months' confinement for
his decision to abide by his conscience. Since his release, Camilo has
thrown himself into building the antiwar movement and
counter-recruitment efforts--and speaking about how his time in Iraq
has changed his thinking about the world.
On July 3, Camilo spoke at an evening rally against war and empire at
the Socialism 2005 conference in Chicago. Here, Socialist Worker
prints an extended version of his speech.
THOSE OF us in the GI antiwar movement, whether we know it or not,
face a powerful enemy. When I say antiwar movement, it is assumed that
I mean the war in Iraq, but the war in Iraq should be seen as part of
something far bigger and far more devastating.
The powerful enemy is the corporations that finance congressional and
presidential campaigns, the corporations in control of our privatized
government. This is the same enemy that charges the American people a
billion dollars per week to send their children to fight a criminal
war against the children of Iraq.
Our struggle is the struggle against those who say "support our
troops" while turning their backs on returning veterans. It is rather
comfortable to say support the troops while keeping their reality in
Iraq a mystery.
Support the troops by waving flags and slapping yellow ribbons on the
bumpers of SUVs. Support the troops while they are killing their
brothers and sisters in Iraq--meanwhile, hiding the flag-draped
coffins some of them are coming home in, and keeping the horror of
their wounds out of the public's view.
We struggle against those who create terrorism through the spread of
hunger and poverty, so they can spread war and reap the profits. We
struggle against those who invade and occupy a land for its resources,
and then call its people terrorists for refusing to be conquered.
This "terrorism" in Iraq is in reality a fight for freedom and
self-determination. It is by twisting the concept of this legitimate
struggle into the concept of terrorism, with help from the corporate
media, that our puppet government further creates resentment and
racism against the oppressed to further its conquest. It is by means
of this imperial conquest that a small terrorist network is turned
into a global terrorist mentality.
No longer able to rely on the rhetoric of the Cold War, the corporate
warmongers need this global terrorism to justify the spread of its
empire. So the war we oppose is the war waged by corporations on the
billions of people around the world who live in utter misery.
We fight an enemy that can only be made powerful through the
systematic exploitation of natural resources and through the constant
and systematic poisoning of the environment across the world. This
enemy does not need war to spread death and destruction.
We fight a system that feeds on poverty and lack of options to fill
the ranks of its imperialist military.
The United States of America is the only superpower on earth--a nation
rich and powerful beyond anything ever seen or heard of in history.
There is no reason why everyone in this nation should not live a
comfortable and stable life. Yet more than 40 million people live
without health insurance. The public school system is overcrowded and
failing, but to get help from the government, public schools must open
their doors to military recruiters.
The so-called American Dream, to many poor people, is tied to the
obligation to fight in a war for corporate domination.
They call it an all-volunteer army. But to them, I say: Show me a
society where everyone has access to health care. Show me a society
where everyone has access to an education. Show me a society where
everyone has access to decent wages, where everyone lives a dignified
life, and then I will show you an all-volunteer army.
Poverty and oppression around the world provide the building blocks
for an empire. Poverty and oppression at home provide the building
blocks to build an imperial army.
In saying no to that imperial army--in refusing to fight an imperial
war against our brothers and sisters of Iraq--I pledge my allegiance
to the poor and oppressed of the world. In saying no to an imperial
army and in refusing to fight an imperial war against our brothers and
sisters of Iraq, I pledge my allegiance to the working class of the
world.
Their struggle--which is your struggle--is my struggle as well.
Marxism mailing list
Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu
http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism
---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*--------
18) Call to Action: Keep up the pressure!
Monday, August 29
National Day of Action
Extradite Luis Posada Carriles
to Venezuela - No to Asylum!
Free the Cuban Five!
Regional demonstration in
El Paso, TX
outside of Posada's trial
Locally coordinated protests
in cities and towns across the country
Since the illegal arrival of the
terrorist Luis Posada Carriles to the United
States in late March, the Bush
administration has been met with
a torrent of opposition and demands
for Posada's extradition to Venezuela.
On August 29, Posada will appear
for trial in El Paso and the A.N.S.W.E.R.
Coalition is calling for demonstrations
outside the immigration court in El Paso
and in cities across the country demanding
that Posada not be granted asylum and
instead be extradited to Venezuela.
Only Bush's government and the Miami
terrorists are opposed to Posada's extradition.
There is virtually universal agreement
that Posada must be denied asylum in
the U.S. and instead be tried in
Venezuela. Posada is principally
responsible, along with Orlando Bosch,
for the 1976 bombing of the Cubana
plane that killed 73 people. That
crime was plotted in Venezuela. The
hand of the CIA is also deeply implicated,
and Posada was a paid CIA agent since 1961.
It is more critical than ever to keep
the pressure on the U.S. government to
demand justice for the families of the
victims of anti-Cuba terrorism, and for
an end to U.S. sponsorship of the Miami
terrorists.
It is essential that the struggle of
the Cuban 5 - five heroic men who
actively opposed terrorism in Miami –
be elevated to national prominence to
help win their freedom from U.S. prison.
There is no more relevant opportunity
than now to demand: Extradite Posada!
Free the Cuban Five!
The more than twenty June 13 protests –
from El Paso to New York City to San
Francisco - helped generate a great deal
of media attention on the terrorist
history of Posada. June 13 was the
first Immigration court date. We believe
that the immigration proceedings, which
will be continued to August 29 in
El Paso, are a diversion from the
real issue: the urgent need for Posada
to be sent to Venezuela, where
an extradition order has been issued.
Since March, A.N.S.W.E.R. has organized
several public actions, including:
* An important April 21 press
conference in Miami together with progressive
Cuban groups under the banner of Alianza
Martiana, which helped break the story
into the national and international media.
* A well-covered May 13 press conference
in Washington DC, featuring Wayne Smith
and family members of Raymond Persaud,
who perished in the 1976 Cubana bombing.
* 40,000 letters sent to Bush & Congress!
A national A.N.S.W.E.R. letter-writing
campaign that generated more than 30,000
letters to members of Congress and more
than 10,500 letters to Bush, demanding
no asylum, and extradition of Posada.
Send a letter - or another letter - today!
* The June 13 protests, that resulted
in more than 20 demonstrations in the United
States, Europe, and Latin America. View
reports and photographs from
June 13 demonstrations.
Join in the A.N.S.W.E.R. Call
for a National Day of Action
on Monday, August 29!
On that day, in El Paso, Judge William
Lee Abbott will hear arguments on
whether Posada is in the United States
illegally. His attorney, Eduardo Soto,
claims that Posada is still a U.S.
resident and therefore entitled to remain
in the U.S. That is a spurious claim, as
Posada relinquished his residency rights
in the 1960s by not residing in the U.S.
since at least that long ago. Also, his
crimes of terrorism and murder would
automatically disqualify him for asylum.
Venezuela's petition for extradition must,
by international, U.S., and Venezuelan law,
take precedence over any immigration consideration.
Here's how you can help keep the pressure on
the U.S. government on August 29:
1) Attend the regional demonstration
in El Paso, Texas outside of Posada's trial.
Starting at 6:30 am, the A.N.S.W.E.R.
Coalition, National Network on Cuba,
South West Organizing Project, Stop the
War Machine Coalition, Latino Movement USA,
Comité de Juárez por la Libertad de los Cinco
Cubanos, National Committee to Free the Cuban
Five, and other regional groups will mobilize
for a mass protest in front of the Immigration
court, at 8915 Montana Rd. (at the corner of
Mattox and Montana Streets) in El Paso.
If you can organize a car caravan, van and
bus from your city to El Paso, fill out the
Transportation Form to help spread the word.
For transportation from Albuquerque, NM to El Paso, email
albuquerquetoelpaso@answercoalition.org or call 505-344-5049.
Contact the A.N.S.W.E.R. Coalition by phone
at 202-544-3389 in Washington DC or 415-821-6545
in San Francisco, or email
info@internationalanswer.org for details and
to get involved. Click here for a downloadable
flyer. If you are in El Paso,
email elpasolocalcontact@answercoalition.org
or call 915-842-0577.
2) Organize a local protest in your city or
town, if possible at a Federal Building or
Federal Courthouse. To list the protest in
your city, fill out the Event Listing Form.
For assistance in organizing a protest in
your area, contact the A.N.S.W.E.R.
Coalition at 202-544-3389 or 415-821-6545,
or email info@internationalanswer.org.
Protests are already planned in several
cities (see above for El Paso details):
* Washington DC: Call 202-544-3389 or
email dc@internationalanswer.org for details.
* San Francisco: Call 415-821-6545 for email
sf@internationalanswer.org or details.
* Miami: Call 305-757-3113 for details.
* Los Angeles: Call 323-464-1636 or email
la@internationalanswer.org for details.
* New York City: Call 212-533-0417 or email
nyc@internationalanswer.org for details.
* Chicago: Call 773-920-7545 or email
chicago@internationalanswer.orgfor details.
* Seattle: Call 206-568-1661 or email
seattle@internationalanswer.org for details.
3) Endorse the Call to Action (endorsements
from individuals and organizations are welcome).
4) Help spread the word! Forward this email
using the "Email this page" button at the top
of the email, or through your email program's
forwarding mechanism. Flyers for protests
around the country will be available soon.
5) Take this opportunity to send a letter –
or another letter - to Bush and Congress.
6) Funds are urgently needed.
Order an organizing video to build the march!
A.N.S.W.E.R. has produced a 20-minute video,
with interviews of the Cuban families of the
victims of Posada's plane bombing, Cuba's
struggle against terrorism, the Cuban Five,
and scenes of the June 13 El Paso march. Send
an $18 check to get a VHS or DVD copy to the
A.N.S.W.E.R. Coalition at 2489 Mission St.,
Room 24, San Francisco, CA 94110. Show it at
your organization's next mobilizing meeting!
To get involved, contact:
A.N.S.W.E.R. Coalition
Act Now to Stop War & End Racism
National Office in Washington DC: 202-544-3889
West Coast Regional Office in San Francisco: 415-821-6545
Website: http://www.answercoalition.org/
Email: info@internationalanswer.org
---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*--------
19) AFX News Limited
Ex-US general says Iraq attacks
to peak in 6 months; US troops out in a year
07.19.2005, 04:55 AM
http://www.forbes.com/home/feeds/afx/2005/07/19/afx2144536.html
---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*--------
20) Nature Deficit
Richard Louv
Orion, July/August
http://www.oriononline.org/pages/om/05-4om/Louv.html
AS ANY PARENT OR TEACHER PROBABLY KNOWS, the number of children
diagnosed with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD)
has skyrocketed-by 33 percent from 1997 to 2002. Prescriptions
of stimulant medications such as methylphenidate (Ritalin) and
amphetamines (Dexedrine) have risen as well, especially for
preschoolers. From 2000 to 2003, spending on ADHD drugs for
children under five rose 369 percent.
Scientists have yet to definitively explain the trend. Some
critics say the reporting might be skewed-that ADHD may have
been with us all the time but called by other names or missed
entirely. Another theory is that the disorder might be
overdiagnosed; pharmaceutical companies have intensely
marketed medications, and school officials often urge parents
to seek treatment for disruptive children.
Still, the disorder is real. One suspected cause of ADHD
symptoms is overstimulation, especially from television
viewing. But another significant factor in the ADHD
phenomenon-and a potential treatment-could be as close
as our own backyards.
Children diagnosed with ADHD have trouble paying attention,
listening, following directions, and focusing on tasks.
They may also be aggressive, antisocial, and susceptible
to academic failure. Based on high-tech images of the brain,
some scientists report that ADHD children show altered
levels of some neurotransmitters and slight shrinking
in the part of the cerebral cortex that governs attention
and impulse control. But scientists are not clear whether
those differences indicate a cause for the disorder,
perhaps due to a genetic defect, or are simply
manifestations of another cause or causes.
In ongoing studies by the Human-Environment Research
Laboratory at the University of Illinois, researchers
have discovered tantalizing evidence for a new view of
the syndrome. In a 2004 study published in the American
Journal of Public Health , the laboratory found that
children as young as five showed a significant
reduction in ADHD symptoms when they engaged with nature.
Parents and guardians were asked to identify after-
school or weekend activities that left their children
functioning particularly well or poorly. The study
measured responses to two types of activities: those
in green landscapes-such as grassy backyards, parks,
and farmland-and those in indoor playgrounds and paved
recreation areas. The researchers designed the study
to account for any effects of physical exercise so
they could measure only the influence of green settings.
They also factored out age, gender, family income,
geographic region, size of community, and the severity
of diagnosis.
In fifty-four of fifty-six cases, outdoor activities
in more natural settings led to a greater reduction
in ADHD symptoms than activities in less natural areas.
The only instances when symptoms worsened occurred in
the artificial environments. In a related experiment,
the laboratory found that children could focus on
specific tasks better in green settings.
Other researchers have found that engagement with
nature buffers against life stresses, which otherwise
could aggravate ADHD. Although most of their studies
focus on adults, an increasing number gauge the impact
of green settings on children. A 2003 Cornell
University study reported that the more nature
a child encountered at home-including exposure to
indoor plants and window views of natural settings-
the less he or she was affected by negative stresses.
A 2003 study by researchers at the New York State
College of Human Ecology reached similar conclusions.
Nancy Wells, the lead researcher, said that exposure
to nature resulted in "profound differences" in
children's attention capacities and that "green
spaces may enable children to think more clearly
and cope more effectively with life stress." That,
in turn, could strengthen a child's attention and
potentially decrease the symptoms of ADHD.
Photograph | Jason Houston
It's not clear why exposure to nature would have
such an apparently powerful influence on brain
functions related to attention. One theory is that
the experience simply engages a child mentally and
physically in a "natural" way, consistent with how
humans have evolved. In an earlier hunting and
gathering or agricultural society-which is to say,
during most of humankind's history-young people were
more likely to engage in physically demanding,
mentally relaxing activities that immersed most
of their sensory receptors: climbing, hunting small
animals, baling hay, splashing in the swimming hole.
As recently as the 1950s, most U.S. youngsters still
had some kind of agricultural connection. Even in
towns or cities, kids played ball in sandlots or
spent hours building forts in tangled and wild
"vacant" lots. Their unregimented play was steeped
in nature. That kind of exposure to nature has faded
dramatically in recent decades, but our need for
nature-possibly physiological-has not. "Neurologically,
human beings haven't caught up with today's over-
stimulating environment," says Michael Gurian,
a family therapist and author of The Wonder of
Boys . "The brain is strong and flexible, so 70
to 80 percent of kids adapt fairly well. But the
rest don't."
If ADHD has something to do with a lack of nature,
the neurological mechanics could be explained by the
attention-restoration theory developed by Stephen and
Rachel Kaplan, husband-and-wife environmental
psychologists at the University of Michigan. The
Kaplans have taken their inspiration from philosopher
and psychologist William James, who, in 1890, described
two kinds of attention in adults: directed and involuntary.
In the early 1970s, the Kaplans studied the impact of
a range of activities and found too much directed
attention (this could include computer tasks, homework,
studying for a test) leads to what they call
"directed-attention fatigue," marked by impulsive
behavior, agitation, irritation, and inability to
concentrate. Directed-attention fatigue occurs
because neural inhibitory mechanisms become overstressed
by blocking competing stimuli. Subsequent research,
including more than one hundred studies linking exposure
to nature to stress reduction, has supported the Kaplans'
theory-and the salutary influence of what they called
"the restorative environment." According to the Kaplans,
nature can be the most effective source of restorative relief.
The University of Illinois team, while not questioning
the effectiveness of current ADHD treatment methods,
has also suggested that nature therapy could be a third
option, after prescription medications and behavioral
therapy. They recount how one parent began taking her
son to the local park for thirty minutes each morning
before school, which she indicated reduced his ADHD
symptoms. "Come to think of it," she told the researchers,
"I have noticed his attitude toward going to school has
been better, and his schoolwork has been better this
past week." Another parent of a boy with attention-
deficit symptoms began engaging him regularly in
outdoor activities like fishing, with similar results.
"When I read the results of your study," he reported
to the researchers, "they hit me in the face.
I thought, yes, I've seen this!"
If a greener environment can play a role in curing
ADHD, few if any studies have explicitly examined
whether the converse is also true: that ADHD may be
a set of symptoms initiated or aggravated by lack of
exposure to nature. By this line of thinking, many
children may benefit from medications, but the real
disorder lies in the society that has disengaged
children from nature and imposed on them an artificial
environment for which they have not evolved. Viewed
from this angle, children and adults alike would
suffer from what might be called nature-deficit
disorder, not in a clinical sense, but as a condition
caused by the cumulative human costs of alienation
from nature, including diminished use of the senses,
attention difficulties, and higher rates of
physical and emotional illnesses.
If that's the real ailment, a walk in the woods
would be the ideal treatment: it's not stigmatizing,
has no serious side effects, and it's free. But such
reliance on greenery would underscore the need to
scale back industrialism, redesign homes, schools,
and cities, and expand access to nature-which can't
be encapsulated in a pill, but could be equally
powerful medicine.
Richard Louv has written for the New York Times
and the Christian Science Monitor , and is a longtime
columnist for the San Diego Union-Tribune . He is
the author of seven books, including Last Child in
the Woods: Saving Our Children from Nature-Deficit
Disorder , published in April by Algonquin Books of
Chapel Hill. He lives in San Diego.
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21) Karl Marx Voted Most Revered Philosopher On BBC Web Site
July 14, 2005 By Fred Weston, Marxist.com
Our readers will recall that
The Economist called on its readers to vote
Marx off the top of the list
of the most revered philosophers. We appealed
to our readers to vote for
Marx and keep him at the top. In spite of The
Economists best attempts Marx won!
This comes as no surprise to us.
We await The Economist's explanation with
interest.
Week after week Karl Marx was at the top of the poll.
Melvyn Bragg organised the poll
for his Radio 4 series, In Our Time, and
every week he would express surprise
that Marx was still ahead of all the
others. The Economist magazine then
intervened appealing to its readers to
vote and knock Marx off the top of the
list and called for a vote for David
Hume. But Marx received 28% of the
votes cast, coming first and beating
David Hume, hands down.
No doubt The Economist editorial
board will be disappointed. They tell us
that Marxism is outdated, that
capitalism works, etc. etc. Unfortunately
for them people have brains and
they can work things out for
themselves. What is happening
today all over the world does not negate
Marx but confirms what he wrote.
As Eric Hobsbawm has explained, trying to
find a reason why Marx won,
"The Communist Manifesto contains a stunning
prediction of the nature and
effects of globalisation."
In fact, Marx is as relevant today
--if not more relevant --as when he
published the Communist Manifesto
150 years ago. Marx's studies of
capitalism and how it works led
him to predict such phenomena as
globalisation, monopolisation,
the growing divide between rich and poor and
the strengthening of the proletariat, and so on.
His philosophical outlook, dialectical
materialism, has stood the test of
time, and is a precious instrument
in our hands to unravel all the complex
mechanisms of economy, politics,
and even science. It allows us to have a
global view of all processes and
thus be able to develop a perspective for
the future development of society.
The problem the bourgeois philosophers
have with Marx is that he not only
analysed all the contradictions of
the capitalist system, he also pointed
to an alternative.
As Marx said, "The philosophers have
only interpreted the world in various
ways. The point, however, is to
change it." Marx explained that capitalism
had to be overthrown and a more
rational system put in its place, Socialism.
So although, the media would like
to portray Britain as a sleepy,
phlegmatic place where the class
struggle belongs to the past, reality is
somewhat different.
In spite of all the attempts to
fill people's heads with incomprehensible
language, the real world is still
out there and people live in it. That
explains why so many people voted
for Marx the revolutionary.
They believe that this society is
not the best that history provides. Far
from it, they believe a new society
is possible. Tony Blair and Gordon
Brown may have a few surprises coming
their way in the coming years!
Tom Condit
tomcondit@igc.org
http://www.peaceandfreedom.org
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22) Two-Thirds Believe London Bombings are Linked to Iraq War
by Julian Glover
Published on Tuesday, July 19, 2005 by the Guardian/UK
Two-thirds of Britons believe there is a link between Tony
decision to invade Iraq and the London bombings despite
government claims to the contrary, according to a
Guardian/ICM poll published today.
The poll makes it clear that voters believe further
attacks in Britain by suicide bombers are also
inevitable, with 75% of those responding saying
there will be more attacks.
The research suggests the government is losing the
battle to persuade people that terrorist attacks
on the UK have not been made more likely by the invasion of Iraq.
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines05/0719-10.htm
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23) 25,000 Civilians Killed Since Iraq Invasion, Says Report
by Simon Jeffery
Published on Tuesday, July 19, 2005 by the Guardian/UK
The number of Iraqi civilians who met violent deaths in the
two years after the US-led invasion was today put at
24,865 by an independent research team.
The figures, compiled from Iraqi and international media
reports, found US and coalition military forces were
responsible for 37% of the deaths, with anti-occupation
forces and insurgents responsible for 9%. A further
36% were blamed on criminal violence.
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines05/0719-12.htm
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24) PLEASE FORWARD ** PLEASE FORWARD WIDELY ** PLEASE FORWARD
FREE HIP HOP SHOW AND RALLY
TO CLOSE CYA YOUTH PRISONS!
Join us as we bring the community together with amazing Bay
Area talent to speak out against the California Youth
Authority and the prison industrial complex!
WHAT: 4th Annual "Not Down with the Lockdown"
Hip Hop Show and Rally to Close the CYA Youth Prisons
WHERE: Frank Ogawa Plaza, 14th St. and Broadway
(Downtown Oakland)
WHEN: Saturday, July 16, noon-2pm
FREE! ALL AGES!
Sponsored by Books Not Bars and
Let's Get Free and The Beat Within.
Contact Books Not Bars:
bnb@ellabakercenter.org
510.428.3939
The Ella Baker Center can't survive
without the support of people like you.
Please take a moment to support us today.
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