U.S. Out of Iraq Now! We Are the Majority!
End Colonial Occupation from Iraq,
to Palestine, Haiti, and Everywhere!
October 28, 2006, 12 Noon, U.N. Plaza, S.F.
Part of the Locally Coordinated Anti-War Protests from Coast to Coast
Vote With Your Feet … and Your Voices, and Banners, and Signs!
Let Every Politician Feel the Power of the People!
415-821-6545
answer@actionsf.org
http://answer.pephost.org/site/News2?abbr=ANS_&page=NewsArticle&id=7836
For more info or to volunteer,
call 415-821-6545.
The endless stream of lies from Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, etc. cannot
disguise the reality that both the war and the casualties in Iraq
are escalating. So, too, is the war in Afghanistan. and the economic
strangulation of the Palestinian people. The U.S.-Israeli assault left
a legacy of death, destruction and a million unexploded cluster
bombs in Lebanon. And the saber-rattling against Iran, Korea
and Venezuela continues, posing the threat of even wider wars.
There are now 20,000 more U.S. troops in Iraq than there were
three months ago. 100 Iraqis are being killed on average every
day. Reported U.S. casualties in September were the highest since
the annihilation of Fallujah in November 2004 with 75 killed
and more than 800 wounded. In the first week of October,
27 U.S. soldiers were reported killed and more than 300 wounded.
The Iraq war costs over $3,000 per second, more than
$270 million every day.
No one should rely on the politicians -- Democrat or Republican
-- to stop the war. Last week, the Senate vote on the "defense"
budget, including Iraq and Afghanistan, was 100-0. The Democratic
leadership made sure that there was no serious struggle against
the Torture Legalization Bill (as it should be called) passed by
Congress and signed by Bush. The Democrats are following a
"strategy of ambiguity" on the war and torture, as it is politely
labeled in the corporate media. In other words, they're ducking
the issues, the most important issues.
What is needed now more than ever are protests in the streets
-- only the people can stop the war!
That is why the A.N.S.W.E.R. Coalition has called for protests
and a "people's vote on the war" on Saturday, October 28 in
cities across the country. WE NEED YOUR SUPPORT,
YOUR ENDORSEMENT AND YOUR PARTICIPATION.
There are important ways you can get involved:
* Please endorse today nd help us out by making a contribution.
http://www.pephost.org/site/PageServer?pagename=ANS_homepage
* Join us at the Tuesday evening A.N.S.W.E.R. volunteer meetings
at 7pm at our office in San Francisco, 2489 Mission St.,
Rm. 28 (corner 21st St.).
* Organize your group, friends, fellow students or workers
to join the Oct. 28 protest here in San Francisco, 12 Noon,
United Nations Plaza, Market St. between 7th & 8th Sts,
near Civic Center BART.
* If you are too far away to join the San Francisco rally
and march, organize a protest, a public meeting, or tabling
in your city or town. We can help provide materials flyers,
posters, the People's Vote on the War ballot, etc.
Call us at 415-821-6545.
* Download flyers and posters from our website and
distribute or post them in your neighborhood, campus,
mass transit stop, workplace.
A.N.S.W.E.R. Coalition
Act Now to Stop War & End Racism
http://www.ANSWERcoalition.org http://www.actionsf.org
sf@internationalanswer.org
2489 Mission St. Rm. 24
San Francisco: 415-821-6545
Make a tax-dedctible donation to A.N.S.W.E.R.
by credit card over a secure server, learn how
to donate by check.
Unsubscribe from this list - if you experience
a problem please email answer@actionsf.org
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!VIVA FIDEL! LONG LIVE FIDEL! LONG LIVE THE CUBAN REVOLUTION!
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SCROLL DOWN TO READ:
EVENT ANNOUNCEMENTS
GENERAL ANNOUNCEMENTS
ARTICLES IN FULL
LINKS ONLY
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EVENT ANNOUNCEMENTS
---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*--------
U.S. Out of Iraq Now! We Are the Majority!
End Colonial Occupation from Iraq,
to Palestine, Haiti, and Everywhere!
October 28, 2006, 12 Noon, U.N. Plaza, S.F.
Part of the Locally Coordinated Anti-War Protests from Coast to Coast
Vote With Your Feet … and Your Voices, and Banners, and Signs!
Let Every Politician Feel the Power of the People!
http://answer.pephost.org/site/News2?abbr=ANS_&page=NewsArticle&id=7836
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VOICES OF A PEOPLE'S HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES
Thursday, November 9, 2006 - 7:30 pm
Berkeley Community Theatre, 1930 Allston Way
Voices of a People's History of the United States
Dramatic Readings Celebrating the Enduring Spirit of Dissent
The Middle East Children's Alliance, Speak Out,
Vanguard Public Foundation and KPFA 94.1FM present:
The Bay Area Premiere of Howard Zinn and Anthony Arnove's
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CELEBRATE THE LIFE OF CAROLINE LUND
Memorial Meeting for Caroline Lund
Saturday, November 11, 2:00 PM
Humanist Hall, 390 27th St., Oakland
Between Telegraph and Broadway
Wheelchair accessible from the entrance at 411 28th St.
Caroline fought for social justice for over forty years, in the socialist
movement, the labor movement, the anti-Vietnam War movement,
the women's movement, as a leader in the Socialist Workers Party,
fighting again the U.S. wars in the Middle East, publishing the rank
and file newsletter "Barking Dog" in the NUMMI auto plant where
she worked -- wherever people were struggling to better their
lives. She died of ALS on October 14.
Join with us to remember Caroline's life and work for social justice.
Speakers:
Malik Miah, editor, Against the Current
John Percy, Democratic Socialist Perspective, Australia
Open Mike
Claudette Begin, Chair
Messages from those unable to attend (which will be available
to be read at the meeting) should be sent to
Alex Chis
achis@igc.org
For more information, email Alex , or call at 510-489-8554.
There will also be a New York Area Memorial Meeting for Caroline
Saturday, November 18, 3:00 PM
Brecht Forum, 451 West St., New York
For more information on the NY meeting,
contact Gus Horowitz: 914-953-0212 or
ghorowitz@snet.net
Alex Chis & Claudette Begin
P.O. Box 2944
Fremont, CA 94536-0944
Phone: 510-489-8554
Email: achis@igc.org
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JROTC IN SAN FRANCISCO PUBLIC SCHOOLS:
The issue of JROTC in S.F. public schools will be addressed
at the San Francisco Board of Education
Meeting::
Tuesday, November 14th, 7:00 P.M.
555 Franklin Street, 1st Floor
San Francisco, CA 94102
To get on the speakers list for the Regular Board Meeting call:
415/241-6427
(Call on Monday, the day before the meeting from 8:30 A.M. until 4:00 P.M.
or Tuesday, the day of the meeting from 8:30 A.M. until 3:00 P.M.)
See: ARTICLES IN FULL BELOW:
17) State ranks second in Army recruits
By Lisa Friedman Washington Bureau
San Gabriel Valley Tribune
Californians comprised about 10 percent of the Army's new
soldiers this year, second only to Texas in providing new recruits,
according to newly released figures.
October 16, 2006
http://www.sgvtribune.com/news/ci_4485649
Here are some links to JROTC facts:
Review of the JROTC Curriculum
http://www.afsc.org/youthmil/militarism-in-schools/JROTC-review.htm
Making Soldiers - PDF
http://www.afsc.org/youthmil/militarism-in-schools/msitps.pdf
Report Says JROTC Benefits Students; Calls for More Funding for Programs
By Julie Blair
September 29, 1999
http://www.jrotc.org/jrotc_benifits.htm
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Close the SOA and Change Oppressive U.S. Foreign Policy
Nov. 17-19, 2006 - Converge on Fort Benning, Georgia
People's Movements across the Americas are becoming increasingly more
powerful. Military "solutions" to social problems as supported by
institutions like the School of the Americas were unable to squash their
voices, and the call for justice and accountability is getting louder each
day.
Add your voice to the chorus, demand justice for all the people of the
Americas and engage in nonviolent direct action to close the SOA and
change oppressive U.S. foreign policy.
With former SOA graduates being unmasked in Chile, Argentina, Colombia,
Paraguay, Honduras, and Peru for their crimes against humanity, and with
the blatant similarities between the interrogation methods and torture
methods used at Abu Ghraib and those described in human rights abuse cases
in Latin America, the SOA/WHINSEC must be held accountable!
Visit http://www.soaw.org to learn more about the November Vigil, hotel
and travel information, the November Organizing Packet, and more.
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MARCH 17, 2007 GLOBAL DAY OF ACTION ON THE 4TH ANNIVERSARY
OF THE WAR!
DEMONSTRATIONS IN WASHINGTON, D.C.; LOS ANGELES;
SAN FRANCISCO; SEATTLE; CHICAGO AND OTHER CITIES AND
TOWNS THROUGHOUT THE COUNTRY AND THE WORLD. THE
A.N.S.W.E.R. COALITION URGES EVERYONE IN THE ANTIWAR
MOVEMENT TO COME TOGETHER IN UNITY AGAINST THE
CRIMINAL ACTIONS OF THE U.S. GOVERNMENT
http://www.pephost.org/site/PageServer?pagename=ANS_homepage
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GENERAL ANNOUNCEMENTS
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Profound new assault on freedom of speech and assembly:
Manhattan: New Rules for Parade Permits
By AL BAKER
After recent court rulings found the Police Department’s
parade regulations too vague, the department is moving
to require parade permits for groups of 10 or more
bicyclists or pedestrians who plan to travel more than
two city blocks without complying with traffic laws.
It is also pushing to require permits for groups of 30
or more bicyclists or pedestrians who obey traffic laws.
The new rules are expected to be unveiled in a public
notice today. The department will discuss them at
a hearing on Nov. 27. Norman Siegel, a lawyer whose
clients include bicyclists, said the new rules
“raise serious civil liberties issues.”
October 18, 2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/18/nyregion/18mbrfs-002.html
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Soul-Sick Nation: An Astrologer's View of America
Jessica Murray
Format: Paperback (6x9)
ISBN 1425971253
Price: $ 13.95
About the Book
Astrology and geopolitics may seem strange bedfellows, but
Soul-Sick Nation puts the two together to provide a perspective
as extraordinary as the times we are living in. Using the principles
of ancient wisdom to make sense of the current global situation,
this book invites us to look at the USA from the biggest possible
picture: that of cosmic meaning. With a rare blend of compassion,
humor and fearless taboo-busting, Soul-Sick Nation reveals
America’s noble potential without sentiment and diagnoses
its neuroses without delusion, shedding new light on troubling
issues that the pundits and culture wars inflame but leave
painfully unresolved: the WTC bombings, the war in Iraq,
Islamic jihad, media propaganda, consumerism and the
American Dream.
In her interpretation of the birth chart of the entity born
July 4, 1776, Murray offers an in-depth analysis of America’s
essential destiny--uncovering, chapter by chapter, the greater
purpose motivating this group soul. She shows how this
purpose has been distorted, and how it can be re-embraced
in the decades to come. She decodes current astrological
transits that express the key themes the USA must learn
in this period of millennial crisis—including that of the
responsibility of power—spelling out the profound lessons
the nation will face in the next few years.
Combining the rigor of a political theorist with the vision
of a master astrologer, this keenly intelligent book elucidates
the meaning of an epoch in distress, and proposes a path
towards healing—of the country and of its individual citizens.
Murray explains how each of us can come to terms with this
moment in history and arrive at a response that is unique
and creative. This book will leave you revitalized, shorn
of illusions and full of hope.
About the Author
"Jessica Murray's Soul-Sick Nation raises the symbol-system
of astrology to the level of a finely-honed tool for the critical
work of social insight and commentary. Her unflinching,
in-depth analysis answers a crying need of our time. Murray's
application of laser beam-lucid common sense analysis
to the mire of illusions we've sunken into as a nation is
a courageous step in the right direction... Just breathtaking!"
--Raye Robertson, author of Culture, Media and the Collective Mind
" Jessica Murray,..a choice-centered, psychospiritually-oriented
astrologer... has quietly made a real difference in the lives of her
clients, one at a time. In "Soul Sick Nation," she applies exactly those
same skills to understanding America as a whole. Starting from
the premise that the United States is currently a troubled adolescent,
she applies an unflinching gaze to reach an ultimately compassionate
conclusion about how we can heal ourselves and grow up."
- Steven Forrest, author of The Inner Sky and The Changing Sky
http://www.authorhouse.com/BookStore/ItemDetail~bookid~41780.aspx
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Shop for a Donation at Al-Awda!
Interested in furthering your knowledge about Palestine
and its people?
Want to help make the Palestinian Right to Return a reality?
Looking for ways to show your support for Palestine and
Palestinian refugees?
Why not shop for a donation at Al-Awda
http://al-awda.org/shop.html
and help support a great organization and cause!!
Al-Awda offers a variety of educational materials including interesting
and unique books on everything from oral histories, photo books
on Palestinian refugees, to autobiographies, narratives, political
analysis, and culture. We also have historical maps of Palestine
(in Arabic and English), educational films, flags of various sizes,
and colorful greeting cards created by Palestinian children.
You can also show your support for a Free Palestine, and wear with
pride, great looking T-shirts, pendants, and a variety of Palestine pins.
Shop for a Donation at Al-Awda!
Visit http://al-awda.org/shop.html for these great items, and more!
The Educational Supplies Division
Al-Awda, The Palestine Right to Return Coalition
PO Box 131352
Carlsbad, CA 92013, USA
Tel: 760-685-3243
Fax: 360-933-3568
E-mail: info@al-awda.org
WWW: http://al-awda.org
Al-Awda, The Palestine Right to Return Coalition (PRRC), is a broad-
based, non-partisan, democratic, and charitable organization of
grassroots activists and students committed to comprehensive public
education about the rights of all Palestinian refugees to return to their
homes and lands of origin, and to full restitution for all their confiscated
and destroyed property in accordance with the Universal Declaration
of Human Rights, International law and the numerous United Nations
Resolutions upholding such rights (see FactSheet). Al-Awda, PRRC
is a not for profit tax-exempt educational and charitable 501(c)(3)
organization as defined by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) of the
United States of America. Under IRS guidelines, your donations
to Al-Awda, PRRC are tax-deductible.
---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*--------
Before You Enlist
Excellent flash film that should be shown to all students.
http://www.youtube. com/watch? v=ZFsaGv6cefw
---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*--------
QUOTE OF THE DAY:
In an interview in March 1995 entitled, "Jesse Helms: Setting the
Record Straight" that appeared in the Middle East Quarterly, Helms
said, "I have long believed that if the United States is going to give
money to Israel, it should be paid out of the Department of Defense
budget. My question is this: If Israel did not exist, what would
U.S. defense costs in the Middle East be? Israel is at least the
equivalent of a U.S. aircraft carrier in the Middle East. Without
Israel promoting its and America's common interests, we would
be badly off indeed."
(Jesse Helms was the senior senator from North Carolina and the
chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee at the time.)
http://www.meforum.org/article/244
---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*--------
A CALL TO SUPPORT THE CASE OF ELVIRA ARELLANO
Stand in solidarity with all immigrants, documented and undocumented
The IAC urges you to support the case of Elvira Arellano. Elvira is
an undocumented worker who is taking a heroic stand against
deportations and fighting for her rights. She is a native of Michoacán,
Mexico who came to the U.S. like many of the other 12 million
undocumented in this country, in search of work and a better life.
In 2002, Elvira was detained by Homeland Security agents in an
Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) sweep at O'Hare Airport
in Chicago under the guise of allegedly looking for "terrorists". She
was detained by the Department of Homeland Security for using
a false social security number on her job at O'Hare.
On August 18, 2006 Elvira Arellano and her seven year old son,
Saul who is a US citizen, took sanctuary in Adalberto United Methodist
Church in Chicago instead of reporting for deportation, primarily
because Saul has health problems. She has pledged to live indefinitely
in the church until granted a reprieve.
Elvira is a well known activist, representing many families in
Congressional hearings and speaking on behalf of immigrant rights.
She worked to organize in July 2005 a march of 50,000 for immigrant
rights in Chicago, and went on a hunger strike to support workers who
were picked up by ICE prior to the historic May 1st boycott in 2006.
Arellano was a founder of both La Familia Latina Unida and the
Coalition of African Arab Asian European and Latino Immigrants
of Illinois (CAAAELII).
The case of Elvira Arellano is a just case
Elvira Arellano has become the symbol of resistance to the heartless
and callous deportations that are sweeping the country. Despite
a legislative standstill in Congress, not only are deportations
escalating, local officials around the nation are implementing
de facto immigration policy that amount to a witch-hunt against
immigrants. A case in point is the anti-immigrant ordinance that
passed in July in Hazelton, PA.
Due to her heroic stand, a group of Black ministers spoke last
week at Adalberto Methodist of the comparisons of Arellano
to Rosa Parks. Reverend Albert Tyson said he hopes "their
support would increase the bonds between Latinos and African-
Americans." At the meeting Arellano said, "I don't only speak
for me and my son, but for millions of families like mine."
Supporters from the predominantly Puerto Rican neighborhood
chanted, "Luchando mano y mano, Boriqua y Mexicano!"
("Fighting hand in hand, Puerto Rican and Mexican!")
Elvira Arellano is the perfect example that the anti-immigrant
hysteria sweeping the country is an inhumane situation that
has become intolerable. The human rights of immigrants are
being cruelly violated under the guise of fighting terrorism
or stopping "illegal" immigration. In fact, no human being
is illegal and whether in the U.S. documented or undocumented,
immigrants have a right to live in peace, without fear of evictions
from their homes or the country.
How you can help Elvira:
1. Write letters to Illinois Senators Richard Durbin and Barack
Obama as well as your own legislator urging them to prevent
her deportation.
For Senator Durbin visit: http://durbin.senate.gov/contact.cfm#contact
For Senator Obama: http://obama.senate.gov/contact/index.php
2. Send Letters to the Chicago Sun Times and the Chicago Tribune
asking them to stop demonizing Elvira as well as all immigrants.
Their emails are letters@suntimes.com and ctc-tribletter@tribune.com.
3. Send letters of support directly to Elvira at the organization she works
with and who has been spearheading her support, Sin Fronteras
at Centro Sin Fronteras 2300 S. Blue Island Ave., Chicago IL 60608
or visit the website: www.legalizationyes.com
For Spanish speakers visit:
www.legalizacionsi.com
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TWO AMICUS BRIEFS FILED FOR MUMIA ABU-JAMAL WITH
THE 3RD CIRCUIT FEDERAL APPEALS COURT IN JULY 2006
These pdf files can be found on Michael Schiffmann's web site at:
http://againstthecrimeofsilence.de/english/copy_of_mumia/legalarchive/
The first brief is from the National Lawyers Guild.
The second brief is from the NAACP Legal Defense
and Educational Fund, Inc.
Howard Keylor
For the Labor Action Committee to Free Mumia Abu-Jamal
www.laboractionmumia.org.
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SIR! NO SIR!
I urge everyone to get a copy of "Sir! No Sir!" at:
http://www.sirnosir.com/
It is an extremely informative and powerful film
of utmost importance today. I was a participant
in the anti-Vietnam war movement. What a
powerful thing it was to see troops in uniform
leading the march against the war! If you would
like to read more here are two very good
publications:
Out Now!: A Participant's Account of the Movement
in the United States Against the Vietnam War
by Fred Halstead (Hardcover - Jun 1978)
and:
GIs speak out against the war;: The case of the
Ft. Jackson 8; by Fred Halstead (Unknown Binding - 1970).
Both available at:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/search/103-1123166-0136605?search-alias=books&rank=
+availability,-proj-total-margin&field-author=Fred%20Halstead
In solidarity,
Bonnie Weinstein
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Endorse the following petition:
Don't Let Idaho Kill Endangered Wolves
Target: Fish and Wildlife Service
Sponsor: Defenders of Wildlife
http://www.thepetitionsite.com/takeaction/664280276?
z00m=99090&z00m=99090<l=1155834550
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END ALL U.S. AID TO ISRAEL!
Stop funding Israel's war against Palestine
Complete the form at the website listed below with your information.
Personalize the message text on the right with
your own words, if you wish.
Click the Next Step button to send your letter
to these decision makers:
President George W. Bush
Vice President Richard 'Dick' B. Cheney
Your Senators
Your Representative
Go here to register your outrage:
https://secure2.convio.net/pep/site/Advocacy?
JServSessionIdr003=cga2p2o6x1.app2a&cmd=display&page=UserAction&id=177
---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*--------
Idriss Stelley Foundation is in critical financial crisis, please help !
ISF is in critical financial crisis, and might be forced to close
its doors in a couple of months due to lack of funds to cover
DSL, SBC and utilities, which is a disaster for our numerous
clients, since the are the only CBO providing direct services
to Victims (as well as extended failies) of police misconduct
for the whole city of SF. Any donation, big or small will help
us stay alive until we obtain our 501-c3 nonprofit Federal
Status! Checks can me made out to
ISF, ( 4921 3rd St , SF CA 94124 ). Please consider to volunteer
or apply for internship to help covering our 24HR Crisis line,
provide one on one couseling and co facilitate our support
groups, M.C a show on SF Village Voice, insure a 2hr block
of time at ISF, moderate one of our 26 websites for ISF clients !
http://mysite.verizon.net/vzeo9ewi/idrissstelleyfoundation/
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/isf23/
Report Police Brutality
24HR Bilingual hotline
(415) 595-8251
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Justice4Asa/
---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*--------
Appeal for funds:
Dahr Jamail's Iraq Dispatches
Visit the Dahr Jamail Iraq website http://dahrjamailiraq.com
Request for Support
Dahr Jamail will soon return to the Middle East to continue his
independent reporting. As usual, reporting independently is a costly
enterprise; for example, an average hotel room is $50, a fixer runs $50
per day, and phone/food average $25 per day. Dahr will report from the
Middle East for one month, and thus needs to raise $5,750 in order to
cover his plane ticket and daily operating expenses.
A rare opportunity has arisen for Dahr to cover several stories
regarding the occupation of Iraq, as well as U.S. policy in the region,
which have been entirely absent from mainstream media.
With the need for independent, unfiltered information greater than ever,
your financial support is deeply appreciated. Without donations from
readers, ongoing independent reports from Dahr are simply not possible.
All donations go directly towards covering Dahr's on the ground
operating expenses.
(c)2006 Dahr Jamail.
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Legal update on Mumia Abu-Jamal's case
Excerpts from a letter written by Robert R. Bryan, the lead attorney
for death row political prisoner, Mumia Abu-Jamal.
...On July 20, 2006, we filed the Brief of Appellee and Cross
Appellant, Mumia Abu-Jamal, in the U.S. Court of Appeals
for the Third Circuit, Philadelphia.
http://www.workers.org/2006/us/mumia-0810/
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Today in Palestine!
For up to date information on Israeli's brutal attack on
human rights and freedom in Palestine and Lebanon go to:
http://www.theheadlines.org
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For a great car magnet--a black ribbon with the words, "Bring
the troops home now!" written in red, and it also comes in a
lapel pin!--go to:
(Put out by A.N.S.W.E.R.)
https://secure2.convio.net/pep/site/Ecommerce?store_id=1621
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THE HIDDEN HISTORY OF ZIONISM
BY RALPH SCHOENMAN
Essential reading for understanding the development of Zionism
and Israel in the service of British and USA imperialism.
The full text of the book can be found for free at:
http://takingaim.info/hhz/index.htm
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JOIN THE LYNNE STEWAR DEFENSE - THE CASE IS NOT OVER!
For those of you who don't know who Lynne Stewart is, go to
www.lynnestewart.org and get acquainted with Lynne and her
cause. Lynne is a criminal defense attorney who is being persecuted
for representing people charged with heinous crimes. It is a bedrock
of our legal system that every criminal defendant has a right to a
lawyer. Persecuting Lynne is an attempt to terrorize and intimidate
all criminal defense attorneys in this country so they will stop
representing unpopular people. If this happens, the fascist takeover
of this nation will be complete. We urge you all to go the website,
familiarize yourselves with Lynne and her battle for justice
www.lynnestewart.org
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NATIONAL COMMITTEE TO FREE THE CUBAN FIVE
Comité Nacional por la Libertad de los Cinco Cubanos
Who are the Cuban Five?
The Cuban Five are five Cuban men who are in U.S. prison, serving
four life sentences and 75 years collectively, after being wrongly
convicted in U.S. federal court in Miami, on June 8, 2001.
They are Gerardo Hernández, Ramón Labañino, Antonio Guerrero,
Fernando González and René González.
The Five were falsely accused by the U.S. government of committing
espionage conspiracy against the United States, and other related
charges.
But the Five pointed out vigorously in their defense that they were
involved in monitoring the actions of Miami-based terrorist groups,
in order to prevent terrorist attacks on their country of Cuba.
The Five's actions were never directed at the U.S. government.
They never harmed anyone nor ever possessed nor used any
weapons while in the United States.
The Cuban Five's mission was to stop terrorism
For more than 40 years, anti-Cuba terrorist organizations based
in Miami have engaged in countless terrorist activities against
Cuba, and against anyone who advocates a normalization
of relations between the U.S. and Cuba. More than 3,000 Cubans
have died as a result of these terrorists' attacks.
Gerardo Hernández, 2 Life Sentences
Antonio Guerrero, Life Sentence
Ramon Labañino, Life Sentence
Fernando González, 19 Years
René González, 15 Years
Free The Cuban Five Held Unjustly In The U.S.!
http://www.freethefive.org/
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Eyewitness Account from Oaxaca
A website is now being circulated that has up-to-date info
and video that can be downloaded of the police action and
developments in Oaxaca. For those who have not seen it
elsewhere, the website is:
www.mexico.indymedia.org/oaxaca
http://www.mexico.indymedia.org/oaxaca
---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*--------
REMINDER TO ALL GROUPS: BE SURE AND POST ALL ACTIONS AND
EVENTS TO WWW.INDYBAY.ORG TO REACH THE MOST PEOPLE
AGAINST THE WAR IN THE BAY AREA!
http://www.indybay.org
---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*--------
Iraq Body Count
For current totals, see our database page.
http://www.iraqbodycount.net/press/pr13.php
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The Cost of War
[Over three-hundred-billion so far...bw]
http://nationalpriorities.org/index.php?option=com_wrapper&Itemid=182
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"The Democrats always promise to help workers, and the don't!
The Republicans always promise to help business, and the do!"
- Mort Sahl
---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*--------
"It's better to die on your feet than to live on your knees."
- Emilano Zapata
---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*--------
Join the Campaign to
Shut Down the Guantanamo Torture Center
Go to:
http://www.shutitdown.org/
to send a letter to Congress and the White House:
Shut Down Guantanamo and all torture centers and prisons.
A.N.S.W.E.R. Coalition
Act Now to Stop War & End Racism
http://www.ANSWERcoalition.org http://www.actionsf.org
sf@internationalanswer.org
2489 Mission St. Rm. 24
San Francisco: 415-821-6545
---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*--------
Great Counter-Recruitment Website
http://notyoursoldier.org/article.php?list=type&type=14
---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*--------
DEFEND IMMIGRANT RIGHTS AND
CIVIL RIGHTS!
Last summer the U.S. Border Patrol arrested Shanti Sellz and
Daniel Strauss, both 23-year-old volunteers assisting immigrants
on the border, for medically evacuating 3 people in critical
condition from the Arizona desert.
Criminalization for aiding undocumented immigrants already
exists on the books in the state of Arizona. Daniel and Shanti
are targeted to be its first victims. Their arrest and subsequent
prosecution for providing humanitarian aid could result in
a 15-year prison sentence. Any Congressional compromise
with the Sensenbrenner bill (HR 4437) may include these
harmful criminalization provisions. Fight back NOW!
Help stop the criminalization of undocumented immigrants
and those who support them!
For more information call 415-821- 9683.
For information on the Daniel and Shanti Defense Campaign,
visit www.nomoredeaths.org.
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FYI
According to "Minimum Wage History" at
http://oregonstate.edu/instruct/anth484/minwage.html "
"Calculated in real 2005 dollars, the 1968 minimum wage was the
highest at $9.12. "The 8 dollar per hour Whole Foods employees
are being paid $1.12 less than the 1968 minimum wage.
"A federal minimum wage was first set in 1938. The graph shows
both nominal (red) and real (blue) minimum wage values. Nominal
values range from 25 cents per hour in 1938 to the current $5.15/hr.
The greatest percentage jump in the minimum wage was in 1950,
when it nearly doubled. The graph adjusts these wages to 2005
dollars (blue line) to show the real value of the minimum wage.
Calculated in real 2005 dollars, the 1968 minimum wage was the
highest at $9.12. Note how the real dollar minimum wage rises and
falls. This is because it gets periodically adjusted by Congress.
The period 1997-2006, is the longest period during which the
minimum wage has not been adjusted. States have departed from
the federal minimum wage. Washington has the highest minimum
wage in the country at $7.63 as of January 1, 2006. Oregon is next
at $7.50. Cities, too, have set minimum wages. Santa Fe, New
Mexico has a minimum wage of $9.50, which is more than double
the state minimum wage at $4.35."
---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*--------
NO BORDERS! NO WALLS! NO FENCES! GENERAL AMNESTY FOR ALL!
OUR HOMELAND IS WHERE WE LIVE!
---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*--------
REPEAL THE NO CHILD LEFT BEHIND ACT IN 2007!
Check out: 10 EXCELLENT REASONS NOT TO JOIN THE MILITARY
http://www.10reasonsbook.com/
Public Law print of PL 107-110, the No Child Left Behind
Act of 2001 [1.8 MB]
http://www.ed.gov/policy/elsec/leg/esea02/index.html
Also, the law is up before Congress again in 2007.
See this article from USA Today:
Bipartisan panel to study No Child Left Behind
By Greg Toppo, USA TODAY
February 13, 2006
http://www.usatoday.com/news/education/2006-02-13-education-panel_x.htm
---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*--------
The Declaration of Independence of the Thirteen Colonies
http://www.law.indiana.edu/uslawdocs/declaration.html
http://www.law.ou.edu/hist/decind.html
http://www.usconstitution.net/declar.html
http://www.indybay.org/news/2006/02/1805195.php
---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*--------
Bill of Rights
http://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/constitution.billofrights.html
http://www.indybay.org/news/2006/02/1805182.php
---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*--------
ARTICLES IN FULL:
---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*--------
1) Govt. Death Squads Ravaging Baghdad
Ali Al-Fadhily and Dahr Jamail
Dahr Jamail's MidEast Dispatches
Visit the Dahr Jamail website
http://dahrjamailiraq.com
2) A Shorter Path to Citizenship, but Not for All
By NINA BERNSTEIN
October 23, 2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/23/nyregion/23citizen.html?ref=us
3) Gang injunction: SF Chronicle responds to SF Bay View
sfbayview@lists.riseup.net
editor@sfbayview.com
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2006/10/23/MNGKSLU9MF1.DTL
4) Bush's Family Profits from 'No Child' Act
by Walter F. Roche Jr.
Published on Sunday, October 22, 2006 by the Los Angeles Times
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/1022-02.htm
5) 'Flags of Our Fathers'
Clint Eastwood's war drama grippingly tells
the tale behind that photograph from Iwo Jima.
By Kenneth Turan
Times Staff Writer
October 20, 2006
http://www.calendarlive.com/movies/reviews/cl-et-flags20oct20,0,595623.story?coll=cl-
movies-features
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.
1) Govt. Death Squads Ravaging Baghdad
Ali Al-Fadhily and Dahr Jamail
Dahr Jamail's MidEast Dispatches
Visit the Dahr Jamail website
http://dahrjamailiraq.com
BAGHDAD, Oct 19 (IPS) - Death squads from the Ministry of Interior
posing as Iraqi police are killing more people than ever in the capital,
emerging evidence shows.
The death toll is high - in all 1,536 bodies were brought to the Baghdad
morgue in September. The health ministry announced last month that it
will build two new morgues in Baghdad to take their capacity to 250
bodies a day.
Many fear a government hand in more killings to come. The U.S. military
has revealed that the 8th Iraqi Police Unit was responsible for the Oct.
1 kidnapping of 26 Sunni food factory workers in the Amil quarter in
southwest Baghdad. The bodies of ten of them were later found in Abu
Chir neighbourhood in the capital.
Minister for the Interior Jawad al-Bolani announced he is suspending the
police unit from official duties, and confining it to base until an
investigation is completed.
But sections of the ministry appear responsible for the abductions and
killing. Ministry of Interior vehicles were used for the kidnapping in
this case, and most men conducting the raid wore Iraqi police uniforms,
except for a few who wore black death squad 'uniforms', witnesses told IPS.
The leader of the police unit is under house arrest and faces
interrogation for this and other crimes, according to an official
announcement.
"It is for sure that they did it," one of the victim's neighbours told
IPS on condition of anonymity. "The tortured bodies were found the
second day. They came in their official police cars; it is not the first
time that they did something like this. They do it all over Baghdad, and
we hope they will get proper punishment this time."
Men of the police unit meanwhile do not face imminent punishment. "They
are going to be rehabilitated and brought back to service,"
director-general of the Iraqi police Adnan Thabit told IPS.
The Iraqi Islamic Party, the largest Sunni party, blamed militias with
ties to the government and the U.S. military.
"The Iraqi Islamic Party asks how could 26 people, women among them,
have been transported from Amil to Abu Chir through all those Iraqi and
U.S. army checkpoints and patrols," it said in a statement.
The U.S. military has denied any involvement in the killings.
General Yassin al-Dulaimi, deputy minister for the interior, has said on
Iraqi television several times that death squads are composed mainly of
Iraqi police and army units. His comments reflect differing allegiance
and agendas even within the Shia bloc.
General Dulaimi has been trying for long to expose the organised
criminal gangs that have been controlling the ministry since its
formation - a formation that was overseen by U.S. authorities.
Dulaimi says he does not believe that the Shia Badr organisation, a
large, well-armed and funded militia, has complete control over his
ministry. But most residents of Baghdad believe that Badr has complete
control over the Baghdad Order Maintenance police force, and use this
force to carry out sectarian murders. This force is one of several
official security teams in Baghdad.
The force is led by Mehdi al-Gharrawi, who also led similar security
units during the U.S.- led attack on Fallujah in November 2004.
"All criminals who survived the Fallujah crisis after committing
genocide and other war crimes were granted higher ranks," Major Amir
Jassim from the ministry of defence told IPS. "I and many of my
colleagues were not rewarded because we disobeyed orders to set fire to
people's houses (in Fallujah) after others looted them."
Jassim said the looting and burning of homes in Fallujah during the
November siege was ordered from the ministries of interior and defence.
"Now they want to do the same things they did in Fallujah in all Sunni
areas so that they ignite a civil war in Iraq," said Jassim, referring
to the Shia-dominated ministries. "A civil war is the only guarantee for
them to stay in power, looting such incredible amounts of money."
Another official with the ministry of defence, Muntather al-Samarraii,
told IPS that both Iran and "collaborators" within the Ministry of
Interior are to blame for the widespread sectarian killings..
"I have lists of thousands of corruption cases from within my ministry,
and other files to expose to the world," he said, "But the world is not
listening. When it does, I am afraid it is going to be too late."
A police officer in Samarraii's office, speaking on condition of
anonymity, told IPS that he believed that murderers would not be
punished for their crimes.
"They will reward them, believe me, and give them higher ranks," he
said. "This is a country that will never stand back on its feet as long
as these killers are in power. And the Americans are supporting them by
allowing their convoys to move during curfew hours."
While there is little evidence of direct U.S. involvement, questions
have arisen over what the U.S. forces have done - or not done - to
encourage such killings.
A UN human rights report released September last year held interior
ministry forces responsible for an organised campaign of detentions,
torture and killings. It reported that special police commando units
accused of carrying out the killings were recruited from Shia Badr and
Mehdi militias, and trained by U.S. forces.
Retired Col. James Steele, who served as advisor on Iraqi security
forces to then U.S. Ambassador John Negroponte supervised the training
of these forces.
Steele was commander of the U.S. military advisor group in El Salvador
1984-86, while Negroponte was U.S. ambassador to nearby Honduras
1981-85. Negroponte was accused of widespread human rights violations by
the Honduras Commission on Human Rights in 1994. The Commission reported
the torture and disappearance of at least 184 political workers.
The violations Negroponte oversaw in Honduras were carried out by
operatives trained by the CIA, according to a CIA working group set up
in 1996 to look into the U.S. role in Honduras.
The CIA records document that his "special intelligence units," better
known as "death squads," comprised CIA-trained Honduran armed units
which kidnapped, tortured and killed thousands of people suspected of
supporting leftist guerrillas.
(c)2006 Dahr Jamail
---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*--------
2) A Shorter Path to Citizenship, but Not for All
By NINA BERNSTEIN
October 23, 2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/23/nyregion/23citizen.html?ref=us
Beverly Lindsay, a Jamaican-born practical nurse who has made
her home in New York for 26 years, filed for citizenship in June
with the help of her union, and prepared for a long wait. After all,
as recently as a year ago, the United States government
acknowledged a huge backlog in such applications, and
estimated that processing typically took almost a year and
a half in New York — triple the wait in San Antonio or Phoenix.
But a mere three months and 10 days after Ms. Lindsay applied,
she was sworn in as a citizen. “I’m proud, and I’m happy I’m
going to vote in November,” said Ms. Lindsay, 49.
Her success, however, underscores the frustration of Sophia
McIntosh, another New Yorker from Jamaica who applied
for citizenship through the same health care workers union
program three years ago. Not only is she still waiting, but
her case is also now among at least 960,000 immigrant
applications pending nationwide that federal officials have
simply stopped counting as part of their backlog —
a backlog they had pledged to eliminate by this month.
“It’s not fair,” said Ms. McIntosh, 34, a nursing assistant
and mother of two, who has been a legal resident of the
United States since 1992. “I did all the right things.
I want to be able to have a voice in this country.”
Until recently, the glut of pending cases was so large that
President Bush’s vow in 2001 to cut the standard wait
to six months or less nationwide seemed unreachable.
Now immigration officials say they have more than met
that goal, shrinking the average wait to five months for
a citizenship decision. And no district shows more dramatic
improvement than New York, where the wait has officially
shrunk to 2.8 months.
But the numbers are not quite as rosy as they seem. To
accomplish their mission, officials at the United States
Citizenship and Immigration Services explain, they identified
and stopped counting thousands of backlogged cases that
they now define as outside the agency’s control, mostly
those delayed by unexplained lags in standard security
clearances by the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
The result is a two-tier system. More applicants than
ever are receiving a decision in record time, in part
because of an influx of temporary workers working for
the agency and new efficiencies. But others are still
falling into the system’s black holes, joining thousands
who have been waiting for years, but are now off the
map. While praising the agency’s improvements,
immigrant advocates contend that officials have
manipulated the figures to declare victory and made
it harder to seek redress.
Behind the clash over the agency’s new math are anxieties
heightened by the immigration debate and looming
elections, advocates and officials said. Legal residents
who lack the security of citizenship feel more vulnerable
to deportation these days and deprived when they cannot
vote. And the immigration agency is under political
pressure to show that it can handle any new programs
without derailing old ones.
“Why should we be faulted for sitting on cases that we
aren’t sitting on?” asked Emilio T. Gonzalez, director of
Citizenship and Immigration Services, which now takes
responsibility for fewer than 140,000 of the 1.1 million
immigrant applications that it identifies as pending for
more than six months.
Mr. Gonzalez added that he would soon seek “significant”
fee increases to cover the costs of processing applications.
The agency is losing many of the 1,200 temporary
employees who helped speed lagging cases under
a four-year Congressional grant that ended Sept. 30.
But to Laura Burdick, a national deputy director of Catholic
Legal Immigration Network, raising the fees would only
compound the inequity experienced by those who have
nothing to show for what they pay — for a citizenship
application, the cost is now almost $400. As for the
change in the way cases are counted, she added,
“It makes you just question the validity of any of the
information they’re giving us.”
Data supplied by the government to The New York
Times showed some unusual fluctuations. The New
York office, for example, has long had the largest
pending citizenship caseload in the nation, averaging
about 100,000 through much of 2004 and 2005. The
estimated wait for a decision was more than 16 months
in October 2005. But a month later, it dropped to nine
months, and 33,240 applications vanished from the
count of pending cases.
Christopher Bentley, a spokesman for Citizenship and
Immigration Services, said a physical inventory conducted
for the first time in three years had revealed that the
agency had overcounted its backlog by more than
33,000 cases. “The really good news is the vast majority
of those cases were cases that had already been completed,”
he said.
Temporary workers were deployed to help from as far
away as Texas and Nebraska, Mr. Bentley added, and
the remaining caseload in New York shrank to 33,017 by
July. New definitions deducted 10,663 more city cases as
being outside the agency’s control, which cut the estimated
wait for the remaining 22,354 to less than three months.
Such calculations have puzzled Crystal Williams, deputy
director of programs for the American Immigration Lawyers
Association.
“I really don’t understand why they’re doing this,” she said,
“because they have accurate good news to give: They have
improved enormously. But it’s pretty obvious to anyone who
has observed this process for any amount of time that they
are playing with the numbers.”
She added, “All these cases they aren’t counting still have
to be adjudicated — it’s not like they’ve gone away.”
Thousands of applicants are being omitted from the backlog
for reasons other than security checks, usually because the
agency has asked for more information, the applicants are
awaiting a second interview or a local court has not yet
scheduled an oath of allegiance.
But delays in conducting security clearances are especially
frustrating for applicants. Lorenzo Zepeda, 38, who
immigrated from El Salvador at 18 and worked his way
up from pot washer to head chef at a nursing home in
Woodmere, N.Y., applied for citizenship almost three
years ago.
“We already write, like, 10 letters to them; we never get
no answer back,” said Mr. Zepeda, who is married to an
American. The couple are expecting a child in April.
“I really love this country. I want to make decisions in
this country. And I’m paying my taxes like everybody else.”
Also still waiting are a number of Iraqi Kurds who arrived
in the United States a decade ago as political refugees,
settled in Nashville and were interviewed by the F.B.I.
before the Iraq war as experts loyal to the United States.
One refugee, Hadi Gardi, 49, says he teaches Arabic and
Kurdish to American soldiers at an Army base in Georgia.
He passed background checks for that job, as he did for
earlier ones dating to his work as a translator for Americans
in Iraq. His wife gained citizenship last October. But though
he applied when she did, he is still waiting, told only that
the F.B.I. is checking his name.
“I lost so many opportunities,” he said, referring to
government jobs that were open only to citizens. He
added that he had made fruitless appeals to his
congressman.
By law, applicants who are not given the citizenship oath
120 days after passing the interview can seek a court order
compelling government action. Such suits have pushed the
authorities to expedite some security name checks that had
been languishing, including cases of elderly and disabled
refugees who have to naturalize within seven years or lose
government aid.
But in May, citing national security concerns, Citizenship
and Immigration Services closed off that path by ordering
district offices not to hold interviews until clearances
were completed.
Last month, in court papers seeking the dismissal of
a federal lawsuit brought on behalf of stymied applicants
in New York, lawyers for the government provided a rare
window into the F.B.I.’s National Name Check Program,
giving insight on why the process can take so long.
The first step involves a computerized search of the F.B.I.’s
Universal Index of 94.6 million records for all mentions
of a name, a close date of birth and a Social Security
number. Different permutations of the name are tried,
like the first and middle name only. Nearly a third of
naturalization cases come back as having a potential match.
Most of those are cleared up within three months through
a search of computer databases. But in 10 percent of all
cases, the possible reference is in paper records created
before automation in October 1995 and in one of 265
possible locations. F.B.I. analysts must retrieve and
review records to see whether the information actually
pertains to the same individual and is derogatory.
“Common names (such as Mohammed, Singh, or Smith)
may result in hundreds of potential matches,” government
lawyers wrote. “The sheer volume of the requests has also
resulted in delays.”
Immigration name checks compete not only with those
needed for counterintelligence, but also with a growing
number sought by government agencies before they
bestow a privilege, like attendance at a White House
function. Demand has risen drastically, from 2.5 million
requests a year before Sept. 11, 2001, to more than 3.7
million in fiscal year 2005. Among those still unresolved
are more than 400,000 immigrant name checks dating
to December 2002.
Still, more recent applications are moving so fast that
the citizenship program at the health care workers union
has doubled the size of its annual celebration, said Celeste
Douglass, the coordinator. “People want the safe status
of a U.S. citizen,” she added. “That six-month turnaround
is really starting to happen. Now, how do we get those
cases out of the backlog?”
Jo Craven McGinty contributed reporting.
---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*--------
3) Gang injunction: SF Chronicle responds to SF Bay View
sfbayview@lists.riseup.net
editor@sfbayview.com
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2006/10/23/MNGKSLU9MF1.DTL
San Francisco City Hall is throwing its full weight against Bayview
Hunters Point, a proud though poor neighborhood that is 91
percent people of color. The same City Attorney who last month
threw out the signatures of over 33,000 San Franciscans on our
referendum petition to stop the Redevelopment Agency from
taking control of our neighborhood, now seeks to criminalize
an undetermined number - perhaps all - of the young Black
men in one of the neighborhood's public housing developments.
Only two stories have appeared so far about City Attorney
Dennis Herrera's "gang injunction." The one on the front page
of this morning's Chronicle acknowledges that it was written
in response to a story that "a Bayview community activist wrote
about (the issue) late last week" - no doubt the story on the
front page of this week's Bay View. "Herrera said he had
planned to wait for the judge's ruling to make an
announcement," the Chronicle reports. So much for
the public's right to know. Both stories are reprinted below.
The word in the community is that the young people
targeted by this "gang injunction" - the DA refers to them
as "urban terrorists" - are the neighborhood peacemakers,
who have been negotiating a truce among neighboring
groups. But because San Francisco is hellbent to
repeople Bayview Hunters Point, to sweep Blacks
and other people of color out of this neighborhood that
is blessed with the city's best views and sunniest climate,
City Hall is declaring war on peacemakers. An end to the
violence would slow down the repeopling process -
violence not only sends many away to prison or the
graveyard but it drives out families who fear for their safety.
Ironically, the day the City Attorney filed his "gang
injunction," Sept. 27, 2006, was 40 years to the day
from the outbreak of the 1966 Hunters Point Uprising
that brought National Guard troops and tanks down on
the neighborhood and alerted the world to police brutality
in Hunters Point. On that day, the SFPD fatally shot Matthew
Johnson, 16, in the back on Navy Road , pinning him against
the fence that still divides the Oakdale housing project
from the Hunters Point Shipyard - in exactly the zone
where the City Attorney now plans to criminalize young
Black men.
A strong movement is once again arising in Bayview
Hunters Point to fight back. We'll do our best to keep
you posted. For your part, please, before the hearing
on Oct. 30, contact City Attorney Dennis J. Herrera at City
Hall Room 234, San Francisco CA 94102 , (415) 554-4700,
fax (415) 554-4745, cityattorney@sfgov.org,
www.sfgov.org/site/cityattorney_index.asp?id=455,
and tell him what you think.
Now, here are the two stories, first the Bay View's,
then the Chronicle's.
Alert! Gang injunction: 300 Black men targeted
by Damone Hale, Esq.
On Oct. 30, San Francisco City Attorney Dennis J. Herrera
will ask the San Francisco Superior Court to issue a civil
gang injunction prohibiting hundreds of young Black
men from engaging in a number of legal activities within
an area he describes as a “safety zone.” Similar injunctions
have been implemented and others are being considered
by courts throughout the state and country.
On Sept. 29, Herrera quietly announced that his first
target for the injunction program would be alleged
members of the “Oakdale Mob.” As many as 300 young
Black men could be impacted by this injunction. The
area covered by the proposed civil gang injunction
is bounded by Navy Road to the north, Palou to the
south, Griffith to the east and Ingalls to the west.
Recently, in Yolo County , southwest of Sacramento ,
the court issued an injunction without notice to the
people affected, except one member who lived out
of the county. The injunction targeted members of
a Hispanic gang called the “Broderick Boys.” The
injunction prohibits the named members within
a three-mile “safety zone” from hanging out together,
wearing certain colors and clothing, being outside
after 10 p.m. – a lifetime curfew – and other activities.
Yolo County residents say their community has been
torn apart by the injunction. “Friends and family members
can no longer go to family barbecues or attend each
other’s children’s birthday parties,” said community
activist Martha Garcia. “They can’t go to the movies
together. They can’t attend night school because
classes get out after the curfew. This injunction
harms the quality of life of our community.”
Last Dec. 5, City Attorney Herrera announced the City’s
intention to seek a civil gang injunction. One of the
criticisms in other counties – which Herrera presumably
has consulted – is the lack of community involvement
in the development of the injunction. In nearly 11 months,
Dennis Herrera, who received significant political support
from the impacted community, intentionally chose not
to include that community in the development
of the injunction.
This is particularly troubling because so many of our
respected residents, community leaders, organizations
and the faith community have been waging a war
on the causes of crime and violence and the barriers
to reducing it.
“Enough is enough,” Mr. Herrera. We demand to be at
the table when the decisions are made. If our community
decides to support such a program, then we demand
to be at the table to decide the policy and procedures
for such a program.
There is absolutely no justification for excluding the
community. Deep distrust of San Francisco police officers
and the department is widespread. We have experienced
brutality by officers firsthand too many times. We have
been victims of their lies and deception to incriminate
us too many times.
We have been promised police department reform and
have been let down too many times. Dennis Herrera,
the discretion you want to empower these officers will
be abused too many times. Enough is enough.
Civil gang injunctions may give communities “short-term
relief,” but the costs of such a program are potentially
astronomical – assuming the City is serious about its
implementation. In the first study of the impact of civil
gang injunctions, researchers at UC Irvine and the University
of Southern California reported that injunctions provide
short-term benefits, such as reducing residents’ fear
of run-ins with gang members.
However, the study recognized that “more significant
changes in the community take root slowly over time,
and that additional efforts by officials and community
members in the wake of an injunction could significantly
increase the positive effects.”
Another researcher, Jeffrey Grogger, a professor in
UCLA’s Department of Policy Studies, published the
country’s best-known and oft-quoted study on the
effectiveness of gang injunctions. Grogger’s study,
which looked at 14 gang injunctions implemented
in Los Angeles , Pasadena and Long Beach between
1993 and 1998, determined that injunctions reduced
violent crime by an average of 5-10 percent in the
year after they were implemented.
A southern California newspaper reported that its
review of the impact of a local gang injunction showed
that nearly 80 percent of the gang members named
in that injunction had been convicted of at least one
crime since the injunctions were imposed. More
than half of those convicted committed crimes
in the injunctions’ target neighborhoods, indicating
that gang members neither ended their criminal acts
nor moved away after being served with court orders
to do so.
What is the estimated cost to taxpayers for such
a program? Not just the cost for enforcement but
the cost for career planning, childcare, record
expungements, employment and job training, mental
health and substance abuse services, housing etc.
No cost-benefit analysis has been conducted by the
City Controller’s office.
This injunction program should be vetted by our
entire City deliberative process. Supervisor Sophie
Maxwell has been holding meeting for months on
the topic of gang and gun violence. Such a potentially
widespread City policy should be reviewed and
endorsed at the very least by the affected communities,
police commission members, mayor and Board
of Supervisors.
Instead of an inclusive process, Herrera relied
on the SFPD and other law enforcement agencies
that have no credibility with our community. Herrera
chose to pursue a City policy that confers “second
class” status on hundreds of Black men without
involving the community in the development
of the gang injunction. Enough is enough.
Stop the injunction process now. Engage the impacted
community. Mr. Herrera, you owe us better than this
“quick-fix” police harassment tool. If you just have
to enjoin someone or something, try this on for size:
· Prohibit the San Francisco School Board members
and top leadership from leaving their offices
or boardroom until our kids have quality schools
and teachers and staff are paid “decent” salaries;
· Prohibit the Recreation Commission members
and top leadership from leaving their meeting room
and offices until all of our recreation centers are
fully operational, staffed and have sufficient
resources and equipment;
· Prohibit everyone connected with economic
development from leaving their well-paying jobs
until the unemployment rate for any particular
ethnic group reflects their proportion in the
general population;
· Prohibit the mayor from being a candidate
for re-election because his failed criminal justice
policy has resulted in kids dying and in our City
Attorney Dennis J. Herrera trying this desperate
last ditch experiment.
Enough is enough.
Contact City Attorney Dennis J. Herrera at City
Hall Room 234, San Francisco CA 94102 ,
(415) 554-4700, fax (415) 554-4745,
cityattorney@sfgov.org,
www.sfgov.org/site/cityattorney_index.asp?id=455.
Damone Hale, Esq., is a community attorney who
served nearly 15 years with the Community Defenders
Office in Bayview Hunters Point representing residents
in criminal, dependency and school hearings. Born
and raised in Compton, he moved up north to attend
college. While he has served for over 10 years on the
San Francisco Juvenile Probation Commission, his
greatest honor has been working with community
members to provide activities for hundreds of our
youth. He boasts of many hours working with parents
and community members to plan for cheer, basketball,
bowling and flag football competitions, taking kids on
trips to Hawaii, Texas, Massachusetts, New York and
Nevada and providing them with active and positive
adult role models. He holds three degrees and is
determined to throw his weight around for his
People and his Community. He can be reached
by email at Dhale2323@yahoo.com.
S.F. city attorney wants to create gang-free zone
Injunction would put 4 blocks of Hunters Point off limits
- Demian Bulwa, Carrie Sturrock, Chronicle Staff Writers
Monday, October 23, 2006
San Francisco City Attorney Dennis Herrera is seeking
the city's first civil injunction against a street gang,
asserting that a court order is needed to protect
Bayview-Hunters Point residents from criminals
who commute there to sell drugs and kill rivals
and witnesses.
Herrera wants Oakdale Mob members, who
allegedly terrorize the public housing development
known as Oakdale, to face jail time if they're outside
after 10 p.m. or hang out together in public in
a four-block "safety zone."
The injunction also would bar them from committing
a variety of crimes such as trespassing, intimidating
witnesses, painting graffiti and stashing guns
in bushes and crawl spaces.
Similar injunctions have been used for more than
two decades in cities across the country, including
Los Angeles, San Jose and West Sacramento, where
they have fueled passionate debate between law
enforcement officials and civil rights advocates.
Herrera, who in December announced his intention
to seek gang injunctions, said Sunday that they are
an extension of his duty to stamp out public nuisances.
He said he was responding to a raft of complaints from
residents affected by recent surges of violence. There
were 96 homicides last year in San Francisco,
a 10-year high.
"The Oakdale Mob is a public menace that has terrorized
the community for too long with murders, carjackings,
robberies and drug dealing, and the community
is demanding a response," said Herrera, whose plan
was unanimously supported by the Board
of Supervisors in April.
Herrera sued the Oakdale Mob as a business -- albeit
one without a license -- on Sept. 27 and served legal
notice to three of 22 men he named in his complaint.
A hearing on his request for a temporary injunction
in the case is set for Oct. 30.
Michael Risher, an American Civil Liberties Union attorney,
said Sunday that his group may help fight the injunction,
though he said Herrera's request is "limited in scope."
In some cities, injunctions have covered wide geographic
areas and outlawed even the use of pagers.
Risher said proponents of such measures have not
proved them effective.
"If the authorities are convinced (the alleged gang members)
are committing crimes, they have every right to arrest them
for those crimes," Risher said. "That's the traditional way
we approach crime, and it does afford people a presumption
of innocence."
The key benefit of an injunction is that it can prevent
crime from happening at all, said Deputy City Attorney
Machaela Hoctor.
Critics of gang injunctions have said those named in court
orders have had difficulty removing their names, and have
had trouble getting jobs and turning their lives around.
The California Supreme Court upheld the use of gang
injunctions in 1997, ruling that San Jose could use the
tactic in the Rocksprings neighborhood.
Some studies have revealed modest success, at least in the
short term. A UCLA professor, for instance, found that
violent crime decreased from between 5 percent to
10 percent in the first year after gang injunctions were
imposed in 14 Los Angeles County locations targeted
between 1993 and 1998.
The "safety zone" outlined in the San Francisco complaint
is bounded by Navy Road, Griffith Street, Palou Avenue and
Ingalls Street. It includes, among other residences, the
133-unit Oakdale public housing development, three-
story cream buildings with blue trim.
In the neighborhood on Sunday, as kids played outside
and adults fixed cars or waited for the bus -- and police
cruisers frequently passed by -- 60-year-old Robert
Stokes said the injunction would be good for everyone.
"To put it mildly, they're junior gangsters," said Stokes,
who grew up in the neighborhood near the Oakdale
development. "When I see them coming I go the other
way. Anything the city can do would be good. ... Even
if you discourage one of them it's worth it."
At the same time, Stokes said, parents must take more
responsibility for raising children who avoid gangs.
He said city officials should play a role but cannot
go too far.
"You can't be sacrificing civil rights for the greater
good," he said.
Two streets over, Ron Newt, 60, had a different opinion.
The Oakdale Mob, he said, isn't a dangerous gang but
a bunch of kids who are 12 and 13 years old. If city
officials want to make the neighborhood safer, he
said, they should help people get jobs and create
more programs for kids.
"These are wannabes. This is a shell now," Newt said.
"These are not bad kids. ... This is a political move."
Herrera did not announce the case publicly until
a Bayview community activist wrote about it late
last week. Herrera said he had planned to wait for
the judge's ruling to make an announcement.
The alleged gang members missed a deadline
Wednesday to respond to the government action.
In some gang injunctions, the accused never show
up to defend themselves. And there is no legal
requirement that they be represented.
"I certainly hope that the court will appoint counsel
to represent not only the people who have been named,
but people they may name in the future," Risher said.
The lawsuit alleges the gang has about 50 members
who are suspects in at least 12 killings in the past three
years, Hoctor said. All but one lives outside the
neighborhood and commutes from Fairfield,
Vallejo and Daly City, where some have bought
homes, she said.
In the court papers, Hoctor included pages of allegations
against each accused member, including one who
allegedly brandished an assault weapon in a low-
budget documentary.
If the court order is put in place and an alleged gang
member violates it, Hoctor said, that person could
be held in civil contempt and jailed for up to five
days for each violation, or charged with a misdemeanor
and sentenced to up to six months.
The alleged gang members include Deonte Bennett
and Daniel Dennard, who were indicted this year for
murder and attempted murder in a September 2005
Bayview district shooting that killed a man and
injured a bystander.
The bystander, Terrell Rollins, became the key witness
in the case but was later shot dead by masked men
in what authorities and family members fear was
retaliation for his cooperation. He was 22.
E-mail Demian Bulwa at dbulwa@sfchronicle.com.
Page A - 1
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4) Bush's Family Profits from 'No Child' Act
by Walter F. Roche Jr.
Published on Sunday, October 22, 2006 by the Los Angeles Times
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/1022-02.htm
A company headed by President Bush's brother and partly owned
by his parents is benefiting from Republican connections and
federal dollars targeted for economically disadvantaged students
under the No Child Left Behind Act.
Published on Sunday, October 22, 2006 by the Los Angeles Times
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/1022-02.htm
With investments from his parents, George H.W. and Barbara Bush,
and other backers, Neil Bush's company, Ignite! Learning, has placed
its products in 40 U.S. school districts and now plans to market
internationally.
At least 13 U.S. school districts have used federal funds available
through the president's signature education reform, the No Child
Left Behind Act of 2001, to buy Ignite's portable learning centers
at $3,800 apiece.
The law provides federal funds to help school districts better
serve disadvantaged students and improve their performance,
especially in reading and math.
But Ignite does not offer reading instruction, and its math
program will not be available until next year.
The federal Department of Education does not monitor individual
school district expenditures under the No Child program, but sets
guidelines that the states are expected to enforce, spokesman
Chad Colby said.
Ignite executive Tom Deliganis said that "some districts seem
to feel OK" about using No Child money for the Ignite purchases,
"and others do not."
Neil Bush said in an e-mail to The Times that Ignite's program
had demonstrated success in improving the test scores
of economically disadvantaged children. He also said political
influence had not played a role in Ignite's rapid growth.
"As our business matures in the USA we have plans to expand
overseas and to work with many distinguished individuals
in Asia, Europe, the Middle East and Africa," he wrote. "Not one
of these associates by the way has ever asked for any access
to either of my political brothers, not one White House tour,
not one autographed photo, and not one Lincoln bedroom
overnight stay."
Funding laws unclear
Interviews and a review of school district documents obtained
under the Freedom of Information Act found that educators
and legal experts were sharply divided over whether Ignite's
products were worth their cost or qualified under the No Child
law.
The federal law requires schools to show they are meeting
educational standards, or risk losing critical funding. If students
fail to meet annual performance goals in reading and math tests,
schools must supplement their educational offerings with tutoring
and other special programs.
Leigh Manasevit, a Washington attorney who specializes in federal
education funding, said that districts using the No Child funds
to buy products like Ignite's would have to meet "very strict"
student eligibility requirements and ensure that the Ignite
services were supplemental to existing programs.
Known as COW, for Curriculum on Wheels (the portable learning
centers resemble cows on wheels), Ignite's product line is geared
toward middle school social studies, history and science. The company
says it has developed a social studies program that meets curriculum
requirements in seven states. Its science program meets requirements
in six states.
Most of Ignite's business has been obtained through sole-source
contracts without competitive bidding. Neil Bush has been directly
involved in marketing the product.
In addition to federal or state funds, foundations and corporations
have helped buy Ignite products. The Washington Times Foundation,
backed by the Rev. Sun Myung Moon, head of the South Korea-based
Unification Church, has peppered classrooms throughout Virginia
with Ignite's COWs under a $1-million grant.
Oil companies and Middle East interests with long political ties to
the Bush family have made similar bequests. Aramco Services Co.,
an arm of the Saudi-owned oil company, has donated COWs to
schools, as have Apache Corp., BP and Shell Oil Co.
Neil Bush said he is a businessman who does not attempt to exert
political influence, and he called The Times' inquiries about his
venture — made just before the election — "entirely political."
Big supporters
Bush's parents joined Neil as Ignite investors in 1999, according
to U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission documents. By 2003,
the records show, Neil Bush had raised about $23 million from
more than a dozen outside investors, including Mohammed
Al Saddah, the head of a Kuwaiti company, and Winston Wong,
the head of a Chinese computer firm.
Most recently he signed up Russian fugitive business tycoon
Boris A. Berezovsky and Berezovsky's partner Badri Patarkatsishvili.
Barbara Bush has enthusiastically supported Ignite. In January 2004,
she and Neil Bush were guests of honor at a $1,000-a-table fundraiser
in Oklahoma City organized by a foundation supporting the Western
Heights School District. Proceeds were earmarked for the purchase
of Ignite products.
Organizer Mary Blankenship Pointer said she planned the event
because district students were "utilizing Ignite courseware and
experiencing great results. Our students were thriving."
However, Western Heights school Supt. Joe Kitchens said the district
eventually dropped its use of Ignite because it disagreed with
changes Ignite had made in its products. "Our interest waned
in it," he said.
The former first lady spurred controversy recently when she
contributed to a Hurricane Katrina relief foundation for storm
victims who had relocated to Texas. Her donation carried one
stipulation: It had to be used by local schools for purchases
of COWs.
Texas accounts for 75% of Ignite's business, which is expanding
rapidly in other states, Deliganis said.
The company also has COWs deployed in North Carolina,
Virginia, Nevada, California, the District of Columbia, Georgia
and Florida, he said.
COWs recently showed up at Hill Classical Middle School
in California's Long Beach Unified School District. A San Jose
middle school also bought Ignite's products but has since closed.
Neil Bush said Ignite has more than 1,700 COWs in classrooms.
Shift in strategy
But Ignite's educational strategy has changed dramatically,
and some are critical of its new approach. Shortly after Ignite
was formed in Austin, Texas, in 1999, it bought the software
developed by another small Austin firm, Adaptive Learning
Technology.
Adaptive Learning founder Mary Schenck-Ross said the
software's interactive lessons allowed teachers "to get away
from the mass-treatment approach" to education. When
a student typed in a response to a question, the software
was designed to react and provide a customized learning path.
"The original concept was to avoid 'one size fits all.' That
was the point," said Catherine Malloy, who worked on the
software development.
Two years ago, however, Ignite dropped the individualized
learning approach. Working with artists and illustrators,
it created a large purple COW that could be wheeled from
classroom to classroom and plugged in, offering lessons
that could be played to a roomful of students.
The COWs enticed students with catchy jingles and videos
featuring cartoon characters like Mr. Bighead and Norman
Einstein. On Ignite's website, a collection of teachers
endorsed the COW, saying that it eliminated the need
for lesson planning. The COW does it for them.
The developers of Adaptive Learning's software complain
that Ignite replaced individualized instruction with a gimmick.
"It breaks my heart what they have done. The concept was
totally perverted," Schenck-Ross said.
Nevertheless, Ignite found many receptive school districts.
In Texas, 30 districts use COWs.
In Houston, where Neil Bush and his parents live, the district
has used various funding sources to acquire $400,000
in Ignite products. An additional $240,000 in purchases
has been authorized in the last six months.
Correspondence obtained by The Times shows that Neil
Bush met with top Houston officials, sent e-mails and left
voice mail messages urging bigger and faster allocations.
An e-mail from a school procurement official to colleagues
said Bush had made it clear that he had a "good working
relationship" with a school board member.
Another Ignite official asked a Texas state education official
to endorse the company. In an e-mail, Neil Bush's partner
Ken Leonard asked Michelle Ungurait, state director
of social studies programs, to tell Houston officials her
"positive impressions of our content, system and approach."
Ungurait, identified in another Leonard e-mail as "our good
friend" at the state office, told her superiors in response
to The Times' inquiry that she never acted on Leonard's
request.
Leonard said he did not ask Ungurait to do anything that
would be improper.
Houston school officials gave Ignite's products "high"
ratings in eight categories and recommended approval.
Some in Houston's schools question the expenditures,
however. Jon Dansby was teaching at Houston's Fleming
Middle School when Ignite products arrived.
"You can't even get basics like paper and scissors, and we
went out and bought them. I just see red," he said.
In Las Vegas, the schools have approved more than
$300,000 in Ignite purchases. Records show the board
recommended spending $150,000 in No Child funding
on Ignite products.
Sources familiar with the Las Vegas purchases said pressure
to buy Ignite products came from Sig Rogich, an influential
local figure and prominent Republican whose fundraising
of more than $200,000 for President Bush's 2004 reelection
campaign qualified him as a "Bush Ranger."
Rogich, who chairs a foundation that supports local schools,
said he applied no pressure but became interested in COWs
after Neil Bush contacted him. Rogich donated $6,000
to purchase two COWs for a middle school named after him.
Christy Falba, the former Clark County school official who
oversaw the contracts, said she and her husband attended
a dinner with Neil Bush to discuss the products. She said
Rogich encouraged the district "to look at the Ignite
program" but applied no pressure.
Mixed reviews
Few independent studies have been done to assess the
effectiveness of Ignite's teaching strategies. Neil Bush said
the company had gotten "great feedback" from educators
and planned to conduct a "major scientifically valid study"
to assess the COW's impact. The results should be in by
next summer, he said.
Though Ignite's products get generally rave reviews from
Texas educators, the opinion is not universal.
The Tornillo, Texas, Independent School District no longer
uses the Ignite programs it purchased several years ago
for $43,000.
"I wouldn't advise anyone else to use it," said Supt. Paul
Vranish. "Nobody wanted to use it, and the principal who
bought it is no longer here."
Ignite's website features glowing videotaped testimonials
from teachers, administrators, students and parents.
Many of the videos were shot at Del Valle Junior High School
near Austin, where school district officials allowed Ignite
to film facilities and students.
In the video, a student named India says: "I was feeling bad
about my grades. I didn't know what my teacher was talking
about." The COW changed everything, the girl's father says
on the video.
Lori, a woman identified as India's teacher, says the child
was not paying attention until the COW was brought in.
The woman, however, is not India's teacher, but Lori Anderson,
a former teacher and now Ignite's marketing director. Ignite
says Anderson was simply role-playing.
In return for use of its students and facilities, a district
spokeswoman said Ignite donated a free COW. Five others
were purchased with district funds.
District spokeswoman Celina Bley acknowledged that regulations
bar school officials from endorsing products. But she said that
restriction did not apply to the videos.
"It is illegal for individuals to make an endorsement, but this
was a districtwide endorsement," Bley said in an e-mail.
© Copyright 2006 Los Angeles Times
---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*--------
5) 'Flags of Our Fathers'
Clint Eastwood's war drama grippingly tells
the tale behind that photograph from Iwo Jima.
By Kenneth Turan
Times Staff Writer
October 20, 2006
http://www.calendarlive.com/movies/reviews/cl-et-flags20oct20,0,595623.story?coll=cl-
movies-features
[With public support for Washington's war invasion and occupation of
Iraq tanking, Clint Eastwood's new movie, to be followed by a parallel
film showing the same battle from the Japanese point of view, could
not be more timely and helpful. Far from being a propaganda product
aimed at demonstrating imperialism's virtue, the picture illustrates, in
a sharp but non-didactic manner, the human cost of modern warfare.
It's a picture designed to make you think, not to rally round the flag
and rush off to sign up for the military. The iconic image of the U.S.
soldiers planting the United States flag on Japanese national soil is
one they wouldn't use today. The Japanese were overwhelmed by
massive U.S. firepower, but the decisive end was brought about by
the use of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Resistance
to the U.S. invasion and occupation soon collapsed. The image itself
was staged, as the movie shows, as it helps the viewer to understand
the political impact of such propaganda in a troubled nation.
What marks Eastwood's film as of such urgent importance at this very
moment is the way it demonstrates, with a modern understanding, the
way spin-doctoring was mobilized so effectively by Washington as the
Second World War drew to a close. The film tells us that the popular
support for that war was winding down, and funding was drying up at
that conjuncture. Today's audiences know more about the methods
used to manufacture consent, thought the process of manufacturing
it has continued to be effectively used by Washington, up until today.
Military resistance in Japan vanished, and the country was occupied
by the United States, which wrote its constitution and set up Japan's
political system. In today's Iraq, by contrast, armed resistance to the
U.S. occupation has steadily expanded and deepened, the opposite of
what happened in Japan. The same is happening in Afghanistan today.
Of course, that's exactly what Washington did to Cuba a century ago.
Perhaps it's because it's been sixty years since World War II, but it's
also because people in the United States don't have the confidence
they did at that time in such institutions as the media, the church
and the government itself in general. Can we imagine any director
TODAY trying to make a movie about Iraq, FROM THE VIEWPOINT
OF THE IRAQI RESISTANCE? That difference is what makes Clint
Eastwood's movie so timely, especially for United States audiences.
The crude racism expressed toward the Native American Ira Hayes
at various points in the film, which would not be used in a film about
present-day conflicts, is eloquently documented in Eastwood'd movie.
That will surely be written about separately.
This image itself, and many others which have been manipulated for
political purposes, is fiscussed in the fascinating book PHOTO FAKERY:
The History and Techniques of Photographic Deception and Manipulation
by Dino A. Brugioni, a founder of the CIA's National Phograophic Inter-
pretation Center, published in 1999.
This conflict between the reality of the flag-raising and the image the
government insisted on projecting for its own needs (a conflict that
including refusing to correct a misidentification of one of the dead
flag-raisers) is the "Flags of Our Fathers" theme that resonates
most pointedly today.
It is interesting to note, in this age of the overblown Jessica Lynch
story and President Bush's "Mission Accomplished" aircraft carrier
speech, that the need to create media heroes and the determination
to use war for political/governmental purposes has hardly gone away.
The war in Iraq was likely not high on anyone's mind when this film
was conceptualized, but the echoes of the current conflict turn out
to be inescapable....
Walter Lippmann
Los Angeles, California
Walter Lippmann
walterlx@earthlink.net ]
'Flags of Our Fathers'
Clint Eastwood's war drama grippingly tells
the tale behind that photograph from Iwo Jima.
By Kenneth Turan
Times Staff Writer
October 20, 2006
http://www.calendarlive.com/movies/reviews/cl-et-flags20oct20,0,595623.story?coll=cl-
movies-features
"Flags of Our Fathers" is a story of extremes. It's the story of great
heroism on a tiny island, of a photograph taken in 1/400th of a second that wreaked
havoc with the lives of everyone in it and influenced the course of a war.
It's also a very American tale, set 60 years ago but startlingly relevant today,
which intertwines and often contrasts bravery and chicanery, idealism and disillusion,
war and propaganda, truth and national security. This sad true story wrings you
out emotionally because it's concerned with both the deaths of young men in
battle and what happens when the needs of those who survive clash with what society
expects and politics demands.
A narrative like this requires a measured, classical style to be most effective,
and it couldn't have found a better director than Clint Eastwood. After two
best picture Oscars, 26 films behind the camera and more than 50 years as an actor,
Clint Eastwood knows a gripping story and how to tell it. He found this one in James
Bradley's book about the celebrated Feb. 23, 1945, flag-raising on Iwo Jima,
a narrative that was nearly a year on the New York Times bestseller list and has
3 million copies in print.
Bradley (who co-wrote the book with Ron Powers) was not a disinterested World War
II historian. His father, Navy corpsman John "Doc" Bradley, was the only
non-Marine of the six men who raised the flag and figured in Joe Rosenthal's
iconic photograph.
Bradley was also one of the three who survived perhaps the most hellish battle of
the war only to be brought back to the U.S. and exhibited like a prize heifer in
a crucial war bonds tour, nicknamed the Mighty 7th, which saw the raising of an
unprecedented and much-needed $26.3 billion for the war effort. The author's
quest to understand how that unnerving combination of experiences whipsawed his
father and his comrades is the engine that powers both the book and this gripping,
emotional film.
Certainly everything about the Iwo Jima firestorm and its aftermath turned out to
be so much larger than life that it led to three previous films, a Johnny Cash song
and the 100-ton statue of the six men that dominates Arlington National Cemetery.
Twenty-seven Congressional Medals of Honor, the most ever for one battle, were earned
on Iwo Jima; one-third of all Marines who died in World War II were killed on that
7 1/2-square-mile island, as were 95% of its 22,000 Japanese defenders, whose story
Eastwood will tell in a parallel film, "Letters From Iwo Jima," to be
released in early 2007.
Making this carnage that much more poignant was the fact that most of it was happening
to boys/men in their teens and early 20s. Eastwood and his casting director, Phyllis
Huffman (who, like veteran production designer Henry Bumstead, died before the film
was released), tried hard to select actors who either were young or looked it. The
result is a strong ensemble that includes Ryan Phillippe, Jesse Bradford and Adam
Beach as the three flag-raising survivors and Barry Pepper as their sergeant.
Written by William Broyles Jr. (himself a former Marine) and Paul Haggis ("Million
Dollar Baby," "Crash"), "Flags of Our Fathers" opts for
an opening that is structurally complex, touching lightly on most of the situations
and viewpoints the film will eventually flesh out.
The first shot is of a young soldier (Phillippe) alone in the devastated lunar landscape
that was Iwo Jima in combat (these sequences were shot in Iceland, which has similar
black sand beaches). This, we learn in seconds, is a recurring dream an elderly
Doc Bradley has of himself on Iwo, desperately looking for the close buddy, Ralph
"Iggy" Ignatowski (Jamie Bell), who he has unaccountably become separated
from.
In addition to Bradley in combat and in retirement, we witness the fuss Rosenthal's
photo, considered perhaps the most reproduced shot in history, made from the moment
it was first seen. And we also get a glimpse of the surreal nature of the ensuing
bond tour; the first flag-raising we see is not the real thing but a garish re-creation
before 100,000 spectators at Chicago's Soldier Field.
We also hear photographer Rosenthal as he attempts to explain why his picture touched
a national nerve. "What we do in war, the cruelty is almost incomprehensible,"
he says. "But somehow we need to make sense of it. The right picture can win
or lose a war. I took a lot of other pictures that day, but none of them made a
difference. Looking it at, you could believe the sacrifice was not a waste."
It's at this point that the men who raised the flag are introduced softly, not
really differentiated from the others in their units. Though "Flags" eventually
shows us all six, it concentrates on experienced Sgt. Mike Strank (Pepper, a veteran
of "Saving Private Ryan") and the three men who will make it back alive.
First among equals is Bradley, the calm, centered undertaker-in-training whose character
is well served by Phillippe's naturally haunted air. Most problematic as a soldier
is handsome Rene Gagnon (Bradford), a.k.a. "our own Tyrone Power," who
literally joined the Marines because he liked the uniform.
Then there is Ira Hayes ("Smoke Signals' " Beach), a Native American
from the Pima tribe, a soldier whose grim experiences putting up with constant prejudicial
put-downs and surviving the most brutal hand-to-hand combat are the emotional heart
of the film. With the Japanese so entrenched in a system of underground bunkers
and tunnels that many Marines never saw an enemy soldier alive, the landing at Iwo
is portrayed, in the film's action centerpiece, as especially devastating in
the "Saving Private Ryan" tradition. As shot by Eastwood veteran Tom Stern,
the battle is pure, pitiless chaos, an unflinchingly graphic look at the split-second
randomness of who stays alive and who is savagely cut down.
Compared with this brutality, the two flag-raisings that took place on Iwo Jima's
Mt. Suribachi (the film is careful to explain this often misunderstood situation)
ended up being no big deal at all, mundane moments that were the equivalent, as
one of the survivors said, of "becoming a hero for putting up a pole."
But that is precisely what happened.
It happened because no one counted on the torrential impact of that photograph,
which, among other things, ended up on 150 million postage stamps. The trio of surviving
flag-raisers are air-lifted back to the States, in Hayes' case very much against
his will, and in effect press-ganged into an extensive public relations tour to
raise that much-needed money.
The bulk of "Flags of our Fathers" cuts back and forth between the tour
and the men's flashbacks to the hellacious combat on Iwo, detailing the reality
the survivors are haunted by, a reality that makes them powerfully uncomfortable
with being lionized for their connection to what they consider to be a misleading
picture.
This conflict between the reality of the flag-raising and the image the government
insisted on projecting for its own needs (a conflict that including refusing to
correct a misidentification of one of the dead flag-raisers) is the "Flags
of Our Fathers" theme that resonates most pointedly today.
It is interesting to note, in this age of the overblown Jessica Lynch story and
President Bush's "Mission Accomplished" aircraft carrier speech, that
the need to create media heroes and the determination to use war for political/
governmental
purposes has hardly gone away. The war in Iraq was likely not high on anyone's
mind when this film was conceptualized, but the echoes of the current conflict turn
out to be inescapable.
Also inescapable is the wonderful appropriateness of having this thoughtful and
disturbing meditation on the qualities that make up heroism and the quixotic nature
of fame come from a man who made his considerable reputation playing clean-cut heroes.
http://www.calendarlive.com/movies/reviews/cl-et-flags20oct20,0,595623.story?coll=cl-
movies-features
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LINKS ONLY
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The Exodus: 1.6m Iraqis have Fled Their Country Since the War
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/1023-03.htm
Israel Admits Phosphorous Bombs Used in Lebanon
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/1023-02.htm
How Iraq Came Home to Haunt America
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/1022-05.htm
Top US Diplomat: We have Shown 'Stupidity' and 'Arrogance' in Iraq
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/1022-01.htm
US Public at Risk from Radiation: Scientists
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/1021-02.htm
Global Warming Study Predicts Wild Ride
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/1021-01.htm
Iraq: A Consensus Develops: Leave the Course
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/1021-04.htm
Active troops ask congress to end Iraqi occupation
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Sixty five active duty service members
are officially asking Congress to end the war in Iraq -- the first
time active troops have done so since U.S. invasion began in 2003.
Three of the service members will hold a press conference Wednesday
explaining their decision to send "Appeals for Redress" under the
Military Whistleblower Protection Act to their members of Congress.
Under the act, National Guard and Reservists can send communications
about any subject to their member of Congress without punishment.
Monday, October 23, 2006
http://www.cnn.com/POLITICS/blogs/politicalticker/2006/10/active-troops-ask-
congress-to-end.html
Police and Youths Clash Near Paris
By REUTERS
PARIS, Oct. 22 (Reuters) — The French police and youths clashed
in a Paris suburb on Sunday as tensions mounted ahead of the
anniversary of riots last year that shocked the country and provoked
renewed debate about the integration of immigrants into French
society.
A police spokesman said 30 to 50 individuals were involved in the
clashes, in Grigny, south of Paris. He said youths had set several
cars on fire and had ordered passengers off a bus and set it on
fire, leading to the clash with the police. “There are still some
sporadic incidents, mostly stone throwing,” he said.
In a statement, the police union urged the government to deploy
“a visible and large number” of riot police officers to discourage
youths from attacking patrols. Recently, patrols in a number
of towns across the country have been hit by gasoline bombs.
“This latest clash marks the progressive start of a repeat of the
riots of November 2005,” the statement said, referring to the
incident in Grigny.
October 23, 2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/23/world/europe/23france.html
At Guantanamo, a Cross-the-Fence Chat
U.S. and Cuban military and civilian officials meet each month
at the naval base's border. They discuss local matters -- and baseball.
By Carol J. Williams
October 20, 2006
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-
cubaties20oct20,1,5411056.story
Some 10,500 Palestinians in Israel prisons
GAZA, Oct. 20 (UPI) -- Israel is detaining as many as 10,500
Palestinian prisoners, a number of whom Hamas is seeking
to exchange for abducted Israeli Cpl. Gilad Shalit.
http://www.upi.com/InternationalIntelligence/view.php?
StoryID=20061020-081623-3243r
Teachers OK Pact in Oaxaca
Mexican officials hope a deal to end the strike will halt
civil unrest. Others are skeptical.
By Sam Enriquez, Times Staff Writer
October 21, 2006
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-oaxaca21oct21,1,3386286.story?
coll=la-headlines-world
When Ford Pushed, a Supplier Pushed Back
By NICK BUNKLEY
October 21, 2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/21/business/21place.html?ref=business
Lawyer Convicted in Terror Case Lied on the Stand, a Juror Says
By JULIA PRESTON
[Other juror, juror 9 says case should have been dismissed...bw]
October 21, 2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/21/nyregion/21stewart.html?ref=nyregion
Turmoil at College for Deaf Reflects Broader Debate
By DIANA JEAN SCHEMO
October 21, 2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/21/education/21gallaudet.html?ref=us
Flexing Our Muscles in Space
New York Times Editorial
October 21, 2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/21/opinion/21sat1.html?hp
The Real Reasons Behind the So-called
`War on Terrorism'
By Nat Weinstein
http://www.socialistviewpoint.org/
Iraqi Dead May Total 600,000, Study Says
By SABRINA TAVERNISE and DONALD G. McNEIL Jr.
October 11, 2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/11/world/middleeast/11casualties.html?
_r=1&oref=slogin
Ex - Gitmo Detainees Arrive in Afghanistan
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 8:43 p.m. ET
October 12, 2006
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/world/AP-Afghan-Guantanamo-Prisoners.html
8 Palestinians Die as Israeli Raids and Airstrikes Intensify
By GREG MYRE
[Photo shows a relative greiving for Sohaib Kadiah, a 13-year-old
boy who died in an airstrike that Israel officials said killed four
Hamas militants. It looks like the child's face was blown off. His
father, a civilian, was also killed. Over all, more than 200 Palestinians,
including militants and civilians, have been killed in the Gaza
fighting since late June. Two Israeli soldiers have also lost
their lives...bw]
October 13, 2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/13/world/middleeast/13mideast.html
A Soldier Hoped to Do Good, but Was Changed by War
By LAURIE GOODSTEIN
October 13, 2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/13/us/13awol.html?ref=us
Protests Shut University for Deaf a 2nd Day
By DIANA JEAN SCHEMO
[I believe this story is important because it raises the question
of whether students and faculty can have a democratic say
in the issues that they face on a daily basis or does the
Administration have dictatorial rule over all? If the latter is
true, why should we tolerate it? All power to the students and
faculty at Gallaudet University! To support the students send
an email to the school president:
I. King Jordan
president@gallaudet.edu...bw]
October 13, 2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/13/education/13galludet.html?ref=us
Ann Wright joins endorsers of War Crimes Report
International Anti-Occupation Network and Stop the War
Coalition (UK) join report publishers
October 12, 2006
CONTACT: Consumers for Peace,
http://www.consumersforpeace.org
Nick Mottern nickmottern@earthlink.net
Cuba and her Permanent Revolution
By Carol Cossitore
Prensa Latina
...with apologies to Trotsky, Bukharin, Marx, et.al
[undated, but downloaded October 9, 2006]
http://www.plenglish.com.mx/article.asp?ID={FF33D287-B4AD-45AD-
B29D-9FE01B76A379}&language=EN
Resistance Growing Up at School
Ali Al-Fadhily and Dahr Jamail
http://dahrjamailiraq.com
Havana Book Fair: A Report
http://www.marxist.com/trotsky-havana-book-fair230206.htm
Former pesticide executive to head EPA office
Dow Chemical was among employers, environmental group wary
The Associated Press
Updated: 11:48 a.m. ET Oct 10, 2006
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15208048/
Cuba Alerts World Tension over Korean N-Test
Prensa Latina, Havana
http://www.plenglish.com
EEOC: Graffiti, Noose Left for Black Workers at Firm
Chicago Sun-Times
By: Steve Warmbir
http://www.suntimes.com/news/metro/47274,CST-NWS-noose07.article
U.S. Firing Plans for Great Lakes Raise Concerns
By MONICA DAVEY
October 16, 2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/16/us/16lakes.html?ref=us
Lawyer Is Due for Sentencing in Terror Case
By JULIA PRESTON
October 16, 2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/16/nyregion/16stewart.html?ref=nyregion
Medical Marijuana Advocate Faces New U.S. Indictment
By CAROLYN MARSHALL
October 14, 2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/14/washington/14pot.html?ref=health
State ranks second in Army recruits
By Lisa Friedman Washington Bureau
San Gabriel Valley Tribune
Californians comprised about 10 percent of the Army's new
soldiers this year, second only to Texas in providing new recruits,
according to newly released figures.
October 16, 2006
http://www.sgvtribune.com/news/ci_4485649
A new revolution in Grimethorpe:
Cuban-style socialist health care
By Matthew
Beard Published: 16 October 2006
http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/health_medical/article1876666.ece
Sami's Shame, and Ours
By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF
October 17, 2006
http://select.nytimes.com/2006/10/17/opinion/17kristof.html?hp
Bush Signs Terror Interrogation Law
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 11:08 a.m. ET
October 17, 2006
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-Bush-Terrorism.html?
hp&ex=1161144000&en=254af53b6a9b2151&ei=5094&partner=homepage
Lawyer, Facing 30 Years, Gets 28 Months, to Dismay of U.S.
By JULIA PRESTON
October 17, 2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/17/nyregion/17stewart.html?ref=us
California Letter Investigated for Warning to Immigrants
By JESSE McKINLEY
October 18, 2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/18/us/politics/18hispanic.html
Behind the Veil
New York Times Editorial
October 19, 2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/19/opinion/19thu4.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin
Morning Star interviews Celia Hart
By Andrew Kennedy and Charley Allan - Morning Star
Thursday, 19 October 2006
Rich Opportunity (Morning Star Tuesday 17 October 2006)
http://www.marxist.com/morning-star-interviews-celia-hart191006.htm
Bush issues doctrine for US control of space
Suzanne Goldenberg in Washington
Thursday October 19, 2006
Guardian
http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,,1925756,00.html
Trial Begins for 2 Charged With Aiding Terror Group
By LIBBY SANDER
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/20/us/20trial.html?ref=us
U.N. Says Iraq Seals Data on the Civilian Toll
By WARREN HOGE
October 21, 2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/21/world/middleeast/21statistics.html?
_r=1&oref=slogin
Anger Festering in French Areas Scarred in Riots
By ELAINE SCIOLINO and ARIANE BERNARD
October 21, 2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/21/world/europe/21france.html?
hp&ex=1161489600&en=64d3fb6fee7840ce&ei=5094&partner=homepage
After Pat’s Birthday
By Kevin Tillman
Editor’s note: Kevin Tillman joined the Army with his brother Pat
in 2002, and they served together in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Pat was killed in Afghanistan on April 22, 2004. Kevin, who
was discharged in 2005, has written a powerful, must-read
document.
Posted on Oct 19, 2006
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/200601019_after_pats_birthday/
http://www.counterpunch.org/zirin10202006.html
Ancient fish fossil provides missing link in evolution of land animals
By Kathy Marks in Sydney
Published: 20 October 2006
19 October 2006 20:45
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/australasia/article1904967.ece
Medics beg for help as Iraqis die needlessly
Half of all deaths preventable, say country's medics
Reconstruction seen as disaster
More than 2,000 doctors and nurses are killed
18,000 more leave the nation
Even the most basic treatments are lacking
By Jeremy Laurance, Health Editor
Published: 20 October 2006
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/article1904962.ece
Gaza Doctors Say Patients Suffering Mystery Injuries After Israeli Attacks
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/1018-05.htm
