BAUAW NEWSLETTER-WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 28, 2005
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WHAT'S HAPPENING?
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As of 11:30am, there is a protest
at Holyoke Community College against
military recruiters. The protesters
are not blocking the recruiters,
but are just trying to counter
protest and provide real information
about what the military does.
The police arrived and started
knocking people to the ground and macing
them. The College Republicans
are there and are encouraging the
police to attack the protesters.
Please immediately call
413-538-7000 and register
your outrage with the
President's office at the College's
attack on peaceful protest on a
public campus and tell them
to pull the police off of the protesters.
Thank you!
For more information, please contact
Charles Peterson of the HCC Anti-
War Coalition charlest.peterson@gmail.com
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Hear Barry Sheppard
speak about his book
"The Party: Volume I: The Sixties,
A Political Memoir:
The Socialist Workers Party 1960-1988"
Barry Sheppard, a former national
leader of the Socialist Workers Party
(SWP) and its youth group the
Young Socialist Alliance (YSA) will talk about
his book on Friday, October 14th at
7:00 �pm at the �Niebyl Proctor Library located
at 6501 Telegraph Ave. in Oakland.
"The Sixties, A Political Memoir"
is a chronological reflection on the role
of the SWP/YSA (and of the author himself)
in the movements of the 60's and the
SWP's relationship with many of the
prominent leaders of the time,
including Malcolm X.
The SWP was one of several parties that
had an impact on and were influenced
by the 60's.
Expect some lively discussion!
Sponsored by Solidarity.
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VOTE YES ON i
Get the military out of our schools!
Money for education not war!
College Not Combat
Planning Meeting
Saturday, Oct. 1, 2:00 P.M.
110 Capp Street (Buzz #202)
San Francisco
For more information:
college_not_combat@yahoo.com
(415) 248-1701
http://www.collegenotcombat.org/
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** PLEASE FORWARD WIDELY **
One More Day: CALL ARNOLD - Please Do It Now
Dear friends,
Monday & Tuesday
9/26 & 9/27
StateWide
Call Arnold Days
"Close Chad Now!"
916-445-2841 x5
As part of our campaign to close California's most
notorious youth prison -- Chad -- we have declared
yesterday and today (9/26 & 9/27) to be statewide
"Call Arnold" Days! We need everyone to call Governor
Schwarzenegger and tell him to close the Chad youth
prison immediately. Then -- we need you to get 10 of
your friends to call him too! It will take no more
than 10 minutes -- please join the action!
California's top officials have reached consensus:
Chad is a horrible place for youth. Three youth have
died in Chad since 2004. Chad guards were caught on
tape beating youth. Youth are locked in prison cells,
many for 23 hours a day. Even the Inspector General
declared Chad to be extremely dangerous for youth
and staff. But officials are still scared to close it down.
What they don't realize is that thousands and thousands
of people across the state know Chad is horrible and
want it closed today. We need to show the Governor
just how many people out there care.
Tell Arnold: Closing Chad now is what a real action
hero would do. Here's how to do it:
1. Dial: 916-445-2841. If the number is busy, please
call again after a few minutes.
2. Press 5 for "hot issues," and then press 0 for "other".
3. Stay on hold. It might be a while.
Thank you for being patient.
4. A staff person will answer the phone.
Tell Arnold's staffer:
"My name is [your name]. I am from [your town
or city]. Please tell Governor Schwarzenegger that
I am calling to urge him to close Chad today. The
Chad youth prison is abusive, unsafe, and a serious
waste of money. Youth leave damaged and unprepared,
if they leave at all. Close it down before another
youth dies. Invest in real rehabilitation and make
our juvenile justice system a system that helps
youth instead of harms them."
5. Tell 10 friends to call today.
Please forward this e-mail!
Thanks for making a difference for California's youth!
Sincerely,
Lenore Anderson
Books Not Bars
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PLEASE FORWARD WIDELY
Are You a Survivor of Police Brutality?
Free Legal Clinic
Thursday October 6, 2005 5:30-7:30pm
Ella Baker Center for Human Rights
344 40th Street (at Broadway Oakland, CA 94609
(6 blocks from MacArthur BART)
Find out:
* Remedies to Police Misconduct
* Your rights when it comes to the police
* How to report incidents of police misconduct
For more information: 510.428.3939 ext 224
or e-mail: malaika@ellabakercenter.org
organized by Bay Area PoliceWatch
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9/28: Protest Minutemen Meeting in Washington D.C.!
National Immigrant Solidarity Network Alert
URL: http://www.ImmigrantSolidarity.org
We just received an e-mail from our ally in
Washington D.C., there'll be a "Secure our borders"
by Minutemen's Kick-off rally in Washington D.C.
tomorrow, featuring "Minuteman Corps and Project"
Founders Chris Simcox and Jim Gilchrist.
Wednesday, September 28, 6:00 p.m.
Capitol Hill Club
300 First Street S.E., Washington, DC 20003
3rd Floor, Private Dining Room 2
I know this is a short notice by D.C. area folks
please consider organize some local action
to counter this.
National Immigrant Solidarity Network
Please visit our "Minuteman Watch"
http://www.immigrantsolidarity.org/Campaigns/Minutemen.htm
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If you fall on the side that is pro-George and pro-war,
you get your ... (self) over to Iraq, and take the
place of somebody who wants to come home. And if
you fall on the side that is against this war and
against George Bush, stand up and speak out.
- Cindy Sheehan, Gold Star Mother for Peace
Join Gold Star Families for Peace, Global Exchange,
CODE PINK, Vets for Peace, Iraq Veterans Against
the War, Iraqi American community and many others
as we, "WELCOME CINDY HOME WITH LOVE"
Wednesday, Oct 5, 2005 7:00pm
Welcome Home Event
Grand Lake Theater
3200 Grand Ave.
Oakland, California
Cindy Sheehan and others will speak.
$20 suggested donation / Benefit
For advance tickets call 415-255-7296 ext. 253
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Call to Action Friday, September 30th
International Day in Solidarity with Haiti
San Francisco Federal Building
450 Golden Gate Ave (betw Larkin & Polk)
8AM Rally & Picket, with nonviolent civil disobedience
For more information:
Haiti Action Committee (510) 483-7481
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ON THE FRONTLINES
A national counter-recruitment conference co-sponsored
by the Campus Antiwar Network (CAN) and Military Out
of Our Schools - Bay Area (MOOS)
October 22-23, 2005
University of California, Berkeley
For more information on the ON THE FRONTLINES conference,
or to register or suggest a workshop, email
frontlines.conference@gmail.com
or visit http://www.campusantiwar.net/
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Address by Musa Al-Hindi for Al-Awda at S24 demo in DC
Sisters and Brothers,
It is an honor to be with you on this historic day.
As you know, there were attempts
to exclude Palestine from today's events,
even though the role played by Israel
and its US-based functionaries in the
destruction of Iraq is well known.
The developments of the past few
months in Palestine had made the
understanding of the Palestinian
Arab-Zionist conflict difficult. This
difficulty was made worse by the
lack of clarity in the discourse of some in
the anti-war movement, especially
those who insist on defining the conflict
with Israel in terms of its occupation
of the West Bank and Gaza, to the
exclusion of other components of
the Palestinian national struggle, namely:
1. The struggle by Palestinians in
1948 Palestine to assert their national
Arab identity in the face of attempts to
"Israelize" them. Their resolute
efforts to preserve their organic
unity with the reminder with their
brethrens in exile are an integral
part of the Palestinian national movement
for liberation.
2. The struggle by Palestinian refugees
to return to their original towns
and villages in areas of Arab Palestine
occupied in 1948. It is of utmost
importance to keep in mind that while
our people in the West Bank and Gaza
are the vanguards of the Palestinian
national movement, the refugee camps in
exile are its strategic depth. It was
the refugees who nourished the seeds
of the modern Palestinian Revolution
with their tears and blood. It was the
refugees who turned their wretched
camps and bodies in Jordan and Lebanon
into barriers to protect the national
movement whenever it came under
attack.
Palestine is the refugees and the
refugees are Palestine.
These are not mere slogans. Rather,
they are principles that ought to guide
our work, both as Arab as well as
solidarity activists. Our work ought to be
based on an analysis that simultaneously
addresses all components of the
Palestinian struggle rather than parts of it.
Our discourse and analysis ought
to be consistent with the Palestinian
narrative, rather than on a selective
reading of it. Only when the Zionist
State is exposed for what it actually
is (a settler-colonial entity that
came into being as a result of
a systematic campaign of murder and ethnic
cleansing) would we be able to move forward.
Simultaneously, we ought to advance
a progressive and humanist vision of a
democratic, secular state over the
entirety of Palestine in which all enjoy
equality of rights and duties.
The establishment of such a state
would not only allow for the repatriation
of the Palestinian refugees and
free the 1948 Palestinians from the
tentacles of occupation and Apartheid,
but would also ensure a lasting peace
in the region. Anything less is
destined to be temporary and short-lived.
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Speech by Dr. Jess Ghannam for Al-Awda �
S24 in San Francisco
From Baghdad to New Orleans
We are facing an important historical
moment and this moment must be
confronted with clarity, vision, and
purposeful action. Events in the world
are rapidly changing and our ability
to put them in a political context is
critical. This political context and
analysis must allow us to make
connections among events that, on the
surface, appear not to be connected.
The occupation of Iraq and the
devastation in New Orleans, for example, are
deeply linked and unless we understand
these connections we will be lost.
We must confront the ugly reality that
we all live in a society and under a
system that is willing to spend 300
billion dollars to occupy and destroy
Iraq and kill thousands of Iraqis and
at the same time ignore its own
citizens, leaving them to drown to
death, forcibly expelling and dislocating
them, and essentially ethnically
cleansing the gulf coast of its
African-American population.
And I ask you: who is the real
terrorist here?
We must confront the ugly reality that
our government is willing to invest
its massive economic and military
resources in the colonial exploitation and
imperial thievery of indigenous people
of color all over the world and
continue its profound neglect, disregard,
and subjugation of people of color
and people without resources here in
the United States.
And I ask you: who is real looter?
Is than black brother taking milk
and diapers for his family the looter? I
imagine the media someday showing
a picture of George Bush in Iraq with the
caption: "Savage looter in Iraq
stealing the natural resources of the people
of Iraq".
How do we confront the ugly reality
that our government is willing
underwrite and pay a quarter of
a million US dollars to each of 8000 illegal
Israeli settlers who left land that
was stolen and colonized 40 years ago
from Palestine, yet they refuse to
give a penny to US citizens who have lost
everything and have been forcibly
displaced from their own land on the Gulf
Coast.
And I ask you: who is real criminal here?
The so-called war on terror and
occupations of Iraq, Afghanistan and
Palestine are in reality a racist
war against Arabs, Muslims, Latinos,
Blacks, Asians and all oppressed people
and it is having a devastating
effect on our communities here and
in our home countries. Wealth and
resources are being consolidated into
the hands of the few and oppressed
people are being displaced, dislocated,
and disconnected by the brutal
colonizing juggernaut called
"American Democracy".
And this is the beautiful vision
of democracy that we are imposing on the
people of the Arab World and beyond.
We are all complicit in this travesty
of justice and we must share some of
the responsibility. We cannot rely on
platitudes and slogans as the sole
form of our activism and resistance
to these injustices.
Seeing bumper stickers that say
"Anybody but Bush" are very disturbing
because they simplify the analysis
of very complex problems to a single
person. Are Cheney, Rumsfeld, Perle,
or Wolfowitz really better that Bush?
The feckless Democrats are no better;
they do not have the spine or the will
to stand clearly against the brutalities
of occupation in Baghdad or New
Orleans.
I would argue that Bush is not the
problem. Bush is the symptom. Bush is a
symptom of a larger, deeper, systemic
problem rooted in a system that
believes in the domination and control
of people, resources, and markets. It
is a system believes in profits and not
in justice and equality for all
people. The occupation of Iraq and
lack of response in New Orleans have
lifted the veil to vastness of the
lies, racism and contradictions of our
society and so-called democracy. We
need a deeper and more complex political
analysis and goes beyond the platitude
of the day and that can make the
connections between Iraq and Louisiana.
So when we say, "Bring the Troops Home
Now", we also mean "Bring Haliburton
Home Now", "Bring Kellogg, Brown and
Root Home Now", and "Bring the IMF and
the World Bank Home Now".
When we say "End the occupation of Iraq",
we are also saying, "End all
occupations-- end the occupation of
Afghanistan, of Palestine, of Haiti, of
the Philippines, and end the economic
occupations of Cuba, Venezuela and
Latin America". We are also saying end
the occupation of Bayview Hunters
Point, Oakland and New Orleans because
they are occupied too.
When we say "Collage Not Combat", we
are also saying "Jobs Not Combat",
"Healthcare Not Combat", "Justice Not
Combat", "Dignity and Respect, Not
Combat" and "Freedom Not Combat"
And when we say "Free Palestine", we
are demanding freedom for all oppressed
and occupied people, where ever they may
be. When we demand the right of
return for all Palestinian refugees,
we are also demanding the right of
return for all displaced and dislocated
people of Louisiana, Mississippi,
and the Gulf Coast.
Finally, unless the people of Iraq,
Palestine, BayView and New Orleans are
free, no one is free.
Have a look at our educational resources:
http://al-awdacal.org/resources.html
Become one of our Donors!
Go to: http://al-awda.org/donatenow/
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THE DEADLINE FOR TURNING IN OPT-OUT FORMS IS OCT.1
From: Peter Goldberger
Date: September 22, 2005 8:16:59 PM PDT
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STUDENTS CAN OPT-OUT WITHOUT PARENTS PERMISSION!
I thought people might want to know
that on Friday, September 16, 2005,
the Family Policy Compliance Office
of the United States Department of
Education (FPCO), which administers
the military recruiter provisions of
the No Child Left Behind Act, confirmed
that students are permitted to exercise
opt out rights under No Child Left Behind.
This was done in an email message responding
to an inquiry to that office which also
administers FERPA. FPCO said:
Under the military recruiter
provisions, a school is required
to notify parents and provide
them with an opportunity to opt
out. However, because the statute
also mentions that students may opt
out, we have determined that a school
must honor a request made by a student
who took the initiative to tell a school
not to disclose his or her name, address,
& telephone number to military recruiters.
The confusion over this issue is due to
the fact that the question has only
recently been raised to us and we have
not issued any guidance on this matter
(emphasis supplied).
This is consistent with the information
we provided in materials we sent to all
Massachusetts high school principals in
late August. We urge people to make
sure that high schools are giving students
a form which would allow them to opt out
of having their directory information
given to military recruiters, as well
as notifying parents of the right to opt out.
Sarah Wunsch, Staff Attorney
ACLU of Massachusetts
211 Congress St.
Boston, MA 02110
617-482-3170, ext. 323
(fax) 617-451-0009
wunsch@aclu-mass.org
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The Pentagon has been compiling
sensitive data on 30 million
youth ages 16-to-25 using a private
marketing firm, without the
knowledge or consent of individuals
or their families. You can
opt-out of this database by
following instructions at
www.LeaveMyChildAlone.org.
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SAN FRANCISCO UNIFIED SCHOOL
DISTRICT OPT-OUT FORM is
one sentence on the school
registration form only with
no explanation of consequences
if you do not opt out and no mention
of a student's right to opt-out on their
own!
http://portal.sfusd.edu/template/default.cfm?page=policy.placement.appforms
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MASS MARCH ON WALL STREET DECEMBER 1, 2005
WE MUST TURN OUR OUTRAGE OVER KATRINA INTO A MOVEMENT
On the 50thAnniversary of Dec. 1, 1955,
the day in Montgomery Alabama that Rosa Parks
sparked the modern Civil Rights Movement -- A Call for
A NATIONWIDE STRIKE AGAINST
POVERTY, RACISM & WAR
THURSDAY, DECEMBER 1
NO SCHOOL - NO SHOPPING - NO WORK
CONTINUED PROTEST AND TEACH-INS THROUGH DECEMBER 2 AND 3
M A S S M A R C H O N W A L L S T. NYC
JUSTICE FOR THE PEOPLE OF NEW ORLEANS &THE GULF STATES
A JOB AT A LIVING WAGE IS A HUMAN RIGHT
BRING THE TROOPS HOME NOW
HEALTHCARE, HOUSING AND EDUCATION NOT WAR AND OCCUPATION
INITIATING ORGANIZATIONS: Troops Out
Now Coalition, Million Worker March
Movement, Teamsters National Black
Caucus, Michigan Emergency Committee
Against War & Injustice.
http://www.iacenter.org/archive2005/o105.htm
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Save the date: The End Police Brutality
Network Presents:
A community discussion on
Perspectives on Community Based Justice
Popular Justice, Restorative Justice and other
alternatives to the current Justice system
When
Saturday October 8, 2005 12-3 pm
Andrea Prichett, of Cop Watch and Mesha Irizarry,
of the Idriss Stelley Foundation, will lead an
interactive workshop on the community based justice
movement as it relates to the end police brutality
movement. This workshop will help community
organizations and activists identify alternatives
that can benefit the communities most plagued
with abusive policing and over incarceration.
Where
The Ella Baker Center for Human Rights
344 40th Street Oakland, CA
What
Andrea Prichett, of Cop Watch and Mesha Irizarry,
of the Idriss Stelley Foundation, will lead an
interactive workshop on the community based
justice movement as it relates to the end police
brutality movement. This workshop will help
community organizations and activists identify
alternatives that can benefit the communities most
plagued with abusive policing and over incarceration.
** PLEASE RSVP, IN YOUR RSVP PLEASE INCLUDE AN
UPDATE ON WHAT YOUR ORGANIZATION IS CURRENTLY
WORKING ON, THIS WILL BE SHARED WITH OTHER GROUPS
AT THE WORKSHOP ***
* Visit your group "Justice4Gus" on the web.
*
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The 2nd Annual George Bush Going Away Party:
An Evening of Political Comedy
Sat, Oct 15th @ 8pm
Herbst Theatre
401 Van Ness Ave @ McAllister,
San Francisco
Partial proceeds benefit CCCO's "Military Out of Our
Schools" program Featuring a multicultural variety of
political comedians from both New York and San Francisco:
-Bill Santiago (The Latino Laugh Festival; Comedy
Central's Premium Blend)
-Diane Amos (The Pine Sol Lady; film actress)
-Lisa Geduldig (Producer of Kung Pao
Kosher Comedy, Funny Girlz, Charo)
-Scott Blakeman (New Yorks premier political comic)
-Alana Devich (Semi-finalist in Comedy Centrals Laugh Riots
competition)
-Ross Turner (Veteran of several Bush Bash political
comedy shows)
-Aundre the Wonderwoman (Death penalty advocate by
day; comic by night)
Last years sold out show, on the eve of the presidential
elections, was a success but failed to send Bush back to
Crawford so we're trying again. With his approval rating
sinking to a new low of 38%, coupled with his record on
Iraq, and his slow and bungling response to Hurricane
Katrina, we figured we'd try once more to usher Bush out
and send him back home while continuing to provide needed
political comic relief to the citizens of the Bay Area.
Medical studies show that laughter IS the best medicine;
endorphins will be handed out in the aisles.
Tix: $25, $30, & $35
City Box Office: http://www.cityboxoffice.com
or (415) 392-4400
More info: http://www.koshercomedy.com
or (415) 522-3737
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Brava Theater Center and The Dance Brigade Presents:
Truthsayers: A Cultural Marathon on the Crisis in the
Gulf with Community Leaders and Art Activists
Sunday, October 2, 5-8 p.m.
Brava Theater Center
2789 24th St. (at York), S.F.
415-647-2822 or www.brava.org
A Benefit for Grassroots Katrina Hurricane Relief
Co-sponsored by the San Francisco BayView Newspapers
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Sacred Site/Shellmound Peace Walk
Sponsored by Indian People Organizing for Change
And SSP&RT
November 7-November 25, 2005
Beginning at Glen Cove in Vallejo, CA going through
the Bay Area and ending at Emeryville Shellmound
(Bay Street Mall)
Indian People Organizing for Change along with Vallejo
Intertribal/SSP&RT invite all to join in a journey
of walk and prayer to remember our ancestors that lived
on this land for thousands of years. Led by traditional
Native American leaders and Buddhist Monk's, we will
attempt to walk the areas where shellmounds and
sacred sites have been desecrated by development.
Each day we will walk to sites and pray for our
Ancestors.
For more information contact:
Corrina Gould at 510-453-9002
Or email: shellmoundwalk@yahoo.com
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September 25 2005
Dear Justice for New Americans (J4NA) supporters,
(Please forward to two other friends of yous)
Remembered in January of this year we brought you
the story of two Dallas Chinese American engineers
Freddie Kwong and Andy Yuan who were arrested because
what appeared to be a wrongful accusation of computer
sabotage by their ex-employer- after they complained
about racial discrimination at workplace. With the
early intervention of J4NA and the help of friends
and families of Freddie and Andy they were released
after a few days and the case is now going in front
of the judge on October 3rd.
To ensure their rights and due process are guaranteed
we are starting a letter writing advocacy campaign
on behalf of Freddie and Andy. Here is what you can
do to help. Attached please find a sample letter to
the US Attorney General. All you have to do is to
cut and paste into a email letter and email it to
terri.hagan@justice.usdoj.gov cc:mail@j4na.org so
we can keep track of the number of email sent.
Enclosed is an attached file you can download,
sign and fax if you wish.
"Dear Ms. Hagan,
Please allow me to introduce myself. My name is -----
I live at------My phone number is---------.
I have been following the Freddie Kwong and Andy Yuan
case and I understand that your office is currently
prosecuting this case against Freddie and Andy for
Computer Sabotage and Conspiracy.
I understand that Freddie and Andy had accused their
employer of discrimination just prior to the
allegations of computer sabotage against them by
that same employer.
I have heard that Freddie and Andy have declared that
- They are innocent in the accused Computer Sabotage
and Conspiracy;
- This prosecution is a result of their complaint
of discrimination against their employer.
From what we know, they are good honest people,
with no prior criminal history, and, for the last
three years, have used up all their meager resources
to air their claim of injustice and discrimination
against their accusers. I want to make sure that
they are afforded due process under the law.
I urge you to manage this case with the up most
care and sensitivity and look at the totality
of the situation.
Thank you very much for your attention.
Best Regards,
Please cc: J4na mailing list
J4na@justicefornewamericans.org
http://justicefornewamericans.org/mailman/listinfo/j4na
*************************************************
Between 8,000 and 12,000 people drowned in what became
known as "The Galveston Horror" when a massive hurricane
struck the city in 1900, completely without warning to
the inhabitants. Attempts of the Cuban weather service
to warn the U.S. Weather Bureau via cable messages were
ignored and the cable lines from Cuba disconnected.
This xenophobic and imperialist refusal to listen to
Cubans was unknown to me until I read the excerpt
below from the Palm Beach Post (Florida) dated
22 September, 2005:
"...The unnamed storm struck Galveston on Sept. 8,
1900, a city almost wholly unprepared for its onslaught.
Weather reports from the Havana observatory at Belen
were embargoed by the U.S. Weather Service, which
mistrusted the expertise of Cuban meteorologists.
"Despite repeated observations and bulletins by the
Havana tracking stations, no hurricane warning ever
reached the city of Galveston, primarily because the
Weather Bureau had temporarily banned the cable
transmission of Cuban weather reports (ostensibly
to prevent 'the transmission over government lines
of irresponsible weather information')," writes
Professor Raymond Arsenault of the University of
South Florida in St. Petersburg, in his Paradise
Lost: The Environmental History of Florida.
So, American forecasters believed the storm would
bounce up the eastern seaboard toward the
mid-Atlantic states.
A Cuban forecaster at the Belen station, however,
predicted it would head for Texas after crossing
the Gulf of Mexico. This is exactly what happened..."
Fifty-five years later when Cuba offered to send
a highly trained medical and rescue team to New
Orleans during Katrina the U.S. did not even
acknowledge the offer.
When I was growing up in the 1930s the Galveston
catastrophe was still very much in the consciousness
of people even in the hills of Southeastern Ohio.
My mother had carried with her a book through her
youth in California and into Ohio called "The
Galveston Horror"; full of heart-rending photos
and accounts of the massive loss of life.
Howard Keylor
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ARTICLES IN FULL:
---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*--------
1) Sharon bloodbath to win leadership of Likud
By Yossi Schwartz in Israel
Monday, 26 September 2005
In Defence of Marxism- http://www.marxist.com
2) Op-Ed Columnist
'Fire Bell' in the Night
By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF
Published: September 27, 2005
http://select.nytimes.com/2005/09/27/opinion/27kristof.html?hp
3) More Dissent, More Censorship
Dahr Jamail's Iraq Dispatches
http://dahrjamailiraq.com
September 26, 2005
4) Op-Ed Columnist
Dancing in the Dark
By MAUREEN DOWD
WASHINGTON
I can't wait to see what's next.
Dick Cheney carpooling downtown with Brownie? Rummy
Rollerblading down the bike path to the Pentagon?
Condi huddling by a Watergate fireplace in a gray cardigan?
Published: September 28, 2005
http://select.nytimes.com/2005/09/28/opinion/28dowd.html?hp
5) Immigrant Teens Subject to Aggressive Military Recruiting
BY ISABELLE HSU
---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*--------
1) Sharon bloodbath to win leadership of Likud
By Yossi Schwartz in Israel
Monday, 26 September 2005
In Defence of Marxism- http://www.marxist.com
As I write these lines on the morning of Sunday,
September 25, Israeli airplanes continue to attack
Gaza. Israel has been attacking Gaza since yesterday
afternoon causing many injuries, especially after an
attack on the al Akram school. The Israeli army has
been deployed with heavy artillery near the Gaza strip
once again and Israeli aircraft have shot missiles at
two cars in the neighbourhood of Al-Zaitun, killing
four members of Hamas earlier on Saturday morning.
Only a few days ago, Sharon had declared at the UN
that this was the end of the occupation of the Gaza
strip and that there would be "no basis to the claim
that the Gaza Strip is occupied land." According to
international law, under the Fourth Geneva Convention
(which Israel partially recognizes), the occupier is
responsible for the welfare of the occupied civilians
and must provide them with basic services such as
water, education, and health.
Sharon's actions show that in reality Israel continues
to occupy Gaza. In effect Gaza is surrounded by
Israeli military and can be bombed anytime they want.
But as they are technically not "occupying" territory
inside Gaza now they have the added advantage that
they do not have the responsibility of having to
provide the occupied civilians with even the minimum
services it was obliged to provide as a recognized
occupier.
The new vicious circle of clashes began on Friday when
Hamas held a military parade in Gaza. Thousands
watched the dozens of fighters, armed with rifles and
other weapons marching in the streets.
This happened one day after the leader of the
Palestinian Authority, Abu Mazen, had met with leaders
of the various Palestinian factions in the Strip who
agreed to stop holding military parades � an agreement
which was supposed to come into effect on Saturday.
At the demonstration on Friday a jeep carrying armed
men suddenly exploded. The explosion occurred just as
one of the main leaders of Hamas, Ismail Haniya, was
to speak before the crowd. At least 19 people died and
80 others, among them many children, were wounded.
Hamas blamed Israeli air strikes for the blast. Hamas
spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri told AFP "an Israeli drone
fired several rockets at a convoy of cars
participating in the parade, creating a large number
of martyrs and injured. This is an abominable Israeli
crime." Israel however, denied any responsibility for
the explosions.
Fatah, the faction of Mahmoud Abbas has officially
blamed Hamas for the blast. In an official statement,
Fatah declared that, "The Fatah Central Committee
holds the Hamas movement fully responsible for the
victims of the military parade (that was held) among
civilians."
Haaretz reported on Sunday that Abbas was
"dumbfounded, pained and shocked" by the casualties at
the Hamas rally. "What happened yesterday is what we
always feared would happen, and what we always warned
against," he said, referring to repeated appeals to
gunmen not to exhibit their weapons in public. "Today,
we are required more than ever to end this tragedy
that resulted from chaos and military parades in
residential areas," he said. (Haaretz, September 25,
2005)
However, during a press conference a few hours later,
Hamas officials Nizar Rian and Ahmed Randur stated
that the rockets displayed during the rally were
dummies that did not contain explosives. The two men
blasted the PA for blaming Hamas for the attacks.
Nizar Rayan then showed reporters an electronic device
that had been found in the debris with English on it
as further evidence of an Israeli attack.
Aljezeera.net reports that "Speaking to Aljazeera,
Hamas representative in Beirut Osama Hamdan said tens
of Palestinian have seen with their own eyes the
Israeli missiles falling down, and expressed dismay
over the official statements issued by the Palestinian
Authority which attributed the matter to an explosion
resulting from an 'internal error' just minutes after
the incident."
This is not the first time that Hamas has said that
Israel was behind an attack and that the PA has denied
it. Six people were killed earlier this month in Gaza
City when a Hamas weapons warehouse exploded. Hamas
blamed Israel for the attack, but Palestinian security
officials said the blast was an accident caused by
Hamas fighters themselves who had mishandled the
explosives.
It is not very difficult to understand the PA�s
motivation for contradicting Hamas. "There is
absolutely no excuse to parade weapons in the
streets," Palestinian National Security Adviser Jibril
Rajoub said on Friday (had it been the forces of the
PA parading in the streets he would have a different
point of view of course).
We cannot, of course, be sure what happened on Friday.
However, it is clear that the Israeli government is
seeking a confrontation. On Friday, Israel killed
three members of the Islamic Jihad in Tul Karem, in
the West Bank. In retaliation for both attacks,
rockets were fired on Saturday from the Gaza Strip on
the town of Sderoth in southern Israel wounding five
Israelis, in what was the biggest attack of its kind
since the Israeli withdrawal from the Gaza Strip.
Israel immediately moved its army and attacked Gaza.
This time the PA Minister of Information, Nabil
Shaath, had to admit that it was an "act of criminal
aggression". He said that Sharon's government was
trying to destroy the hudna--the temporary ceasefire
in place since February.
Israel imposed a total curfew on the West Bank and the
Gaza Strip, and promised, "to crush Hamas" after the
rocket barrage on Sderoth. On Saturday, Israeli
warplanes flew over the city emitting white smoke
causing panic among the civilian population.
Why is Israel doing this, after having made so much
noise about its "withdrawal from Gaza?" because it is
in the interests of the Israeli government to ignite
the fires of conflict once again. It is not only a
question of the internal struggle within the ruling
Likud party, between the supporters of Benjamin
Netanyahu and Sharon. Sharon knows from his long
experience that the spilling of blood can serve him
very well indeed. It can be used to convince the
Israeli population of the need for a so-called "strong
Government" and thus try and maintain the Likud in
office.
This latest round of bombings of the Gaza Strip shows
how false is the idea that the withdrawal of Israeli
troops from the area was in any way a step towards
solving the decades long dispute between Israel and
the Palestinians. While they pulled out of Gaza, they
continued to tighten their grip on the West Bank, by
continuing the building of the wall and by dividing
up the land of the Palestinian Authority into small
parcels surrounded by Israeli military.
So long as Israel remains a capitalist power,
defending its own particular interests and those of
imperialism in general, and of US imperialism in
particular, there will be no real solution to the
problems of the Palestinian people.
Last week, beyond the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, we
saw how the British army destroyed the walls of the
central jail in Basra with tanks, in order to release
two British solders that had been arrested after they
were caught dressed as Arabs and carrying explosives.
They did this without any regard for the lives of
ordinary Iraqis.
Thus we can ask the question: who are the terrorists
here? These incidents show that the imperialists know
very well that terror serves their aims. They use
terror in an attempt to cow the masses. Of course
their "terror" is presented as keeping order or
defending "democracy." When the downtrodden and
oppressed respond with violence then they are dubbed
as terrorists. They have realized that it is not a bad
idea to orchestrate such terrorist attacks, and then
use them for their own ends. It all comes in very
useful in their immense propaganda machine.
As we have said many times before the imperialists�
so-called war on terror is simply another way of
terrorising the workers, the unemployed, the urban
poor and the poor peasants around the world. It is
their way of saying, "we are the bosses, we decide
what happens anywhere in the world, and if you don't
like this we reserve the right to bomb you to pieces."
But sooner or later all this will lead to a huge
backlash on the part of the masses.
A movement will sweep across the Middle East that will
wake up the whole world. Ordinary working people
cannot live like this forever. There are stirrings in
Egypt, in Tunisia, in Morocco, in Iran and even within
Israel itself. While they bomb poor Palestinians they
are also cutting back on pensions, education, health
care and so on. It is merely a question of time before
all this comes together.
http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml
---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*--------
2) Op-Ed Columnist
'Fire Bell' in the Night
By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF
Published: September 27, 2005
http://select.nytimes.com/2005/09/27/opinion/27kristof.html?hp
The most important decision we'll make in the aftermath of
Hurricanes Katrina and Rita isn't whether to rebuild New
Orleans. It's how to tackle global warming.
Fred R. Conrad/The New York Times
Today we look back at the presidents who preceded the Civil
War, and we can't understand how they could have sat on
their hands in the face of a threat that proved so devastating
to this country. Someday, I fear, Americans are going to look
back at today's leaders and wonder the same thing.
Wait one second! You're trying to frightify Americans. ...
Mr. President! How did you get into my keyboard?
It was intelligently designed. But you're evadering - you
know hurricanes aren't about global warming.
No, Mr. President - you're the one dodging the issue. Sure,
there's no way to link any particular hurricane to global
warming. But there's loads of evidence that global warming
is already making hurricanes more intense. I don't suppose
you saw the report this month in the journal Science that
the proportion of hurricanes that are Category 4 or 5 has
almost doubled since the 1970's?
No, er, I missed that one. Laura might've read it. ...
And did you see the study published in Nature that says
hurricanes have almost doubled in intensity over the last
30 years? Or The Journal of Climate study suggesting that
global warming will triple the number of Category
5 hurricanes?
Ugh, I'm waiting for the movie. But how can we believe
these studies? Tree-huggers are always exaggificating.
A few decades ago, they talked about global cooling; now
they worry about warming. They've got less credibility
than my Pentagon.
Fair enough - many environmentalists have been far too
quick to cry wolf. But the worriers today aren't just
greens. They're scientists. They're even your buddies
in business. And no wonder - a new study of insurance
industry prospects concluded, "We are witnessing
a precipitous rise in weather-related losses in the U.S.,
and numerous projections that climate change will likely
magnify those losses in the years ahead." Why bury your
head in the sand?
Don't be impermanent. This is all unproven, and you may
be misoverestimating the danger.
A person who smokes may not get lung cancer, but that
doesn't mean it's prudent to light up. It's nuts to
ignore a threat just because it's hard to measure. We
spend about $500 billion a year on a military budget,
yet we don't want to spend peanuts to protect against
climate change, which is a greater potential threat
than any foreign military power. And uncertainty cuts
both ways: experts expect the seas will rise about
2 feet by 2100, and maybe it'll be less - but maybe
the West Antarctic Ice Sheet will melt and raise the
sea level by 20 feet.
Look, the threat is pretty mushy, and the cost of
cutting that carbon would be huge. You volunteering
to pay a higher gas tax? To lose your job if the
economy takes a hit?
I used to be suspicious of the Kyoto accord because
economic models suggested that it might cost hundreds
of billions of dollars to curb greenhouse gas emissions.
But it's increasingly clear that there are initial
steps we can take to reduce carbon emissions that
are very cheap - like encouraging mass transit,
hybrid vehicles, better insulation and energy-efficient
light bulbs. One study indicated we could reduce global
emissions by one-third for just one-tenth of 1 percent
of worldwide G.N.P. That's why mayors and governors are
willing to take the lead on this issue, while Washington
twiddles its thumbs. Under Bill Richardson, New Mexico
just became the first state to join the Chicago Climate
Exchange, and committed itself to reduce the state
government's greenhouse gas emissions by 4 percent
by 2006. There's a leader!
I don't appreciate your insinufications - you really
irrigate me. What's it to you, anyway? Shouldn't you
be hollering about Darfur or someplace else in Asia?
Mr. President, I've just returned from Louisiana and
Mississippi, and I was frankly blown away by what
I saw. The old beachfront homes, they're gone. There
isn't even rubble left, just empty lots where everything
got dragged out to sea. If this hurricane season doesn't
wake us up to the dangers ahead, nothing will.
In 1820, Thomas Jefferson described the extension of
slavery in the Missouri Compromise as "a fire bell in
the night" and a mortal threat to the Union, but
a series of ineffective presidents refused to listen
or respond as we drifted toward catastrophe. Now,
Mr. President, these hurricanes constitute another
fire bell in the night, calling on us to act on
global warming - before it's too late.
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3) More Dissent, More Censorship
Dahr Jamail's Iraq Dispatches
\http://dahrjamailiraq.com
September 26, 2005
A quarter of a million people
jammed the streets of the capital this
past weekend, as Mr. Bush conveniently
found himself visiting the US
Northern Command's HQ in Colorado Springs.
While veterans from the current
debacle in Iraq and scores of military
families who oppose the Bush Junta
joined the throngs of protestors in
Washington DC to express their dissent,
there were other goings-on
related to Iraq while Bush had his photo-op in Colorado.
A contractor I know working in
Iraq wrote me recently. He gives me
periodic updates about how life
is on the base where he works in support
of the military. He wrote:
"Another convoy hit hard-3 drivers
killed and many others wounded- I
don't know if it's my friends yet.
They don't like to advertise these
kinds of things much around here
because they cause the exit planes to
fill up - the only problem is, there
are more plane loads waiting in
Houston [to come here]. The gullible
waiting for their chance at the
tarnished brass ring. [Me and my
friends] agree this countries' policies
of oil have led us down the path of Armageddon."
At least 1,917 US soldiers have
died in Iraq now, 16 just in the last
week. At least 10 times that number
have been wounded for life, both
physically and psychologically.
Thus, it shouldn't come as a surprise
that so many people marched in the
capital this weekend, nor that so
many of them are veterans and family
members who have simply had enough
of this. The people I spoke with at
the demonstration expressed feelings
of anger and impatience towards
this so-called administration.
So it shouldn't have been a surprise,
either, to have seen a sign in the
demo with a little pretzel drawn on
it which read, "Give the pretzel
another chance!"
The recent news of a few brave
soldiers from the 82nd Airborne speaking
out (on condition of anonymity in
a Human Rights Watch report) about how
they "vented their frustration by
systematically torturing Iraqi
detainees from 2003 into 2004,
hitting them with baseball bats and
dousing them with chemicals" may
have shocked some people here in the
US. However, it isn't news to soldiers
in Iraq, of course, or for Iraqis
for that matter.
A soldier currently in Iraq who works
as a medic wrote me a few days ago:
"I do sick-call for the detainees.
Right now, I think they have
mechanics guarding the detainees.
I've talked to them a couple of times
and they've made comments like "if
they were detained, they are probably
bad..." A couple of times I've
pointed out that: 1) they might very well
be innocent and 2) that they are
still human. The guards seemed to
really acknowledge that. But it's
almost like everyone knows the emperor
is naked, but are trying to cling
to the idea that he is wearing new
clothes. When someone points out
that he might be naked, it gives them
the freedom to acknowledge that
as well. The real travesty, I think, is
the American people. With no exposure
to Iraqis, all they see on the
news is that we are killing the bad
guys, and they don't see the refugee
camps, or how we trash cities (collateral
damage seems a nice phrase,
because it's not their homes which
are being destroyed. Not the sons and
daughters of their friends who are
being killed.) They don't see the
casual way most soldiers feel about
destroying property. All they see is
what they are told, and unless it's
stamped with a corporations seal, it
lacks legitimacy in their eyes and
it gets relegated to an "extremist
position.""
My friends' opinion of the misleading
of the American people by the
corporate media about the horrific
reality in Iraq applies in other
countries as well. Bush Administration
pressure on the media is not
limited to within the US.
In a previous weblog,
http://dahrjamailiraq.com/weblog/archives/dispatches/000256.php
I wrote about how a newspaper in Turkey
had been pressured by the US
Embassy to run fewer news stories
about Iraq from journalists like
myself, Robert Fisk and Naomi Klein.
Last night, here in DC, I spoke with
Stelios Kouloglou, a journalist
with Hellenic Broadcasting Corporation
in Greece. His program on the
public television station has won several
awards for investigative
journalism and remains extremely popular in his country.
On the one year anniversary of the fall
of Baghdad, April of 2004, his
station broadcast a documentary he
produced entitled, "25 Lies to Sell
the War," a title which needs no
explanation to anyone who is not fully
encapsulated in denial.
"I found out through a leak that the US
embassy in Greece was applying
political pressure to our government
in order for them to pressure my
television station for running my
documentary," he told me at his hotel.
"It became clear, after your election
in '04 when Bush stayed in office,
that his administration became much
more aggressive," he explained. "The
US embassy began asking for our program
to be discontinued. They were
telling this not just to our program
spokesperson, but directly to our
government! Their protest took a much
more official character, and they
did not even attempt to conceal this."
Being a journalist for 25 years and
having covered the war in Yugoslavia
as well as having worked in Moscow
during Perestroika, he said this type
of overt political pressure to be a first for him.
"I've never experienced political
pressure like this, not even in Russia
when I was being critical of Gorbachev,
nor in Yugoslavia when I was
being extremely critical of Milosevic," he added.
More recently and a bit closer to home
here in the US, Doug Ireland writes:
"The internationally renowned
correspondent for The Independent - the
great British journalist [and citizen]
Robert Fisk - has been banned
from entering the United States.
Fisk has been covering war zones for
decades, but is above all known for
his incisive reporting from the
Middle East for more than 20 years.
His critical coverage of the
Anglo-American invasion of Iraq,
and the continuing occupation that has
followed it, has repeatedly exposed
US and British government
disinformation campaigns. He also has
exposed how the bulk of the press
reports from Iraq have been "hotel
journalism" - a phrase Fisk coined."
He continues:
"The daily New Mexican reports that
"U.S. immigration officials refused
Tuesday [20 September] to allow Robert
Fisk, longtime Middle East
correspondent for the London newspaper,
The Independent, to board a
plane from Toronto to Denver. Fisk was
on his way to Santa Fe for a
sold-out appearance in the Lannan Foundation's
readings-and-conversations series on
Wednesday night. According to
Christie Mazuera Davis, a Lannan
program officer, Fisk was told that his
papers were not in order. Davis made
last-minute arrangements Wednesday
for Amy Goodman, host of Pacifica
Radios daily news show, Democracy
Now!, to interview Fisk via satellite
from a television station in
Toronto..." A recording of this
satellite interview will soon be
available on the Lannan Foundation's website."
As we prepared to leave his hotel
last night, my colleague Stelios
Kouloglou half-jokingly offered,
"You can come visit Greece anytime,
whether for vacation or for political asylum."
I only half-laughed as I shook his hand.
More writing, photos and commentary at
http://dahrjamailiraq.com
http://dahrjamailiraq.com/email_list/
Iraq_Dispatches mailing list
http://lists.dahrjamailiraq.com/mailman/listinfo/iraq_dispatches
---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*--------
4) Op-Ed Columnist
Dancing in the Dark
By MAUREEN DOWD
WASHINGTON
I can't wait to see what's next.
Dick Cheney carpooling downtown with Brownie? Rummy
Rollerblading down the bike path to the Pentagon?
Condi huddling by a Watergate fireplace in a gray cardigan?
Published: September 28, 2005
http://select.nytimes.com/2005/09/28/opinion/28dowd.html?hp
Maybe now that our hydrocarbon president is the conservation
president, he'll downgrade from Air Force One to a solar-powered
Piper Cub as he continues to stalk the Gulf Coast towns and oil
rigs like Banquo's ghost.
The once disciplined and swaggering Bush administration has
descended into slapstick, more comical even than having
Clarence Thomas et al. sit in judgment as Anna Nicole Smith
attempts to get more of the moolah of her late oil tycoon husband.
We've got the clownish Brownie still on FEMA's payroll, giving
advice on cleaning up the mess he made. ( Let's hope the White
House is paying him only long enough to buy his good will, not
to take any of his bad advice.)
We've got two oilmen in the White House whose administration
was built on urging us to consume and buy as much oil and
energy as possible. Now they're suddenly urging us to conserve.
(Since Mr. Cheney considers conservation a "personal virtue,"
at least he'll get some virtue.)
The president called on Americans to drive less, and told his
staff members to turn off their computers at night, turn down
the air-conditioning, form carpools and take the bus.
At the same time, he set a fine example by wasting gazillions
of gallons of fuel with all the planes and Secret Service vans
and press motorcades and police escorts that follow him around
every time he goes on one of his inane photo-ops from the
Colorado bunker to what's left of the Mississippi Delta and
the Bayou. He did his part by knocking off a few cars from
his motorcade on his seventh trip to the gulf yesterday �
but if residents had hoped he'd bring them some water, they
went thirsty.
"Even so," as The Times's Elisabeth Bumiller wrote, "security
dictated that Mr. Bush's still-impressive caravan pick him up
at the base of Air Force One in Lake Charles, La. - and drop
him off just yards away for a meeting with local officials
at an airport terminal."
Noting that the Bush administration has proposed new fuel
economy standards that critics say could make huge S.U.V.'s
and pickups even more popular, Reuters published some
arithmetic about the president's notorious fuel inefficiency.
Air Force One costs $83,200 to fill up and more than $6,000
per hour to fly. Then there's the cost of helicopters and
a 2006 Cadillac DTS limo that gets less than 22 miles per
gallon.
Karen Hughes, the Bush nanny who knows nothing about the
Muslim world and yet is charged with selling the U.S. to
it, wasted even more fuel this week flying to Saudi Arabia
to tell women covered from head to toe in black how much
she likes driving even though they can't.
She knows so little about the Middle East that she looked
taken aback when some Saudi women told her that just
because they could not vote or drive did not mean that
they felt they were treated unfairly.
One thing Saudi women like even less than not having
certain rights is to have hypocritical Americans
patronize them.
The moment when America should have used its influence
to help Saudi women came on Nov. 6, 1990, as U.S. forces
gathered in the kingdom to go to war in Iraq the first
time. Inspired by the U.S. troops, including female
soldiers, 47 women from the Saudi intelligentsia took
the wheels from their brothers and husbands and drove
until the police stopped them.
They were branded "whores" and "harlots" by Saudi clerics,
had their passports revoked, and were ostracized from
society for a dozen years. Even their husbands suffered.
The experience made them more angry at the U.S. than at
their own rulers. They feel that the Bushes play up the
repression of women in the Middle East when it suits
their desire to bang the war drums, but do not care what
happens to women once the ideological agenda has been
achieved.
They feel the administration and the American media have
emphasized the repression of Saudi women post-9/11 as
a way to demonize Saudi Arabia and paint Saudi men as
bullies and terrorists.
When Ms. Hughes goes to Saudi Arabia to introduce herself
as "a mom" and to talk about Americans as people of faith,
guzzling fuel all the way in a country getting flush
selling us oil, I think we can consider it taxpayer
money well spent.
W. doesn't really need to worry about turning down the
lights in the White House. The place is already totally
in the dark.
---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*--------
5) Immigrant Teens Subject to Aggressive Military Recruiting
BY ISABELLE HSU
At the pivotal time of graduating from high school, a military
recruiter showered a Chinese high school student with friendship
and promises of a speedy citizenship application. In two weeks,
Wong Ken Moon, a high school student from Encinal High School
in Alameda, California, signed a contract for at least eight
years with the U.S. Marines.
Two months after signing the contract, Wong regretted his
decision and wanted to back out of the contract on August 12.
But he did not even know what type of contract he had signed
or how to withdraw from it.
Wong is among the thousands of high school students targeted
by campus military recruiters. Recruiters are using visa help
to attract immigrant high school students, who are sometimes
unaware of the obligations of the contract and how they can
pull out of the contract if they change their minds.
Two weeks before graduation, with no definite future plans
in mind, Wong met a young female Marine and agreed to be
contacted by the Marine recruiter. Newton Dodson, a Marine
recruiter based in San Leandro, met with Wong at the
beginning of June. Just ten days after Dodson's first
meeting with Wong, he renewed Wong's expired green card
and promised him a speedy U.S. citizenship application.
The military offers non-immigrants expedited processing
of visas, says Marti Hiken, co-chair of Military Law Task
Force. The process can be as short as three years,
compared to the normal five-year waiting period.
According to the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration
Services, 2004 legislation also allows members of the
military to apply for naturalization for free.
Dodson told Wong he would receive $3000 when he reported
for boot camp, and a pay raise every six months "because
the government won't go bankrupt." Wong's most pressing
concern-how he would pay for college-was relieved when
Dodson told him that he could go to college for free and
serve at the same time. The chance of actually going to
war, Dodson told Wong, was about 11 percent.
Dodson says that he does not remember if he told Wong
that he could speed up the citizenship process. When
asked about the chances of going to battle, he told the
World Journal that everyone has a probability to go to war.
Wong was even more convinced that he should join the
Marines when Dodson came to his high school graduation.
His parents could not attend the graduation because they
had to work that day.
Dodson even brought Wong to meet other young people
who wanted to join the Marines. They listen to enlisted
Marines telling cool war stories.
But when Wong signed the contract on June 11, Dodson was
not with him. Under the prodding of officials at the
Marines office, Wong signed what he thought was a five-year
contract. Dodson told the World Journal that the contract
that Wong signed includes four years of active duty and
four years of reserve duty. In a national emergency, he
says that Wong can be on duty indefinitely. Wong says
the Marines office did not give him a copy of the contract.
Although Wong's parents were aware of his plans to enlist,
they decided to let him make his own decisions. Dodson
brought a Cantonese-speaking Marine representative to
meet Wong's parents and to welcome him to the Marines.
In July, after much consideration, Wong decided he wanted
to withdraw from his contract. He decided that he was
against the war, and that the military is not his only
option. At an anti-war protest, he met Aimee Allison,
a specialist who helps enlisted people withdraw from their
contracts. Allison, a former G.I and a Gulf War resister,
told him that as long as he had not reported to boot camp,
he could legally pull out of his contract. She said there
would be no negative impact on his career or citizenship
application process and that the "no report, no enlist"
policy applies to citizens and non-citizens.
Although it is optional, Wong sent a letter-certified mail
- to the recruiting office to say that he had changed his mind.
Dodson says that every recruiter goes through recruiting
training and is required to recruit at least two people every
month. In the two years that he has been a recruiter, Wong
is the second person to withdraw from his contract.
The military recruiting handbook suggests recruiters provide
donuts and coffee for school staff, request to be a timekeeper
at football games, and gain an "indispensable role in the
school." They are encouraged to seek out "student influencers"
-students who stand out among their peers, and talk to them
in front of other students.
Various military branches say that they do not target
specific races in recruiting. The number of minorities
has decreased in the military. According to Army records,
minorities make up of 31 percent of the enlisted now,
down from 37 percent five years ago. But the number of
Asians has steadily increased from 2.6 percent in 2001
to 3 percent in 2005.
Wong says he changed his mind because he had been against
the war in Iraq because the United Nations had been against
American involvement from the beginning. He says he is for
peace, so he does not want to participate in the military.
Life is too big of a question, Wong says, and he signed the
contract too quickly. After he sent the certified letter
to the recruiters, he registered for classes at a community
college, hoping that in a short time, he can transfer to
U.C. Berkeley. The Marine training camp in San Diego isn't
the next step in his life, he says.
World Journal, News Feature, by Isabelle Hsu. Translated
and compiled by Eugenia Chien, August 31, 2005
Isabelle@chinesenews.com
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LINKS:
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No Venezuela, Cuba return for Cuban exile: judge
Tue Sep 27, 2005 08:44 PM ET
By Aracely Lazcano
EL PASO, Texas (Reuters) - A U.S. judge has ruled that
anti-Castro Cuban exile Luis Posada Carriles may not be
deported to Cuba or Venezuela in a case that has raised
questions about the Bush administration's "war on terrorism."
http://go.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=topNews&storyID=9772311&src=eDialog/GetContent
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Editorial
Cronies at the Till
Published: September 27, 2005
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/27/opinion/27tue1.html?hp
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Tearful Lynndie England gets 3 years in prison
Tue Sep 27, 2005 09:27 PM ET
http://go.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=topNews&storyID=9772585&src=eDialog/GetContent
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Army Investigates Photos
of Iraqi War Dead on Web
By THOM SHANKER
Published: September 28, 2005
WASHINGTON, Sept. 27 - The Army has opened an investigation
into whether American troops have sent gruesome photographs
of Iraqi war dead to an Internet site where the soldiers
were given free access to online pornography, Army officials
said Tuesday.
Some photographs on the Internet site show people in
American military uniforms standing around what appear
to be dead bodies. Other photos include graphic images
of severed body parts and what appear to be internal
organs spilling from bodies onto the ground.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/28/international/middleeast/28site.html
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Former FEMA Director Admits Errors in Response Effort
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: September 27, 2005
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Katrina-Brown.html?hp&ex=1127880000&en=51e66a3f71899c10&ei=5094&partner=homepage
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Storm Victims May Face Curbs On Bankruptcy
By MARY WILLIAMS WALSH
and RIVA D. ATLAS
Published: September 27, 2005
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/27/business/27bankrupt.html?hp&ex=1127880000&en=59682518c87426f9&ei=5094&partner=homepage
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England to Be Sentenced for Detainee Abuse
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: September 27, 2005
Filed at 10:40 a.m. ET
FORT HOOD, Texas (AP) -- Lynndie England's case moves to
the sentencing phase today. She was convicted yesterday
of taking part in abusing detainees at Abu Ghraib prison
in Iraq . She faces up to nine years in prison.
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Prisoner-Abuse-England.html?hp&ex=1127880000&en=e9ec322835bbf580&ei=5094&partner=homepage
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New Home Sales and Consumer Confidence Decline
By VIKAS BAJAJ
Published: September 27, 2005
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/27/business/27cnd-econ.html
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To Conserve Gas, President Calls for Less Driving
By DAVID LEONHARDT, JAD MOUAWAD and DAVID E. SANGER
Published: September 27, 2005
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/27/business/27econ-new.html
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Gulf Currents That Turn Storms Into Monsters
By ANDREW C. REVKIN
Published: September 27, 2005
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/27/science/earth/27loop.html
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Evolution Lawsuit Opens in Pennsylvania
By LAURIE GOODSTEIN
Published: September 27, 2005
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/27/education/27evolution.html
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Bail set for Lodi father in terror case,
but release delayed
DON THOMPSON
Associated Press
Posted on Tue, Sep. 27, 2005
http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/12748523.htm
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FEMA Plans to Reimburse Faith Groups for Aid
As Civil Libertarians Object, Religious
Organizations Weigh Whether to Apply
By Alan Cooperman and Elizabeth Williamson
Washington Post Staff Writers
Tuesday, September 27, 2005; Page A01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/09/26/AR2005092601799.html
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Rita's Evacuees Urged to Stay Away
Services Scarce; Five Die Using Generator Indoors
By Doug Struck
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, September 27, 2005; Page A01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/09/26/AR2005092601800.html?referrer=email&referrer=email
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The True Story of How Multinational
Drug Companies Took Liberties
with African Lives
The pharmaceutical industry is bracing itself for criticism
when the film 'The Constant Gardener' opens next month. But
Jeremy Laurance reports that away from the Hollywood script
is a true story of how multinational drug companies took
liberties with African lives with devastating consequences.
Published on Monday, September 26, 2005 by The Independent / UK
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines05/0926-01.htm
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DeLay Is Indicted in Texas
Campaign Finance Probe
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: September 28, 2005
Filed at 12:54 p.m. ET
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-DeLay-Investigation.html?hp&ex=1127966400&en=2cf6902ed6f45124&ei=5094&partner=homepage
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Nightmare for African Women:
Birthing Injury and Little Help
By SHARON LaFRANIERE
Published: September 28, 2005
Mostly teenagers who tried to deliver their first child at
home, the girls failed at labor. Their babies were lodged
in their narrow birth canals, and the resulting pressure
cut off blood to vital tissues and ripped holes in their
bowels or urethras, or both.
Two years of global fundraising by the United Nations
Population Fund, an agency devoted in part to improving
women's health, has netted only $11 million for the problem.
Dr. Waaldijk remembers one patient well. She managed to push
out only her baby's head before collapsing from exhaustion
in her hut, he said. Her brother carried her, balanced on
a donkey, to a road, where a bus driver demanded 10 times
the usual fare to take her to a hospital. She half-stood,
half-sat for the trip, her dead baby's head between her
legs, her urethra ripped open.
"This is what is happening," the doctor said. "Nobody
will believe it." The fistulas point to the broader plight
of millions of African women: poverty; early marriage;
maternal deaths; a lack of rights, independence and
education; a generally low standing. One in 18 Nigerian
women dies during childbirth, compared with one in 2,400
in Europe, the Population Fund says. A larger share of
African women die in childbirth than anywhere else in
the world.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/28/international/africa/28africa.html
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Israeli Military Launches
Strikes on Targets in Gaza Strip
By THE NEW YORK TIMES
Published: September 28, 2005
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/28/international/middleeast/28cnd-mideast.html
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F.D.A. Chief Quit Over Financial
Disclosure Form,
His Wife's Brother Says
By STEPHANIE SAUL and ROBERT PEAR
Published: September 28, 2005
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/28/politics/28fda.html
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Legendary Monster of the
Deep Is Captured on Film
By WILLIAM J. BROAD
Published: September 28, 2005
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/28/science/28squid.html
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On Education
The Achievement Gap in Elite Schools
By SAMUEL G. FREEDMAN
Published: September 28, 2005
PRINCETON, N.J.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/28/nyregion/28education.html?pagewanted=1
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AP: Report Warned of Hurricane Health Woes
AP Photo LARIC105
By CHERYL WITTENAUER
Associated Press Writer
http://cnn.netscape.cnn.com/news/story.jsp?idq=/ff/story/0001%2F20050926%2F1847991920.htm&sc=1110&ewp=ewp_news_0905rita_aftermath&floc=NW_1-T
The executive summary of the report obtained by
AP can be viewed at
http://wid.ap.org/documents/dhsmedical.pdf
Homeland Security Department: http://www.dhs.gov
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Calls Mount for Prisoner Abuse Commission
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines05/0927-04.htm
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St. Patrick's Four Found Innocent of Conspiracy
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines05/0927-05.htm
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US Troop Deaths Take Afghan Toll This Year Above 50
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines05/0927-01.htm
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Parents Challenge US 'Intelligent Design' Teaching
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines05/0927-02.htm
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Can the US Military Presence Avert Civil War?
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines05/0927-03.htm
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Sinister Events
In A Cynical War
BY JOHN PILGER
ZNet | Iraq
September 27, 2005
http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=15&ItemID=8827
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Global Warming: Death in the Deep-Freeze
by Kate Ravilious
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines05/0928-02.htm
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Left to Die in a New Orleans Prison
By Amy Goodman, Democracy Now!
Posted on September 28, 2005, Printed on September 28, 2005
http://www.alternet.org/story/26073/
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