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    Thursday, September 23, 2004
     

    BAUAW BREAKING NEWS-PEPPER SPRAY TRIAL-CORPORATE PROFITS UP

    1) Pepper-Spray Case Goes to Jury in California
    By CAROLYN MARSHALL
    SAN FRANCISCO, Sept. 21
    http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/22/national/22pepper.html

    2) Study Finds Accelerating
    Drop in Corporate Taxes
    By LYNNLEY BROWNING
    September 23, 2004
    http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/23/business/23income.html

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

    1) Pepper-Spray Case Goes to Jury in California
    By CAROLYN MARSHALL
    SAN FRANCISCO, Sept. 21
    http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/22/national/22pepper.html

    SAN FRANCISCO, Sept. 21 - Maya Portugal says the majestic redwood
    trees of Northern California changed her forever. Her love for the
    sweeping forest canopies and lush old-growth groves has taken her
    from child explorer to teenage protester to adult plaintiff in a seven-
    year legal battle between the law enforcement officials of rural
    Humboldt County and environmentalists opposed to logging the
    redwoods.

    "I grew up in the woods," she said. "Driving through Humboldt now
    you can see all the clear-cuts. I wanted to do something so my kids
    wouldn't have to see what I saw."

    That is how Ms. Portugal, 22, explained to jurors in federal court
    here what moved her, at the age of 16, to join protests against
    logging of the trees. She is one of eight anti-logging activists,
    known to their colleagues as the Pepper Spray 8, who are the
    plaintiffs in a lawsuit against the City of Eureka and Humboldt
    County authorities.

    The lawsuit, sent to the jury in United States District Court for
    Northern California on Tuesday, asserts that a county policy that
    allows the authorities to smear pepper spray ointment on the eyes
    of protesters constitutes an unnecessary and excessive use of force,
    tantamount to torture.

    The lawsuit stems from three incidents in 1997 when pepper spray
    was daubed in the eyes of Ms. Portugal and at least seven others
    after they refused to heed police orders to disperse. Closing
    arguments in the trial were presented Tuesday. Judge Susan
    Illston instructed the eight jurors that a unanimous verdict was
    necessary to find for the protesters, who seek unspecified damages.

    "It burned really bad," Ms. Portugal testified last week. "I felt scared.
    I felt like I was being violated. I felt like the cops were out of control."

    The Humboldt authorities testified Monday that pepper spray was
    considered the safest way to make the arrests. The question of
    whether the police used unreasonable force in violation of the
    Fourth Amendment is at the heart of the trial.

    The three incidents attracted attention far beyond Humboldt
    in part because television news programs broadcast the protests,
    including images of sheriff's deputies daubing the eyes of passive
    protesters with cotton swabs soaked with pepper spray.

    Since then the incidents have been the subject of numerous
    lawsuits resulting in a jury deadlock, a mistrial, a series of
    appellate court procedures, the removal of a judge and a United
    States Supreme Court ruling remanding the case to the United
    States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, instructing it to
    consider whether the sheriffs were immune from suit. The Ninth
    Circuit said the sheriffs had no immunity and ordered the new
    trial, now under way.

    Lawyers for the protesters include J. Tony Serra, who has
    characterized the case as "a political trial." Mr. Serra and the
    others argue that the police acted maliciously, using unreasonable
    force to intentionally inflict pain, frighten the protesters and silence
    the anti-logging movement. "When people are nonviolent they
    do not deserve to be treated like wild beasts," he said in closing.

    In testimony last week, protesters told the jury that the chemical
    caused searing eye pain, gagging, dizziness, hyperventilation and
    headaches that in some cases lasted days. To this day, protesters
    said, they fear the police and suffer aftereffects, including impaired
    vision and recurring growths on their eyelids.

    But lawyers for the defendants - Humboldt County, the City of
    Eureka and local law enforcement officials - argued that the use
    of pepper spray came in response to "organized lawlessness" by
    protesters, including the group Earth First, which helped arrange
    sit-ins and rallies.

    The demonstrators were directing their efforts at the Pacific Lumber
    Company and the Texas investor Charles E. Hurwitz, chief executive
    of Pacific Lumber's parent company, Maxxam, and their negotiations
    with the state and federal governments that resulted in the so-
    called Headwaters deal. It was created to preserve 10,000 acres
    of redwoods but upset many environmentalists who felt it did not
    go far enough.

    Nancy Delaney, a Eureka lawyer representing the defendants, said,
    "We believe the use of force was reasonable and the safest way for
    officers to discharge their lawful duty."

    Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company

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

    2) Study Finds Accelerating
    Drop in Corporate Taxes
    By LYNNLEY BROWNING
    September 23, 2004
    http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/23/business/23income.html

    America's largest and most profitable companies paid less in
    corporate income taxes in the last three years, even as they
    increased profits, according to a study released yesterday.

    Companies have always used write-offs, depreciation, deductions
    and loopholes to lower their taxes, but the study, by Citizens for
    Tax Justice and its affiliate, the Institute on Taxation and Economic
    Policy, suggested that tax breaks and subsidies enacted during the
    Bush administration had accelerated the decline in tax payments.

    The study also cited the proliferation of abusive tax shelters and
    increasingly aggressive corporate lobbying as fueling the decline in
    tax payments by corporations.

    The study was done by nonprofit research and advocacy groups that
    have been supported in part by labor unions. They contend that the
    tax system favors wealthy corporations and individuals.

    The study, Corporate Income Taxes in the Bush Years, surveyed
    public filings by 275 of the nation's largest and most profitable
    companies, based on revenue from the Fortune 500 list of 2004.
    The 275 companies reported pretax profits from operations in
    the United States of $1.1 trillion from 2001 through 2003, the
    study said, yet reported to the Internal Revenue Service and paid
    taxes on half that amount.

    Robert S. McIntyre, the lead author of the study, wrote, "The fact
    that America's companies were allowed to report less than half of
    their actual U.S. profits to the I.R.S., while ordinary wage earners
    have to report every penny of their earnings, has to undermine
    public respect for the tax system."

    The 275 companies surveyed include nearly all of the 2004
    Fortune 500 companies that were profitable from 2001
    through 2003. The list excluded those that reported losses
    in any year, including General Motors and Ford ; certain
    companies whose finances were considered too opaque to
    ; and about 25 companies to maintain a balance.

    The study cited, among other things, tax breaks enacted in
    2002 and 2003 as prompting the decline in corporate payments.
    Such tax breaks, as used by the 275 companies, totaled more than
    $175 billion over the last three years, including $71 billion last year,
    up from $43.4 billion in 2001. That compares, roughly, with $98
    billion in tax breaks for the top 250 profitable companies over 1996
    through 1998, according to a similar study by Citizens for Tax
    Justice in 2000.

    Not all experts agreed with the study's findings. William W. Beach,
    a tax policy expert at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative
    research group in Washington, said that even though the study
    surveyed the top 275 companies, he did not find it "typical of
    corporate America," adding that smaller and midsize businesses
    were "paying a lot in taxes."

    According to the study, some 28 corporations paid no taxes
    from 2001 to 2003, despite having profits in the period of nearly
    $45 billion.

    Industry sectors that paid the lowest taxes or no taxes included
    aerospace and military, telecommunications, transportation, and
    industrial and farm equipment.

    The 2000 study found that from 1996 to 1998, 11 of the 250
    largest and most profitable companies paid no taxes, even though
    all reported profits. The earlier study found that the 250 companies
    showed a 23.5 percent increase in pretax profit, while the tax
    payments rose 7.7 percent.

    The current study seemed to echo government data. Commerce
    Department figures showed that pretax corporate profit rose 26
    percent from 2001 to 2003 but that corporate tax payments fell
    21 percent.

    Corporate taxes as a share of the national economy are at their
    lowest sustained level since World War II, the study said, and
    financed only 6 percent of government expenses in the last
    two fiscal years.

    The current study found that nearly one in three companies, or
    82, of the 275 examined paid no federal income tax in at least
    one year from 2001 to 2003, the period covered by the study.
    In the period, 82 companies had pretax profit of $102 billion.

    Last year, 46 of the 275 companies surveyed paid no federal
    income tax, up from 42 companies in 2002 and 33 in 2001,
    according to the study. Over all, the number of companies that
    paid no taxes increased 40 percent during the period.

    The current study attributed lower corporate payments in part to
    legislation supported by President Bush and enacted by Congress
    in 2002 that increased accelerated depreciation, an accounting
    move that allows profitable companies to write off capital
    investments and claim tax deferrals. Accelerated depreciation
    was intended in part to encourage capital investment, but the
    study argued that it had done the opposite. Capital investment
    by corporations dropped 12 percent in 2002 and 3 percent in
    2003, the years when Congress enacted the new accelerated
    depreciation rules.

    As a result, Mr. McIntyre concluded, "the $175 billion in revenues
    lost to the 2002- and 2003-enacted tax breaks appears to have
    been exceedingly poorly spent."

    Mr. Beach disagreed, saying that rates of capital investment were
    at historic highs. "We're seeing an investment surge that's so
    strong that you have to go back to the 1960's before you see a
    comparable one."

    Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company


     

    BAUAW NEWSLETTER, THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 23, 2004


    VOTE YES ON PROP. 'N'! BRING OUR TROOPS HOME NOW!

    Come to the
    BRING OUR TROOPS HOME NOW COMMITTEE MEETING
    THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 30, 7:00 p.m.
    AFSC - First Floor
    65 NINTH STREET
    (1/2 block from Market St., SF)

    Help get the word out about Prop. 'N'. Bring your ideas for
    community outreach, media, action, and more to make sure
    we win by a landslide!

    No matter who wins the elections this year, the war will not
    be over. This ballot initiative will set the example for cities across
    the country to do the same in future elections.

    Pick up material to distribute!*

    PROPOSITION 'N' ON THE NOVEMBER 3
    SAN FRANCISCO BALLOT DECLARES:

    "It is the policy of the people of the City and County of
    San Francisco that: The Federal government should take
    immediate steps to end the U.S. occupation of Iraq and
    bring our troops safely home now."

    Visit: www.yesonn.net

    * Material costs money. Already thousands of brochures have
    been printed and we need more! We need posters and buttons--
    we need to cover the city with YES on 'N' campaign material!

    Please send a contribution to help with these costs!
    Make your check payable to:

    Bring Our Troops Home Now

    and mail to :

    David Looman, Treasurer
    325 Highland Ave.
    San Francisco, CA 94110

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

    1) The spoils of another war
    Five years after Nato's attack on Yugoslavia,
    its administration in Kosovo is pushing through
    mass privatisation
    Neil Clark
    Tuesday September 21, 2004
    The Guardian - Comment
    http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,1309037,00.html

    2) Forgotten Casualties
    By Lynn Harris
    Salon.com
    Wednesday 22 September 2004
    http://www.salon.com/mwt/feature/2004/09/22/ptsd/index_np.html
    http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/092304A.shtml
    Mentally scarred by the horrors they've endured in Iraq,
    many returning U.S. soldiers say the military isn't giving
    them the help they deserve.

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

    1) The spoils of another war
    Five years after Nato's attack on Yugoslavia,
    its administration in Kosovo is pushing through
    mass privatisation
    Neil Clark
    Tuesday September 21, 2004
    The Guardian - Comment
    http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,1309037,00.html

    'Wars, conflict - it's all business," sighs Monsieur Verdoux in Charlie
    Chaplin's 1947 film of the same name. Many will not need to be
    convinced of the link between US corporations now busily helping
    themselves to Iraqi state assets and the military machine that prised
    Iraq open for global business. But what is less widely known is that a
    similar process is already well under way in a part of the world where
    B52s were not so long ago dropping bombs in another "liberation"
    mission.

    The trigger for the US-led bombing of Yugoslavia in 1999 was,
    according to the standard western version of history, the failure
    of the Serbian delegation to sign up to the Rambouillet peace
    agreement. But that holds little more water than the tale that has
    Iraq responsible for last year's invasion by not cooperating with
    weapons inspectors.

    The secret annexe B of the Rambouillet accord - which provided
    for the military occupation of the whole of Yugoslavia - was, as
    the Foreign Office minister Lord Gilbert later conceded to the
    defence select committee, deliberately inserted to provoke
    rejection by Belgrade.

    But equally revealing about the west's wider motives is chapter
    four, which dealt exclusively with the Kosovan economy. Article I
    (1) called for a "free-market economy", and article II (1) for
    privatisation of all government-owned assets. At the time, the
    rump Yugoslavia - then not a member of the IMF, the World Bank,
    the WTO or European Bank for Reconstruction and Development -
    was the last economy in central-southern Europe to be uncolonised
    by western capital. "Socially owned enterprises", the form of worker
    self-management pioneered under Tito, still predominated.

    Yugoslavia had publicly owned petroleum, mining, car and
    tobacco industries, and 75% of industry was state or socially
    owned. In 1997, a privatisation law had stipulated that in sell-offs,
    at least 60% of shares had to be allocated to a company's workers.

    The high priests of neo-liberalism were not happy. At the Davos
    summit early in 1999, Tony Blair berated Belgrade, not for its
    handling of Kosovo, but for its failure to embark on a programme
    of "economic reform" - new-world-order speak for selling state
    assets and running the economy in the interests of multinationals.

    In the 1999 Nato bombing campaign, it was state-owned companies -
    rather than military sites - that were specifically targeted by the
    world's richest nations. Nato only destroyed 14 tanks, but
    372 industrial facilities were hit - including the Zastava car
    plant at Kragujevac, leaving hundreds of thousands jobless.
    Not one foreign or privately owned factory was bombed.

    After the removal of Slobodan Milosevic, the west got the "fast-track"
    reforming government in Belgrade it had long desired. One of the
    first steps of the new administration was to repeal the 1997
    privatisation law and allow 70% of a company to be sold to foreign
    investors - with just 15% reserved for workers. The government then
    signed up to the World Bank's programmes - effectively ending the
    country's financial independence.

    Meanwhile, as the New York Times had crowed, "a war's glittering
    prize" awaited the conquerors. Kosovo has the second largest coal
    reserves in Europe, and enormous deposits of lignite, lead, zinc,
    gold, silver and petroleum.

    The jewel is the enormous Trepca mine complex, whose 1997 value
    was estimated at $5bn. In an extraordinary smash and grab raid
    soon after the war, the complex was seized from its workers and
    managers by more than 2,900 Nato troops, who used teargas and
    rubber bullets.

    Five years on from the Nato attack, the Kosovo Trust Agency (KTA),
    the body that operates under the jurisdiction of the UN Mission in
    Kosovo (Unmik) - is "pleased to announce" the programme to
    privatise the first 500 or so socially owned enterprises (SOEs)
    under its control. The closing date for bids passed last week:
    10 businesses went under the hammer, including printing houses,
    a shopping mall, an agrobusiness and a soft-drinks factory. The
    Ferronikeli mining and metal-processing complex, with an annual
    capacity of 12,000 tonnes of nickel production, is being sold
    separately, with bids due by November 17.

    To make the SOEs more attractive to foreign investors, Unmik
    has altered the way land is owned in Kosovo, allowing the KTA to
    sell 99-year leases with the businesses, which can be transferred
    or used as loans or security. Even Belgrade's pro-western
    government has called this a "robbery of state-owned land".
    For western companies waiting to swoop, there will be rich
    pickings indeed in what the KTA assures us is a "very investor-
    friendly" environment. But there is little talk of the rights of the
    moral owners of the enterprises - the workers, managers and
    citizens of the former Yugoslavia, whose property was effectively
    seized in the name of the "international community" and
    "economic reform".

    As the corporate takeover of the ruins of Baghdad and Pristina
    proceeds apace, neither the "liberation" of Iraq nor the
    "humanitarian" bombing of Yugoslavia has proved Chaplin's
    cynical anti-hero to be wrong.

    ·Neil Clark is a writer and broadcaster specialising in Balkan
    affairs

    ngc66798@hotmail.com

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

    2) Forgotten Casualties
    By Lynn Harris
    Salon.com
    Wednesday 22 September 2004
    http://www.salon.com/mwt/feature/2004/09/22/ptsd/index_np.html
    http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/092304A.shtml
    Mentally scarred by the horrors they've endured in Iraq, many
    returning U.S. soldiers say the military isn't giving them the
    help they deserve.

    Mike Lemke, a 45-year-old Army National Guard police sergeant
    from Grand Junction, Colo., volunteered for active duty after seeing
    the twin towers fall on TV. "I wanted to, you know, kick some tail," he
    says. He was sent home from Iraq in August 2003 because of
    orthopedic and cardiovascular problems - and with memories and
    feelings he couldn't shake. He'd seen what was left of one of Saddam's
    prisons, prowled by feral dogs with rotting limbs in their mouths;
    he'd mingled constantly with civilians, never knowing if one was
    armed. "You never feel completely safe," he says. "That stays with you."

    Lemke could not sleep for his first 22 days in the medical barracks
    in Colorado's Fort Carson, where he remained for more than a year on
    "medical holdover" - a period during which wounded soldiers await
    treatment and subsequently either return to duty or get a medical exit
    from the Army. He experienced flashbacks and temper surges and
    would hit the dirt at the sound of a jackhammer.

    No one approached Lemke to inquire about his mental health.
    Only when a nurse practitioner happened to ask him how he was
    sleeping did the story come out - and even then it took him two
    weeks to accept her suggestion that he seek counseling.

    Why didn't Lemke ask for help? "There's a culture here of unless
    your legs have been torpedoed off or your arm's shot off, then it's
    not a combat injury," he says. "I did the same thing that everyone
    does in the military: You suck it up. You don't whine."

    Lemke is still on medication and in therapy, and is not employed.
    He is angry at the Army for many reasons, including his treatment
    during the medical holdover. But the issue that will most directly
    affect his future is his dispute with the Army over his disability rating.

    The Army Medical Evaluation Board (MEB) - the body that works in
    concert with the Physical Evaluation Board (PEB) to determine wounded
    soldiers' medical retirement and disability status according to the
    detailed specifications in Army Regulation 635-40 - gave Lemke a
    10 percent disability rating for PTSD, which classifies it as "mild"
    and as allowing for "adequate" job and social functioning.

    Whether a soldier is given a 30 percent rating or a rating less than
    that has major financial implications. A 30 percent rating grants a
    soldier lifetime disability benefits, along with the military's regular
    retirement benefits. Anything less than 30 percent results only in a
    one-time severance payment: two times the soldier's base pay times
    total years of active duty (up to a maximum of 12 years). Had Lemke
    received medical retirement, he estimates that he'd have gotten
    $1,200 to $1,600 every month for the rest of his life. His severance
    payment is far less. His 12 years of part-time duty convert to six years
    of active duty. Result, in his case: "For someone who was available to
    the government for 12 years, it's $26K and adios," he says.

    The Army, citing privacy regulations, declined to discuss the
    particulars of Lemke's or any other soldier's case.

    Lemke is one of a number of returning soldiers, mostly Army
    National Guard and Reserve, who say they are struggling not only
    to heal from physical and psychological wounds, but also to get
    proper mental health treatment while in the Army's care - and
    adequate financial compensation when their medical condition
    forces them to leave the Army.

    What was once poorly understood in WWI as "shell shock" (and,
    in the Civil War, as "soldier's heart") is now a much discussed,
    highly researched condition The Army is now acknowledging -
    and devoting a great deal of resources to - the ever growing
    incidence of PTSD and other mental health issues within its ranks.

    According to a study performed at the Walter Reed Army
    Medical Center and published in the July New England Journal
    of Medicine, conservative estimates are that 17 percent of soldiers
    are coming home from Iraq and Afghanistan suffering from PTSD,
    along with anxiety and depression. For these soldiers (as opposed
    to Gulf War vets, whose PTSD rates hover at 9 percent), the strain
    and trauma of prolonged urban combat with a hard-to-identify
    enemy, and of constant exposure to violent death - including that
    of fellow soldiers - have left them with nightmares, flashbacks,
    and bouts of numbness and rage.

    The study concludes that reducing "barriers to care among
    military personnel" - barriers such as the stigma of seeking mental
    health care in the first place - must be "a priority for research and
    a priority for the policymakers, clinicians, and leaders who are
    involved in providing care to those who have served in the armed
    forces."

    However, numerous veterans of Operation Iraqi Freedom who
    have come home injured say that such "awareness" has yet to
    change a deeply engrained military culture in which the only "real"
    wounds are physical. Result: Soldiers - especially National Guard
    and Army Reserve soldiers in " medical holdover" - say they run
    into roadblocks to needed mental health care, severance
    arrangements that appear to downplay invisible injuries in
    particular, and even attempts to send mentally unfit soldiers
    back to Iraq.

    "The DOD [Department of Defense] is taking great care of
    the acutely injured, the injuries you can see, the burns, the lost
    arms and legs that they're treating with state-of-the-art
    prosthetics," says Stephen Robinson, executive director of
    the National Gulf War Resource Center, a veterans' advocacy
    organization in Silver Spring, Md. "But they're doing a horrible
    job with the other injuries that aren't quite so evident." Robinson,
    who served in the Army Special Forces in the Gulf, testified in
    January before the House Armed Services Total Force Subcommittee
    that soldiers in medical holdover receive insufficient mental health
    screening and care. The Center for American Progress recently
    published his 11-page report criticizing the military's handling
    of mental health issues. "There are unseen costs of war that
    have dramatic national implications in terms of benefits and
    care and reintegration into society," he says. "It is a national
    disgrace that front-line and combat soldiers need to fight for
    medical care and benefits when they return home from war."

    Robinson, who has spoken with thousands of Iraq war
    veterans, describes the typical cycle: "When soldiers come
    back they have to go through complicated workman's-comp-
    type paperwork to prove that something they did in the war
    is the reason they're sick," he says. "That can take from four to
    16 months. So they come home injured, and rather than being
    integrated into society, they're stuck in medical limbo waiting
    for their disability rating and then being diagnosed with a
    preexisting condition" - which, he adds, implies that they
    shouldn't have been sent over in the first place.

    He claims, anecdotally, that the MEB is underevaluating
    soldiers by a fairly consistent 10 to 20 percent - a key percentage
    if it leaves a disability rating under 30 percent. Robinson's hypothesis:
    The DOD simply does not want to foot these potentially substantial
    bills. That, or given the number of soldiers who will yet come home
    injured, it simply can't.

    Lemke and many of his colleagues say such problems are particularly
    acute among National Guard and Reserve soldiers, who make up about
    40 percent of deployed troops. (Of nearly 5,000 soldiers on medical
    hold, all but about 860 are Reserve component troops.) "I don't think
    they budgeted for the Reserve and Guard component," Lemke says.
    "And now they want to make the soldier eat it."

    "Soldiers are soldiers," counters Jaime Cavazos, media relations
    officer for the U.S. Army Medical Command. "I doubt very seriously
    that an injured soldier would be thought less of because he was a
    guardsman or member of the Reserve."

    The Army also disputes the charges of deliberately stingy severance.
    "There is no truth to any such opinions," says Col. Fred Schumaker,
    executive officer of the Army Physical Disability Agency at the Walter
    Reed Army Medical Center. "The Physical Evaluation Boards fully
    review the facts provided [by] the Medical Evaluation Board and then
    carefully match, as closely as possible, the compensation to the
    impairment in accordance with regulatory guidance. The PEBs don't
    just make up disability percentage rates or reduce them arbitrarily.
    They give each soldier exactly what he is supposed to be given."
    adds: "It would be unusual if soldiers who are not compensated
    by the military disability system were happy about results."

    Still, Guard and Reserve soldiers say that their low ratings are
    the final blow in a series of actions that lead them to question the
    Army's true commitment to caring for them, especially when their
    injuries are invisible.

    "A lot of the people I've had contact with are not doing very
    well," says Kaye Baron, a clinical psychologist in private practice
    in Colorado Springs. Baron estimates that 60 to 70 percent of
    people she sees are in the military, and of that, roughly half have
    served in or been affected by the Iraq war. "For one thing, they're
    injured psychologically or physically, and on top of that they feel
    they're getting disposed of by the military - like no one really cares."

    Baron has also been puzzled by military diagnoses of, for
    example, personality disorder (which would be a preexisting
    condition, not qualifying a soldier for benefits) in soldiers whose
    symptoms are, in her estimation, fully explicable by PTSD. "I don't
    understand why military mental health is not doing more given that
    we know combat takes a toll on soldiers and PTSD is a widely recognized
    phenomenon. I don't know why they're not being more thoroughly
    examined and diagnosed."

    Theoretically, based on the unprecedented efforts the Army has
    made recently to acknowledge, find and treat combat stress,
    soldiers should be getting more thorough examinations and
    diagnoses. Teams have traveled to Iraq to assess the mental
    health needs of the soldiers there. Partially in response to the
    2002 murder-suicides at Fort Bragg by soldiers returning from
    Afghanistan, the Army has initiated a Deployment Cycle Support
    Program, designed to facilitate soldiers' transition to home life by
    addressing their health and personal needs. There's a 24-hour
    hotline called Military One Source for service members and their
    families. There are new PTSD guides for clinicians. Detailed protocols
    and procedures designed to screen for, track and treat soldiers
    arriving in medical holdover with mental health needs are in place.
    "Before a soldier is considered for retirement, we have ensured that
    we have given him the optimum healthcare possible," says Cavazos
    of the Army Medical Command.

    But individual soldiers in medical holdover suggest that such
    improvements to the system have yet to trickle down to them.

    One 47-year-old high-ranking military policeman - who,
    fearing reprisal, requested anonymity - was medevac'd out of
    Iraq late last September for a back injury, but came home with
    a host of other problems. He had been on active duty before,
    but this was different - and not just because of the scorching
    heat and rampant dysentery in his unit's ill-equipped camp.
    "You're out in public all the time with people coming up to you
    and not knowing if they're armed until they fire at you," he says.
    This constant sense of threat meant sky-high stress levels and
    hyper-alertness. He only narrowly avoided shooting a kid who
    marched up to him saying "Fuck Americans," rock in hand. "I had
    a weapon on him and in my state of mind, sad to say, I really
    would have put that kid down," he recalls. (The kid, seeming to
    realize this, took off.)

    When this soldier came back to the States, he figured that his
    flashbacks and nightmares were "the normal stress you go through
    when you come out of a war zone." But while his back was being
    treated, his wife informed him that he "was no longer the man she
    married" - uncharacteristically withdrawn, prone to rage, hardly
    sleeping or eating - and if he didn't get help she'd leave him.

    Eventually, a physician at Kentucky's Fort Knox, where he was
    on medical holdover until being allowed to go home for temporary
    convalescent leave last week, diagnosed him with severe post-
    traumatic stress disorder. The medical report cited, among other
    symptoms: insomnia, nightmares, flashbacks, disassociation, easy
    startling, quick temper, and keeping to his room for fear of hurting
    others, all of which were said to cause significant impairment in his
    "occupational and social functioning." He has been able to manage
    his symptoms somewhat with quite a bit of therapy and medication,
    but he still can't tolerate groups of people, or much food.

    Just two weeks ago the soldier received word that his PTSD had
    received a 10 percent disability rating from the MEB/PEB. (He counters
    that his remaining symptoms and resulting disability, as described in
    a second medical report, match those described for a 30 percent rating.)
    He was also informed that both the PTSD and his slipped disks (rated at
    20 percent) were considered chronic, not directly related to combat in
    Iraq - where he wore and carried 75 pounds of equipment every day.

    "I lived in Iraq, and before I left I was mentally and physically
    healthy,"
    he says. "I come back and my back's broken and my mind's broken. They
    say it's not combat related. The processes that are supposed to be in place
    to help us aren't working. They're just not taking care of us."

    The Army notes that soldiers have ample opportunity to review their
    files both before they go to the board and after initial findings are
    returned; should they find anything amiss, they may request a
    reconsideration. Still, soldiers who have attempted this describe
    a maddeningly muddled, even misleading, bureaucratic process.
    Others say they accept insufficient ratings as a means of escaping
    the limbo - and often unpleasant environment - of medical holdover.

    It has already been documented that the physical conditions in
    medical holdover can - due in part to sheer overload by wounded
    soldiers returning from Iraq - be less than conducive to healing. A
    story by United Press International last fall revealed that soldiers at
    Georgia's Fort Stewart were housed in concrete barracks with
    insufficient water and no air conditioning and that soldiers at
    Fort Knox waited months for medical attention. Sens. Kit Bond,
    R-Mo., and Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., were prompted to investigate
    and demand improvements. Many physical problems have since
    been addressed, and standards have been implemented to speed
    up soldiers' care.

    Soldiers still say, however, that despite the Army's efforts,
    languishing in medical holdover only compounds one's
    psychological issues. "Everything is uncertain, you're denied
    care, and you know they don't give a damn whether you get
    well or not. It's getting to the point where soldiers will do
    anything to get out of here," says a 45-year-old non-
    commissioned officer in medical holdover at Fort Knox
    who was afraid to give his name. "The stress here is higher
    than in Iraq, and I was there."

    Some soldiers say they spend as much time as possible
    in their rooms, as they fear both crowds and their own temper.
    The main picture they paint is one of heavy medication -
    "You've got soldiers on so much meds all they do is sleep;
    they can't even make formation," says a 37-year-old reserve
    soldier in medical hold at Fort Knox - and of maddening red
    tape, administrative runarounds, and, at best, indifference.

    Also, Fort Knox, for one, is a training post. "They're firing
    all the time," says the military policeman now on convalescent
    leave, who, like many of his comrades, is startled by a mere
    footstep. "That's a trigger for me." (He has addressed this
    concern to the inspector general's office on post, who
    acknowledged the complaint, but so far no action has
    been taken.)

    Soldiers do report positive individual experiences with
    physicians - the 37-year-old reserve soldier, who didn't
    trust his own violent temper, says his psychiatrist saved
    not only his life, but likely someone else's as well. While
    each soldier in medical holdover is assigned a case manager
    to help him work with the medical system, some complain
    that not all case managers are as caring or as knowledgeable
    as they need to be. In fact, several of the more experienced
    soldiers in Fort Knox medical holdover have seen fit to become
    de facto experts on the Army's byzantine medical and benefits
    systems. The military policeman on convalescent leave is himself
    at work on designing a series of flow charts and writing a lengthy
    booklet about the disability evaluation system to serve as a guide
    for other soldiers.

    Beneath the bureaucracy, the matter of military culture runs
    even deeper - and is harder to transform. In his report to the
    Armed Services subcommittee, Stephen Robinson said extensive
    research and tours of medical posts by his organization showed
    that soldiers in medical holdover receive "little to no counseling
    regarding traumatic events experienced during war." Why not?
    More often than not, he says, they're not asking for it - and
    they shouldn't have to in the first place.

    According to the Army Medical Command, screening for
    mental health issues in medical holdover is done via self-
    reporting in questionnaires, or ad hoc by physicians treating
    soldiers for physical issues. "I'm sure that during the course
    of treatment a soldier will give off signs that will suggest that
    the individual needs some mental health counseling of some
    kind," says Cavazos of the Army Medical Command.

    Robinson counters that it's essential for Army medical
    personnel to initiate intervention for mental health issues,
    even among soldiers coming home for physical injuries.
    "Questionnaires are not sufficient to establish physical and
    mental fitness," he says, especially given the stigma against
    seeking psychological help or admitting "weakness." Indeed,
    the Walter Reed study found that the fear of stigma was
    "disproportionately greatest among those most in need of
    help from mental health services." Says Robinson: "Fear of
    stigmatization will remain a problem until the military changes
    its culture."

    By some soldiers' accounts, their commanding officers will
    not be at the vanguard of that change. Their job, after all, is
    to get soldiers back to duty.

    "I was told [by higher-ups] to 'not worry about it,'" says
    the 45-year-old NCO in medical holdover at Fort Knox, of
    the insomnia, anxiety and panic attacks that eventually got
    him on Zoloft, BuSpar, Ambien, and trazodone. "These
    soldiers come here all wired," he said, referring to the
    hypervigilance that's typical of PTSD, "and they immediately
    start telling them that they're going to try to return them to
    Iraq." According to him, they're told by their chain of command:
    "Don't settle down because you're going to need that high
    intensity when you go back."

    Spc. Laurence Kiefer, 30, a crane operator with the
    quartermaster combat support unit of the Montana National
    Guard, was brought home from Iraq to Fort Carson in May for
    reasons both medical and legal: injuries relating to a truck
    accident, and charges that he'd stolen grenades. (The judge
    advocate general, the prosecuting body of the military, has
    since found no evidence to support the charges. Kiefer claims
    the accusation came as retaliation for a dispute with his
    commander.)

    He was suffering from combat trauma - at one point he'd
    had to drive a 22-ton crane at its maximum speed of 10 to
    20 mph, for a 17-hour, 350-mile trip, often under fire -
    compounded by stress over the charges, the shock of his
    wife's announcement that she was leaving him, and the
    fear that he'd be sent back to serve in the same unit with
    hostile command. However, he didn't get summoned for his
    official "outprocessing" exam for nearly three months. In the
    meantime, after first "self-medicating" with alcohol, he
    eventually sought medication and psychological treatment.

    Soon thereafter, he was told to pack up and re-deploy. He
    appealed to his psychologist, Jacqueline E. Delano, who felt that
    he wasn't ready, and who later asserted in writing that in a
    subsequent phone conversation, Kiefer's commanding officer
    "made statements indicating that he felt Spc. Kiefer was over-
    exaggerating his symptoms to get out of going back to Iraq"
    and "was not interested in this psychologist's professional opinion."
    Delano was able to delay Kiefer's departure by insisting on further
    evaluation; she then diagnosed him with a personality disorder,
    a preexisting condition that renders him both unfit to serve and
    ineligible for benefits. A civilian psychologist later asserted that
    Kiefer's condition was PTSD; Kiefer is currently fighting the
    "personality disorder" designation.

    What recourse do these solders have? Says the 45-year-old NCO
    at Fort Knox: "The attitude here is: I don't trust these people. I'll
    wait till I get home and go to the V.A." Vets may apply for benefits
    through the V.A., which has a more generous ratings system. Five
    thousand veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan have gone to the V.A.
    with mental health diagnoses already. For those reasons and others,
    the V.A. is an appealing resource for soldiers in, and just out of,
    medical holdover. "The V.A. has no legal authority. They can't take
    what we say and turn it against us," says the NCO. "They can't hurt
    you like the Army can."

    Now back at home and a civilian, Lemke is still doing his best,
    via word of mouth, to help soldiers who are confused or feeling
    mistreated by the system, or who are simply struggling with PTSD
    themselves. He even gets contacted by soldiers' wives who are
    desperate to find out "what's wrong" with their husbands. No
    matter what, he knows what his fellow soldiers have been through.
    "First I fought the war," Lemke says. "Then I had to fight a war for
    my treatment."


    Jump to TO Features for Thursday September 23, 2004

    (c) Copyright 2004 by TruthOut.org




    Wednesday, September 22, 2004
     

    BAUAW NEWSLETTER-WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 22, 2004

    MEETING TONIGHT
    BAY AREA UNITED AGAINST WAR (BAUAW)
    WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 22, 7:00 p.m.
    1380 VALENCIA STREET
    (Between 24th & 25th Streets, SF)

    Topics: YES ON Prop. N community organizing
    Million Worker March
    Justice in Palestine conference
    BAUAW's new web-site and review
    of Yahoo group account
    Fund Raising
    Possible mass action against U.S. offensive
    against Iraq -- possibly Nov. 3rd
    Inauguration Day Mass Action in D.C. and
    possibly elsewhere.
    New Business (that's up to you!)

    Visit: www.bauaw.org

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

    VOTE YES ON PROP. 'N'! BRING OUR TROOPS HOME NOW!


    Come to the
    BRING OUR TROOPS HOME NOW COMMITTEE MEETING
    THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 30, 7:00 p.m.
    AFSC - First Floor
    65 NINTH STREET
    (1/2 block from Market St., SF)

    Help get the word out about Prop. 'N'. Bring your ideas for
    community outreach, media, action, and more to make sure
    we win by a landslide!

    No matter who wins the elections this year, the war will not
    be over. This ballot initiative will set the example for cities across
    the country to do the same in future elections.

    Pick up material to distribute!*

    PROPOSITION 'N' ON THE NOVEMBER 3
    SAN FRANCISCO BALLOT DECLARES:

    "It is the policy of the people of the City and County of
    San Francisco that: The Federal government should take
    immediate steps to end the U.S. occupation of Iraq and
    bring our troops safely home now."


    Visit: www.yesonn.net


    * Material costs money. Already thousands of brochures have
    been printed and we need more! We need posters and buttons--
    we need to cover the city with YES on 'N' campaign material!

    Please send a contribution to help with these costs!
    Make your check payable to:

    Bring Our Troops Home Now

    and mail to :

    David Looman, Treasurer
    325 Highland Ave.
    San Francisco, CA 94110

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

    1) U.S. Raid on al-Sadr Office Assailed by Shiite Cleric
    By Soraya Sarhaddi Nelson
    Published on Wednesday, September 22, 2004 by Knight Ridder
    NAJAF, Iraq
    http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/0922-23.htm

    2) Eyeing Iran Reactors, Israel Seeks U.S. Bunker Bombs
    By Dan Williams
    JERUSALEM
    Published on Tuesday, September 21, 2004 by Reuters
    http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/0921-20.htm

    3) The Struggle for Palestine:
    4th Anniversary of the Intifada
    October 2nd 2004.
    Horace Mann Middle School - 3351 23rd Street, San Francisco
    PLEASE FORWARD WIDELY*

    4) Singer Cat Stevens Denied U.S. Entry, Flight Diverted
    WASHINGTON (Reuters)
    Wed Sep 22, 2004 12:59 AM ET
    http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=topNews&storyID=
    6299025&src=eDialog/GetContent§ion=news

    6) SOCIAL SCIENCE: Americans' prejudice against Arabs
    demonstrated in experiment

    7) Bush Defends Iraq War at U.N., Asks for Help
    By Steve Holland
    UNITED NATIONS (Reuters)
    Tue Sep 21, 2004 04:47 PM ET
    http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=topNews&storyID=
    6296500&src=eDialog/GetContent§ion=news

    8) U.S. Blocking Arctic Report
    Scripps Howard News Service
    From: "Cold Mountain, Cold Rivers"


    9) *Celebrate John Lennon's 64th Birthday Party
    Sat. Oct. 9, 8:00 p.m.
    San Francisco
    Club Jazz Nouveau at
    The Cannery, 2801 Leavenworth St.,
    at Beach, San Francisco
    Wheelchair accessible

    10) In this message:
    · Speak Out Against Racism & Discrimination
    · Help Needed on Mass Mailing
    SPEAK OUT AGAINST RACISM & DISCRIMINATION

    11) Please read! We are passing this on. Its very important!
    Mandatory draft for boys and girls (ages 18-26)
    starting June 15, 2005, is something that everyone should
    know about. This literally affects everyone since we all
    have or know children that will have to go if this bill
    passes.
    Seth D. King
    Teacher - LAUSD
    Director - United People 4 Peace


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

    1) U.S. Raid on al-Sadr Office Assailed by Shiite Cleric
    By Soraya Sarhaddi Nelson
    Published on Wednesday, September 22, 2004 by Knight Ridder
    NAJAF, Iraq
    http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/0922-23.htm

    NAJAF, Iraq - U.S. forces raided the headquarters of radical Shiite
    Muslim cleric Muqtada al-Sadr in the heart of the holy city of Najaf
    on Tuesday and arrested his top advisers in the strongest blow yet
    to al-Sadr's nationwide insurgency.

    The pre-dawn raid drew an angry rebuke from the country's top
    Shiite cleric, whose support is vital to maintaining calm among the
    country's Shiite majority.

    "We've informed the Iraqi government of our rejection and our
    condemnation of American forces for entering the holy city of Najaf
    and approaching the holy shrine," said a statement released by the
    staff of Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Husseini al-Sistani in Najaf. "We
    believe there was no justification for such a military measure and
    hold the interim Iraqi government responsible for what happened."

    U.S. military and Iraqi officials declined to comment.

    Al-Sadr remained in hiding Tuesday, as did his remaining advisers.
    He has kept a low profile since his gunmen vacated the city and its
    holy shrine last month under an agreement brokered by Sistani.

    Residents said that dozens of troops supported by helicopters
    stormed the office in which al-Sadr's advisers were holed up less
    than 200 feet from the Grand Imam Ali Shrine. Arrested were Sheik
    Ahmed al-Sheybani, the most visible among al-Sadr's inner circle,
    and his main Friday prayers leader and another key adviser, Hossam
    al-Husseini.

    The clerics, along with several guards, were taken away to an
    undisclosed location. Witnesses said that Iraqi police later hauled
    away about 40 Kalashnikov assault rifles from the office.

    The raid was the third in five days on al-Sadr's deputies and offices.
    In response to an arrest of a Sadr spokesman Saturday in Baghdad,
    an Islamist group seized 18 Iraqi national guardsmen and threatened
    to execute them. Al-Sadr intervened, and the guardsmen were
    released Monday.

    Many Iraqis believe the raids on al-Sadr's associates are part of the
    U.S. campaign to prevent guerrillas from scuttling Iraqi elections
    early next year.

    But like the continuing air assaults against the Sunni stronghold of
    Fallujah to the north, the attack on al-Sadr is likely to breed more
    resentment and violence against U.S. forces and the Iraqi interim
    government they support.

    Even so, an organized backlash by al-Sadr's Mahdi Army militia
    would be more difficult now that its office in Najaf is closed and
    key advisers are in U.S. custody.

    Throughout the day, Iraqi security forces blanketed the streets of
    Najaf and neighboring Kufa to prevent anticipated retaliation by
    gunmen loyal to the cleric. Non-residents were forbidden from
    entering the cities. Kalashnikov-wielding policemen demanded
    identification papers from anyone who lingered on the street in
    front of al-Sadr's empty Najaf office.

    Pressure on al-Sadr and his advisers to clear out of Najaf has
    steadily intensified since the occupation and siege of the holy
    shrine, although Iraqi police steered clear of arresting any higher-
    ranking al-Sadr loyalists.

    Like Sistani, many Najaf residents were unhappy with Tuesday's
    raid. They object to outsiders treading anywhere near the shrine
    without permission. They also resent Americans attacking the
    sanctuaries of any of the city's holy men, especially al-Sadr, whose
    late father was a revered religious leader.

    "We're not happy with the closing of (al-Sadr's) office, even if we are
    happy if those people who entered and destroyed the city are
    removed," said one merchant, Abu Hassan Naim, 44, referring to
    Sadr's fighters.

    The Americans can keep al-Sheybani, one of the clerics who were
    arrested, the merchant added. He accused al-Sheybani of circulating
    a letter two days ago with the names of 32 Najaf residents targeted
    for assassination because they had demonstrated this month against
    al-Sadr.

    (c) 2004 Knight Ridder

    ###

    (c) Copyrighted 1997-2004
    www.commondreams.org

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

    2) Eyeing Iran Reactors, Israel Seeks U.S. Bunker Bombs
    By Dan Williams
    JERUSALEM
    Published on Tuesday, September 21, 2004 by Reuters
    http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/0921-20.htm


    JERUSALEM - The United States plans to sell Israel $319 million worth
    of air-launched bombs, including 500 "bunker busters" able to
    penetrate Iran's underground nuclear facilities, Israeli security
    sources said on Tuesday.

    (Photo of bunker buster not shown, appears at the address provided
    above.
    The following is the description of the photo.)

    [The United States plans to sell Israel $319 million worth of air-
    launched bombs, including 500 'bunker busters' able to penetrate
    Iran's underground nuclear facilities, Israeli security sources said
    on September 21, 2004. The Haaretz newspaper quoted a Pentagon
    report as saying the planned procurement sought 'to maintain Israel's
    qualitative advantage and advance U.S. strategic and tactical interests.'
    A GBU-27 laser guided 'bunker buster' bomb is seen in this undated file
    photo. Photo by Reuters]

    The Haaretz newspaper quoted a Pentagon report as saying the
    planned procurement sought "to maintain Israel's qualitative
    advantage and advance U.S. strategic and tactical interests."

    The U.S. embassy in Israel had no comment, referring queries to
    Washington. Israel's Defense Ministry also declined comment.

    But a senior Israeli security source who confirmed the Haaretz
    story told Reuters: "This is not the sort of ordnance needed for
    the Palestinian front. Bunker busters could serve Israel against
    Iran, or possibly Syria."

    Haaretz quoted Israeli government sources as saying the sale,
    including 4,500 other guided munitions, was not expected to
    go through until after the U.S. elections in November. Earlier
    this month, Haaretz said Israel sought to obtain the U.S.-made,
    one-ton "bunker buster" bombs for a possible future strike
    against arch-foe Iran's atomic development program, which
    the Jewish state considers a strategic threat.

    "This relationship has a long history. The United States
    has given Israel more advanced weapons than this," a spokesman
    for Iran's Defense Ministry said.

    "This could be psychological warfare to test us," he added.

    Tehran denies hostile designs, saying its nuclear program
    has peaceful purposes only. This week, it rejected international
    calls to comply with a U.N. International Atomic Energy Agency
    demand that it halt all uranium-enrichment activities.

    Among the nuclear facilities that Iran has declared are uranium
    mines near the city of Yazd, and a uranium-enrichment plant in
    Natanz incorporating large underground buildings that could
    accommodate thousands of gas centrifuges.

    Western diplomats accuse Iran of having several undeclared
    facilities close to Tehran thought to be related to uranium
    enrichment, a process the United States and some other
    countries believe Tehran will use to produce fissile material
    for weapons.

    The exiled Iranian opposition group known as the National
    Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) says Iran is constructing
    numerous secret facilities under its Defense Ministry.

    Known by the military designations GBU-27 or GBU-28,
    "bunker busters" are guided by lasers or satellites and can
    penetrate up to 30 feet of earth and concrete. Israel may
    already have some of the bombs for its U.S.-supplied F-15
    fighter jets.

    "As they are part of the weapon set for the F-15, I would
    assume them to be in place," said Robert Hewson, editor of
    Jane's Air-Launched Weapons. He said the bombs proved effective
    in the 1991 Gulf war and 1990s NATO strikes on Serbian forces.

    Israel, which is widely assumed to be the Middle East's only
    nuclear-armed nation, wants to stop Iran going atomic, but
    officials say diplomatic pressure on Tehran is the best method.

    Many believe a military strike, especially by Israel, could kill
    off any chance of a diplomatic resolution or efforts by Iranian
    opposition groups to achieve internal reform.

    "I think (military action) should be a last, last, last resort.
    Unlike Iraq and North Korea, there is at least some chance
    of bringing about an undermining of the Velayat-e Faqih's
    authority," former CIA director R. James Woolsey told Reuters
    this month, referring to Iran's ruling Islamic clerics.

    Convinced Saddam Hussein was developing nuclear weapons,
    Israel bombed Iraq's Osiraq reactor in 1981. While the move
    drew international censure, eventually many U.S. experts saw it
    as an important blow to Saddam's strategic weapons capabilities.

    "The response of the United States was, unfortunately,
    negative with respect to Osiraq," Woolsey said. "The Israelis
    were right and everybody else was wrong, including us, in
    1981."

    The Osiraq strike did not stop Saddam's quest for the bomb.
    Instead, Iraq went underground and worked in secret until the
    program was uncovered by the U.N. nuclear watchdog in 1991.

    (c) 2004 Reuters

    ###

    (c) Copyrighted 1997-2004
    www.commondreams.org

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

    3) The Struggle for Palestine:
    4th Anniversary of the Intifada
    October 2nd 2004.
    Horace Mann Middle School -
    3351 23rd Street, San Francisco
    PLEASE FORWARD WIDELY*

    The Justice in Palestine Coalition, a
    group of progressive organizations who
    have come together to work for a free
    Palestine, is hosting a day-long
    conference to:

    1. Educate ourselves and our allies,
    and deepen our knowledge &
    understanding of the struggle in Palestine.

    2. Link the work of our individual
    organizations and strengthen our networks
    and activism through discussion,
    debate, and collaborative planning.

    3. Organize for future solidarity and
    develop concrete a concrete plan of
    action for the coming months.

    4. Support the resistance in Palestine,
    and make links with others who are
    fighting against the US occupation of
    Iraq, and against US Imperialism
    around the world.

    The conference will include panels,
    workshops and cultural performances. A
    complete schedule of events is listed below.

    Please reply to this email to find out
    about the next meeting of Justice in
    Palestine and help us build for this
    important event.

    ** Program **

    The Struggle for Palestine:
    4th Anniversary of the Intifada
    October 2nd, 2004
    9:00-9:30: Registration

    Morning Plenary Session:
    The Current Status of Resistance in Palestine

    workshops throughout the day include:

    -Continuations of Plenary: Status of Resistance
    -History of Palestine, The Nekbah and the Right of Return
    -Iraq and Palestine: 2 Struggles, One cause
    -Zionism
    -Women and Resistance
    -Direct Action: Skills Development
    -The Impact of Palestine on the US Elections
    -Political Prisoners, Here and in Palestine
    -Globalization in the Arab World
    -The Targets of Empire: Cuba, Venezuela, Haiti, Iran,
    Philippines, Africa
    -Arab World Solidarity/Resistance
    -US Solidarity Groups
    -Repression/Occupation in the US (patriot Act, profiling,
    attacks on civil liberties)

    Report Back From Workshops
    Closing Summation and the Future in Palestine

    Cultural Performances

    for more information:

    info@justiceinpalestine.net

    or visit

    www.justiceinpalestine.net

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

    4) Singer Cat Stevens Denied U.S. Entry, Flight Diverted
    WASHINGTON (Reuters)
    Wed Sep 22, 2004 12:59 AM ET
    http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=topNews&storyID=
    6299025&src=eDialog/GetContent§ion=news


    WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The former pop singer Cat Stevens,
    now known as Yusuf Islam, was denied entry to the United States
    and his flight from London was diverted to Maine, after his
    name turned up on a watch list, a U.S. transportation security
    official said.

    United Flight 919 enroute to Washington was diverted to
    Bangor where Islam was questioned and detained by federal
    authorities who planned to put him on a return flight early
    Wednesday, the official said.

    U.S. Customs and border protection authorities discovered
    that the name matched a federal watch list by checking
    passenger information transmitted by the airline after the
    flight departed from London, the official said.

    The Washington Post, citing sources familiar with the event
    reported that Islam, whose name is listed as "Usef Islam," is
    on several government watch lists, including the no-fly list.

    United Airlines spokesman Jeff Green said the carrier was
    asked by the Transportation Security Administration to divert
    the plane to Maine for security reasons.

    The TSA had the flight diverted to Maine to keep it out of
    the Northeast corridor airspace, TSA spokesman Nico Melendez
    said.

    The flight, with the remaining passengers, departed for
    Dulles International Airport after about four hours on the
    ground and landed at Dulles around 9 p.m., Melendez said.

    Cat Stevens had a string of pop hits in the early 1970s
    including "Moonshadow" and "Wild World" before converting to
    Islam in late 1977.

    (c) Copyright Reuters 2004.

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

    6) SOCIAL SCIENCE: Americans' prejudice against
    Arabs demonstrated in experiment

    [The daily summary of the *Chronicle
    of Higher Education* published this
    summary of an article from the *Journal
    of Experimental Social Psychology* on
    Tuesday, demonstrating quantitatively
    the extent to which anti-Arab prejudice
    can affect the behavior of Americans
    (though, come to think of it, couldn't
    this be, in the minds of the subjects of
    this experiment, anti-Muslim
    prejudice?). --Mark]

    http://ufppc.org/index.php?option=content&task=view&id=1396

    ANTI-ARAB DISCRIMINATION

    Chronicle of Higher Education (daily summary)
    September 21, 2004

    MAGAZINES & JOURNALS

    A glance at the November issue of
    the *Journal of Experimental Social
    Psychology*: Anti-Arab discrimination

    People who are prejudiced against
    Arabs may not commit assault or other overt
    forms of bias against them, but they
    will commonly discriminate against them
    surreptitiously, say Brad J. Bushman,
    a professor of social psychologist at
    the University of Michigan's Institute
    for Social Research, and Angelica
    Bonacci, a graduate student in
    psychology at Iowa State University.

    In their study, they sent copies of an
    ostensibly "lost" e-mail message to 512
    students of European descent at Iowa
    State whose level of prejudice against
    Arab-Americans had been gauged in
    earlier surveys. Some messages were
    addressed to a person with the surname
    "Hameed," and others to someone with
    the surname "Brice." The messages
    stated that the addressee either had won or
    had not won a prestigious scholarship
    worth tens of thousands of dollars, and
    requested a reply within 48 hours.

    The researchers found that participants
    who were highly prejudiced against
    Arabs were 12 percent less likely to
    return a message reporting a win if the
    addressee was a Hameed than if it was
    a Brice. If the message bore bad news,
    that the recipient had not won the
    scholarship, highly prejudiced people were
    19 percent more likely to return a
    message addressed to a Hameed than to a
    Brice.

    By contrast, participants with low
    prejudice scores in the earlier tests were
    just as likely to return a positive or
    negative message whether the addressee
    had an Arabic or European surname.

    "By identifying and understanding
    less-visible discrimination techniques
    individuals might use," the authors
    say, "society might be better able to
    protect the rights of innocent Arabs."

    The article, "You've Got Mail: Using
    E-Mail to Examine the Effect of
    Prejudiced Attitudes on Discrimination
    Against Arabs," is available online for
    Science Direct subscribers at
    http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/journal/00221031

    A copy is also available on Mr. Bushman's Web site at
    http://www-personal.umich.edu/~bbushman/pubs.htm

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

    7) Bush Defends Iraq War at U.N., Asks for Help
    By Steve Holland
    UNITED NATIONS (Reuters)
    Tue Sep 21, 2004 04:47 PM ET
    http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=topNews&storyID=
    6296500&src=eDialog/GetContent§ion=news

    UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - Two years after warning the
    United Nations to act against Iraq or risk irrelevancy,
    President Bush on Tuesday defended the U.S.-led invasion and
    urged skeptical world leaders to help Iraq become a democracy
    in the face of a deadly insurgency.

    In a U.N. speech with election-year overtones, Bush made no
    apologies about his decision to go to war against Iraq in 2003
    without U.N. Security Council backing based on claims Iraq
    possessed weapons of mass destruction, which were not found.

    Instead, he acknowledged the presence of Iyad Allawi, the
    interim prime minister of Iraq, and declared, "Since the last
    meeting of this General Assembly, the people of Iraq have
    regained sovereignty."

    Later, he added, "The U.N., and its member nations, must
    respond to Prime Minister Allawi's request, and do more to help
    build an Iraq that is secure, democratic, federal, and free."

    Bush's 21-minute speech was met mostly with stony silence,
    save for polite applause at the end.

    He appeared at the United Nations at a time of rising
    violence in Iraq, with suicide car bombings and beheadings, and
    some lawmakers in his own Republican Party are questioning his
    Iraq policy. Democrats warn of a quagmire for U.S. troops.

    His opponent in the Nov. 2 election, Democratic Sen. John Kerry,
    wasted little time in declaring Bush's speech a failure for not
    leveling with world leaders about the depth of the situation in Iraq.

    "Iraq is in crisis, and the president needs to live in the world of
    reality, not in a world of fantasy spin," Kerry told reporters in
    Jacksonville, Florida. He said Bush "does not have the credibility
    to lead the world."

    In his speech, Bush did portray Iraq as a dangerous place,
    with militants "conducting a campaign of bombings against
    civilians and the beheadings of bound men."

    He predicted more violence in the days ahead as both Iraq
    and Afghanistan attempt to hold national elections -- next
    month in Afghanistan, and in January in Iraq.

    "The proper response to difficulty is not to retreat -- it
    is to prevail," he said.

    'DEFYING' PESSIMISTIC PREDICTIONS

    Taking a few questions from reporters in a subsequent
    meeting with Allawi, Bush all but dismissed a CIA report leaked
    last week that offered a gloomy outlook in Iraq with the worst
    scenario a civil war.

    "The CIA laid out several scenarios. It said that life
    could be lousy, life could be OK, life could be better. And
    they were just guessing as to what the conditions might be
    like," he said. "The Iraq citizens are defying the pessimistic
    predictions."

    Allawi blamed the media for ignoring good news in Iraq.

    Bush's speech was mostly free of the combativeness of his
    address in 2002 when he warned world leaders that Saddam
    Hussein was a grave and gathering danger and that they must act
    to back up past U.N. resolutions or else be irrelevant.

    He reminded the General Assembly of the Security Council's
    refusal to go along with the U.S.-led coalition in backing up
    with action a resolution passed unanimously before the war that
    threatened serious consequences for Iraq.

    "The commitments we make must have meaning," Bush said.
    "When we say serious consequences for the sake of peace, there
    must be serious consequences."

    U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan said last week the war
    was illegal and in a speech before Bush talked, condemned Iraqi
    prisoner abuses at Abu Ghraib prison.

    "In hindsight, experience shows that actions taken without
    a mandate which has been clearly defined in a Security Council
    resolution are doomed to failure," Swiss President Joseph Deiss
    said in a speech to the assembly.

    Bush cast the Iraq conflict as a moment of opportunity for
    transforming the Middle East, and in a direct challenge to
    Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, urged Israel to impose a
    freeze on Jewish settlements in the West Bank and Gaza and to
    dismantle "unauthorized outposts." (Additional reporting by
    David Morgan)

    (c) Copyright Reuters 2004

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

    8) U.S. Blocking Arctic Report
    Scripps Howard News Service
    From: "Cold Mountain, Cold Rivers"


    Thursday 16 September 2004

    Washington - The Bush administration is trying to bury an
    international report that contains recommendations on the impact of
    globalwarming on the people of the Arctic, an Arctic leader told a Senate
    panel yesterday.

    State Department officials are blocking the release of one of two
    reports that were to be presented to government ministers from eight
    Arcticnations at a meeting on Nov. 9 in Reykjavik, Iceland, Sheila
    Watt-Cloutier of northern Quebec in Canada told the Senate Commerce
    Committee.
    She is chairwoman of the Inuit Circumpolar Conference, representing
    native people.

    Four years ago, the United States and other nations launched the
    Arctic Climate Impact Assessment. More than 300 scientists participated.

    The results are contained in two reports - a scientific analysis and
    a report outlining policy recommendations - that were to be presented at
    theNovember meeting, Watt-Cloutier said.

    The science report will still be presented, but the United States
    has succeeded in blocking the release of the policy report at the
    meeting and is
    attempting to bury its recommendations in a "bureaucratic" report that
    will be sent to the governments of the countries involved at a later
    date,Watt-Cloutier said.

    In its current draft form, the policy report notes that the Arctic
    is susceptible to global warming and that there is a limit to how much
    the people there can adapt to the changing climate, said Terry Fenge, a
    Canadian representative to the conference. The policy document urges a
    reduction in greenhouse-gas emissions, he said.

    "It's politics," Watt-Cloutier said. If the United States followed
    the recommendations, it would have to "sign the Kyoto Protocol and the
    rest of it. It's short-term thinking pressured by [industry]," she said.

    The other nations participating in the climate assessment - Canada,
    Russia, Iceland, Norway, Finland, Denmark and Sweden - want the policy
    recommendations released, but are being overruled by the United States,
    Watt-Cloutier said.

    Sally Brandel, the U.S. Arctic representative, did not respond to a
    request for comment.

    Sen. Olympia Snowe (R- Maine), told Watt-Cloutier that she would
    look into the situation.

    Cold Mountain, Cold Rivers
    Working at the Crossroads of Human & Environmental Rights since 1990
    PO Box 7941
    Missoula, Montana USA 59807

    phone: 406-728-0867
    email: cmcr@wildrockies.org
    website: http://www.wildrockies.org/cmcr

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

    9) *Celebrate John Lennon's 64th Birthday Party
    Sat. Oct. 9, 8:00 p.m.
    San Francisco
    Club Jazz Nouveau at
    The Cannery, 2801 Leavenworth St.,
    at Beach, San Francisco
    Wheelchair accessible

    Special discount for butterfly calendar recipients.
    Please read details below.

    Green Aid: The Medical Marijuana Legal Defense & Education Fund proudly
    presents: The IMAGINE Party to celebrate John Lennon's 64th birthday!

    Special intimate performance with Vince Welnick former keyboardist of The
    Tubes & Grateful Dead www.vincewelnick.com
    A Sing A-Long of Beatles and Dead tunes!
    Master of Ceremony, Guru of Ganja Ed Rosenthal
    Illusion Magic Theater performed by Technomania Circus Artists

    DANCING BIRTHDAY CAKE PRIZES SILENT AUCTION

    8:00 p.m. - 12:00 a.m.
    Limited seating-order tickets early

    Club Jazz Nouveau at
    The Cannery, 2801 Leavenworth St.
    at Beach, San Francisco
    Wheelchair accessible

    Tickets: $60 Purchase on line at:
    http://www.inhousetickets.com or to purchase
    tickets direct contact Virginia Resner
    at 415-753-6602 virginiaresner@earthlink.net
    If you get a ticket thru us we can can get a block
    of 10 for $50.
    Please RSVP Alan at bflyspirit@aol.com

    We welcome auction donations
    Green Aid is a 501 C (3) corporation ($35 of the
    ticket price is tax deductible)
    All proceeds benefit our Legal Defense &
    Education Fund http://www.green-aid.com

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

    10) In this message:
    · Speak Out Against Racism Discrimination
    · Help Needed on Mass Mailing
    SPEAK OUT AGAINST RACISM DISCRIMINATION

    A coalition of organizations-including Black Rap, And Castro For
    All, ANSWER, the Harvey Milk Democratic Club, the SF LGBT Pride
    Celebration Committee, GAPA, and others-have come together to
    plan a demonstration to raise awareness about racism and other
    forms of discrimination within the San Francisco LGBT community.

    While many have fought for years to bring greater inclusion inside
    the LGBT community, recently there has been a groundswell of
    people speaking out. We want to seize this moment to help bring
    about real change and make a claim for greater racial, gender, age,
    class, and other forms of belonging among San Francisco's LGBT
    people.

    Please join us by becoming a co-sponsor of a march on Friday,
    October 1. It will include a rally, opportunities to express both
    frustration and hopes for change, and a celebration of the potential
    for inclusion we will strive for our community to achieve.

    In just a few days, numerous organizations have already signed on
    as co-sponsors: AIDS Emergency Fund, Alice B. Toklas Democratic
    Club, the Breast Cancer Emergency Fund, the Lavender Caucus of
    SEIU, Lesbians Gays of African Decent Democratic Association,
    and Pride at Work.

    Let us know if your organization can play a part by supporting
    this event and turning out participants. Its success depends on
    diverse and widespread support. Co-sponsorship should include
    promoting the action on your email lists and getting commitments
    to attend from 10-25 people. If you want to become an organizer
    and participate in planning at a more active level, we'd love to have
    you on board that way as well.

    If you have any questions, or to add your endorsement contact
    415-821-6545 or answer@actionsf.org .

    HELP NEEDED ON MASS MAILING
    Mon. 9/27 and Tues. 9/28, 11am-6pm
    2489 Mission St. Room 30, at 21st St.

    Join us for a mass mailing to launch the People’s Anti-War
    Referendum. Chat with other activists while helping to spread
    the word about this important campaign. Refreshments provided.

    To subscribe to the list, send a message to:


    To remove your address from the list, just send a message to
    the address in the ``List-Unsubscribe'' header of any list
    message. If you haven't changed addresses since subscribing,
    you can also send a message to:


    For addition or removal of addresses, We'll send a confirmation
    message to that address. When you receive it, simply reply to it
    to complete the transaction.

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

    11) Please read! We are passing this on. Its very important!
    Mandatory draft for boys and girls (ages 18-26)
    starting June 15, 2005, is something that everyone should
    know about. This literally affects everyone since we all
    have or know children that will have to go if this bill
    passes.

    Seth D. King
    Teacher - LAUSD
    Director - United People 4 Peace


    The time to act is now. Whether you support the current administration or
    not, this bill cannot be passed. Please take a moment, read this email and
    go to any and all sites you can so your voice can be heard.



    I just read the bill below at http://thomas.loc.gov/ please pass it on to
    anyone and everyone you know...we all have children in our lives that
    shouldn't be burdened this way.

    Mandatory draft for boys and girls (ages 18-26)
    starting June 15, 2005, is something that everyone should know about.
    This literally effects everyone since we all have or know children
    that will have to go if this bill passes.


    There is pending legislation in the house and senate (companion bills:
    S89 and HR 163) which will time the program's initiation so the draft can
    begin as early as spring, 2005, just after the 2004 presidential election.
    The administration is quietly trying to get these bills passed now, while
    the public's attention is on the elections, so our action on this is needed
    immediately. Details and links follow.

    This plan, among other things, eliminates higher education as a shelter and
    includes women in the draft. Also, crossing into Canada has already been
    made very difficult.

    Actions:

    Please send this on to all the parents and teachers
    you know, and all the aunts and uncles, grandparents, godparents. . .
    And let your children know - - it's their future, and they can be a
    powerful voice for change!

    This legislation is called HR 163 and can be found
    in detail at this website:

    http://thomas.loc.gov/

    Just enter in "HR 163" and click search and will
    bring up the bill for you to read. It is less than two pages long.

    If this bill passes, it will include all! men and
    ALL WOMEN from ages 18 - 26 in a draft for military action. In
    addition, college will no longer be an option for avoiding the draft
    and they will be signing an agreement with the Canada which will no
    longer permit anyone attempting to dodge the draft to stay within
    it's borders. This bill also includes the extention of military
    service for all those that are currently active. If you go to the
    selcet service web site and read their 2004 FYI Goals you will see
    that the reasoning for this is to increase the size of the military
    in case of terrorism. This is a critical piece of legislation, this
    will effect our undergradates, our children and our grandchildren.
    Please take the time to write your congressman and let them know how
    you feel about this legislation.

    www.house.gov www.senate.gov

    Please also write to your representatives and ask
    them why they aren't telling their constituents about these bills and
    write to newspapers and other media outlets to ask them why they're
    not covering this important story.

    The draft $28 million has been added to the 2004
    selective service system budget to prepare for a military draft that
    could start as early as June 15, 2005. Selective service must report
    to Bush on March 31, 2005 that the system, which has lain dormant for
    decades, is ready for activation.

    Please see www.sss.gov/perfplan_fy2004.html to view
    the Selective Service System annual performance plan, fiscal year
    2004.
    The pentagon has quietly begun a public campaign to
    fill all 10,350 draft board positions and 11,070 appeals board slots
    nationwide. Though this is an unpopular election year topic, military
    experts and influential members of congress are suggesting that if
    Rumsfeld's prediction of a "long, hard slog" in Iraq and Afghanistan
    (and permanent state of war on terrorism) proves accurate, the U.S.
    may have no choice but to draft.

    http://www.hslda.org/legislation/national/2003/s89 entitled the
    Universal National service Act of 2003, "to provide for the common
    defense by requiring that all young persons (age 18-26) in the United
    States, including women, perform a period of military service or a
    period of civilian service in furtherance of the national defense and
    homeland security, and for other purposes." These active bills
    currently sit in the committee on armed services. Dodging the draft
    will be more difficult than those from the Vietnam era. College and
    Canada will not be options. In December, 200 1, Canada and the U.S.
    signed a "smart border declaration," which could be used to keep
    would-be draft dodgers in. Signed by Canada's minister of foreign
    affairs, John Manley, and U.S. Homeland Security director, Tom Ridge,
    the declaration involves a 30 point plan which implements, among
    other things, a "pre-clearance agreement" of people entering and! departing
    each country. Reforms aimed at making the draft more
    equitable along gender and class lines also eliminates higher
    education as a shelter. Underclassmen would only be able to postpone
    service until the end of their current semester. Seniors would have
    until the end of the academic year.

    What to do: Tell your friends, Contact your
    legislators and ask them to oppose these bills

    Just type "congress" into the aol search engine
    and input your zip code. A list of your reps will pop up with a way
    to email them directly. We can't just sit and pretend that by
    ignoring it, it will go away. We must voice our concerns and create
    the world we want to live in for our children and grandchildren.






    Tuesday, September 21, 2004
     

    BAUAW NEWSLETTER-TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 20, 2004

    BAUAW MEETING WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 22, 7:00 p.m.
    1380 VALENCIA STREET
    (Between 24th & 25th Streets, SF)

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

    1) Quinto Sol at Youth & Power Event
    @ Cabrillo College, Oct. 2nd!
    From: "Jon Previtali"

    2) John Kerry: Statement of Principles on U.S. Cuba Policy
    June 5, 2004
    http://www.johnkerry.com/pressroom/releases/pr_2004_0605a.html

    3) Cost Free Campaigning:
    From: "Eric Schiller"
    To: BAUAW
    Mon, 20 Sep 2004

    4) CALIFORNIA YOUTH AUTHORITY PRISONERS JUST KEEP DYING

    5) Here is the story that Scripps Howard covered:
    Million Worker March to Voice Labor Movement Concerns
    by Rebecca Trela

    6) WHAT THE WORLD THINKS OF THIS EMPIRE
    [Col. Writ. 8/28/04] Copyright 2004 Mumia Abu-Jamal

    7) REMEMBERING TOM PAINE
    [Col. Writ. 8/29/04] Copyright 2004 Mumia Abu-Jamal

    8) THE HORRORS OF CHECHNYA -- AGAIN!
    [Col. Writ. 9/4/04] Copyright 2004 Mumia Abu-Jamal

    9) "WORKING PEOPLE YES! WAR NO!
    HAVE YOU GOTTEN YOUR BUSES FOR OCT 17 WASHINGTON DC?
    Anti-War 4 the Million Worker March
    http://antiwar4themillionworkermarch.org

    10) Reuters Asks a Chain to Remove Its Bylines
    By IAN AUSTEN
    September 20, 2004
    http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/20/business/media/20reuters.html

    11) International Council for Humanity Film showing
    Every Wednesday night in October @7pm
    The Humanist Hall, 390 27th Street,
    Oakland, between Broadway and Telegraph

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

    1) Quinto Sol at Youth & Power Event
    @ Cabrillo College, Oct. 2nd!
    From: "Jon Previtali"

    Youth and Power

    SATURDAY, OCTOBER 2, 2004
    CABRILLO COLLEGE
    6500 SOQUEL DRIVE, APTOS, CA
    EVENTS START @ 1p.m. until 11p.m.
    In The College Theater

    For more info, hit up: www.nonviolentprotester.com

    Live Music by:
    quinto sol,EL VUH, Sandfly, Dubwise, Psykoflavor, Silvio

    ALSO FEATURING: Activist workshops, Danza Azteca Ixtatutli, Native Drumming, Brazilian Music, Spoken Word ,Open Mic, Dance Performers

    Participating Organizations:

    Watsonville Brown Berets, Global Exchange, Santa Cruz Cuba
    Study Group, Youth Empowerment Project! (YEP!), Resource
    Center for Nonviolence, Cabrillo College Student Senate,
    Commemoration Committee of the Black Panther Party (CCBPP),
    Books Not Bars, 94.1 KPFA- La Onda Bajita, Triangle Speakers,
    Barrios Unidos, Cabrillo College MEChA, Youth In Focus, White
    Hawk Aztec Danza, Art in Action, FMLN, Code Pink, Free Radio
    Santa Cruz 101.1, Santa Cruz Copwatch, and more to be announced!!

    PLEASE DISTRIBUTE WIDELY!!!

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

    2) John Kerry: Statement of Principles on U.S. Cuba Policy
    June 5, 2004
    http://www.johnkerry.com/pressroom/releases/pr_2004_0605a.html

    I am committed to seeing the end to the Castro regime, which I have
    long condemned for its flagrant human rights abuse and political
    oppression. There is no excuse for the Castro regime to hold down
    over 11 million talented and hardworking citizens of the Americas,
    some of our closest neighbors. Let there be no mistake about my
    view: I will support effective and peaceful strategies that will hasten
    the end of the Castro regime as soon as possible, and enable the
    Cuban people to take their rightful place in the democratic community
    of the Americas. But the policy of this Administration punishes and
    isolates the Cuban people while leaving Castro and his consorts
    unharmed, free to blame the United States for their own failures.

    I want to work with all Americans, especially the broad and diverse
    Cuban-American community, others in the Latino community, the
    United States Congress, our neighbors in this hemisphere, and the
    international community, to bring about a peaceful transition to
    democracy in Cuba, putting the focus on Castro's failures instead
    of our policy.

    President Bush's recent election-year move to significantly restrict
    cash remittances to Cuban families and virtually eliminate family
    travel must be seen for what it is -- a cynical and misguided ploy
    for a few Florida votes. This move will not pressure Castro. But it
    will pressure Cuban-Americans and their often elderly relatives
    across the straits. I am not going to pander and promise something
    no president in the last 45 years has been able to deliver. I want to
    take steps to help all of us, including Cubans and their families in
    Cuba, work toward a democratic solution and the ultimate end to
    the Castro regime in a peaceful and democratic way. President Bush,
    on the other hand, has asked Cuban-Americans to choose between
    their government and their families on the island, steps widely
    denounced not only by Cuban families, but also by leading
    dissidents on the island. When the President's proposals take
    effect, the misery of the Cuban people, not of Castro, is sure to rise.

    Instead, we should promote the interchanges of ideas that will
    begin now to lay the foundations for economic prosperity and an
    independent civil society that I believe are so critical to peace and
    democracy. I would begin by encouraging principled travel. George
    Bush wants to end most travel to Cuba. Cuban-American families
    are the most positive force for change in Cuba today. Why limit their
    freedom to press for change? Humanitarian trade in food and
    medicine is another powerful way to strengthen the foundation
    of freedom and democracy. And we have a bipartisan consensus
    in the Congress for such steps.

    Indeed, I have consistently joined my colleagues on both sides of
    the aisle in votes with bipartisan majorities to end the travel ban
    and to permit the sale of food and medicine, while voting to censure
    Cuba for human rights violations. Last year, both houses of Congress
    voted in favor of lifting the travel ban - and only Bush Administration
    opposition prevented the bipartisan will of Congress from becoming
    law. These votes signal my belief and that of the Congress that selective
    engagement, not isolation, is the best way for the American people
    to send real, not just rhetorical, hope for a better future to the
    Cuban people.

    I have also consistently supported remittances because I believe
    they can become a powerful tool for all Cuban-Americans and all
    Americans to help Cubans on the island not just to survive, but also
    to start small businesses and thereby gain a measure of autonomy
    from the crushing repression of the Cuban state. We should lift
    the remittance cap and allow all Americans to send remittances
    to households and humanitarian institutions. The Bush announcement
    to curb travel and remittances, will not only hurt Cuban families, but
    will also prompt the Castro regime again to blame the United States
    for the Cuban people's suffering.

    I also support the free flow of information to Cuba. Enhancing
    communication through news bureaus, people-to-people contact,
    effective support for dissidents and civil society, and an accessible,
    soundly managed, fair and balanced Radio and TV Martí can help
    reduce the isolation of the Cuban people. But at the end of the day,
    the best way to communicate American ideals to Cubans is to let
    Americans and Cubans talk face to face.

    Let me be clear - I do not support lifting the embargo or
    recognizing Castro's dictatorial regime. While reducing the
    economic isolation of the Cuban people, I want to work with
    the international community to increase political and diplomatic
    pressure on the Castro regime to release all political prisoners,
    support civil society, and begin a process of genuine political
    reform.

    This effort will come as part of a broader initiative to restore
    American credibility with our allies. President Bush on the other
    hand is now considering implementing extra territorial aspects
    of the Helms-Burton law, aimed at punishing foreign countries
    and companies for investing in Cuba. This will further strain
    relations with Canada and our European allies when, frankly,
    we most need them. With American credibility abroad suffering
    from this White House's smug disregard for world opinion, extra-
    territorial steps will only make matters worse. Instead, I will work
    to craft a policy toward Cuba that our allies can join and support.

    Over the last forty-five years our government has tried everything
    from invasion and covert operations to economic sanctions and
    international pressure to bring about change in Cuba. The American
    taxpayer has spent billions of dollars on the cause, to no avail. For
    example, under the Bush administration, far more manpower at
    the Treasury is dedicated to enforcing the Cuba travel ban than
    to tracking down terrorist financing. A policy of isolation and
    deprivation sends the wrong message to the Cuban people and
    strengthens Castro and the hardliners around him, allowing them
    to manipulate information about America's intentions.

    As President, I will seek to reverse that equation and show
    Cubans on the island that the United States government and
    all of its citizens, including Cuban-Americans, can be positive
    partners for the island's free and democratic future.


    Paid for and authorized by Kerry-Edwards 2004, Inc.

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    3) Cost Free Campaigning:
    From: "Eric Schiller"
    To: BAUAW
    Mon, 20 Sep 2004

    I have a meeting in Berkeley at 5, so might not be able to
    get to the meeting.

    You might want to circulate my suggestion on cost-free campaigning:

    1. Get (or make) a 1-sheet flyer or information sheet against Bush

    2. Collect all the postage-paid business reply envelopes
    from your junk mail
    3. Place flyer in envelope, seal and mail

    These envelopes are opened by low-wage workers who tend not to be
    politically active.

    Many of them live in "swing" states.

    Let the corporate goons subsidize this campaign to kick their boy out
    of the White House!


    Eric Schiller
    www.ericschiller.com
    .........

    Dear Eric,

    While I don't support "lesser of two evils politics" I think this
    is a great way to use those postage-paid mailer envelops for
    circulating antiwar information to those we would not
    reach otherwise...Bonnie Weinstein

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    4) CALIFORNIA YOUTH AUTHORITY PRISONERS JUST KEEP DYING

    About four dozen protesters endured wet weather Sunday as they
    marched and chanted for a mile to the California Youth Authority
    facility near Stockton. The march was in response to the latest
    death of a ward at the facility and to advocate for the youth prison
    to be shut down. "Stop the deaths! Stop the lies! CYA ruins lives!"
    said the protesters, who included members of Books Not Bars, a
    statewide campaign fighting to redirect California's public
    resources away from punishment of young people and toward
    opportunity through rehabilitation.

    "We are not getting any answers from them (CYA)," Twanisha Brewer,
    22, said during the protest. "When he got here, he was healthy, and
    that's the way he should have come home. We need to know what
    happened to my brother," she said.

    Dyron Mandell Brewer, 24, of Berkeley was found dead at 3:45 a.m.
    Sept. 5 in his cell at the N.A. Chaderjian Youth Correctional
    Facility, southeast of Stockton. Brewer's is the fourth death in CYA
    custody this year. Two wards, ages 17 and 18, hung themselves in
    January in a cell they shared at a facility in Ione; another,
    Roberto Lombana, 18, died later that month at Chad after ingesting
    cleaning fluid. The Stockton facility also drew fire in April from
    critics pushing for reforms to the youth prisons after California
    State Sen. Gloria Romero (D-Los Angeles) released a videotape that
    showed prison guards beating two wards at the site.

    Jakada Imani, program director of the Ella Baker Center for Human
    Rights, said a photograph of Brewer was "deeply alarming" to the
    family: They were barred from seeing the body at the coroner's
    office, and instead were shown a Polaroid picture of his face. They
    could hardly recognize Brewer in the photograph, they said, but they
    would not specify what he looked like other than to say his face was
    swollen. "We need answers, we need to know why [he died]," said
    Twanisha Brewer. "That was my heart, and that was ripped from me,"
    she said.

    At the CYA in Stockton, Brewer's family and friends said he
    complained during phone conversations about being picked on by
    guards. He told them the guards were trying to get him in trouble so
    they could add time to his sentence. They said he was also confused
    about why he was back in CYA and pleaded with them to contact his
    parole officer to find out.

    Dyron had no history of seizures, heart trouble, asthma, high blood
    pressure, drug abuse, or the like. Yet CYA officials claim that
    Dyron went to sleep in his cell as a perfectly healthy 24-year-old
    and simply never woke up.

    Unable to get answers about what had happened, the family teamed up
    with Books Not Bars, a human rights advocacy organization that
    focuses on incarcerated youth. Together they are demanding that CYA
    release any information they have that would add to the coroner's
    report. They said they are going to file a freedom of information
    request for all documents related to the death and the treatment of
    wards in the facilities. "Given the CYA's horrible track record of
    neglect, abuse, and cover up, we need a full investigation of how
    Dyron lost his life," said Lenore Anderson, the director of Books
    Not Bars. "The CYA should release its reports on this incident and
    let the family know what happened to their son."

    "CYA needs to be shut down," Twanisha Brewer said. "It's not just
    our family, but other families need to know why these kids are dead.
    They need answers, too."

    At the end of Sunday's protest, carnations were placed on the barbed-
    wire fence around Chaderjian to memorialize the wards' deaths.
    Sources: Books Not Bars, Berkeley Daily Planet, IMC/Bay Area,
    Stockton Record


    To view the Oread Daily go to
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    Contact the Oread Daily at dgscooldesign@yahoo.com

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    5) Here is the story that Scripps Howard covered:
    Million Worker March to Voice Labor Movement Concerns
    by Rebecca Trela

    (From: "sharon black"
    Date: Mon, 20 Sep 2004 8:51:3 -0400)

    Americans are expected to gather at the Lincoln Memorial Oct. 17 for the
    Million Worker March, mobilizing union workers and anti-war
    demonstrators in a show of election-related concerns.


    Sept 16, 2004 (AXcess News) Washington - Thousands of Americans are
    expected to gather at the Lincoln Memorial Oct. 17 for the Million
    Worker March, mobilizing union workers and anti-war demonstrators in a
    show of election-related concerns.

    "We see the Million Worker March as an integral part of putting this
    country back on the right track,"said Chris Silvera, president of the
    National Black Teamsters Caucus, at a news conference Thursday.

    March organizers cited universal health care, pension plans, the future
    of Social Security and the withdrawal of troops from Iraq as key issues
    to set before legislators.

    Sponsors of the march include the National Education Association; the
    Green Party; the Teamsters National Black Caucus; the International
    Longshore and Warehouse Union; the American Federation of State, County
    and Municipal Employees; the American Postal Workers Union; and Rep.
    Barbara Lee, D-Calif.

    Recently, AFL-CIO Field Mobilization Director Marilyn C. Sneiderman was
    criticized by some union workers for public remarks discouraging union
    members from attending the march.

    A spokeswoman for the labor union coalition, however, attempted on
    Thursday to clarify its position:

    "We've never said that we're against the march," said Lane Windham.
    "Certainly we support the goals, but we don't think this is the right
    time. We think that all the labor movement's efforts should be going
    into battleground states." Windham suggested a Washington event after
    the election.

    March organizers estimated on their permit application that the march
    would draw 100,000 demonstrators, according to Warren Suyderhoud
    of the National ! Park Ser vice permit department.

    March Co-Chair Clarence Thomas, a Longshore and Warehouse Union
    official, said he hopes to achieve that number.

    "We're not saying that there will be a million people there, but a
    million people will be represented," he said.

    Thomas indicated that, although some unions involved in the march have
    endorsed candidates for the election, the march organization has
    remained neutral to host an all-inclusive event.

    The Rev. Jesse Jackson and the Rev. E. Randall Osburn of the Southern
    Christian Leadership Conference will speak. The event will also include
    special interest and advocacy group tents on the Mall.

    Source: Scripps Howard Foundation Wire

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    6) WHAT THE WORLD THINKS OF THIS EMPIRE
    [Col. Writ. 8/28/04] Copyright 2004 Mumia Abu-Jamal

    The announcement, and the subsequent retraction, of
    the news that US Secretary of State, Colin Powell would,
    and then would not attend the closing ceremonies of the
    Olympics in Athens gives us some idea of what millions
    of people think, not just in Greece, but all around the
    world, about the world's sole superpower.'

    It also shows that the administration is leery of
    showing what the world thinks, and this, with perhaps
    the most popular member of the administration.

    The world is angry at the US for its imperial
    invasion of Iraq on the now-faded pretext, of
    'weapons of mass destruction.' This may be seen
    at the chorus of boos showered on American
    athletes in Athens, something that is quite rare.

    If we believe the corporate media, we see the
    world in sharp, binary shades; much like Bush
    suggested after September 11, 2001:'... they're
    either for us, or against us.'

    Military dictatorships and quasi-democracies
    the world over, are using this simplistic 'for us
    or against us' formula to target a slew of domestic
    political opponents, in much the same way that
    they used it during the Cold War. Today, their
    opponents aren't called 'communists', or
    'subversives' -- they're called 'terrorists.' Thus
    trade unionists, human rights activists, and
    various representatives of nationalist, cultural,
    and ethnic movements are targeted by their
    governments, often with the support of the
    US government, as the newest 'enemy':
    'terrorists.'

    A recent book on the dark and dangerous
    ties between Colombia and the US shows
    the latest features of this trend.

    Written by scholar and veteran journalist,
    Mario A. Murillo, a Colombian-American
    who teaches at Hofstra and the NYU, the
    picture that emerges of Colombia is of
    rampant corruption and sheer opportunism.
    Murillo is especially critical of the press,
    which, as it has done in the opening of the
    Iraq War, routinely serves as an important
    ally of the government, often without question.

    Murillo has written Colombia and the
    United States: War, Unrest and Destabilization
    (New York: Seven Stories Press/Open
    Media, 2004), which, among other things,
    shows us how the major media serves the
    power elites (both in the US *and* Colombia!)
    by misrepresenting radical, and nationalist
    movements, and indeed, by ignoring history
    in support of a series of myths.

    They do this by the formula of appearing
    to be fair and objective, while using the
    journalistic technique of slant, to favor the
    established, state forces, against those who
    oppose that state.

    One example of this may be shown quickly
    in a reference to the guerrilla movement known
    as FARC (Revolutionary Armed Forces of
    Colombia). While Murillo is critical of FARC's
    shortcomings and errors (especially where
    peasants and workers were hurt), he points
    out that rightist paramilitaries, like the
    much lesser-known AUC (*A*utodefensas
    *U*nidas de *C*olombia) were responsible
    for over 75% of civilian casualties, torture
    and rapes. It also goes largely unreported that
    they are quite close to the State, and often work
    hand-in-glove with them.

    Also virtually unreported is the racial
    composition of the Colombian people.
    Murillo writes: "Colombia has a large black
    population, ranging anywhere between 20
    and 45 percent of the total, depending on
    which figures you read and how you interpret
    them." [p. 40] Afro-Colombians, many of
    whom dwell in the rural and coastal areas,
    are among the poorest, and most violently
    repressed people of the country, both by
    the state and the paramilitaries.

    While most of us who read, hear, or
    watch major media may have a skewed
    perspective of Colombia, and how the
    Colombian people view the US, and their
    political leaders, Murillo tells of one
    occasion when a Colombian politician
    sent a powerful, public message to the
    president, Uribe, that leapt the translation
    barrier. On the floor of the chamber
    of representatives, an independent
    politician presented Uribe and his ministers
    with a pair of knee pads, emblazoned
    with American flags on them.

    No one, it seems, loves an Empire.

    (Prof. Murillo's book is available from:
    Seven Stories Press, 140 Watts St.,
    NY, NY 10013. On the web:
    www.sevenstories.com. Seven Stories
    has also published some of the writings
    of Mr. Jamal.)

    Copyright 2004 Mumia Abu-Jamal

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    7) REMEMBERING TOM PAINE
    [Col. Writ. 8/29/04] Copyright 2004 Mumia Abu-Jamal

    "A little matter will move a party, but it must be
    something great that moves a nation."
    -- Thomas Paine, *Rights of Man* (1791-92)

    The name Tom Paine may be known here in America,
    but it is not revered.

    If he is seen as a so-called 'founding father', he
    is a forgotten one, who gets few accolades, when
    one compares him to his contemporaries, like
    George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, or
    Ben Franklin.

    The faces of these men emblazon U.S. currency,
    and there are universities, hospitals and other
    i