1) We ain't gonna study war no more!
(Killing and being killed is not a career choice!)
Come to an organizing meeting to get the military
out of our schools!
Saturday, 11:00 a.m., February 5, 2005
Centro del Pueblo, 474 Valencia Street
(near 16th St. in S.F.)


2) CRITICAL Hearing Friday January 28, 2005 for
SHEILA DETOY17-Year-Old Girl Shot In Head By
Rogue Cop In 1998 ...
January 28, 2005
9:30 AM
Superior Court
CIVIC CENTER COURTHOUSE
400 McAllister Street Dept. 301
San Francisco, CA 94102
CASE # CPF04-504029
LAST CHANCE FOR JUSTICE!
The San Francisco Police Department is trying
to get away with MURDER!!!
for more information call (510)428-3939

3) March 19, 2005 Global Day of Action
No to War Occupation – Iraq, Palestine, Haiti,
Afghanistan, Cuba Everywhere!
Bring the Troops Home Now!
Money for People’s Needs, Not War!
San Francisco: March Assembles: 11 a.m. Dolores Park
Rally: 1 p.m. Civic Center

4) Army Recruiters Turn College Park High into Shooting Range
from recent NBC 11 TV report

5) U.S. Army recruiters cause uproar at College Park High
By Jackie Burrell
CONTRA COSTA TIMES
Posted on Fri, Jan. 21, 2005
http://www.contracostatimes.com/mld/cctimes/news/local/states/california/cou
nties/contra_costa_county/10698686.htm?template=contentModules/printstory.js
p

6) "The Security State: The "New" COINTELPRO Campaign
Directed at Arabs, Muslims and Southeast Asians"
Question and Answer session will follow
Thursday February 3rd
7:00 PM
145 Dwinelle
UC Berkeley Campus
Donation: $3-10 Sliding scale
No one turned away for lack of funds.
http://al-awda.org

7) 36 U.S. Troops Die in Iraq in Their Bloodiest Day
By Matt Spetalnick
BAGHDAD (Reuters)
Wed Jan 26, 2005 09:17 AM ET
http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=topNews&storyID=7437344&src=eD
ialog/GetContent§ion=news

8) Generation Debt: The New Economics of Being Young
Feeling a Draft?
Poor kids of color fight the Pentagon
by Anya Kamenetz
January 24th, 2005 12:21 PM
http://www.villagevoice.com/generic/show_print.php?id=60395&page=kamenetz&is
sue=0504&printcde=MzMyMDI4NzE1OA==&refpage=L25ld3MvaW5kZXgucGhwP2lzc3VlPTA1M
DQmcGFnZT1rYW1lbmV0eiZpZD02MDM5NQ==

9) Action Items
EXAMINER AD DEMONIZES PALESTINIAN CHILDREN
Ali Abunimah, The Electronic Intifada, 25 January 2005
From: "ei News"
Sent: Tuesday, January 25, 2005 4:08 PM
http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article3559.shtml
*** Please visit the Action Item to view the advert ***

10) Vote Where, How, and for Whom?
** Dahr Jamail's Iraq Dispatches **
** http://dahrjamailiraq.com **
Inter Press Service
Dahr Jamail

11) Cuba is resisting and making the difference
By : Maïté Pinero
Translated by: Patrick Bolland
http://www.humaniteinenglish.com/news/output/world_1106589993.shtml

12) WARNING: JOINING THE MILITARY IS HAZARDOUS
www.objector.org, July 24, 2002
http://www.guerrillafunk.com/thoughts/doc612.html

13) California's Prison Budget
Fri, 21 Jan 2005
CRITICAL RESISTANCE
CALIFORNIA PRISON BUDGET SUMMARY 2005-06

14) The Antiwar Movement and the Iraqi Elections

15) U.S. Army Prepares Armed 'Robo-Soldier' for Iraq
By Michael P. Regan
AP Business Writer
TechnologyReview.com
January 25, 2005
http://www.technologyreview.com/articles/05/01/ap/ap_3012505.asp?p=0

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

1) We ain't gonna study war no more!
(Killing and being killed is not a career choice!)
Come to an organizing meeting to get the
military out of our schools!
Saturday, 11:00 a.m., February 5, 2005
Centro del Pueblo, 474 Valencia Street
(near 16th St. in S.F.)

Our children are being recruited to military service right out
of High School. They are being offered Junior ROTC for class
credit as an alternative to Physical Education. Junior ROTC advocates
the military as a career choice. Every day we hear of schools and
hospitals closing. Our children have fewer job opportunities
available to them with far fewer benefits. And they are finding
it increasingly more difficult to go to college because of increased
college costs and the general increase in the cost of living. Junior
ROTC makes the military attractive to them. But these are not
the job opportunities we want for our children-or that our
children want for themselves!

Meanwhile, due to an ever-increasing war budget, most of our
tax dollars are being spent on a war with no end in sight; and
on overall defense spending that dwarfs even the war budget!
And while corporations are raking in billions, two-thirds of
them pay no taxes at all. This puts a severe strain on the taxes
left over-after military and defense expenditures-for all social
services and human needs-taxes that come from the poor and
all working people. We want our children to have an opportunity
to learn and thrive to the best of their potential not to kill and
be killed. Stop the war. Bring all our troops home now. End all
military recruitment in public schools and institutions of higher
learning. Use our tax dollars for schools, healthcare, housing,
jobs-all human needs not war!

Number of U.S. soldiers killed in Iraq as of Jan 11: 1,357
http://www.ac.wwu.edu/~stephan/USfatalities.html

Number of U.S. soldiers wounded in Iraq: over 10,000
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines05/0104-12.ht

Number of Iraqis killed: est. over 100,000
http://www.iraqbodycount.net/press/

Number of Iraqis wounded: Untold.
Not counted but estimated in the millions.

Cost of the war: $149.5 billion spent as of Jan. 12, 2005
http://costofwar.com/index.html

With the money spent so far on the war we could have
hired over 2,600,566 public schoolteachers for one year.
http://costofwar.com/index-public-education.html

Total U.S. Defense spending: nearly $754 billion as of
fiscal year 2004.
http://www.independent.org/newsroom/article.asp?id=1253

The people of San Francisco voted last November 2004
by a 63 percent majority to bring all our troops home now.
We haven't changed our minds!

Bay Area United Against War (www.bauaw.org) (415) 824-8730
P.O. Box 318021, S. F., CA 94131-8021
Labor Donated...BW

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

2) CRITICAL Hearing Friday January 28, 2005 for
SHEILA DETOY17-Year-Old Girl Shot In Head By
Rogue Cop In 1998 ...
January 28, 2005
9:30 AM
Superior Court
CIVIC CENTER COURTHOUSE
400 McAllister Street Dept. 301
San Francisco, CA 94102
CASE # CPF04-504029
LAST CHANCE FOR JUSTICE!

The San Francisco Police Department is trying to get away
with MURDER!!!

If the cops get their way, the Superior Court will DISMISS
THE CASE against killer cop GREGORY BRESLIN !!!

With no punishment for Breslin - or anyone - in the 1998
cold-blooded police shooting of Sheila Detoy !!!

Don't let police murder go unpunished !!!


SIX YEARS - NO JUSTICE FOR SHEILA DETOY

* May 13, 1998: San Francisco police officers shot up a car full
of unarmed teenagers and killed 17-year-old Sheila Detoy.
SFPD then blamed her friends for her death.

* The Office of Citizen Complaints found that Officer Gregory
Breslin is responsible for her death. The OCC also sustained
complaints against the other officers involved in Sheila's killing.

* In 2003 the San Francisco Police Commission decided they
wanted to file charges against the officers, but the Police Officers
Association is trying to get Breslin off on a technicality but we
say: THERE IS NO TIME LIMIT ON PUNISHING KILLER COPS!!!

for more information call (510)428-3939

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

3) March 19, 2005 Global Day of Action
No to War Occupation – Iraq, Palestine, Haiti,
Afghanistan, Cuba Everywhere!
Bring the Troops Home Now!
Money for People’s Needs, Not War!
San Francisco: March Assembles: 11 a.m. Dolores Park
Rally: 1 p.m. Civic Center

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

4) Army Recruiters Turn College Park High into Shooting Range
from recent NBC 11 TV report -

PLEASANT HILL - U.S. Army recruiters turned College Park High School's quad

into a lunchtime shooting range Wednesday, much to the consternation of

teachers and students.

Recruiters arrived on the College Park campus in a glossy big rig, bearing

realistic-looking handguns with air compressors to provide the recoil kick.

And they gave the student shooters prizes.

Military recruiters are no strangers on high school campuses, but they

usually restrict themselves to flier distribution, strolling about the quad

or putting in an occasional appearance in the college and career center.

"It's not a soldier issue," said teacher Jen Kennedy. "In this

post-Columbine era, target practice with high school students leaves me

speechless."

U.S. Army Sgt. Delbert Miller said he and the Fort Knox marksmanship team

visited College Park as just one stop on an annual tour of hundreds of

schools and colleges.

"We presented it as an event for the kids," Miller said. "(We used) plastic

pistols hooked up to an air compressor."

Miller, whose crew handed out water bottles, T-shirts and dog tags, said he

was unaware that all weapons -- including plastic guns, water pistols and

Halloween props that resemble weapons -- are banned in California schools.

If students brought to school anything like the pistols the recruiters

shared with College Park students Wednesday, they'd be expelled, said junior

Isaac Miller. These were "an exact replica of guns with blowback," he said.

"It just seems weird."

"When you shot, it recoiled like a real gun," said senior Tom Morgenstern.

"Having guns at school? It's the Army, they have a legal right to be here,

but when they start bringing these games to school and try to make shooting

fun?"

Morgenstern and fellow senior Jayme Farrell-Ranker had set up the school's

tsunami relief fund-raising effort on the quad early Wednesday and soon

found themselves sharing plaza space with the recruiters and shooting range.

"We're trying to do something nice and they come with their games and guns,"

said Farrell-Ranker.

The marksmanship unit is one of several splashy military recruiting efforts,

including big rigs that turn into science classrooms, portable rock walls,

"adventure vans" with interactive exhibits on educational aspects of

military life, and humvees that visit elementary through high schools. The

marksmanship unit dates back to 1912.

This particular demonstration took College Park officials by surprise.

Principal Dennis Berger thought the event he had quickly approved Wednesday

morning at the request of a former student was a ceremonial drill in which

soldiers twirl rifles in a carefully choreographed routine.

He was not on campus Wednesday morning and was under the impression that the

demonstration involved electronic media.

"It was a last-minute event," Berger said. "This one happened to be on

marksmanship, so they had video games. ... In hindsight, I wish we had known

in more detail what they were going to do. We got something we didn't quite

expect."

Sgt. Miller described the pistols as carnival game-style, but students said

they shot a beam of light.

Before they were allowed to handle the pistols, students had to supply their

names, phone numbers, addresses and Social Security numbers. And many

complied.

"I was shocked and dismayed," said teacher Joan Lopate. "These kids are

young and impressionable. I had one student come over to say, 'This

recruiter was so aggressive. I'm only 15.'"

When that student, Dustin Lovejoy, told the recruiter he was too young to

join the military soon, he was told to sign up anyway. The recruiter said

he'd call him "when it was time," Lovejoy said.

"They're just showing you what they do in the Army," said junior Sierra

Pierce, who has visited the nearby recruiting center on several occasions

and plans to enlist. "Those kids are in for it now. (The military) won't

stop till they're recruited."


Joie Tamkin
Assignment Editor
NBC11/KNTV Bay Area
415.276.1100
Joie.Tamkin@nbcuni.com

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

5) U.S. Army recruiters cause uproar at College Park High
By Jackie Burrell
CONTRA COSTA TIMES
Posted on Fri, Jan. 21, 2005
http://www.contracostatimes.com/mld/cctimes/news/local/states/california/cou
nties/contra_costa_county/10698686.htm?template=contentModules/printstory.js
p

PLEASANT HILL -U.S. Army recruiters turned College Park High School's
quad into a lunchtime shooting range Wednesday, much to the
consternation of teachers and students.

Recruiters arrived on the College Park campus in a glossy big rig, bearing
realistic-looking handguns with air compressors to provide the recoil
kick. And they gave the student shooters prizes.

Military recruiters are no strangers on high school campuses, but they
usually restrict themselves to flier distribution, strolling about the
quad or putting in an occasional appearance in the college and
career center.

"It's not a soldier issue," said teacher Jen Kennedy. "In this
post-Columbine era, target practice with high school students
leaves me speechless."

U.S. Army Sgt. Delbert Miller said he and the Fort Knox marksmanship
team visited College Park as just one stop on an annual tour of
hundreds of schools and colleges.

"We presented it as an event for the kids," Miller said. "(We used)
plastic pistols hooked up to an air compressor."

Miller, whose crew handed out water bottles, T-shirts and dog tags,
said he was unaware that all weapons -- including plastic guns,
water pistols and Halloween props that resemble weapons -- are
banned in California schools.

If students brought to school anything like the pistols the recruiters
shared with College Park students Wednesday, they'd be expelled,
said junior Isaac Miller. These were "an exact replica of guns with
blowback," he said. "It just seems weird."

"When you shot, it recoiled like a real gun," said senior Tom
Morgenstern. "Having guns at school? It's the Army, they have
a legal right to be here, but when they start bringing these games
to school and try to make shooting fun?"

Morgenstern and fellow senior Jayme Farrell-Ranker had set up
the school's tsunami relief fund-raising effort on the quad early
Wednesday and soon found themselves sharing plaza space with
the recruiters and shooting range.

"We're trying to do something nice and they come with their
games and guns," said Farrell-Ranker.

The marksmanship unit is one of several splashy military recruiting
efforts, including big rigs that turn into science classrooms,
portable rock walls, "adventure vans" with interactive exhibits on
educational aspects of military life, and humvees that visit
elementary through high schools. The marksmanship unit dates
back to 1912.

This particular demonstration took College Park officials by
surprise. Principal Dennis Berger thought the event he had
quickly approved Wednesday morning at the request of a former
student was a ceremonial drill in which soldiers twirl rifles
in a carefully choreographed routine.

He was not on campus Wednesday morning and was under the
impression that the demonstration involved electronic media.

"It was a last-minute event," Berger said. "This one happened to
be on marksmanship, so they had video games. ... In hindsight,
I wish we had known in more detail what they were going to do.
We got something we didn't quite expect."

Sgt. Miller described the pistols as carnival game-style, but
students said they shot a beam of light.

Before they were allowed to handle the pistols, students had
to supply their names, phone numbers, addresses and Social
Security numbers. And many complied.

"I was shocked and dismayed," said teacher Joan Lopate. "These
kids are young and impressionable. I had one student come
over to say, 'This recruiter was so aggressive. I'm only 15.'"

When that student, Dustin Lovejoy, told the recruiter he was
too young to join the military soon, he was told to sign up
anyway. The recruiter said he'd call him "when it was time,"
Lovejoy said.

"They're just showing you what they do in the Army," said junior
Sierra Pierce, who has visited the nearby recruiting center on
several occasions and plans to enlist. "Those kids are in for
it now. (The military) won't stop till they're recruited."

Jackie Burrell covers K-12 education. Reach her
at 925-977-8568 or jburrell@cctimes.com .

(c) 2005 ContraCostaTimes.com and wire service sources.
All Rights Reserved.
http://www.contracostatimes.com

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

6) "The Security State: The "New" COINTELPRO Campaign
Directed at Arabs, Muslims and Southeast Asians"
Question and Answer session will follow
Thursday February 3rd
7:00 PM
145 Dwinelle
UC Berkeley Campus
Donation: $3-10 Sliding scale
No one turned away for lack of funds.
http://al-awda.org

Sacred Roots and Al-Qalam Institute
Invites you to a talk by

Dr. Hatem Bazian

Lecturer in Near Eastern and Ethnic Studies at UC Berkeley

Speaking on the topic of:

"The Security State: The "New" COINTELPRO Campaign
Directed at Arabs, Muslims and Southeast Asians"
Question and Answer session will follow


Thursday February 3rd
7:00 PM
145 Dwinelle
UC Berkeley Campus
Donation: $3-10 Sliding scale
No one turned away for lack of funds.

http://al-awda.org

To visit your group on the web, go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Al-Awda-SF/


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

7) 36 U.S. Troops Die in Iraq in Their Bloodiest Day
By Matt Spetalnick
BAGHDAD (Reuters)
Wed Jan 26, 2005 09:17 AM ET
http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=topNews&storyID=7437344&src=eD
ialog/GetContent§ion=news

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Thirty-one U.S. troops were reported killed
in a helicopter crash and five more died in insurgent attacks
Wednesday in the deadliest day for American forces
since they invaded Iraq 22 months ago.

The heavy U.S. toll came amid a series of guerrilla
bombings and raids that killed 10 Iraqis in a campaign to
sabotage Sunday's landmark election -- a cornerstone of U.S.
plans in Iraq.

CNN, quoting the U.S. military, reported 31 Marines died
when their transport helicopter went down in the deserts of the
restive Anbar province of western Iraq.

The military confirmed casualties to reporters but gave no
figures, as search and rescue teams scoured the area. The cause
of the crash was not immediately known.

Four U.S. Marines were killed in action in Anbar province,
and an American soldier was killed in a rocket-propelled
grenade attack north of Baghdad, U.S. officials said.

The latest surge of insurgent attacks appeared aimed at
sowing panic even as the U.S.-backed interim government vowed
stringent measures to safeguard the election, Iraq's first
since the fall of Saddam Hussein in April 2003.

In a closely coordinated attack, three suicide car bombers
hit the town of Riyadh, a Sunni Arab area southwest of the
northern city of Kirkuk.

Two explosives-laden cars blew up simultaneously close to
an Iraqi army post and police station and a third vehicle
detonated minutes later on a nearby highway, a local police
chief said.

Four Iraqi policemen, two Iraqi soldiers and three
civilians were killed, and at least 12 people were wounded,
police said.

Shortly after the blasts, a U.S. combat patrol heading to
the scene came under small arms fire and two U.S. soldiers were
lightly wounded, the military said.

The previous deadliest day for U.S. forces was March 23,
2003, the third day of the war, when 28 U.S. soldiers died
mostly in fierce fighting in southern Iraq.

STRING OF ATTACKS

Police in Baquba, a mixed Shi'ite and Sunni town 65 km (40
miles) north of Baghdad, said one Iraqi policeman was killed
and at least eight people were wounded when gunmen fired on the
local offices of three parties contesting the polls.

Sunni insurgents have repeatedly targeted the country's
fledgling security forces in the countdown to the election,
accusing them of collaborating with U.S.-led occupiers.

Iraq's Shi'ite minority is expected to dominate the vote
after decades of rule by Saddam's Sunni minority.

In the northern city of Mosul, a rebel stronghold that has
seen persistent violence, a video filmed by insurgents showed
three Iraqi men who had apparently been taken hostage and who
said they worked for Iraq's electoral commission in the city.

On the video, a hooded insurgent carrying a pistol read out
a statement as another masked guerrilla crouched with a
rocket-propelled grenade launcher on his shoulder.

"We are mujahideen in the province of Nineveh. What they
call elections have no basis in the Islamic religion and that's
why we will hit all election centers," the statement said.

Several guerrilla groups in Iraq -- including militants
loyal to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, al Qaeda's leader in the country
-- have declared war on Sunday's elections, vowing to attack
polling stations and kill those who dare to vote.

The government plans extraordinary security measures,
including closing Baghdad airport and land borders over the
election period, extending night curfews in cities and banning
cars from roads on election day. Zarqawi, a Jordanian with
a $25 million bounty on his head, says the election is a plot
by Washington and Iraqi Shi'ite allies against Sunni Arabs,
who now fear being marginalized.

Iraq's Shi'ites, oppressed under Saddam, strongly support
the elections. A list of candidates dominated by Shi'ite
Islamists and drawn up with the guidance of revered cleric
Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani is expected to win the most votes,
cementing the newfound political power of Shi'ites.

But many Sunni Arab parties will boycott the polls, saying
the insurgency raging in Iraq's Sunni heartlands will prevent
their supporters from voting and skew the results.

Tension between Shi'ite and Sunni Arabs has been stoked by
a series of bomb attacks on Shi'ite targets, raising fears of
sectarian conflict.

Insurgents have also assassinated several leading officials.
Tuesday a top Baghdad judge was killed along with
his son in an ambush as they left home during morning rush hour.

(c) Reuters 2005

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

8) Generation Debt: The New Economics of Being Young
Feeling a Draft?
Poor kids of color fight the Pentagon
by Anya Kamenetz
January 24th, 2005 12:21 PM
http://www.villagevoice.com/generic/show_print.php?id=60395&page=kamenetz&is
sue=0504&printcde=MzMyMDI4NzE1OA==&refpage=L25ld3MvaW5kZXgucGhwP2lzc3VlPTA1M
DQmcGFnZT1rYW1lbmV0eiZpZD02MDM5NQ==

Chris Dugan, 27, signed up for his future hitch in the marines
while still in high school. "I wanted to be hard and serve my
country," he says. "My grandfather was a marine." Dugan was
lucky enough to serve in peacetime, from 1995 to 1999. Included
was a short stint as a recruiter for high schoolers like himself,
patriotic working-class kids without a lot of options to pay for
college, get job training, or find work. "These recruiters
psychoanalyze you and pitch you a story," he says. "They have
a quota, and if that quota isn't met, it's their ass. They'll do
whatever they can to get you in."

But now Chris is out-far out. He's a master's student at Hunter
College and a member of the International Socialist Organization
and the Campus Antiwar Network. And he's a counter-recruiter,
part of a growing grassroots national movement to keep kids
like him out of Iraq.

The No Child Left Behind Act, passed in 2002, included
a little-seen provision stipulating that all public high schools
provide a list of students' names, addresses, and other personal
information to military recruiters. Douglas Smith, a spokesperson
for the Army Reserve Command, says this provision is simply
a matter of convenience. "It saves the recruiters a lot of research
time figuring out how to get in contact with the students."

But by the accounts of teachers, students, and parents, the
officers in the pressed uniforms and shiny shoes are using those
data to get more aggressive, particularly at poor and largely
minority schools. At schools like Bronx Community College, they
set up tables three or four days a week; at many high schools,
they far outnumber college or other job recruiters. They call kids
at home, show up at their front doors, and even threaten them,
anything to get the kids to boot camp.

Activists report that one kid who signed up for delayed entry was
told that backing out, which is legally allowed, would be
desertion in a time of war, meaning he could be hunted down
and shot. (Smith, the army spokesperson, said a recruit could
be considered AWOL-less serious than desertion-only after
going through all physicals and other screenings, and then
failing to show up for basic training.)

On January 15 and 16, a coalition of local peace and student
groups met in Manhattan to brainstorm ways to reach kids
with the facts, starting with their right not to give up their
personal info. "Schools are obligated to inform both parents
and students of their right to opt out," said Amy of Youth
Activists-Youth Allies (Ya-Ya), which helped organize the
weekend counter-recruitment workshop. "Different schools
and districts are doing a different quality of job with that"-ranging
from letters sent home to each student to a small classified ad
in the local paper.

Ya-Ya has been meeting with high school officials, convincing
them that giving recruiters "equal access" does not mean giving
them free access to roam the halls and pull kids out of class.
The group's teenage members hand out flyers at area public
schools about the dangers of signing up for an eight-year hitch.
One of them is headlined "What Recruiters Don't Want You to
Know." Others talk about institutional racism, sexism, and
homophobia in the military, and false economic promises.

The army brags that it recently raised its top G.I. Bill award
for college to $70,000. What the service doesn't tell you is
that 43 percent of veterans see none of this money. You must
contribute $100 of your own paycheck each month for the
first year in order to qualify. Speaking of checks, for an army
PFC in 2005, the pay is $14,822 a year. Combat pay, for those
in Iraq, is another $225 a month, more if you have kids at home.

Many of the counter-recruiters, not just the socialists, see their
issue as one of economic justice. "Who does the military target?"
asks Peter, a 17-year-old student at the specialized Urban
Academy Laboratory public high school and a member of Ya-Ya.
"Young men of color like me. People from the ghetto with no
way out except the military. For me personally, this is about
raising social awareness."

With the pressure of Iraq, Afghanistan, and who knows what
other looming commitments, the army is adding 1,000 recruiters
to its staff this year, and the National Guard, which missed its
fiscal year 2004 goal of 56,000 new enlistees by nearly 10 percent,
is adding 700 more. The question on everyone's mind is what will
happen when shiny Hummers, free T-shirts, cajoling, and bullying
aren't enough. A Quaker woman at the workshop offered
a how-to on conscientious objection-no church affiliation required.

"Students at Hunter have a vested interest in this issue," Chris
Dugan says. "We start out by asking them, 'Are you under 27?
If there's a draft, you could go.' "

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

9) Action Items
EXAMINER AD DEMONIZES PALESTINIAN CHILDREN
Ali Abunimah, The Electronic Intifada, 25 January 2005
From: "ei News"
Sent: Tuesday, January 25, 2005 4:08 PM
http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article3559.shtml
*** Please visit the Action Item to view the advert ***

The Electronic Intifada calls on its readers to protest an
advertisement for the San Francisco Examiner and
Washington Examiner newspapers demonizing Palestinian
children. The advertisment appeared in the 24 January 2005
of Media Week, a trade publication.


THE PROBLEM

The advertisement aims to attract advertisers to the
Examiner newspapers. It includes a picture of a girl
playing a violin on the left-hand side of the page, and
another picture of a girl carrying an assault rifle on the
right-hand side of the page. Superimposed over the two
pictures is the legend "PTA to PLO," with PTA over the
girl with the violin and PLO over the girl with the rifle.

The pictures are undated and unsourced, however the
implication is clear: the girl with the rifle is supposed
to represent a Palestinian girl and embody what the PLO
stands for.

Such anti-Palestinian stereotypes obscure the reality that
over the past four years Palestinian children have been
the principal victims of violence and other human rights
abuses in the Israel-Palestine conflict.

625 Palestinian children were killed by the Israeli army
and settlers in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip
between 29 September 2000 and 31 December 2004 according
to the Palestinian Red Crescent Society. Over 100 Israeli
children have been killed by Palestinians during the same
period.

Amnesty International has frequently condemned violence
against Palestinian and Israeli children. In a 20 November
2004 statement, the organization said:

"Many killings of Palestinian children by
Israeli armed forces have been unlawful, as
wilful, killings resulting from acts including
reckless shooting, tank and aircraft shelling
and bombardments and house destruction. As
such these killings are grave breaches of the
Fourth Geneva Convention and therefore war
crimes. Such killings have been part of
widespread, as well as systematic, acts
against Palestinian civilians. They have been
carried out by Israeli armed forces pursuant
to government policy, evidenced by the
knowledge and approval of government
authorities who are fully aware that for over
four years such practices have consistently
resulted in the killing or injury of civilians
and who have declined to take effective steps
to prevent such killings of civilians. They,
therefore, meet the definition of crimes
against humanity under international law."

Amnesty also highlighted that:

"In their daily lives, Palestinian children
throughout the Occupied Territories have also
been exposed to an increasingly high level of
violence and violations of many of their
rights including the right to education, to an
adequate standard of living, to the highest
attainable standard of health, to safe and
secure housing, and to freedom of movement.
For four years many have been confronted with
Israeli army aircraft circling the sky or
launching missiles, and with Israeli army
tanks outside their homes and schools. Their
villages and neighbourhoods have been kept
under siege and they have often been confined
to their homes for days and weeks at a time by
curfews and closures. They have been forced to
go through military checkpoints to get to
school or to take long detours and to climb
over blockades or in and out of ditches in
order to visit relatives or to go to the
doctor."

Source: http://web.amnesty.org/library/index/ENGMDE020022004

The vast majority of killings are never investigated and
rarely are the killers punished by Israeli authorities.

While these human rights abuses continue unabated, some
pro-Israel groups have aggressively used unrepresentative
images similar to the one in The Examiner advertisement in
campaigns designed to demonize Palestinian children and
portray them as violent and Israel-hating and thereby
justify or explain away violence against them.

At the same time, equally disturbing images of Israeli
children are readily available but have not been used by
advocates for Palestinian rights to try to depict Israeli
children in a similar manner. While many news
organizations have taken seriously debunked claims that
Palestinian children are routinely taught anti-Israel
"hatred" and "incitement" in their schools, they have
largely ignored evidence that Israeli children,
particularly in West Bank settlements are indoctrinated
with anti-Arab hatred. A lengthy report by Ada Upshiz in
Israel's Ha'aretz newspaper on 21 January, for example,
revealed how some Israeli children routinely terrorize
Palestinians and call for the killing of all Palestinians
if they do not leave their homeland.

These phenomena are deeply disturbing and can be
documented on both sides of the conflict. They are the
product of a long and bitter conflict and should never be
used to demonize children.

News organizations have a responsibility to investigate
the reality behind hate-motivated campaigns against
Palestinian children and should certainly not draw on the
same stereotypes to sell advertising.


THE SOLUTION

Please contact Mark Wurzer, Vice-President of Advertising,
and Jim Pimentel, Managing Editor at The Examiner, to
politely request that The Examiner:

1. immediately withdraw the adverstisement;

2. apologize for stereotyping and demonizing Palestinian
children

Mark Wurzer
VP of Advertising
E-mail: mwurzer@examiner.com
Phone: +1 (303) 299-1488

Jim Pimentel
Managing Editor
E-mail: jpimentel@examiner.com
Phone: +1 (415) 826-1100

Save the Dates - Al-Awda's Third International
Convention: Empowering the Palestine Right to
Return Movement, 15 - 17 April 2005, Los Angeles,
California. Check for details at http://al-awdacal.org
Support Al-Awda's Upcoming Third Annual International
Convention in Los Angeles
http://www.al-awdacal.org/alert-supp_conv.html
Unless indicated otherwise, all statements posted
represent the views of their authors and not
necessarily those of Al-Awda, The Palestine Right to Return Coalition.

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

10) Vote Where, How, and for Whom?
** Dahr Jamail's Iraq Dispatches **
** http://dahrjamailiraq.com **
Inter Press Service
Dahr Jamail

*BAGHDAD, Jan 26 (IPS) - With elections just four days away, many Iraqis
are still uncertain how they will vote, or even where the polling
stations are.*

The only certainty appears to be violence. Another political
assassination took place when judge Qais Hashim al-Shammari was killed
with his brother-in-law as he was leaving his house in eastern Baghdad
Tuesday.

At least six U.S. soldiers have been killed in Baghdad this week. One
soldier died when a roadside bomb struck his patrol Monday. Five
soldiers died in what the military described as a "vehicle accident".

A car bomb exploded the same day near the party headquarters of interim
prime minister Iyad Allawi. At least five people, four of them police
officers, died in the blast.

In Baquba, north of Baghdad, party political offices were attacked
Tuesday. At least one policeman was killed.

Amidst such incidents people are guessing games around polling stations
and candidates. It appears now that polling stations will be located in
school buildings. The high commission for elections of Iraq has still
not announced the location of polling stations due to security fears,
but many school buildings around Baghdad are being cordoned off with
sand barriers, concrete blocks and razor wire.

"I feel unsafe in my own home now, even more than before," said Hashim
al-Obeidy, a retired engineer. A school building near his house is being
prepared as a polling station. "I watched the American soldiers building
these barriers. And now I am afraid mortars will hit my home if the
school is attacked."

Standing outside his house in central Baghdad, he pointed to a row of
large sand barriers outside an old yellow school building with damaged
walls and cracked paint. "They already severely damaged our school
system, they haven't rebuilt anything, and now they will create more
destruction in the schools," he said.

"I would be crazy to vote, it's so dangerous now," said 45-year-old
guard Salman at another barricaded school building being prepared as a
polling station. Most residents do not know yet which school they could
go to vote in.

Many Iraqis continue to express frustration over what they see as
illegitimate elections.

Prof. Shawket Daoud, a computer science specialist who now works for the
government, said uncertainty over polling booths and the fear of
violence was not the only problem. "Why vote when we don't even know who
is running yet?"

More than 7,000 candidates on the electoral lists have opted to remain
anonymous prior to polling day. At least eight political leaders thought
to be candidates have been killed. Many others receive death threats.

But some Iraqis still say they will vote. "I'll vote because I can't
afford to have my food ration cut," said Amin Hajar, 52, who owns a
small auto garage in Baghdad. "There is a rumour that if we don't vote
our ration will be stopped. And if that happened, I and my family would
starve to death."

He said that when he picked up his monthly food ration recently, he was
forced to sign a form saying he had picked up his voter registration. He
believes that the government may use this to track whether he votes or not.

This rumor has circulated broadly around Baghdad even though there
appears to be no truth in it.

Abu Sabah, a grocery stall owner near the Karrada district of Baghdad
says he is simply confused about the election. The elections feel rushed
and a list of at least 83 coalitions of political parties with mostly
anonymous candidates makes no sense, he says.

"Who says we should have elections for people we don't even know during
occupation, martial law and in a war zone," he said. "And why vote when
we're expected to vote for an entire list of candidates when we only
know, if we're lucky, one or two of their names?"

More writing, photos and commentary at http://dahrjamailiraq.com

You can visit http://dahrjamailiraq.com/email_list/
to subscribe or unsubscribe to the email list.

(c)2004, 2005 Dahr Jamail.
Iraq_Dispatches mailing list
http://lists.dahrjamailiraq.com/mailman/listinfo/iraq_dispatches


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

11) Cuba is resisting and making the difference
By : Maïté Pinero
Translated by: Patrick Bolland
http://www.humaniteinenglish.com/news/output/world_1106589993.shtml

On 28th October last year, and for the 17th time, the UN
General Assembly condemned the US blockade of Cuba, made
more punitive by the Torricelli and Helms-Burton amendments
(1). The vote was 179 votes to 4 – the 4 were the Unites
States, Israel, the Marshall Islands (a tax haven) and
Micronesia (19,000 inhabitants).

In Cuba, Béatriz Roque, a “civil society” representative,
was happy the embargo was being pursued, “this is the only
way to get a transition towards democracy”, she said. And
such people are surprised that they are not being carried
shoulder-high through the Havana streets!

The UN vote was hardly mentioned in the newspapers, which
had several articles on the liberation of several political
opponents. They said they didn’t receive any sanctions for
this.. The same day, the International Red Cross reported
“different forms of torture” at Guatánomo Bay. And while
Raul Rivero and his friends have been treated correctly,
this can’t be said for the 5 Cubans being held in secret in
Miami. Their crime? They infiltrated terrorists
organisations training with heavy military arms in Florida
and planning assassination attacks. Their activities are in
no way just folklore: in 1997, in Havana left several
people were assassinated, both Cubans and tourists.

It is in this climate of assassinations and renewed
aggression by our northern neighbour that Cuba put on trial
and imprisoned opponents conspiring with the American
Interests section in Havana. The context was never
mentioned by the outside media.

As for Cuba, news is typically disproportionate. There is
information available about all who are imprisoned, their
health-reports are published, news that dissimulates what
is most important: under the nose of the American Empire,
11-million people faced with the daily hardships are
choosing to resist. Since 1868, when Carlos Manuel de
Cespedes proclaimed the freedom of slaves, through 1898,
when Independence was hard-won but frustrated, until 1959,
it has been the people’s demand for sovereignty, their
desire to be a separate country, and not just a colony,
that has been on he cards.

“It will all end in a bloodbath”, it had been announced in
Paris in 1990. The Socialist Block was collapsing and it
was only a matter of time before Cuba would go the same
way. At the end of the 1980s, the daily regimen of the
Cubans was not limited to la Libreta. It was once again
everything in short supply: food, petrol, work, transport.
GNP down 35%, foreign trade down 80%, the economy
collapsing.

Most of all, economic isolation. The Sandinistas had lost
the elections. Nicaragua, at war against US mercenaries had
always been more democratic: a mixed economy, freedom of
the press and the presence of opposition buying peace
through the ballot box.

So many “impartial observers”, so many demands to become
democratic, when the nation of Sandino had dreamed of
being sovereign! Today it Nicaragua has fallen back into
oblivion. Only the banal is happening down there now:
corruption, malnutrition, illiteracy, and the kids fighting
each other again for the cardboard boxes and food-tins at
the rubbish dumps.

A lot of blood has been spilled since then, but not in
Cuba. In a Latin America that is changing again – you can
watch the democracy-watchers fidgeting over Venezuela,
Brazil, Uruguay, Equator, Argentina … Cuba is still there.

The millions of tourists who travel freely around the
island, discussing with people on street-corners, find the
Cubans are alive, writing, painting, dancing and also
having parties. All is not doom and gloom.

Certainly, life isn’t easy, and it isn’t because they know
life is harder in 87 other countries, some so close to
Cuba, that Cubans endure these difficulties. In grumbling,
in criticising: the street-corner and café know-alls talk
about all this gleefully. Every day the death-knell of the
regime is ringing, you’re told. This has been going on for
45 years …

This has lasted because three generations have defended the
revolution: those who new the Batista era; their children
who saw conditions improving and then deteriorating; their
grand-children for whom health, free education, books,
cinema, concerts at give-away prices, have become the rule.

These Cubans put up with the shortages but also the trials
and errors, the readjustments by a government that is
continually forced to react against new forms of US
aggression, each time in a new way. Despite the frequent
incomprehension and disagreements, they have never put
their commitment to the revolution in the balance. If this
rebel population is resisting, if nobody has been able to
shut them up – not even Batista – the causes are to found
in Cuban society.

Cuba is not some kind of laboratory in which an
experimental study of a perfect society, in the ideal
conditions, was conducted. Human-beings created it, with
numerous mistakes for sure, but with the dream of humanity
that goes back to creating a world in which Freedom,
Equality and Fraternity - Liberté, Égalité et Fraternité –
was not just vain words – even more so today in a world
dominated by money.

Cuba is resisting – and continually making the difference.
The restructuring of our sugar industry - the shutdown of
70 of the 150 cane-factories could have brought a social
earthquake. Instead of just brutally laying off 100,000
workers – according to the democratic procedures of those
who are democratically showing us the example – the
government went to pains to hold meetings, consult, adjust
their plans, consult again. Thousands of meetings with
Fidel Castro and the various ministries. With the result
that today salaries have been kept at the same levels,
factories have been reconverted and thousands of workers
have returned to school.

At the end of the 1980s, there were still some young people
under-qualified and without work, looking for their place
in society. In concerts in the Square of the Revolution,
thousands sang “William Tell, it’s time to give me the
cross-bow”. It was these youths who provide Cuba with its
“social solidarity groups”, present in every neighbourhood.
More than 21,000 social workers have already graduated.
Seven thousand more are being trained each year. The
“solidarity movement” has taken up the struggle against
inequalities, which is still found in the black Afro-Cuban
community.

Today 150,000 young adults (17-30 year-olds) have gone back
to “integral further education”. This second chance has
already enabled 48,446 others to go to university. Since
computer-skills are taught from primary school onwards,
13,000 teachers have been trained for this, as well as
3,000 social animators. Those taking advantage of further
training through these programme can go to one of the 938
university centres spread across 169 towns and cities.

Of course, some choose exile. But, this is to forget the
thousands of teachers and doctors who have helped the
world’s poor to learn how to read, to look after their
health needs. In a Soweto shanty-town, the doctor is Cuban.
In Venezuela, where the medical elite opposed to President
Chavez lets the poor starve, it is Cubans who are providing
the care and doing the vaccinating.

There are 25,000 of them working, not for money or glory,
in the poorest countries of the world. Just in Haiti, there
are 450. These are “Voluntary exiles” and they always come
back. Because of the “little difference” their island is
making. “Right now I’m earning two pineapples a month. So,
yes, sometimes I think of leaving. But when I seen the
faces of children in my street, I’m proud to be Cuban” – so
said Pedro Albalate, “internationalist surgeon”, who died
in Quito in 1998. (2)

Cuba’s hospitals - now getting renovated - took in 17,000
sick children from Tchernobyl. By comparison, a few dozen
were treated in France. This doesn’t get talked about,
isn’t written about, but the poorest know about it. It was
partly for this reason that Aleida Guevara, who had worked
as a doctor in Nicaragua, sees her father’s portrait –
symbol of a revolution still in its youth - being held high
in demonstrations throughout the world. (3)

It’s a country with a lot of difficulties, still derided
and still threatened, as if it was a threat to the rest of
the world, that has been able to do all this. But don’t
tell anybody about what is really happening. That might
disturb the conventional wisdom which wants us to believe
that Cuba is a tyranny and Fidel Castro a dictator bent on
making us weaker.

For they are talking about us.(4) Defending Cuba is not
just defending the health-care and free education, the
solidarity work of the doctors, the cultural activities
throughout the island, our pioneer scientific research,
while deploring the lack of petrol, the electricity
blackouts, the execution of a delinquent, the imprisonment
of Rivero.

To defend Cuba is to recognise how this society is
different. Despite the things we disapprove of, this
society refuses to sell itself out, to give up those values
we have always defended.

It if because of this “little difference” that 11-million
Cubans still resist. It is their choice and their total
right to do this. Not to admit this is to refuse to
recognise their political consciousness, their moral
supremacy. They support their leadership much more than the
leadership can support them, for what is being played out
on the ground, what is being written at ground-level –
however the story ends – reveals the dignity, the great
aspirations, and the honour of humanity.

(1) The island is off-limits to international markets,
and pays 30-50% more for imports of essential goods,
particularly since ships trading with Cuba are refused
access to US ports in the 6 months following their Cuban
anchorage. The Swiss ISB Bank found itself hit by a
$100-million fine for having accepted the transfer of Cuban
funds.

(2) Cuba est une île, by Danielle Bleitrach and Viktor
Dedaj, Éditions Le Temps des cerises.

(3) Félicitations, Commandant, c’est une fille ! by
Alessandra Riccio. Éditions Desmaret.

(4) Cuba vive, Cuba Mide, by Santiago Alba, in the review
Rebelion.

By Maïté Pinero,
Ex-correspondant of l’Humanité in Havana (Tribune Libre)
Translated by Patrick Bolland

Marxism mailing list
Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu
http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism


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

12) WARNING: JOINING THE MILITARY IS HAZARDOUS
www.objector.org, July 24, 2002
http://www.guerrillafunk.com/thoughts/doc612.html

Military recruiters tour the country
selling a dangerous product with
glamorous ads, just like tobacco
companies or drug pushers. The ads promise
opportunity and adventure -- but don't believe the hype.

1. Joining the military is hazardous to your education.

The military isn't a generous
financial aid institution, and it isn't
concerned with helping you pay
for school. Two-thirds of all recruits never get any
college funding from the military.
Only 15% graduated with a four-year
degree.

What about going to school while
you're in? Many GIs report that military
life leaves them too busy and exhausted --
and doesn't really make time for
them to go to class.

2. Joining the military is hazardous to your future.

Joining the military is a dead end.
After you've spent a few years in the
military, you're 2 to 5 times more
likely to be homeless than your friends who
never joined. And, according to the
VA, you'll probably earn less too. The
skills you learn in the military will be
geared to military jobs, not civilian
careers; when you come out, many
employers will tell you to go back to school
and get some real training. As former
Secretary of Defense Cheney declared,
"The reason to have a military is to be
prepared to fight and win wars...it's
not a jobs program."

3. Joining the military is hazardous to people of color.

During the Gulf War, over 50 percent of
front-line troops were people of
color. Overall, over 30 percent of enlisted
personnel but only 12 percent of
officers are people of color, who are then
disciplined and discharged under
other than honorable conditions at a much
higher rate than whites. When recent
studies showed a slight dip in young
African-Americans' (disproportionately
high) interest in the military, the
Pentagon reacted with a new ad campaign.
They're targeting Latino youth with
special Spanish-language ads. The
recruiters' lethal result: tracking high
achieving young people in communities of color
into a dead-end, deadly occupation.

4. Joining the military is hazardous to women.

Sexual harassment and assault are
a daily reality for the overwhelming
majority of women in the armed forces.
The VA's own figures show 90 percent of
recent women veterans reporting
harassment - a third of whom were
raped. Despite
the glossy brochures that advertise
"opportunities for women," the
military's inherent sexism is evident
from sergeants shouting "girl!" at trainees who
don't "measure up," to the intimidation
of women who speak out about
harassment and discrimination - not
to mention military men's sexual abuse of
civilian women in base communities.

5. Joining the military is hazardous to your civil rights.

If you aren't willing to give up your
rights, the military isn't for you.
Once you enlist, you become military
property: you lose your right to come and
go freely, you're ordered around 24
hours a day, and you can be punished by
your command without trial or jury. Free
speech rights are severely limited in
the military. You can be punished for
being honest about being lesbian, gay
or bisexual. Worst of all even if you hate
your job, you can't quit.

6. Joining the military is hazardous to your health.

The military can't guarantee you'll
be alive at the end of your eight-year
commitment: they can't even promise
you won't be desperately ill from "mystery
illnesses" like those of the Vietnam
and Persian Gulf wars. Whether it's
atomic testing in the 1950s, Agent
Orange during the war against Vietnam, or
experimental vaccines and toxic
weapons in the Persian Gulf, the military
shamelessly destroys the health of its
personnel -- and then does its best to
downplay and ignore their suffering.

7. Joining the military is hazardous to the environment.

The US military is the single
largest and worst polluter in the world, from
toxins at bases to nuclear-tipped
missiles to the destruction of ecosystems
from South Vietnam to the Persian
Gulf. And in today's military, the tanks and
weapons are coated with depleted
uranium from toxic nuclear waste!

8. Joining the military is hazardous
to our lives.

The "adventure" in the commercials
is code for war, the "discipline" code
for violence. The military trains
recruits to employ deadly force, yet
recruiters rarely discuss the
dehumanizing process of basic training, the
psychological costs of killing, or the horrors of war.

The ads lie because the product is
lethal -- not just to you, but to all of
us.

For more information contact or write:

Central Committee for Conscientious Objectors:

630 20th Street #302,
Oakland, CA 94612
510-465-1617
Fax 510 465-2459

or

1515 Cherry Street,
Philadelphia, PA 19102
215-563-8787
Fax 215-567-2096

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

13) California's Prison Budget
Fri, 21 Jan 2005
CRITICAL RESISTANCE
CALIFORNIA PRISON BUDGET SUMMARY 2005-06

The Numbers.
* The Governor proposes that Californians
spend more than $7 billion on
prisons, 8.2% of the budget.
That figure is only slightly less than the
amount we spend higher education,
which accounts for 11% of the budget. The
Governor's proposal amounts to
a 31.9% increase over Corrections budget of just
two years ago.

* The $7 billion includes $250 million
to cover Corrections' 2004-05
over spending.

* The Governor proposes hiring
1,575 new prison employees. The bulk of
these employees will be guards at the
controversial Delano II prison slated
for opening in June 2005.

* The Governor proposes $95 million
in unallocated cuts from the
Department's "inmate and parolee"
programs. This means these cuts will come from
rehabilitation, education and substance
abuse programs. $95 million in savings
could come from reducing the state's
prison population by just 3,071 people.

* The Governor projects that the
prison population will drop slightly
from 163,019 in 2004-05 to 162,744
in 2005-06, a decrease of 264 prisoners.
This drop is a far cry from projections in
last year's budget, which had the
prison population decreasing by as
many as 15,000 prisoners due to parole
reforms which the department has failed to implement.
General Fund Expenditures Proposed for 2005-06

Department Budget
General Fund Share
K-12 Education $35billion
41.9%
Health and Human Services $26 billion
31.2%
Higher Education $10billion
11.7%
Prisons
$7billion
8.2%
Legislative, Judicial Executive $3 billion
3.5%
Resources $1
billion 1.5%
State and Consumer Services $562 million
0.7%
General Government $705 million
0.7%
Business, Transportation and Housing $380 million
0.4%
Labor and Workforce Development $87 million
0.1%
Environmental Protection $69million
0.1%

Meanwhile. According the independent
Legislative Analyst, "The Governor's
2005-06 budget proposal addresses
the 2005-06 budget shortfall primarily
through program savings in K-12
education, social services, transportation and
employee compensation."
What about cutting prison spending
by cutting the number of people in
prison?

* The unallocated cut of $95 million
could come from reducing the
state's prison population by just 3,071 people.

* Closing just one prison could save
approximately $100 million per
year, every year.

* Reducing the number of people
sent back to prison for minor violations
of parole to the national average could
save approximately $888 million a
year.

* Releasing people from parole after
12 months without a violation could
save approximately $60 million per year.

* Two for one credits currently
earned by people in prison who
participate in fire camp programs
could be expanded to people participating in
educational, vocational and substance
abuse programs.

* Increasing the threshold for
grand theft from $400 to $1000 to reflect
inflation could save approximately $34 million.

* Restructuring sentences by just
12 weeks could save approximately $60
million; a 12-month change would save
approximately $240 million.

* Abolishing Three Strikes would save
between $400 and $500 million per
year.

* Delaying activation of the Delano II
prison would save $93 million.
For more details on how to cut prison
spending by reducing the number of
people in prison and the number of
prisons go to www.criticalresistance.org or
www.curbprisonspending.org or
www.effectivepublicsafety.org
To get involved.
Call Critical Resistance at 510.444.0484 or
email us at croakland@criticalresistance.org

ActionLA
Action for World Liberation Everyday!
Tel: (213)403-0131

URL: http://www.ActionLA.org
e-mail: Info@ActionLA.org

Please Donate to ActionLA!
Send check pay to:
ActionLA/SEE
1013 Mission St. #6
South Pasadena CA 91030
(All donations are tax deductible)

Please join our ActionLA Listserv
go to: http://lists.riseup.net/www/subscribe/actionla
or send e-mail to: actionla-subscribe@lists.riseup.net

Please join our new Asian American Labor Activism Alert! Listserv,
send-e-mail to: api-la-subscribe@lists.riseup.net

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

14) The Antiwar Movement and the Iraqi Elections


1) Election Under Occupation

The media theater called the Iraqi election is under way.
U.S. television anchor people are broadcasting live from
Baghdad, breathlessly describing the preparations for
Sunday's display of so-called democracy.

It is important to emphasive the circumstances under which
this election is being held. More than 150,000 U.S.
troops occupy the country, patrolling the streets with
guns trained on Iraqi civilians. Iraq is under a state of
emergency, with expanded police powers and a curfew.

This is and election at gunpoint, which will be supervised
by U.S. Ambassador John Negroponte. Negroponte built an
impressive resume as a brutal enforcer of U.S. policy
through murder, rape, and torture. Negroponte served as
U.S. Ambassador to Honduras from 1981-1985; a period
during which Honduras was the launching pad from which the
Reagan administration conducted its violent attacks on the
people of Nicaragua, El Salvador, and Guatemala. The
U.S-backed atrocities, which were condemned by the
International World Court in the Hague, included
kidnappings, rape, torture and killing of suspected
dissidents. Reports from the Inter-American Commission on
Human Rights in Honduras alleged that Negroponte oversaw
the expansion of U.S training camp and military base on
Honduran territory, where the U.S. trained Contra
terrorists, and where the military secretly detained,
tortured and executed Honduran suspected dissidents.

This is the person the Bush Administration would have us
believe is going to bring democracy to Iraq.

Assisting him will be two US-funded organizations with
long records of manipulating overseas elections on behalf
of U.S. corporate interests, the National Democratic
Institute for International Affairs (NDI) and the
International Republican Institute (IRI). These groups,
both of which are tied to covert plans to install
US-favored regimes overseas, are among organizations that
have been given more than $80 million for political
activities in Iraq.

Both organizations work closely with the National
Endowment for Democracy and the U.S. Agency for
International Development, long used by the CIA for covert
operations abroad. They were, for example, involved in
orchestrating the failed coup and recall referendum in
Venezuela in an attempt to remove the democratically
elected and popular President Hugo Chavez.

This election is being conducted at gunpoint, administered
by a war criminal, and stage-managed by CIA front
companies. To pretend that this has anything to do with
democracy is outrageous. The Iraqi people recognize this
--among expatriates, 90 percent haven't even bothered to
register to vote on Sunday.

What, then is the purpose of the phony election? It is
actually directed at the U.S. public, which is growing
increasingly disillusioned with the war. The sole intent
of the election is to provide legitimacy for the
occupation, to marginalize the resistance movement, and
create an illusion of progress. The election, like the
phony transfer of power, will change nothing on the ground
in Iraq. On January 31, the day after the election, more
than 150,000 U.S. troops will still occupy Iraq, the
torture chambers of Abu Ghraib will still be full of Iraqi
prisoners, and CIA employee Iyad Allawi will still be the
U.S.-appointed dictator.


2) The Iraqi People Have Already Voted -- Against the
Occupation

The Iraqi people have already expressed their will; they
are overwhelmingly opposed to the occupation of their
country. The majority of Iraqi people want the U.S.
troops to leave and do not believe that the U.S. and
Britain should be involved in holding elections in Iraq,
according to several polls.

Many have already cast their ballot against colonial
occupation by joining the nationwide uprising. The
intelligence chief for the puppet regime in Iraq, General
Mohamed Abdullah Shahwani, admitted that the resistance
now numbers more than 200,000.

The resistance is made up of many difference forces, with
different ideologies and goals. They are united by the
determination to free their country from U.S. occupation.

The right of people to resist occupation by arms is a
basic right recognized under international law and the
Geneva Convention. The people of Iraq have a right to
fight back against the occupation of their country, the
torture of their people, and the bombing of their cities.
They also have a right to expect the solidarity of all
who oppose the criminal war. It is not the role of the
antiwar movement to debate the ideology or tactics of the
resistance; it is our job to stand in solidarity with them
and do everything possible to assist them by working to
end the occupation of their country.


3) What Next for the Antiwar Movement?

The phony elections will not silence the Iraqi resistance.
It is important to remember that in the months since the
last time the U.S. attempted to put an "Iraqi face" on the
occupation, with the phony transfer of power and
appointment of Iyad Allawi as puppet dictator, the
resistance has spread and become more sophisticated and
more entrenched.

As the resistance grows, we in the U.S. have an obligation
not to be deterred by false elections or talk of
"timetables." We must stand with the people of Iraq and
take up their demand: the immediate, unconditional, and
complete withdrawal of all U.S. occupation forces.

We must organize a united struggle to end the occupation.
This is now more important than ever before. George W.
Bush made it clear in his inauguration sermon that he
intends to wage continual, global war. We must meet his
call to war with renewed determination and unity.

The global antiwar movement has called for massive
protests on the weekend of March 19-20. In the U.S., the
Troops Out Now Coalition is organizing local and regional
demonstrations to demand an end to the occupation,
including a massive regional convergence on Central Park
on March 19. The International Action Center, part of the
Troops Out Now Coalition, calls upon all progressive and
antiwar organizations to join us in the streets on March
19 & 20 to demand: "Troops Out Now!"

March 19
Troops Out Now!
March on Central Park in NYC!
Regional Demonstrations Across the U.S. & Worldwide

The International Action Center
http://www.iacenter.org
mail to:iacenter@iacenter.org
Anyone can subscribe.
Send an email request to
Action.News-subscribe@organizerweb.com

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

15) U.S. Army Prepares Armed 'Robo-Soldier' for Iraq
By Michael P. Regan
AP Business Writer
TechnologyReview.com
January 25, 2005
http://www.technologyreview.com/articles/05/01/ap/ap_3012505.asp?p=0

ENGLEWOOD CLIFFS, New Jersey (AP) -- The rain is turning to snow
on a blustery January morning, and all the men gathered in a parking
lot here surely would prefer to be inside.

But the weather couldn't matter less to the robotic sharpshooter they
are here to watch as it splashes through puddles, the barrel of its
machine gun pointing the way.

The Army is preparing to send 18 of these remote-controlled robotic
warriors to fight in Iraq beginning in March or April.

Made by a small Massachusetts company, the SWORDS, short for
Special Weapons Observation Reconnaissance Detection Systems,
will be the first armed robotic vehicles to see combat, years ahead
of the larger Future Combat System vehicles currently under
development by big defense contractors such as Lockheed Martin
and General Dynamics Corp.

It's easy to humanize the SWORDS (a tendency robotics researchers
say is only human) as it moves out of the flashy lobby of an office
building and into the cold with nary a shiver.

Military officials like to compare the roughly 1-meter-high
(3-foot-high) robots favorably to human soldiers: They don't
need to be trained, fed or clothed. They can be boxed up and
warehoused between wars. They never complain. And there are
no letters to write home if they meet their demise in battle.

But officials are quick to point out that these are not the
autonomous killer robots of science fiction. A SWORDS robot
shoots only when its human operator presses a button after
identifying a target on video shot by the robot's cameras.

"The only difference is that his weapon is not at his shoulder,
it's up to half a mile (800 meters) away," said Bob Quinn,
general manager of Talon robots for Foster-Miller Inc.,
the Waltham, Massachusetts, company that makes the SWORDS.

As one Marine fresh out of boot camp told Quinn upon
seeing the robot: "This is my invisibility cloak."

Quinn said it was a "bootstrap development process" to
convert a Talon robot, which has been in military service
since 2000, from its main mission -- defusing roadside
bombs in Iraq_ into the gunslinging SWORDS.

It was a joint development process between the
Army and Foster-Miller, a robotics firm bought
in November by QinetiQ Group PLC, which is
a partnership between the British Ministry of
Defence and the Washington holding company
The Carlyle Group.

Army officials and employees of the robotics
firm heard from soldiers "who said 'My brothers
are being killed out here. We love the EOD
(explosive ordnance disposal), but let's put
some weapons on it,"' said Quinn.

Working with soldiers and engineers at
Picatinny Arsenal in New Jersey, it took
just six months and only about $2 million
(euro1.5 million) in development money
to outfit a Talon with weapons, according
to Quinn and Anthony Sebasto,
a technology manager at Picatinny.

The Talon had already proven itself to be
pretty rugged. One was blown off the roof
of a Humvee and into a nearby river by
a roadside bomb in Iraq. Soldiers simply
opened its shrapnel-pocked control unit
and drove the robot out of the river,
according to Quinn.

NOTEBOOK

The idea of robots helping in the ground
war in Iraq sent the media into overdrive,
with several hundred stories popping up
around the world -- although many of these
are simply reprints of the wire story. This isn't
a huge advance in robotics though, military
officials are quick to point out. Instead, this
this is a low-tech field test. -- by Brad King

What Others Are Saying:

The Scripps Howard News Service -- by
way of The Modesto Bee -- has a piece
about these robots.

The Guardian has an interesting piece
on the new program.

Here's an Army press release about the
Explosive Ordnance Disposal robot which
helps clear the way for ground units.


Related Stories:

The $200,000 (euro154,000), armed
version will carry standard-issue Squad
Automatic Weapons, either the M249, which
fires 5.56-millimeter rounds at a rate of
750 per minute, or the M240, which can
fire about 700 to 1,000 7.62-millimeter
rounds per minute. The SWORDS can fire
about 300 rounds using the M240 and
about 350 rounds using the M249 before
needing to reload.


All its optics equipment -- the four cameras,
night vision and zoom lenses -- were
already in the Army's inventory.

"It's important to stress that not everything
has to be super high tech," said Sebasto.
"You can integrate existing componentry
and create a revolutionary capability."

The SWORDS in the parking lot at the
headquarters of the cable news station
CNBC had just finished showing off for
the cameras, climbing stairs, scooting
between cubicles, even broadcasting
some of its video on the air.

Its developers say its tracks, like those
on a tank, can overcome rock piles and
barbed wire, though it needs a ride to
travel faster than 6.5 kph (4 mph).

Running on lithium ion batteries, it can
operate for one to four hours at a time,
depending on the mission. Operators
work the robot using a 13.5-kilogram
(30-pound) control unit that has two
joysticks, a handful of buttons and a video
screen. Quinn says that may eventually be
replaced by a "Gameboy" type of controller
hooked up to virtual reality goggles.

The Army has been testing it over the past
year at Picatinny and the Aberdeen Proving
Grounds in Maryland to ensure it won't
malfunction and can stand up to radio jammers
and other countermeasures. (Sebasto wouldn't
comment on what happens if the robot and its
controller fall into enemy hands.)

Its developers say the SWORDS not only
allows its operators to fire at enemies without
exposing themselves to return fire, but also
can make them more accurate.

A typical soldier who could hit a target the
size of a basketball from 300 meters (yards)
away could hit a target the size of a coin
with the SWORDS, according Quinn.

The better accuracy stems largely from the
fact that its gun is mounted on a stable platform
and fired electronically, rather than by
a soldier's hands, according to Staff Sgt.
Santiago Tordillos of the EOD Technology
Directorate at Picatinny. Gone are such issues
as trigger recoil, anticipation problems, and
pausing the breathing cycle while aiming a weapon.

"It eliminates the majority of shooting
errors you would have," said Tordillos.

Chances are good the SWORDS will get
even more deadly in the future. It has
been tested with the larger .50 caliber
machine guns as well as rocket and grenade
launchers -- even an experimental weapon
made by the Australian company Metal Storm
LLC that packs multiple rocket rounds into
a single barrel, allowing for much more rapid firing.

"We've fired 70 shots at Picatinny and we
were 70 for 70 hitting the bull's-eye," said
Sebasto, boasting of the arsenal's success
with a rocket launcher from around the
1960s mounted on a SWORDS.

5360.64714081611

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

posted 2:25 PM  0 comments

1) We ain't gonna study war no more!
(Killing and being killed is not a career choice!)
Come to an organizing meeting to get the military
out of our schools!
Saturday, 11:00 a.m., February 5, 2005
Centro del Pueblo, 474 Valencia Street
(near 16th St. in S.F.)


2) CRITICAL Hearing Friday January 28, 2005 for
SHEILA DETOY17-Year-Old Girl Shot In Head By
Rogue Cop In 1998 ...
January 28, 2005
9:30 AM
Superior Court
CIVIC CENTER COURTHOUSE
400 McAllister Street Dept. 301
San Francisco, CA 94102
CASE # CPF04-504029
LAST CHANCE FOR JUSTICE!
The San Francisco Police Department is trying
to get away with MURDER!!!
for more information call (510)428-3939

3) March 19, 2005 Global Day of Action
No to War Occupation – Iraq, Palestine, Haiti,
Afghanistan, Cuba Everywhere!
Bring the Troops Home Now!
Money for People’s Needs, Not War!
San Francisco: March Assembles: 11 a.m. Dolores Park
Rally: 1 p.m. Civic Center

4) On Eve of Iraq Vote, War Less Popular in US (link only)
LOS ANGELES
Published on Monday, January 24, 2005 Agence France Presse
Tuesday, January 25, 2005
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines05/0124-05.htm

5) Grocers, unions reach contract terms (link only)
Tentative deal averts labor strife that roiled south state
George Raine, Todd Wallack, Chronicle Staff Writers
Tuesday, January 25, 2005
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2005/01/25/MNGAUB00GS1.DTL


6) Torture in Iraq Still Routine, Report Says (link only)
By Doug Struck
The Washington Post
BAGHDAD
Tuesday 25 January 2005
Detainees beaten, hung by wrists, shocked by security
forces, rights group finds.
http://www.truthout.org/docs_05/012605Z.shtml

7) Bush to Seek About $80 Bln for Military Operations
By Adam Entous
WASHINGTON (Reuters)
Mon Jan 24, 2005 11:32 PM ET
http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=topNews&storyID=7416921&src=eD
ialog/GetContent§ion=news

8) U.S. Faces More Tensions Abroad as Dollar Slides (link only)
By DAVID E. SANGER
This article was reported by David E. Sanger, Mark Landler
and Keith Bradsher and written by Mr. Sanger.
WASHINGTON
January 25, 2005
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/25/business/25dollar.html?hp&ex=1106715600&en
=9f78376270809a43&ei=5094&partner=homepage

9) TROOP STRENGTH (link only)
General Says the Current Plan Is to Maintain 120,000
Soldiers in Iraq Through 2006
By ERIC SCHMITT
WASHINGTON
January 25, 2005
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/25/politics/25army.html?oref=login

10) Iraqi Women Paying the Price (link only)
** Dahr Jamail's Iraq Dispatches **
** http://dahrjamailiraq.com **
Online
By Dahr Jamail
January 24, 2005
http://www.dahrjamailiraq.com/hard_news/archives/newscommentary/000183.php#m
ore

11) Subject: benefit for
AIDS Housing Alliance
Mecca44@aol.com wrote:
Hi friends, This Friday's (Jan. 28) performance of my
show, "Italian. Queer. Dangerous" is a benefit for the
AIDS Housing Alliance of SF,

12) GUANTANAMO BAY
Terror captives' suicide attempts called protest
The U.S. military disclosed a spate of apparent suicide
attempts by terror suspects in a mass protest at the
Guantánamo Bay prison 17 months ago.
BY CAROL ROSENBERG
crosenberg@herald.com
Posted on Tue, Jan. 25, 2005
http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/10729961.htm

13) Photos from Jeff Paterson

14) U.N. Says U.S. Deficits Distort Global Economy (link only)
By ELIZABETH BECKER
WASHINGTON
January 25, 2005
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/25/international/25cnd-trad.html

15) FIGHT JERRY BROWN'S 10PM CURFEW FOR PAROLEES
AND PROBATIONERS!
at Jerry Brown's house - 27TH AND TELEGRAPH, OAKLAND
(NEAR 19TH STREET BART)
Wednesday, January 26, 9:30 p.m.
Forwarded Message From: Linda Evans

16) If Dr. King were alive today, he would be trying to
* tear down this new Jim Crow of an incarceration
* industry that is labeling and devastating young people
* of color in extraordinary numbers.
* - Van Jones, Human rights activist

17) International Day of Action Against Caterpillar
Wednesday, April 13, 2005
http://www.bootcat.org/docs/cat-action-apr2005.html

18) ICLU sues state over prison conditions (link only)
Associated Press
January 25, 2005
http://www.indystar.com/articles/6/212200-9306-092.html

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

1) We ain't gonna study war no more!
(Killing and being killed is not a career choice!)
Come to an organizing meeting to get the
military out of our schools!
Saturday, 11:00 a.m., February 5, 2005
Centro del Pueblo, 474 Valencia Street
(near 16th St. in S.F.)

Our children are being recruited to military service right out of High
School. They are being offered Junior ROTC for class credit as an
alternative to Physical Education. Junior ROTC advocates the military
as a career choice. Every day we hear of schools and hospitals
closing. Our children have fewer job opportunities available to
them with far fewer benefits. And they are finding it increasingly
more difficult to go to college because of increased college costs and
the general increase in the cost of living. Junior ROTC makes the
military attractive to them. But these are not the job opportunities
we want for our children-or that our children want for themselves!

Meanwhile, due to an ever-increasing war budget, most of our tax
dollars are being spent on a war with no end in sight; and on
overall defense spending that dwarfs even the war budget! And
while corporations are raking in billions, two-thirds of them pay
no taxes at all. This puts a severe strain on the taxes left over-after
military and defense expenditures-for all social services and
human needs-taxes that come from the poor and all working
people. We want our children to have an opportunity to learn
and thrive to the best of their potential not to kill and be killed.
Stop the war. Bring all our troops home now. End all military
recruitment in public schools and institutions of higher learning.
Use our tax dollars for schools, healthcare, housing, jobs-all
human needs not war!

Number of U.S. soldiers killed in Iraq as of Jan 11: 1,357
http://www.ac.wwu.edu/~stephan/USfatalities.html

Number of U.S. soldiers wounded in Iraq: over 10,000
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines05/0104-12.ht

Number of Iraqis killed: est. over 100,000
http://www.iraqbodycount.net/press/

Number of Iraqis wounded: Untold.
Not counted but estimated in the millions.

Cost of the war: $149.5 billion spent as of Jan. 12, 2005
http://costofwar.com/index.html

With the money spent so far on the war we could have
hired over 2,600,566 public schoolteachers for one year.
http://costofwar.com/index-public-education.html

Total U.S. Defense spending: nearly $754 billion as of
fiscal year 2004.
http://www.independent.org/newsroom/article.asp?id=1253

The people of San Francisco voted last November 2004
by a 63 percent majority to bring all our troops home now.
We haven't changed our minds!

Bay Area United Against War (www.bauaw.org) (415) 824-8730
P.O. Box 318021, S. F., CA 94131-8021
Labor Donated...BW

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

2) CRITICAL Hearing Friday January 28, 2005 for
SHEILA DETOY17-Year-Old Girl Shot In Head By
Rogue Cop In 1998 ...
January 28, 2005
9:30 AM
Superior Court
CIVIC CENTER COURTHOUSE
400 McAllister Street Dept. 301
San Francisco, CA 94102
CASE # CPF04-504029
LAST CHANCE FOR JUSTICE!

The San Francisco Police Department is trying to get away
with MURDER!!!

If the cops get their way, the Superior Court will DISMISS
THE CASE against killer cop GREGORY BRESLIN !!!

With no punishment for Breslin - or anyone - in the 1998
cold-blooded police shooting of Sheila Detoy !!!

Don't let police murder go unpunished !!!


SIX YEARS - NO JUSTICE FOR SHEILA DETOY

* May 13, 1998: San Francisco police officers shot up a car
full of unarmed teenagers and killed 17-year-old Sheila Detoy.
SFPD then blamed her friends for her death.

* The Office of Citizen Complaints found that Officer Gregory
Breslin is responsible for her death. The OCC also sustained
complaints against the other officers involved in Sheila's killing.

* In 2003 the San Francisco Police Commission decided they
wanted to file charges against the officers, but the Police
Officers Association is trying to get Breslin off on a technicality
but we say: THERE IS NO TIME LIMIT ON PUNISHING KILLER COPS!!!

for more information call (510)428-3939

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

3) March 19, 2005 Global Day of Action
No to War Occupation – Iraq, Palestine, Haiti,
Afghanistan, Cuba Everywhere!
Bring the Troops Home Now!
Money for People’s Needs, Not War!
San Francisco: March Assembles: 11 a.m. Dolores Park
Rally: 1 p.m. Civic Center

Become an endorser and supporter for March 19

The A.N.S.W.E.R. Coalition in the United States issued a call in
early October to mobilize for the March 19 Global Day of Mass
Action. This is the second anniversary of Bush's criminal
aggression against the people of Iraq. More than 100,000 Iraqis
have died and yet the resistance to occupation by the Iraqi people
has not been stifled through the resort to high tech massacres.
U.S. soldiers are being killed and maimed in a war for conquest.
In these ways Iraq parallels the U.S. war against Vietnam. While
the U.S. government is spending billions to kill in Iraq, Palestine
and Haiti, it is destroying social programs and working peoples'
Social Security. At the same time, the U.S. is threatening new
military action in Iran, Cuba, North Korea, the Philippines,
Sudan and other countries.

Antiwar actions in Washington DC, San Francisco, Los
Angeles and in other cities around the country and around
the world will take place on March 19.

On the first anniversary of the "Shock and Awe" invasion,
March 20, 2004, the A.N.S.W.E.R. Coalition and others in
a larger March 20 National Coalition promoted the building
of a united front under the slogan: Bring the Troops Home Now,
End Occupation from Iraq to Palestine to Haiti and Everywhere.
The demonstration also highlighted the call for Money for Jobs,
Education and Healthcare, Not for War and in defense of civil
rights and civil liberties. More than 100,000 marched in New
York City and 50,000 in San Francisco, refuting the notion
that the antiwar movement must turn its back on the just
struggle of the Palestinian people in order to build so-called
broad support. In fact, the large turnout on March 20 of the
Arab-American, Muslim, Haitian and other targeted
communities helped the demonstration reflect the
broad multi-national and multi-ethnic reality of the
global people's movement for justice. This true united
front organizing was a major step forward for the
antiwar movement in the United States.

We urge all antiwar and people's rights organizations
to join together in this important day of action and
global solidarity.

To become an endorser of the March 19/20 Global
Day of Mass Action fill out the form below and reply
to answer@actionsf.org .

Name:

Organization:

Organization for ID only: Y or N

Organization endorses: Y or N

Telephone:

Email: Fax:

Address:

I can volunteer my time to help with March 19: Y or N

Please mail me __________# of flyers for March 19.
(You can also download english and spanish March 19
flyers at www.actionsf.org .)

I can pledge towards the March 19, 2005
demonstration: Y or N Amount:

(Please visit www.progressunity.org
and
select ANSWER to donate today or mail
donations to A.N.S.W.E.R. 2489 Mission St.
#24 San Francisco, CA 94110).
To subscribe to the list, send a message to:
activist-subscribe@actionsf.org

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

4) On Eve of Iraq Vote, War Less Popular in US (link only)
LOS ANGELES
Published on Monday, January 24, 2005 Agence France Presse
Tuesday, January 25, 2005
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines05/0124-05.htm

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

5) Grocers, unions reach contract terms (link only)
Tentative deal averts labor strife that roiled south state
George Raine, Todd Wallack, Chronicle Staff Writers
Tuesday, January 25, 2005
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2005/01/25/MNGAUB00GS1.DTL

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

6) Torture in Iraq Still Routine, Report Says (link only)
By Doug Struck
The Washington Post
BAGHDAD
Tuesday 25 January 2005
Detainees beaten, hung by wrists, shocked by security
forces, rights group finds.
http://www.truthout.org/docs_05/012605Z.shtml

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

7) Bush to Seek About $80 Bln for Military Operations
By Adam Entous
WASHINGTON (Reuters)
Mon Jan 24, 2005 11:32 PM ET
http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=topNews&storyID=7416921&src=eD
ialog/GetContent§ion=news

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Bush administration is seeking
about $80 billion in new funding for military operations this
year in Iraq and Afghanistan, pushing the total for both
conflicts to almost $300 billion so far.

Administration and congressional officials said the new
request, expected to be announced on Tuesday, would come on top
of the $25 billion in emergency spending already approved for
this fiscal year.

That means funding for military operations in Iraq and
Afghanistan will total nearly $105 billion in fiscal 2005 alone
-- a record that shatters initial estimates of the cost.

In addition to money for troops in Iraq and Afghanistan and
for new Army equipment, up to $650 million is expected to be
earmarked for humanitarian, reconstruction and military
operations in Asian nations devastated by last month's tsunami,
congressional aides said. The administration is considering
debt relief for Indonesia, the hardest-hit country, they said.

The funding request comes as the U.S. Army said it is now
planning to keep at least 120,000 troops in Iraq for the next
two years to train and fight alongside Iraqi forces against
insurgents. The Army total is part of a force of 150,000
American soldiers, Marines and other troops now in Iraq.

House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi of California said it
was Congress' "highest responsibility" to provide the troops
the support they need. But she said lawmakers "owe it to them
to critically examine President Bush's request."

John Pike, a defense analyst with GlobalSecurity.org, said
the Pentagon might need even more money this year "because we
just don't know the rate at which the insurgency will grow or
subside, and we don't know the rate at which the Iraqi security
forces can be stood up."

The funding request is expected to be formally submitted to
Congress after President Bush sends up his fiscal 2006 budget
on Feb. 7.

BRACING FOR A BACKLASH

The White House is bracing for a backlash from Democrats
and some Republicans. At nearly $105 billion, total funding for
military operations in 2005 would be more than 13 times larger
than Bush's budget for the Environmental Protection Agency.

In addition to money for military operations, at least $780
million would go to combat the drug trade in Afghanistan.

The administration is also considering including $1 billion
to $2 billion to construct a new U.S. embassy complex in
Baghdad, and up to $200 million in aid for the Palestinians to
shore up newly-elected President Mahmoud Abbas.

Aid for Ukraine may also be included to bolster new
President Viktor Yushchenko, congressional aides said.

Bush has so far pledged $350 million in tsunami aid.
The new package is expected to include up to $650 million,
including $250 million to $350 million for reconstruction, and
up to $300 million to replenish funds spent by the U.S. Agency
for International Development and the Pentagon.

Administration and congressional officials had initially
expected this year's supplemental spending to total closer to
$50 billion. But cost estimates skyrocketed to as much as $100
billion as the Iraq insurgency intensified.

Critics have long accused Bush and his advisers of
understating the costs. Before the invasion, then-budget
director Mitch Daniels predicted Iraq would be "an affordable
endeavor," and Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz assured
Congress: "We are dealing with a country that can really
finance its own reconstruction and relatively soon."

Not including the new funding request, Congress has so far
approved $120 billion for Iraq and another $60 billion for
Afghanistan. Last year it also approved a $25 billion
contingency fund for the Pentagon.

Yet only a fraction of the $18.4 billion set aside for
rebuilding Iraq has been spent. The White House blames the
insurgency for the slow pace of reconstruction.

(Additional reporting by Steve Holland and Anna Willard)

(c) Reuters 2005

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

8) U.S. Faces More Tensions Abroad as Dollar Slides (link only)
By DAVID E. SANGER
This article was reported by David E. Sanger, Mark Landler
and Keith Bradsher and written by Mr. Sanger.
WASHINGTON
January 25, 2005
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/25/business/25dollar.html?hp&ex=1106715600&en
=9f78376270809a43&ei=5094&partner=homepage

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

9) TROOP STRENGTH (link only)
General Says the Current Plan Is to Maintain 120,000
Soldiers in Iraq Through 2006
By ERIC SCHMITT
WASHINGTON
January 25, 2005
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/25/politics/25army.html?oref=login

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

10) Iraqi Women Paying the Price (link only)
** Dahr Jamail's Iraq Dispatches **
** http://dahrjamailiraq.com **
Online
By Dahr Jamail
January 24, 2005
http://www.dahrjamailiraq.com/hard_news/archives/newscommentary/000183.php#m
ore

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

11) Subject: benefit for
AIDS Housing Alliance
Mecca44@aol.com wrote:
Hi friends, This Friday's (Jan. 28) performance of my
show, "Italian. Queer. Dangerous" is a benefit for the
AIDS Housing Alliance of SF,

a group that has helped
hundreds of PWAs get housing.
The group also wrote the recently passed
legislation to limit condo conversations
for buildings where seniors and
people with AIDS are evicted. On Friday
night they will be one year old. Come
celebrate their first anniversary and help
them raise much needed rent money.
Our goal is to raise $1,000 (two months
rent) which we can do if we get 100
people to come and pay $10 each
(admission is on a sliding scale from
$5-25
with no one turned away). The theatre
seats 50 but the theatre and all of us
involved with the production have
agreed to do a second show at 10pm (if
there's enough demand) and donate
every cent to the AIDS Housing Alliance. A
little about Italian. Queer. Dangerous. It's
a one-man show (17 vignettes and
a video) about my experiences growing up
in South Philly's Little Italy. It's
received rave reviews from both the
Bay Area Reporter and the Bay Times. BAR
said it was an "Italian Torch Song
Trilogy." PJ Corkery of the Examiner was
quoted in the SanFranciscoSentinel.com as
saying the show was "profound."

To make reservations call 415-554-0402
(10pm show will only be added only if
8pm sells out; you'll be called if that happens).

To catch a preview of the show:
http://www.sanfranciscosentinel.com/id274.htm
, click on either real media or windows media video.

DETAILS: Jon Sims Center, 1519 Mission/
11th January 28, 8pm, $5-25 (no one
turned away) elevator available for those
who can't climb stairs MUNI:
underground or any bus on Market to
Van Ness, walk one block to Mission or #14
to 11th. Seating limited, please call and
make reservations: 554-0402.

FINAL PERFORMANCE of Italian. Queer. Dangerous
is on Saturday Jan. 29 at 8pm,
it's not a benefit for AIDS Housing Alliance. thanks.

Tommi

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

12) GUANTANAMO BAY
Terror captives' suicide attempts called protest
The U.S. military disclosed a spate of apparent suicide
attempts by terror suspects in a mass protest at the
Guantánamo Bay prison 17 months ago.
BY CAROL ROSENBERG
crosenberg@herald.com
Posted on Tue, Jan. 25, 2005
http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/10729961.htm

Twenty-three prisoners tried to hang or strangle themselves -- 10
on the same day -- in a sustained, mass protest at the prison for
terror suspects in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, the U.S. military
disclosed Monday, more than a year after the episode.

None of the captives died in the spree from Aug. 18 to 26, 2003,
but the 20-bed prison hospital was filled during the episode, said
Col. David McWilliams, a Southern Command spokesman. All of
the prisoners were treated by a military psychiatric team.

The prisoners used pieces of their uniforms or other items in
their cells, demonstrating ``self-injurious behavior in a
coordinated effort to disrupt camp operations.''

A Southcom statement characterized the surge in so-called
self-harm episodes -- with 10 on Aug. 22 -- as an attempt
to challenge newly assigned Army reservists arriving on a regular
rotation to guard terror suspects in the U.S.-controlled slice of Cuba.

The disclosure comes as the Pentagon is preparing for the first
time to substitute active-duty sailors for Army reservists who
guard prisoners at Camp Delta.

Monday, the Southern Command refused to explain why the
military is turning to the Navy to guard the 550 or so terror
suspects, most of whom were scooped up three years ago
around the world.

CONDITIONS CITED

International human rights groups for some time have linked
suicide attempts at the remote base to desperation by detainees
held in rugged conditions without charge or trial.

American Civil Liberties Union lawyer Jameel Jaffer attributed
the August 2003 episode to ``the cruel and degrading
treatment to which the Guantánamo prisoners were routinely
being subjected at that time.''

Through a lawsuit, the ACLU has uncovered FBI e-mails that
described harsh military interrogation techniques 18-24 months
ago that left one detainee so desperate he tore his hair from his head.

Amnesty International's Jumana Musa said Monday that the
disclosure was ''clear indication of the detrimental effects of
long-term, indefinite detention'' and may be linked to ``the
severity of approved interrogation techniques at that time.''

In 2003, the prison recorded 350 ''self-harm'' events, including
120 ''hanging gestures,'' by detainees.

That figure dipped to 110 occurrences in 2004.

Journalists first learned of the August 2003 episode earlier this
month in interviews with medical staff at Camp Delta, but the
Southern Command didn't confirm it or provide details until Monday.

The disclosure illustrates that the Pentagon ''cannot be
trusted to monitor themselves,'' Amnesty International's Musa
said. ``The only way to end the constant stream of allegations
of torture, ill-treatment and psychological deterioration of the
detainees is to permit a truly independent investigation.''

Soldiers distinguish suicide attempts from ''self-harm'' episodes
by deciding which captives meant to kill themselves and which
captives were trying to gain attention or medical treatment.

No prisoner has killed himself at Guantánamo Bay, this ''because
of a vigilant, well-trained guard force,'' the Southcom statement said.

The most serious suicide attempt so far occurred Jan. 16, 2003.
Guards spotted a prisoner hanging in his cell. He suffered brain
damage and lapsed into a coma, but he regained consciousness.

Of the 23 prisoners involved in the August 2003 episode, only
16 remain in U.S. custody in Cuba.

McWilliams, the Southcom colonel, would not say whether the
seven who had been released from Guantánamo had been
transferred to lockups in allied nations or had been set free
after being found by an independent review panel to not meet
the minimum requirements for detention on ''enemy combatant''
status.

NATIONALITY RANGE

Guantánamo today has some 550 prisoners from about 42 nations,
although the Bush administration is arranging to repatriate four
Britons, an Australian who the Pentagon says had advance
knowledge of the Sept. 11 attacks and three French citizens.

The French ambassador in Washington, Jean-David Levitte,
told The Herald that negotiations are under way to repatriate
the last three French citizens at Guantánamo soon; earlier, the
Pentagon handed over to France four other French citizens .

(c) 2005 Herald.com and wire service sources. All Rights Reserved.
http://www.miami.com

[Remember, you are reading this in the MIAMI HERALD, not in
the organ of the Central Committee of the Cuban Communist
Party,GRANMA. And since Jim Jones wasn't the chaplain at
Guantnamo, you have to wonder what kind of horrors these
men were subjected to for them to have responded this way.]

The Cuban government's position on Guantanamo is clear:
http://www.granma.cu/ingles/2005/enero/juev20/05declar.html

For a more serious approach to human rights at Guantanamo:
http://www.guantanamohrc.org/

Marxism mailing list
Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu
http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism

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

13) Photos from Jeff Paterson

Dear Friends,

I thought I'd share a few photos and videos I produced over the
last few days.

On Thursday, Jan. 20 thousands around the country held
counter-inaugural events to declare "Not Our President!" during
the Bush oath.

Bay Area report and photos:
http://www.notinourname.net/~bayarea/20jan05-nop.htm
Video
http://www.indybay.org/news/2005/01/1716741.php

On Saturday, Jan. 22 thousands of pro-choice proponents meet
thousands of anti-choice demonstrators in what "right to life"
organizers billed as a first annual "Walk of Life West Coast"
Photos:
http://www.indybay.org/news/2005/01/1716544.php (pro-choice)
http://www.indybay.org/news/2005/01/1716463.php (anti-choice)
Video:
http://www.indybay.org/news/2005/01/1716850.php

-jeff
Jeff Paterson jeff@paterson.net

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

14) U.N. Says U.S. Deficits Distort Global Economy (link only)
By ELIZABETH BECKER
WASHINGTON
January 25, 2005
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/25/international/25cnd-trad.html

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

15) FIGHT JERRY BROWN'S 10PM CURFEW FOR PAROLEES
AND PROBATIONERS!
at Jerry Brown's house - 27TH AND TELEGRAPH, OAKLAND
(NEAR 19TH STREET BART)
Wednesday, January 26, 9:30 p.m.
Forwarded Message From: Linda Evans

Hey everyone: Come on out to this action to protest the 10 p.m. curfew for
people on parole and probation!! This coming Wednesday!! THIS IS IMPORTANT!

***EMERGENCY ACTION!*******EMERGENCY ACTION!*******EMERGENCY ACTION!****
Please forward to all your lists!

FIGHT JERRY BROWN'S 10PM CURFEW FOR PAROLEES AND PROBATIONERS!

Join Critical Resistance and All of Us or None as we cite Jerry Brown for
harassing and scapegoating the people of Oakland.

PLEASE JOIN US TO FIGHT BACK:

THIS WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 26
9:30 P.M.
JERRY BROWN'S HOUSE (OLD SEAR'S BUILDING)
27TH AND TELEGRAPH, OAKLAND (NEAR 19TH STREET BART)

Want to help make POSTERS? Join us at 7:00PM at the Critical Resistance
office - 1904 FRANKLIN STREET (AT 19TH), ROOM 504.

Jerry Brown continues to scapegoat parolees and probationers for causing all
of Oakland's problems as he plans a run for Attorney General. His newest
campaign scheme is to impose a curfew on probationers and parolees --
arresting them if they leave their house after 10pm.

After serving time in torturous conditions, former prisoners are faced with
prejudice and discrimination that make their re-entry into society difficult
and, in some cases, impossible. Prison sentences never end as long as the
discrimination against former prisoners -- like establishing a 10pm
curfew -- continues.

We need to join together to fight for real safety in Oakland. Scapegoating
and persecuting people on probation and parole will NOT make Oakland safe.
Real safety will only come when we spend our money and time on supporting
and creating opportunities for all people, not on harassing them.

FOR MORE INFORMATION OR TO RSVP, CALL
CRITICAL RESISTANCE AT 510-444-0484 or
email croakland@criticalresistance.org.
Or call All of Us or None: 415-255-7036, x337.

*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-
Sitara Nieves, Organizer
Critical Resistance
1904 Franklin Street, Suite 504
Oakland, CA 94612
Phone: 510-444-0484
Fax:510-444-2177
www.criticalresistance.org

***EMERGENCY ACTION!*******EMERGENCY ACTION!*******EMERGENCY
ACTION!*******EMERGENCY ACTION!****

NEWS STORIES ABOUT THE CURFEW
______________________________
Posted on Mon, Jan. 10, 2005
Adult curfew is probation's latest tactic

By Guy Ashley
OAKLAND - Curfew, the after-sundown restriction that smacks of a
crackdown on rebellious youths' Saturday-night antics, has a more
hardened group feeling the heat: adults who have past run-ins with the
law.

In a program that may be unprecedented in California, prosecutors acting
at the urging of Oakland police are demanding 10 p.m.-to-6 a.m. curfews
as a common probation condition for those pleading guilty to felonies in
Alameda County Superior Court.

Judges have imposed dozens of curfew orders since the demands began
reaching their courts three months ago as part of plea deals negotiated
between defense attorneys and prosecutors.

Curfews have displeased defense lawyers, who say it is the latest defeat
for defendants who in recent years have faced harsher sentencing laws,
longer probation terms and stay-away orders that have become everyday
courtroom occurrences.

Defense lawyers say their hands may be tied because the curfews have
shrewdly been offered to their clients as part of a
rock-and-a-hard-place proposition: If you would rather not stay home at
night, jail is always an option.

"It's a cowardly and scary new world," Oakland defense attorney Paul
Wolf said Friday, moments after a client was sentenced to five years'
probation in a weapons case, a term accompanied by a curfew. "But in a
more narrow context, I must admit I feel some sense of relief that my
client is not going to jail."

To hear Mayor Jerry Brown talk about it, curfews hold the promise of
stifling nighttime adult activities with established links to violent
crime -- and could be the missing piece of the puzzle in Oakland's
effort to control its notorious homicide problem.

"You have to go where the problem is," Brown said in 2003, when he first
broached the curfew idea with county law enforcement brass. "Since more
than 50 percent of the murder victims in this city are either on
probation or parole, it makes sense to try to rein in the activities of
these people in some meaningful way."

Efforts to reach Brown this week were unsuccessful. The mayor is cited
by police as the driving force behind curfews, part of an array of
criminal-justice reforms Brown has touted as he positions himself for a
run for state attorney general next year.

Though a fairly common condition of state-mandated parole, the use of
curfews in locally imposed probation appears to be a ground-breaking
concept. "We've seen curfews for teenagers, but we don't know of any
other cities where this practice is in place for adults," said Megan
Taylor, spokeswoman for the League of California Cities.

"I've never seen it," said Albert Manaster, a deputy public defender in
Los Angeles County who recently completed a book for defense attorneys
specializing in probation.

Alameda County District Attorney Tom Orloff said he believes curfews are
appropriate for certain convicted felons, as long as there is a clear
link between their offenses and the types of night-driven activities
that seem time and again to erupt in violence.

"We won't be prosecuting a person for petty theft at high noon and
placing them under a curfew," he said.

Penalties for violating curfew are fairly fluid, though prosecutors say
first-time violators will likely get up to 30 days in county jail.

No such violations have yet been recorded, said Ann Diem, a senior
prosecutor in Orloff's office.

While curfews so far have been confined to Oakland cases, Orloff said he
expects probationers in other county areas soon will be asked to accept
the home-at-night conditions, when warranted.

With some 20,000 people on felony probation in Alameda County, it is not
too far-fetched to say there may be thousands of people eventually
living under the stay-at-home orders if the curfew strategy proves
sound.

Precise numbers of curfew orders imposed so far were not available --
either from Orloff's staff, the county public defender's office or the
courts themselves.

"Since we're dealing with a large number of these types of crimes, I
would expect that there already is a significant number of people living
under a curfew," said Sandra Quist, a deputy district attorney who files
felony cases at the downtown Oakland courthouse.

It is possible the numbers could grow dramatically in coming months,
Quist said, because prosecutors likely will begin seeking curfews for
misdemeanor probation cases -- the number of which dwarf those involving
felonies.

The curfew demands arrived in local courts on Oct. 4, after more than a
year of Oakland efforts to target the parole population with expanded
law enforcement tools including curfews and mandatory meetings with
community-based service providers.

Curfews are the latest phase in a violence-reduction strategy police
have been pushing in the last 15 months. An array of crime-fighting
approaches targeting troubled pockets of town, the new strategy grew
from studies showing disproportionate numbers of homicides occur at
night and involve people on probation or parole -- as victims,
perpetrators or both.

"The idea is that if you can keep these people off the street, or
otherwise disrupt the street-level drug dealing and other activities
that always seem to come up, you can have a real impact on violent
crime," said police Lt. Pete Sarna, a key player in developing the
strategy.

Last week, police cited the $1 million annual strategy -- which includes
increased use of undercover operations targeting drug peddlers, and a
program in which minor parole and probation violators are locked up for
up to a week and provided substance-abuse treatment -- as a reason for
Oakland's 23 percent drop in its 2004 homicide rate..

Sarna said he knew curfews would be controversial. But he says the
numbers don't lie, and believes few critics -- even defense attorneys --
can challenge the need for new approaches to crime-fighting.

His point drew a surprising level of support from Tony Bergquist, 38,
who was sentenced in a weapons case Friday and learned he would have to
stay home every night for the next five years.

For years, Bergquist lived in one of West Oakland's toughest
neighborhoods, an experience he says showed him "there's a real need to
do something about the drug dealers and the violent people who are out
there."

"I used to see these people every night in front of my house," he said.

Nevertheless, Bergquist said he was "feeling a lot of anxiety" about
living under curfew. "No late-night dinners with my girlfriend for the
next five years?" he asked, though he did not seem to direct the
question to anyone in particular.

Wolf, who represented Bergquist in court before Judge Thomas Reardon,
said the case also raised troubling questions about the link between
crime and curfew that Orloff says is necessary.

Bergquist, he notes, was arrested in his West Oakland home in July by
police chasing another suspect into his yard, and then happened to
notice a marijuana plant growing inside his home.

Police searched the house and found 31 plants, two rifles, two handguns
and four boxes of ammunition stored in lock-boxes. Because he had a
felony conviction on his record, for a 1989 kidnapping, he was
prosecuted for being an ex-felon in possession of firearms, a felony.

No charges were brought for the plants prompting the search, because he
produced a city-sanctioned card showing he has a medical necessity to
grow and use it.

"If these curfews are designed to curtail the activities of people who
are known to frequent Oakland's drug hot-spots, then why do you require
it of somebody who was arrested inside his home just because he had the
bad luck to get mixed up in somebody else's business?" Wolf asked.

Oakland Officials Hope Curfew Will Reduce Crime
Jan. 17 (AP) - Police in Oakland are hoping a curfew imposed on people
on probation will help cut down on crime in the city.

As a condition of release from jail, probationers in Oakland are now
required to stay in their homes between the hours of 10 p.m. and 6 a.m.
seven days a week. The only exceptions are for work and emergencies.

Oakland Mayor Jerry Brown says 80 percent of homicides in the city
involve felons who are on probation and parole, and 70 percent of
homicides occur at night.

The curfew has been in place since last fall, but officials say it could
be six months to a year before they see results from the program.

KTVU.Com
Oakland Officials Use Curfew To Stem Crime

POSTED: 3:05 pm PST January 17, 2005

OAKLAND, Calif. -- Authorities in Oakland hope a curfew imposed on
people on probation will help cut down on crime.

As a condition of release from jail, probationers in Oakland are now
required to stay in their homes between the hours of 10 p.m. and 6 a.m.
seven days a week. The only exceptions are for work and emergencies.

Oakland Mayor Jerry Brown said the plan has been in the works for two
years and getting it implemented, at just the county level, was "like
climbing Mount Everest."

Brown said 80 percent of homicides in the city involve felons who are on
probation and parole, and 70 percent of homicides occur at night.

"People believe there is a right to travel on probation and parole,"
Brown said. "I believe their right to roam the streets of Oakland can be
limited. I think it's very (beneficial) for these probationers and
parolees to spend time in their homes."

Oakland civil rights attorney John Burris said he was "a little
disappointed" when he first heard about the curfew.

It creates another layer of law enforcement on youth and more hostility
towards police, he said.

Copyright 2005 by KTVU.com. The Associated Press contributed to this
report. All rights reserved. This material may not be published,
broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Rose Braz, Director
Critical Resistance
1904 Franklin St.,Ste. 504
Oakland, CA 94612
510.444.0484
fax 510.444.2177
email: rose@criticalresistance.org

MEMBERSHIP IS POWER

Become a dues-paying member of Critical Resistance! Every donation -
big and small - is vital to sustaining CR's fight to end the prison
industrial complex. Go to
http://www.criticalresistance.org/index.php?name=Support-CR, or mail checks
to Critical Resistance, 1904 Franklin Street, Suite 504, Oakland, CA 94612.
Thank you for your contributions to this struggle.
***************************

You received this message as a subscriber on the list:
crnews@lists.criticalresistance.org
To be removed from the list, send any message to:
crnews-unsubscribe@lists.criticalresistance.org

For all list information and functions, including changing
your subscription mode and options, visit the Web page:
http://lists.criticalresistance.org/lists/info/crnews


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

16) If Dr. King were alive today, he would be trying to
* tear down this new Jim Crow of an incarceration
* industry that is labeling and devastating young people
* of color in extraordinary numbers.
* - Van Jones, Human rights activist

Dear friend,

We're writing to let you know about CNN.com's special coverage of
a major MLK commemoration at Dr. Martin Luther King's home
church in Atlanta. Featured in the article and one of the honored
guests appearing on-stage during the festivities...none other than
EBC co-founder and Executive Director Van Jones!

Read the article: http://edition.cnn.com/2005/US/01/14/mlk.truth/

::: MOVING, STAR-STUDDED EVENT :::

Kerry Kennedy, human rights activist and daughter of the late Robert
F. Kennedy, helped to produce the event. Other invitees included
Nobel laureates Rigoberta Minchu and Bobby Muller.

The highlight of the days-long celebration was a dramatic reading
in MLK's home church of Ariel Dorfman's play, Speak Truth To Power,
based on Kerry Kennedy's book of the same name. Both the book
and the play put the spotlight on human rights activists of today —
people Kennedy calls "the Martin Luther Kings of our times."

The play features both human rights legends — like Desmond
Tutu and the Dalai Lama — and lesser-known human rights
activists around the world, including Van. The live performance
featured many U.S. celebrities, including Sean Penn, Martin
Sheen, Alfre Woodard and Woody Harrelson.

::: VAN CALLS ATTENTION TO HUMAN RIGHTS ABUSES
HERE AT HOME :::

Van used the occasion to call attention to human rights abuses
in the U.S. prison system. He drew links between the fight
against the incarceration industry and earlier struggles
against slavery and segregation.

CNN.com features not only Van's words, but also his picture
and a link to our website. [http://ellabakercenter.org] Here
is what CNN.com says about Van:


***********************
* (Frank) Wu shared the podium with
* Van Jones, executive director for the
* Ella Baker Center for Human Rights
* in San Francisco, California.
*
* Jones' organization works to expose
* human rights violations that law enforcement
* officers in the United States commit,
* and to challenge abuses in the criminal
* justice system.
*
*"I think every American century has its
* moral struggle, its moral dilemma," Jones
* said in an interview after his speech to
* schoolchildren Friday.
*
* "In the 1800s, it was the enslavement of
* African people. In the 1900s, it was Jim Crow
* and segregation. And in the new century,
* it's the incarceration industry which created
* these slave ships on dry land called prisons.
* That's the new Jim Crow."
***********************
You can read the full CNN.com article here:
http://edition.cnn.com/2005/US/01/14/mlk.truth/

Also, check out the photo gallery that goes with the article:
http://edition.cnn.com/interactive/us/0501/gallery.mlk/frameset.exclude.html

Many thanks,

EllaBakerCenter.org

Get more information about the Books Not Bars "Alternatives
for Youth" Campaign: http://ellabakercenter.org/bnb/campaign

*****
We can't survive without the support of individuals like you.
Please take a moment to support us today. Donate here:
http://www.ellabakercenter.org/donate

*****
* Not on our list-serve yet? (Maybe this message was forwarded
to you.) Sign up to get e-mail updates directly by going this web
page: http://ellabakercenter.org/subscribe )

* If you are on our list-serve, you can update your information
and preferences:
http://www.ellabakercenter.org/lists/?p=preferences&uid=1cbafa757fe7202cf8cf
4d4af079434d

* UNSUBSCRIBE here:
http://www.ellabakercenter.org/lists/?p=unsubscribe&uid=1cbafa757fe7202cf8cf
4d4af079434d

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


17) International Day of Action Against Caterpillar
Wednesday, April 13, 2005
http://www.bootcat.org/docs/cat-action-apr2005.html

Over 50,000 Palestinians have been made homeless by Caterpillar
bulldozers. Cat supplies equipment used by the Israeli military to
destroy Palestinian homes, infrastructure, orchards, greenhouses,
agricultural land filled with crops and sometimes lives, including
American peace activist Rachel Corrie and Palestinian Suha Sweidan,
who was nine months pregnant when she was killed in the middle
of the night in a home demolition. While US taxpayers foot the bill,
Cat profits from the wholesale destruction of Palestinian homes and
livelihoods.

Taking what Human Rights Watch calls a "head in the sand" approach,
Caterpillar officials have repeated the same line over and over again,
that Caterpillar has "neither the legal right nor the ability to monitor
and police individual use" of its equipment. Last year, instead of
looking into the wanton destruction that their company's policies
cause, the Caterpillar Board of Directors successfully urged the
defeat of a shareholder resolution investigating whether Caterpillar
is adhering to its own corporate code of conduct regarding sales to
Israel. Caterpillar not only has the ability to monitor the use of its
equipment, but after calls from human rights organizations, members
of the office of the UN Commissioner on Human Rights, several
religious and social justice organizations, and the victims themselves,
Cat has the responsibility to investigate the ethics of selling bulldozers
as weapons and profiting from human rights abuses.

On April 13, Caterpillar shareholders will meet again in Chicago.
We call on groups to organize local demonstrations that day to protest
Cat's selling of home-crushing bulldozers to Israel. Let's send the
board of directors and Cat dealerships a strong message that
cooperation in human rights abuses will not be tolerated.
Join us on April 13.

HERE'S WHAT YOU CAN DO:

Distribute and Sign the Petition

The BootCAT Campaign is collecting signatures to present to the
April 13, 2005 shareholders meeting. Please help us get them by
downloading these documents.
Printed Caterpillar Petition , Jan 2005 (PDF) - distribute, sign and
mail to BootCAT
Caterpillar: Stop Bulldozing Palestinian Lives , Jan 2005 (PDF) -
print and distribute handout
Read more about the Caterpillar shareholder resolution and how
you can get involved.

Organize an Action

Join other groups all over the world on April 13 to organize
a demonstration at a Caterpillar-related location in your area,
like a CAT dealership or board member's office. We'll provide
you with resources to help you make it happen.
Email abuemma@gmail.org if you'd like to organize an
action in your area.

More information and resources are regularly posted on
the following websites:
www.bootCAT.org ,www.CATdestroysHomes.org and
www.StopCAT.org

Contact Congress

Contact your Congressional representative, tell her/him
to ask for an investigation of US purchase of CAT
equipment for Israel in the General Accounting Office.
CAT equipment is sold to Israel under the US Foreign
Military Sales Program . It's illegal for US-purchased
equipment to be used to violate human rights. Make
appointments with your representatives on the week
of April 13, and tell her/him to investigate. To contact
a person in your area who can help you coordinate
a visit to your rep, go to this website and click on
your state .

GROUPS INVOLVED IN THE CAMPAIGN

Groups all over the world have gotten involved in
demanding that Caterpillar stop selling home-crushing
bulldozers to Israel. Below is a list of some of those
groups -- not all of them are involved in the Day of
Action, but all of them have contributed to the campaign.
Al-Awda
American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee
American Friends Service Committee
Amnesty International
BootCAT Campaign to Stop Caterpillar
Bradley Peace Network
Christian Peacemaker Teams
Churches for Middle East Peace
Committee for Justice in Palestine, Ohio State University
Human Rights Watch
International Solidarity Movement
Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions
Jewish Voice for Peace
Maryknoll Sisters
National Lawyers Guild
Not In My Name
Palestine Solidarity Group
Palestine Solidarity Movement
Peace Pledge
Peoria Area Peace Network
Presbyterian Church USA
ProgressivePortal.org
Sisters of Loretto
Sisters of Mercy
St. Francis of Philadelphia
StopCAT Coalition
Students for Justice in Palestine
Students for Social Justice
SUSTAIN (Stop US Tax Funded Aid to Israel Now)
UN Special Rapporteur on Food Rights, Jean Ziegler
US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation
Links to all organizations nationwide endorsing
the Stop Caterpillar campaign

Updated: Jan 11, 2005


(c) 2004-2005 BootCAT.org Contact Us

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

18) ICLU sues state over prison conditions (link only)
Associated Press
January 25, 2005
http://www.indystar.com/articles/6/212200-9306-092.html

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

posted 3:23 PM  0 comments

1) We ain't gonna study war no more!
(Killing and being killed is not a career choice!)
Come to an organizing meeting to get the military
out of our schools!
Saturday, 11:00 a.m., February 5, 2005
Centro del Pueblo, 474 Valencia Street
(near 16th St. in S.F.)


2) CRITICAL Hearing Friday January 28, 2005 for
SHEILA DETOY17-Year-Old Girl Shot In Head By
Rogue Cop In 1998 ...
January 28, 2005
9:30 AM
Superior Court
CIVIC CENTER COURTHOUSE
400 McAllister Street Dept. 301
San Francisco, CA 94102
CASE # CPF04-504029
LAST CHANCE FOR JUSTICE!
The San Francisco Police Department is trying
to get away with MURDER!!!
for more information call (510)428-3939

3) TAKING AIM with Ralph Schoenman and Mya Shone
January 23,2005
From: "Taking Aim"
Taking Aim schedule during the WBAI fund drive during
the next four weeks.

4) Israel Resumes Building West Bank Barrier Segment
By Allyn Fisher-Ilan
JERUSALEM (Reuters)
Mon Jan 24, 2005 09:08 AM ET
http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=topNews&storyID=7410159&src=eD
ialog/GetContent§ion=news

5) Bending it
** Dahr Jamail's Iraq Dispatches **
** http://dahrjamailiraq.com **
January 24, 2005
Kevin Benderman is a mechanic who is trained to fix
Bradley armored vehicles. On December 20, 2004, he applied
for conscientious objector status. Yesterday he made time
to talk with us about his decision.
The following is the interview conducted by Omar Khan,
editor and'forum' manager of www.dahrjamailiraq.com
http://www.dahrjamailiraq.com/covering_iraq/archives//000180.php#more

6) March 19: The World Says
End the War!
by United for Peace and Justice
January 10th, 2005

7) Low Fuel, High Violence
** Dahr Jamail's Iraq Dispatches **
** http://dahrjamailiraq.com **
January 24, 2005

8) Countdown to global catastrophe
Climate change: report warns point of no return may be
reached in 10 years, leading to droughts, agricultural
failure and water shortages
By Michael McCarthy, Environment Editor
24 January 2005
Countdown to global catastrophe
Leading article: No delay
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/environment/story.jsp?story=603975

9) Election Divides a Nation
Dahr Jamail's Iraq Dispatches
January 24, 2005
Inter Press Service
Dahr Jamail
http://www.dahrjamailiraq.com/hard_news/archives/hard_news/000182.php#more

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

1) We ain't gonna study war no more!
(Killing and being killed is not a career choice!)
Come to an organizing meeting to get the
military out of our schools!
Saturday, 11:00 a.m., February 5, 2005
Centro del Pueblo, 474 Valencia Street
(near 16th St. in S.F.)

Our children are being recruited to military service right out of
High School. They are being offered Junior ROTC for class credit as
an alternative to Physical Education. Junior ROTC advocates the
military as a career choice. Every day we hear of schools and
hospitals closing. Our children have fewer job opportunities
available to them with far fewer benefits. And they are finding
it increasingly more difficult to go to college because of increased
college costs and the general increase in the cost of living. Junior
ROTC makes the military attractive to them. But these are not the
job opportunities we want for our children-or that our children
want for themselves!

Meanwhile, due to an ever-increasing war budget, most of our
tax dollars are being spent on a war with no end in sight; and
on overall defense spending that dwarfs even the war budget!
And while corporations are raking in billions, two-thirds of them
pay no taxes at all. This puts a severe strain on the taxes left
over-after military and defense expenditures-for all social
services and human needs-taxes that come from the poor and
all working people. We want our children to have an opportunity
to learn and thrive to the best of their potential not to kill and
be killed. Stop the war. Bring all our troops home now. End all
military recruitment in public schools and institutions of higher
learning. Use our tax dollars for schools, healthcare, housing,
jobs-all human needs not war!

Number of U.S. soldiers killed in Iraq as of Jan 11: 1,357
http://www.ac.wwu.edu/~stephan/USfatalities.html

Number of U.S. soldiers wounded in Iraq: over 10,000
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines05/0104-12.ht

Number of Iraqis killed: est. over 100,000
http://www.iraqbodycount.net/press/

Number of Iraqis wounded: Untold.
Not counted but estimated in the millions.

Cost of the war: $149.5 billion spent as of Jan. 12, 2005
http://costofwar.com/index.html

With the money spent so far on the war we could have
hired over 2,600,566 public schoolteachers for one year.
http://costofwar.com/index-public-education.html

Total U.S. Defense spending: nearly $754 billion
as of fiscal year 2004.
http://www.independent.org/newsroom/article.asp?id=1253

The people of San Francisco voted last November 2004
by a 63 percent majority to bring all our troops home now.
We haven't changed our minds!

Bay Area United Against War (www.bauaw.org) (415) 824-8730
P.O. Box 318021, S. F., CA 94131-8021
Labor Donated...BW

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

2) CRITICAL Hearing Friday January 28, 2005 for
SHEILA DETOY17-Year-Old Girl Shot In Head By
Rogue Cop In 1998 ...
January 28, 2005
9:30 AM
Superior Court
CIVIC CENTER COURTHOUSE
400 McAllister Street Dept. 301
San Francisco, CA 94102
CASE # CPF04-504029
LAST CHANCE FOR JUSTICE!

The San Francisco Police Department is trying to get away
with MURDER!!!

If the cops get their way, the Superior Court will DISMISS
THE CASE against killer cop GREGORY BRESLIN !!!

With no punishment for Breslin - or anyone - in the 1998
cold-blooded police shooting of Sheila Detoy !!!

Don't let police murder go unpunished !!!


SIX YEARS - NO JUSTICE FOR SHEILA DETOY

* May 13, 1998: San Francisco police officers shot up a car
full of unarmed teenagers and killed 17-year-old Sheila Detoy.
SFPD then blamed her friends for her death.

* The Office of Citizen Complaints found that Officer Gregory
Breslin is responsible for her death. The OCC also sustained
complaints against the other officers involved in Sheila's killing.

* In 2003 the San Francisco Police Commission decided they
wanted to file charges against the officers, but the Police Officers
Association is trying to get Breslin off on a technicality but we
say: THERE IS NO TIME LIMIT ON PUNISHING KILLER COPS!!!

for more information call (510)428-3939

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

3) TAKING AIM with Ralph Schoenman and Mya Shone
January 23,2005
From: "Taking Aim"
Taking Aim schedule during the WBAI fund drive during
the next four weeks.

We are pre-empted this Tuesday and return to the WBAI airwaves
next week, Tuesday, February 1 with a three-hour special: Torture
and the Capitalist State featuring excerpts from the 3-hour
program, "Buried Alive: Torture in America (our premium for
this WBAI fund drive) focused on prisoners here in the United
States as well as discussion of U.S. treatment of prisoners
abroad (Guantanamo, Afghanistan and Iraq).

We are pre-empted again Tuesday, February 8, and return to
the WBAI airwaves, Tuesday, February 15, for another 3-hour
special, our "Vision of Hell: The Unspeakable Torment of Other
Species." This program will include excerpts from the 2-hour
program of that name as well as new material about animal
intelligence and how our attitudes towards other species impact
our relations with each other.

New material will be interspersed with excerpts from these
classic Taking Aim programs.

The specials will air: Tuesday, February 1, 3:00 p.m. to
6:00 p.m. (EST) which is noon to 3:00 p.m. (PST) premium:
"Buried Alive: Torture in America" (3-CD)
Tuesday, February 15, 3:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m. (EST) which is
noon to 3:00 p.m. (PST) premium: "The Unspeakable
Torment of Other Species" (2-CD)
Please support WBAI (KPFA for those of you in the San
Francisco Bay area) with your contributions during the
upcoming fund drives. These stations enable us to bring
our voices (information and analysis) to you.

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

4) Israel Resumes Building West Bank Barrier Segment
By Allyn Fisher-Ilan
JERUSALEM (Reuters)
Mon Jan 24, 2005 09:08 AM ET
http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=topNews&storyID=7410159&src=eD
ialog/GetContent§ion=news

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israel resumed building one of the most
controversial parts of its West Bank barrier, deep in occupied land,
in a move Palestinians said on Monday clouded new President
Mahmoud Abbas's efforts to revive peacemaking.

Israel's attorney-general approved construction of the 4-km
(2.5 mile) segment along a new route near the large Jewish
settlement of Ariel after residents of the adjacent Palestinian
village of Salfit petitioned a court against land
expropriation.

"How we are going to convince our people and factions that
we are trying to end Israeli occupation while Israel is
imposing facts on the ground," Palestinian cabinet minister
Saeb Erekat said.

"This will have a deep and negative impact on our efforts
to reach a cease-fire."

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas wrapped up a week of
truce talks with militants in Gaza on Monday without any formal
agreement but with violence in the area sharply reduced.

Israel has built about a third of the planned 600-km
(370-mile) barrier, which it says is necessary to keep suicide
bombers away from its cities.

The International Court of Justice has said it is illegal
to construct the network of razor wire-tipped electronic fences
and concrete walls on occupied land. Palestinians call the
project a land grab aimed at denying them a viable state.

An Israeli court had ordered work on the barrier around the
Ariel enclave halted last June after the appeal was filed and
then asked the sides to resolve the issue through negotiations.

Changes were subsequently made to the route -- one of the
most disputed because it dips deep into occupied territory --
although Salfit's mayor denied on Monday reaching any deal with
Israeli authorities.

Mushir al-Masri, a spokesman for the militant Hamas group
in Gaza, condemned the barrier but stopped short of saying the
new construction work could disrupt cease-fire efforts.

CALM

An end to more than four years of bloodshed is key to
revival of a U.S.-backed peace road map envisaging a
Palestinian state alongside a secure Israel.

"It is clear that there is calm on the ground as part of a
Palestinian initiative," said Ziad Abu Amr, a Palestinian
Authority negotiator with militant groups in Gaza.

"This calm can be a preamble to a truce if Israel agrees to
the Palestinian conditions," he told Reuters.

Palestinian demands on Israel include a halt to attacks on
militants and release of Palestinian prisoners in its jails.

Israel had said it would not agree to a formal cease-fire
with militant groups, some of which advocate its destruction,
but would respond in kind to a cessation of violence.

Giora Eiland, head of Israel's National Security Council,
signaled the military would largely hold off on raids for the
time being while Abbas, due back in the West Bank city of
Ramallah later in the day, pursued a truce.

"I think that in the next few days everything that is not
absolutely essential to do (right away) can be delayed," he
told Army Radio, referring to military operations.

Abbas, elected on Jan. 9 on a platform calling for an end
to armed struggle in pursuit of statehood, was due to go
later in the week to Egypt and Jordan, the only two Arab countries
that have made peace with Israel, to report on his cease-fire
moves.

"Now the ball is in the Israeli court and if the
international community really seeks calm and stability they
have to press Israel to agree to halt its attacks in order to
resume the political process," Abu Amr said.

(c) Reuters 2005

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

5) Bending it
** Dahr Jamail's Iraq Dispatches **
** http://dahrjamailiraq.com **
January 24, 2005
Kevin Benderman is a mechanic who is trained to fix
Bradley armored vehicles. On December 20, 2004, he applied
for conscientious objector status. Yesterday he made time
to talk with us about his decision.
The following is the interview conducted by Omar Khan,
editor and'forum' manager of www.dahrjamailiraq.com
http://www.dahrjamailiraq.com/covering_iraq/archives//000180.php#more

Omar Khan: Kindly tell us your name and a little about your
background-your age, where you live, where you born and raised, where
you went to school, things of that sort.

Kevin Benderman: My name is Kevin Mitchell Benderman. Currently I'm
living in Hinesville, Georgia, with my wife, Monica, and my stepson
Ryan. I was born in Alabama. I was raised between there and Tennessee.
I've gone to various schools, and I'm currently studying Criminal
Justice out of Ashworth College for a Bachelor's Degree.

OK: A Thursday, January 13 CNN article whose subtitle tells of your
"claim" that others "just don't know how bad it is." But that article
gives none of your or any other observations of how bad it is. Can you
tell take a few moments to tell us something about how bad it is?

KB: The things that I have seen in the war zone that I've been to-and I
am referring to this as all war, because my father told me about things
he saw during World War II, and I've talked to Vietnam War veterans,
I've talked to Korean War veterans, and they've all told me similar
things that they've seen. And that is how peoples homes are destroyed.
That's how people are destroyed. And just how insane, really, the entire
thing is. War destroys everything in its path. It's the most destructive
force on the planet that mankind has come up with, I can tell you that.

When we were moving from the southern part of that country to the north,
we saw numerous people that were having to get drinking water from mud
puddles on the side of the road. One thing that really sticks out in my
mind, is that young girl-probably 8, 9, no older than 10 years
old-standing there with her arm burned, black-you know, charred all the
way up to her shoulder. And her mother was there and they were both
crying, both begging for help [whom the executive officer refused to
help because troops had limited medical supplies]. I saw mass grave
sites full of old men, old women, children, you know-I saw them all over
that country.

OK: Article 3 of the 21 October 1950 Geneva Conventions reads: "Persons
taking no active part in the hostilities, including members of armed
forces who have laid down their arms and those placed hors de [outside
of] combat by sickness, wounds, detention, or any other cause, shall in
all circumstances be treated humanely."

To the extent that your experience in Iraq sheds any light on the
matter, can you comment on the commitment with which this principle has
been held up by the armed forces of the United States in Iraq?

KB: I don't want to discuss specific wars. But I'll tell you that by the
very virtue of war itself-what is humane treatment? I mean, you answer
that question, if any one can answer that question: what is humane about
war period? There's nothing humane about it. The very virtue of what war
is the design to inflict casualties on other human beings.

OK: The Nuremberg Tribunal was adopted by the International Law
Commission of the United Nations in 1950. It lists under the heading
"war crimes" the "wanton destruction of cities, towns, or villages" and
other actions against persons that constitute "devastation not justified
by military necessity." Please share any thoughts you have on this.

KB: I'm not a government, I'm just a man. And I feel that the only true
way to prevent any of those things that you're describing is for men-and
women-to reach across the table and open themselves up for discussion so
that this stuff won't happen between people. If war is a tool to achieve
peace, then why do we still have war?

Monica Benderman: War is not a necessity. Necessity is defined in
alternatives to war.

OK: Lt. Col. Robert Whetstone, a Fort Stewart spokesman, was quoted by
MSNBC on January 20th. He said-referring to you, Kevin-"We're still
going to treat him with honor and respect. He's a soldier, he's wearing
the uniform and he's a veteran," Whetstone said. "But when regulations
are broken and orders are disobeyed, we've got to do what we've got to do."

Now, the same Nuremburg Tribunal says that "the fact that internal law
does not impose a penalty for an act which constitutes a crime under
international law does not relieve the person who committed the act from
responsibility under international law." But it says more: "The fact
that a person acted pursuant to order of his Government or of a superior
does not relieve him from responsibility under international law,
provided a moral choice was in fact possible to him." Can you tell us a
little bit about that "moral choice" today?

KB: Well, I'll tell you where I've exercised that moral choice. When
that captain, who I was with over there, ordered the people-including
me-to shoot small children that were throwing rocks at us, and I refused
to obey that order, I exercised that moral choice in that particular
case, that particular incident. When that order was given, we ignored
it. We all looked at each other like, that man has lost his mind. So I
would say that everyone who was with me at that time exercised their
moral choice not to follow that illegal order.

OK: Mark Stevens, a military defense lawyer and retired Marine Corps
judge advocate has been quoted repeatedly in our media, with reference
to you. He asked, "If he went to Iraq and then comes back and says, 'I'm
now opposed to war,' the issue is are you opposed to all wars or just
this one you don't want to go back to?" said. "He wasn't opposed to war
two years ago, why is he opposed to it now?" Now, the same media that
energized the country for this war-telling nothing of its gross
illegality-is being used as a forum to say, "why didn't you know earlier?"

KB: I can't tell you about international law violations or anything of
that nature, but that man who made that statement about me: he doesn't
know me. You don't know me either. You don't know how long I've been
thinking about a particular subject before I decide to speak out about
it. And I think about a lot of things that no one knows what I think
about. But this one was important enough for me that I needed to speak
out about it to anyone that would listen.

More writing, photos and commentary at http://dahrjamailiraq.com

You can visit http://dahrjamailiraq.com/email_list/ to subscribe
or unsubscribe to the email list.

Or, you can unsubscribe by sending an email to
iraq_dispatches-request@dahrjamailiraq.com and write unsubscribe in the
subject
or the body of the email.

(c)2004 Dahr Jamail.
Iraq_Dispatches mailing list
http://lists.dahrjamailiraq.com/mailman/listinfo/iraq_dispatches

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

6) March 19: The World Says
End the War!
by United for Peace and Justice
January 10th, 2005

SATURDAY, MARCH 19: GLOBAL DAY OF PROTEST
ON THE TWO-YEAR ANNIVERSARY OF THE IRAQ WAR
* End the War *
* Bring the Troops Home Now *
* Rebuild Our Communities *

March 19-20 marks the two-year anniversary of the U.S. bombing
and invasion of Iraq. After all of the death and destruction, and with
the Bush administration claiming a mandate to continue their war,
there's a new urgency and a stronger determination within the
global antiwar movement to bring the troops home now.
LOCAL ACTIONS NATIONWIDE

UFPJ calls on supporters of peace and justice in every corner of
the country, in communities large and small, to organize local
protests against the war on Saturday, March 19. These can take
many forms: vigils, rallies, marches, nonviolent civil disobedience.
We especially encourage creative efforts to put the spotlight on
the institutions of militarism at home by organizing actions outside
military bases or military recruitment offices. List your activities
on the UFPJ website calendar

(select "March 19" under Event Type).

On the first anniversary of the war, at least 319 cities
and towns
across the United States organized protests. This year there is
the potential to organize even more demonstrations, and to
bring more people than ever out into the streets. The Bush
Administration will soon ask Congress to pump as much as
$100 billion more into the war; March 19 is an opportunity to
call for an end to this disaster, and to demand that the billions
be allocated instead for rebuilding our communities at home
and paying for the damage in Iraq.

MAJOR REGIONAL PROTEST IN FAYETTEVILLE, N.C.

UFPJ is also supporting a major regional demonstration in
Fayetteville, North Carolina. We hope those of you within
driving distance of Fayetteville will make this action your
priority. Fayetteville is home to Fort Bragg - ground zero for
the 82nd Airborne Division and many of the Army's elite
units. Beyond Fort Bragg, North Carolina hosts four other
of the nation's largest military bases, making the state one
of the friendliest to the military-industrial complex.

Less well-known is the fact that Fayetteville is also home to
a growing base of anti-war activists and organizations. They
are military folks, veterans, families of active-duty soldiers
and veterans, students, workers, housewives, clergy, educators,
and all are part of a vibrant, and growing, statewide network.
They stand firm in the knowledge that organizing in
Fayetteville is a key to bringing the troops home from Iraq.

Military Families Speak Out , Bring
Them Home Now ,
Iraq Veterans Against the War ,
Veterans For Peace ,
Quaker House , Fayetteville
Peace with Justice, the North Carolina Peace and Justice
Coalition , and the North
Carolina Council of Churches
are spearheading the Fayetteville action. Please do all you can to
be in Fayetteville this year; by actively building and participating
in this demonstration, we have the opportunity to support the
efforts of Southern organizers to build a Southern network,
and a Southern movement, to replace war and occupation
with justice and self-determination.

BE PART OF A GLOBAL ANTIWAR MOVEMENT

In addition to the many protests already being planned in the
United States, people all around the world will be taking action
on March 19 as well. Responding to a call from the European
Social Forum's Assembly of Social Movements, European
activists are organizing national mobilizations across Europe.
Brussels will be the site of a central demonstration on the eve
of a meeting of the European Council, where demonstrators will
march against war, racism, and a corporate-dominated Europe.
India's national Anti-War Assembly recently committed to major
protests on the second anniversary of the war. And we
anticipate that the World Social Forum will join this call when
it meets later this month in Sao Paolo, Brazil.

GET OUT THE WORD

Circulate this email wide and far. UFPJ will soon have flyers,
stickers, and other resources available to help you get out
the word.

HAVE YOUR GROUP ENDORSE MARCH 19
Visit http://www.unitedforpeace.org/m19endorse today.

BEGIN PLANNING LOCAL MARCH 19 ACTIONS
Bring together local groups to plan March 19 actions in your
community. Post your plans at on the UFPJ calendar

U.S. Labor Against War (USLAW)

www.uslaboragainstwar.org

info@uslaboragainstwar.org
PMB 153
1718 "M" Street, NW
Washington, D.C. 20036
Gene Bruskin and Bob Muehlenkamp, Co-convenors Amy
Newell, National Organizer Michael Eisenscher, Organizer
& Web Coordinator Adrienne Nicosia, Administrative Staff

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

7) Low Fuel, High Violence
** Dahr Jamail's Iraq Dispatches **
** http://dahrjamailiraq.com **
January 24, 2005

Last night I peered out my hotel room window into the vast darkness of
Baghdad. Aside from random lights powered by generators, the blackened
capital city seemed to lay dormant under high winds and a cold, driving
rain.

This morning as we're driving under clear, crisp skies on the harrowing
streets Abu Talat tells me, "We have had neither water nor electricity
at our house since 9am yesterday morning. It is as if we are camping in
our house!"

He laughs his usual deep laugh as I shake my head. I noticed he hadn't
shaved in a couple of days.

Sirens wail in the distance as Apaches rumble low overhead and we make
our way to our interviews. Looking out the window I see a rough looking
man wearing a black leather jacket ambling along the street. He wears a
wide leather belt with a pistol strapped on his right side, and a knife
which runs down to his middle thigh on his left. Welcome to occupied
Baghdad.

A little further we begin what is often a quest to find some
"reasonably" priced black market petrol. The first man we ask tells us
8,000 Iraqi Dinar (ID) for 20 Liters ($1.06 per gallon). While the
prices have dropped from a recent 20,000 ID per 20 liters, they are
still unacceptable to Abu Talat, who paid 100 ID for 20 liters prior to
the invasion at pumps where maybe one car was in front of him.

He is irked at the 8,000 ID, so we drive past a miles long gas line to
find a boy selling for 8,000 again, so we continue on to find another
boy selling for 6,500 ID.

Abu Talat asks him some questions then drives off again.

"Why didn't you take it for 6,500," I ask perplexed.

"He wouldn't swear to me it wasn't watered down," he replied with a smile.

Another block further we find another boy
idgas>
selling for 6,000. He passes the swear test so we wait as he dumps 20
liters through his old plastic half of a soda bottle into the tank.
Nearby is his cache of fuel
lackmarket>,
on a handy push cart so he can make a quick getaway if Iraqi or US
soldiers decide to break up his little black market, as they so often do
when the feel compelled.

We continue on over towards Khadamiya while listening to the radio. The
Iraqi resistance appears to be spreading to the south as a few days ago
an Italian soldier was killed when his helicopter took ground fire. Just
yesterday a Polish soldier died when his helicopter took fire near
Babil, while today 6 Iraqi soldiers were wounded when a car bomb
detonated at their checkpoint in front of the Polish military HQ in Hilla.

In case you missed it, recently the Bush administration quietly
downgraded the list of members of the famed "coalition of the willing"
from 45 countries to under 30.

Then of course there's always Mosul-another US soldier died there today
in clashes, bringing the Pentagon number of dead troops to 1,372 since
the invasion. Also, just north of Ramadi today a police station was
raided by resistance fighters who made off with equipment and weapons.
They didn't kill any policemen, but after forcing them out of their
station they warned them they would kill them if they returned inside.

After interviewing some folks in a mosque (more on that at a later
date), we decide to venture into a gas station
asstation>
to see how the manager is faring with the crisis. We're walking after we
park the car and I'm startled by nearby gunfire. Abu Talat doesn't even
flinch.

"You're not even going to look," I ask him.

"Why? This is nothing for me anymore," he says back smiling, "This is
the freedom of Iraq!"

Riyad Atoush
asstationowner>
sits slumped behind his old desk in a small office. Beeping cars
impatiently wait outside for their chance at the pump.

"We stay open from 6am to 6pm every day," he tells me, "But yesterday we
closed at 4pm since we ran out of fuel."

They normally get two tanker trucks each day, each one holding 32,000
liters of the now precious liquid, but today only one showed up.

"There is a rumor that the government will be raising the prices at the
pumps," adds Mr. Atoush, "But for now we just continue to ration the
fuel; even plates one day, odd the next, 30 liters (7.5 gallons) per
vehicle."

He concludes by saying that they hope to receive three tankers per day
soon; that is if there are no more attacks on pipelines or stolen tanker
trucks.

Back on the streets it is the usual cacophony of honking traffic jams,
rumbling choppers overhead, and Iraqi and US soldiers on the streets.

We sit in a traffic jam and I notice a small child
hild>
next to us.

He is peering out at an Iraqi soldier
ng>
standing with his Kalashnikov on the other side of our car.

More writing, photos and commentary at
http://dahrjamailiraq.com

You can visit http://dahrjamailiraq.com/email_list/ to
subscribe or unsubscribe to the email list.

Or, you can unsubscribe by sending an email to
iraq_dispatches-request@dahrjamailiraq.com and write unsubscribe in the
subject or the body of the email.

(c)2004 Dahr Jamail.

Iraq_Dispatches mailing list
http://lists.dahrjamailiraq.com/mailman/listinfo/iraq_dispatches

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

8) Countdown to global catastrophe
Climate change: report warns point of no return may be
reached in 10 years, leading to droughts, agricultural
failure and water shortages
By Michael McCarthy, Environment Editor
24 January 2005
Countdown to global catastrophe
Leading article: No delay
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/environment/story.jsp?story=603975

The global warming danger threshold for the world is clearly marked
for the first time in an international report to be published tomorrow -
and the bad news is, the world has nearly reached it already.

The countdown to climate-change catastrophe is spelt out by a task
force of senior politicians, business leaders and academics from
around the world - and it is remarkably brief. In as little as 10 years,
or even less, their report indicates, the point of no return with global
warming may have been reached.

The report, Meeting The Climate Challenge , is aimed at policymakers
in every country, from national leaders down. It has been timed to
coincide with Tony Blair's promised efforts to advance climate
change policy in 2005 as chairman of both the G8 group of rich
countries and the European Union.

And it breaks new ground by putting a figure - for the first time
in such a high-level document - on the danger point of global
warming, that is, the temperature rise beyond which the world
would be irretrievably committed to disastrous changes. These
could include widespread agricultural failure, water shortages and
major droughts, increased disease, sea-level rise and the death of
forests - with the added possibility of abrupt catastrophic events
such as "runaway" global warming, the melting of the Greenland
ice sheet, or the switching-off of the Gulf Stream.

The report says this point will be two degrees centigrade above
the average world temperature prevailing in 1750 before the
industrial revolution, when human activities - mainly the
production of waste gases such as carbon dioxide (CO2),
which retain the sun's heat in the atmosphere - first started
to affect the climate. But it points out that global average
temperature has already risen by 0.8 degrees since then, with
more rises already in the pipeline - so the world has little
more than a single degree of temperature latitude before
the crucial point is reached.

More ominously still, it assesses the concentration of carbon
dioxide in the atmosphere after which the two-degree rise
will become inevitable, and says it will be 400 parts per
million by volume (ppm) of CO2.

The current level is 379ppm, and rising by more than 2ppm
annually - so it is likely that the vital 400ppm threshold will
be crossed in just 10 years' time, or even less (although the
two-degree temperature rise might take longer to come
into effect).

"There is an ecological timebomb ticking away," said Stephen
Byers, the former transport secretary, who co-chaired the task
force that produced the report with the US Republican senator
Olympia Snowe. It was assembled by the Institute for Public
Policy Research in the UK, the Centre for American Progress
in the US, and The Australia Institute.The group's chief
scientific adviser is Dr Rakendra Pachauri, chairman of the
UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

The report urges all the G8 countries to agree to generate
a quarter of their electricity from renewable sources by 2025,
and to double their research spending on low-carbon energy
technologies by 2010. It also calls on the G8 to form
a climate group with leading developing nations such as
India and China, which have big and growing CO2 emissions.

"What this underscores is that it's what we invest in now
and in the next 20 years that will deliver a stable climate,
not what we do in the middle of the century or later," said
Tom Burke, a former government adviser on green issues
who now advises business.

The report starkly spells out the likely consequences of
exceeding the threshold. "Beyond the 2 degrees C level,
the risks to human societies and ecosystems grow
significantly," it says.

"It is likely, for example, that average-temperature increases
larger than this will entail substantial agricultural losses,
greatly increased numbers of people at risk of water
shortages, and widespread adverse health impacts. [They]
could also imperil a very high proportion of the world's coral
reefs and cause irreversible damage to important terrestrial
ecosystems, including the Amazon rainforest."

It goes on: "Above the 2 degrees level, the risks of abrupt,
accelerated, or runaway climate change also increase. The
possibilities include reaching climatic tipping points leading,
for example, to the loss of the West Antarctic and Greenland
ice sheets (which, between them, could raise sea level more
than 10 metres over the space of a few centuries), the shutdown
of the thermohaline ocean circulation (and, with it, the Gulf
Stream), and the transformation of the planet's forests and
soils from a net sink of carbon to a net source of carbon."

(c) 2004 Independent Digital (UK) Ltd

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

9) Election Divides a Nation
Dahr Jamail's Iraq Dispatches
January 24, 2005
Inter Press Service
Dahr Jamail
http://www.dahrjamailiraq.com/hard_news/archives/hard_news/000182.php#more

The elections due Jan. 30 appear to have brought more chaos and
division amongst Iraqis than unity and hope. And they have brought
greater security fears.

BAGHDAD, Jan 24 (IPS) - The elections due Jan. 30 appear to have
brought more chaos and division amongst Iraqis than unity and hope.
And they have brought greater security fears.

U.S.-appointed prime minister Iyad Allawi acknowledged last week
that full security will be impossible. This despite the rather draconian
measures his interim government will have in place.

The government has announced plans to close borders Jan. 29-31.
It will cut mobile and satellite phone services, ban travel between
Iraq's 18 provinces, lengthen curfew hours and restrict use of vehicles.

Security at polling stations will be heavy. The government plans
to set up three security rings around each of the 9,000 polling
stations.

But the government is preparing for a bloody day despite such
measures. The health ministry has announced it will provide
more hospital beds, medical supplies and staff for the day.
The U.S. military will run extra patrols to respond faster to
attacks.

With at least eight candidates killed, and many others receiving
daily death threats, campaigning has mostly consisted of parties
employing staff to post leaflets and set up posters. Many of the
posters are torn down the same day, while others are burned.

The polling process itself is confusing many people. With 7,785
mostly unnamed candidates on the lists of 83 coalitions of
political parties, voters have little idea who they will be voting
for. Each list contains between 83 and 275 candidates, running
on platforms championing all sorts of causes.

The 'candidates' lists have names such as 'The Security and
Stability List', 'The Security and Justice List' and the 'Iraq List'.
Many include fancy graphics, but few carry candidate
photographs.

Allawi is a member of a list running under the slogan 'For a
strong, secure, prosperous, democratic and unified Iraq'. Most
candidate lists do not mention the occupation of Iraq.

One election poster reads, "Let the polls be our answer to the
car bombings and insecurity". Another has a smiling face of
a man with the promise that this list will focus on restoring
electricity.

The lists are mostly sectarian. Kurdish lists are focused on
winning Kirkuk for Kurds, and obtaining a top government
post. Shias have their own lists, some seeking federalism,
others an Iranian-style regime.

The Association of Muslim Scholars, a Sunni group, has called
for a boycott in protest against the destruction of Fallujah by
the U.S.. military. Local people estimate that 90 percent of
Sunnis will not vote. Members representing Sunni Muslims
would in that event have to be appointed..

Most voters are expected to be Shia Muslims. Their revered
Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani has issued a fatwa instructing his
followers to vote.

"I will vote because Sistani has told us this will help the
country," said Abdel Hassan, a shoemaker in the
predominantly Shia district Karrada in Baghdad.
"And I am ready to do anything to help my country."

Other Iraqis appear to be firmly against the elections.

"How can we vote when we don't know any of the candidates,"
said a Shia man who gave his name as Ghassan. "And how can
any of them help a country that is occupied by invaders?"

Just the fear of violence is certain to keep many voters at
home. "We don't know when the next bullet will come so we
are staying in our homes most of the time," said Abdulla
Hamid, a 35-year-old father of five who sells vegetables in
Baghdad. "I would vote if there was security, but this election
is confusing to me and seems to be causing so many
problems already."

Some believe voting will help security. "I will be voting for
Allawi because I think he can help Iraq," says Suthir Hamiz,
whose husband works in the supply department at
a U.S. military camp. "I think he can bring security."

Hamoudi Aziz, who drives his car as a taxi while looking for
a better job, says the elections themselves have brought
a worsening of the security situation. "I'm not even safe in
my own home under this martial law," he said when asked
if he will vote. "So how am I expected to vote for this crazy
parliament?"

Posted by Dahr_Jamail at January 24, 2005 05:35 PM

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

posted 12:06 PM  0 comments

1) We ain't gonna study war no more!
(Killing and being killed is not a career choice!)
Come to an organizing meeting to get the military
out of our schools!
Saturday, 11:00 a.m., February 5, 2005
Centro del Pueblo, 474 Valencia Street
(near 16th St. in S.F.)

2) CRITICAL Hearing Friday January 28, 2005 for
SHEILA DETOY17-Year-Old Girl Shot In Head By
Rogue Cop In 1998 ...
January 28, 2005
9:30 AM
Superior Court
CIVIC CENTER COURTHOUSE
400 McAllister Street Dept. 301
San Francisco, CA 94102
CASE # CPF04-504029
LAST CHANCE FOR JUSTICE!
The San Francisco Police Department is trying
to get away with MURDER!!!
for more information call (510)428-3939

3) Thousands take to the streets to oppose the inauguration
of George W. Bush
Next: March 19 Central Park - Troops Out Now!

4) Adult curfew is probation's latest tactic
NEWS STORIES ABOUT THE CURFEW
Posted on Mon, Jan. 10, 2005
By Guy Ashley

5) Support our troops: Bring them home
BY HOWARD ZINN
pmproj@progressive.org
Posted on Sat, Jan. 22, 2005
IRAQ
http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/opinion/10705669.htm?template=cont
entModules/printstory.jsp

6) Dying for Democracy
Sunday Herald
January 23, 2004
** Dahr Jamail's Iraq Dispatches **
** http://dahrjamailiraq.com **

7) FROM MANIFEST DESTINY AND LEBENSRAUM TO
BUSH'S "CALLING OF OUR TIME"
DAVE SILVER
JANUARY 22, 2005

8) Few but Organized, Iraq Veterans
Turn War Critics
By NEELA BANERJEE
January 23, 2005
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/23/national/23vets.html?oref=login

9) Mystery Oil Slick Kills Seabirds Off California
By CHARLIE LeDUFF
LOS ANGELES
January 22, 2005
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/22/national/22spill.html?oref=login

10) Community Labor News
Social Security Information & Resources
As the debate on Social Security progresses, please
check this page frequently for additional information and
resources on Social Security and the proposed changes to the
program.
Recent articles and materials on Social Security:
http://www.pacesteelalliance.org/pacealliance/program/content/930.php

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

1) We ain't gonna study war no more!
(Killing and being killed is not a career choice!)
Come to an organizing meeting to get the
military out of our schools!
Saturday, 11:00 a.m., February 5, 2005
Centro del Pueblo, 474 Valencia Street
(near 16th St. in S.F.)

Our children are being recruited to military service right out of
High School. They are being offered Junior ROTC for class credit
as an alternative to Physical Education. Junior ROTC advocates
the military as a career choice. Every day we hear of schools
and hospitals closing. Our children have fewer job opportunities
available to them with far fewer benefits. And they are finding
it increasingly more difficult to go to college because of increased
college costs and the general increase in the cost of living.
Junior ROTC makes the military attractive to them. But these
are not the job opportunities we want for our children-or
that our children want for themselves!

Meanwhile, due to an ever-increasing war budget, most of our
tax dollars are being spent on a war with no end in sight; and
on overall defense spending that dwarfs even the war budget!
And while corporations are raking in billions, two-thirds of
them pay no taxes at all. This puts a severe strain on the taxes
left over-after military and defense expenditures-for all social
services and human needs-taxes that come from the poor
and all working people. We want our children to have an
opportunity to learn and thrive to the best of their potential
not to kill and be killed. Stop the war. Bring all our troops
home now. End all military recruitment in public schools and
institutions of higher learning. Use our tax dollars for schools,
healthcare, housing, jobs-all human needs not war!

Number of U.S. soldiers killed in Iraq as of Jan 11: 1,357
http://www.ac.wwu.edu/~stephan/USfatalities.html

Number of U.S. soldiers wounded in Iraq: over 10,000
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines05/0104-12.ht

Number of Iraqis killed: est. over 100,000
http://www.iraqbodycount.net/press/

Number of Iraqis wounded: Untold. Not counted but
estimated in the millions.

Cost of the war: $149.5 billion spent as of Jan. 12, 2005
http://costofwar.com/index.html

With the money spent so far on the war we could have hired
over 2,600,566 public schoolteachers for one year.
http://costofwar.com/index-public-education.html

Total U.S. Defense spending: nearly $754 billion as of
fiscal year 2004.
http://www.independent.org/newsroom/article.asp?id=1253

The people of San Francisco voted last November 2004
by a 63 percent majority to bring all our troops home now.
We haven't changed our minds!

Bay Area United Against War (www.bauaw.org) (415) 824-8730
P.O. Box 318021, S. F., CA 94131-8021
Labor Donated...BW

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

2) CRITICAL Hearing Friday January 28, 2005 for
SHEILA DETOY17-Year-Old Girl Shot In Head By
Rogue Cop In 1998 ...
January 28, 2005
9:30 AM
Superior Court
CIVIC CENTER COURTHOUSE
400 McAllister Street Dept. 301
San Francisco, CA 94102
CASE # CPF04-504029
LAST CHANCE FOR JUSTICE!

The San Francisco Police Department is trying to get away
with MURDER!!!

If the cops get their way, the Superior Court will DISMISS
THE CASE against killer cop GREGORY BRESLIN !!!

With no punishment for Breslin - or anyone - in the 1998
cold-blooded police shooting of Sheila Detoy !!!

Don't let police murder go unpunished !!!


SIX YEARS - NO JUSTICE FOR SHEILA DETOY

* May 13, 1998: San Francisco police officers shot up a car
full of unarmed teenagers and killed 17-year-old Sheila
Detoy. SFPD then blamed her friends for her death.

* The Office of Citizen Complaints found that Officer Gregory
Breslin is responsible for her death. The OCC also sustained
complaints against the other officers involved in Sheila's killing.

* In 2003 the San Francisco Police Commission decided they
wanted to file charges against the officers, but the Police
Officers Association is trying to get Breslin off on a technicality
but we say: THERE IS NO TIME LIMIT ON PUNISHING KILLER COPS!!!

for more information call (510)428-3939

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

3) Thousands take to the streets to oppose the inauguration
of George W. Bush
Next: March 19 Central Park - Troops Out Now!

Tens of thousands protest the Inauguration of George W.
Bush

Thousands took to the streets of Washington, DC to protest
the inauguration of George W. Bush. The International
Action Center organized contingents from New York, Boston,
Philadelphia, Baltimore, Cleveland, Detroit, Raleigh, and
many other cities to participate in the demonstrations,
hand out literature, and distribute placards.

Thousands of people turned out to line the inaugural
parade route, despite attempts by the Bush Administration
to prohibit protesters from being present. For months, the
Bush Administration had been fighting to stage manage the
inauguration and present the facade of a united front in
support of the Bush agenda of global war, corporate greed,
and repression. The ANSWER Coalition won a significant
legal victory and obtained a permit to assemble directly
on the parade route. As a result, thousands of protesters
were able to gather at a rally near the beginning of the
parade route and many more lined up all along the parade
route. As Bush rode down Pennsylvania Avenue, he was
confronted by protesters holding signs all along the
route, many of which said "George Bush: Guilty of War
Crimes."

Unfortunately, many thousands more were stopped at
"security checkpoints," set up by the Bush Administration
in an attempt to minimize the impact and visibility of the
protests. However, the people engaged in spontaneous
protest at the check points, chanting, "George Bush -
Terrorist," and holding anti-war placards and banners.

In addition, thousands marched through the streets of
Washington DC, beginning at Malcolm X Park. This loud and
spirited demonstration, consisting largely of youth, was
organized by the DC Antiwar Network.

Militant youth, including members of FIST (Fight
Imperialism-Stand Together), participated in breakaway
marches despite police brutality, which included the use
of pepper spray, tasers, and clubs. One group of youth
eventually challenged the Bush Administration's tactics by
directly confronting the police at the massive fences
erected to keep protesters off of the parade route under
the pretense of security.

Many demonstrators at both locations carried signs
distributed by the Troops Out Now Coalition that said
"Troops Out Now - March 19 - Central Park!" and "End the
Occupation Now - Iraq, Palestine, & Everywhere."

Bush's Speech--a declaration of war on the world

His speech was an unabashedly aggressive pro-war threat on
the entire globe. His call to empire, veiled in words
like "freedom" and "liberty," delivered in what some
described in an "evangelical" or "messianic" tone,
asserted his divine right to intervene anywhere, anytime.
It did not mention any country by name--it was instead,
an open declaration of domination and endless war--a
campaign to globalize Abu-Ghraib.

The speech was seen around the globe as an ominous
beginning for Bush's second term. The British daily The
Guardian summed up world-wide concern in an editorial
under the headline "Fireworks in Washington, despair
around the world."

Bush's Inaugural address makes it clear, now more than
ever, that we have to continue to organize a unified mass
movement to struggle for justice. In his twenty-one
minute speech, he did not once mention the millions of
people who have lost their jobs under his Administration.
He did not mention the tens of millions who are without
healthcare. He made no promise to address the crises in
education, housing, or AIDS. He did not mention Iraq once,
even though 100,000 Iraqi people and nearly 1400 U.S.
troops have died because of his colonial war. He did not
mention any social programs, except for social security,
which he plans to turn over to be looted by his corporate
backers.

It is clear that the antiwar movement in the US has a
unique responsibility to confront and stop this drive for
global empire. Unity among all antiwar and progressive
forces is now more important than ever.

Next Step: March 19 - Central Park, and across the globe

The weekend of March 19-20 is the second anniversary of
the beginning of the U.S. "shock and awe" attack on Iraq.
Antiwar and progressive organizations worldwide have
called for protests on this weekend.

In the U.S., the Troops Out Now coalition has called for a
massive regional march on Central Park on March 19 to
demand the immediate, complete, and unconditional
withdrawal of all US troops from Iraq.

A few months ago, Mayor Bloomberg, the NYPD, and Bush told
us that we could not march to and rally in Central Park.
We do not accept this decision and are determined to
challenge it by assembling tens of thousands of people to
retake Central Park --our Park. The antiwar movement
cannot afford, and must never again agree to, this
infringement on our rights, especially in a city as
important as NYC.

In addition, there will be local and regional
demonstrations in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Atlanta,
Washington DC, and throughout the country. There will
also be a major regional demonstration in Fayetteville,
North Carolina. Fayetteville is home to Fort Bragg, which
is the home base for the 82nd Airborne Division and many
of the Army's elite units. For more information on this
rally, see: http://www.mfso.org.

How You can get involved:

1) Endorse: http://troopsoutnow.org/endorse.html
2) Organize transportation from your area to NYC on March
19 - call 212-633-6646 for details.
3) Download flyers from the Troops Out Now website to help
get the word out.

http://troopsoutnow.org

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

4) Adult curfew is probation's latest tactic
NEWS STORIES ABOUT THE CURFEW
Posted on Mon, Jan. 10, 2005
By Guy Ashley

OAKLAND - Curfew, the after-sundown restriction that smacks of a
crackdown on rebellious youths' Saturday-night antics, has a more
hardened group feeling the heat: adults who have past run-ins with the
law.

In a program that may be unprecedented in California, prosecutors acting
at the urging of Oakland police are demanding 10 p.m.-to-6 a.m. curfews
as a common probation condition for those pleading guilty to felonies in
Alameda County Superior Court.

Judges have imposed dozens of curfew orders since the demands began
reaching their courts three months ago as part of plea deals negotiated
between defense attorneys and prosecutors.

Curfews have displeased defense lawyers, who say it is the latest defeat
for defendants who in recent years have faced harsher sentencing laws,
longer probation terms and stay-away orders that have become everyday
courtroom occurrences.

Defense lawyers say their hands may be tied because the curfews have
shrewdly been offered to their clients as part of a
rock-and-a-hard-place proposition: If you would rather not stay home at
night, jail is always an option.

"It's a cowardly and scary new world," Oakland defense attorney Paul
Wolf said Friday, moments after a client was sentenced to five years'
probation in a weapons case, a term accompanied by a curfew. "But in a
more narrow context, I must admit I feel some sense of relief that my
client is not going to jail."

To hear Mayor Jerry Brown talk about it, curfews hold the promise of
stifling nighttime adult activities with established links to violent
crime -- and could be the missing piece of the puzzle in Oakland's
effort to control its notorious homicide problem.

"You have to go where the problem is," Brown said in 2003, when he first
broached the curfew idea with county law enforcement brass. "Since more
than 50 percent of the murder victims in this city are either on
probation or parole, it makes sense to try to rein in the activities of
these people in some meaningful way."

Efforts to reach Brown this week were unsuccessful. The mayor is cited
by police as the driving force behind curfews, part of an array of
criminal-justice reforms Brown has touted as he positions himself for a
run for state attorney general next year.

Though a fairly common condition of state-mandated parole, the use of
curfews in locally imposed probation appears to be a ground-breaking
concept. "We've seen curfews for teenagers, but we don't know of any
other cities where this practice is in place for adults," said Megan
Taylor, spokeswoman for the League of California Cities.

"I've never seen it," said Albert Manaster, a deputy public defender in
Los Angeles County who recently completed a book for defense attorneys
specializing in probation.

Alameda County District Attorney Tom Orloff said he believes curfews are
appropriate for certain convicted felons, as long as there is a clear
link between their offenses and the types of night-driven activities
that seem time and again to erupt in violence.

"We won't be prosecuting a person for petty theft at high noon and
placing them under a curfew," he said.

Penalties for violating curfew are fairly fluid, though prosecutors say
first-time violators will likely get up to 30 days in county jail.

No such violations have yet been recorded, said Ann Diem, a senior
prosecutor in Orloff's office.

While curfews so far have been confined to Oakland cases, Orloff said he
expects probationers in other county areas soon will be asked to accept
the home-at-night conditions, when warranted.

With some 20,000 people on felony probation in Alameda County, it is not
too far-fetched to say there may be thousands of people eventually
living under the stay-at-home orders if the curfew strategy proves
sound.

Precise numbers of curfew orders imposed so far were not available --
either from Orloff's staff, the county public defender's office or the
courts themselves.

"Since we're dealing with a large number of these types of crimes, I
would expect that there already is a significant number of people living
under a curfew," said Sandra Quist, a deputy district attorney who files
felony cases at the downtown Oakland courthouse.

It is possible the numbers could grow dramatically in coming months,
Quist said, because prosecutors likely will begin seeking curfews for
misdemeanor probation cases -- the number of which dwarf those involving
felonies.

The curfew demands arrived in local courts on Oct. 4, after more than a
year of Oakland efforts to target the parole population with expanded
law enforcement tools including curfews and mandatory meetings with
community-based service providers.

Curfews are the latest phase in a violence-reduction strategy police
have been pushing in the last 15 months. An array of crime-fighting
approaches targeting troubled pockets of town, the new strategy grew
from studies showing disproportionate numbers of homicides occur at
night and involve people on probation or parole -- as victims,
perpetrators or both.

"The idea is that if you can keep these people off the street, or
otherwise disrupt the street-level drug dealing and other activities
that always seem to come up, you can have a real impact on violent
crime," said police Lt. Pete Sarna, a key player in developing the
strategy.

Last week, police cited the $1 million annual strategy -- which includes
increased use of undercover operations targeting drug peddlers, and a
program in which minor parole and probation violators are locked up for
up to a week and provided substance-abuse treatment -- as a reason for
Oakland's 23 percent drop in its 2004 homicide rate..

Sarna said he knew curfews would be controversial. But he says the
numbers don't lie, and believes few critics -- even defense attorneys --
can challenge the need for new approaches to crime-fighting.

His point drew a surprising level of support from Tony Bergquist, 38,
who was sentenced in a weapons case Friday and learned he would have to
stay home every night for the next five years.

For years, Bergquist lived in one of West Oakland's toughest
neighborhoods, an experience he says showed him "there's a real need to
do something about the drug dealers and the violent people who are out
there."

"I used to see these people every night in front of my house," he said.

Nevertheless, Bergquist said he was "feeling a lot of anxiety" about
living under curfew. "No late-night dinners with my girlfriend for the
next five years?" he asked, though he did not seem to direct the
question to anyone in particular.

Wolf, who represented Bergquist in court before Judge Thomas Reardon,
said the case also raised troubling questions about the link between
crime and curfew that Orloff says is necessary.

Bergquist, he notes, was arrested in his West Oakland home in July by
police chasing another suspect into his yard, and then happened to
notice a marijuana plant growing inside his home.

Police searched the house and found 31 plants, two rifles, two handguns
and four boxes of ammunition stored in lock-boxes. Because he had a
felony conviction on his record, for a 1989 kidnapping, he was
prosecuted for being an ex-felon in possession of firearms, a felony.

No charges were brought for the plants prompting the search, because he
produced a city-sanctioned card showing he has a medical necessity to
grow and use it.

"If these curfews are designed to curtail the activities of people who
are known to frequent Oakland's drug hot-spots, then why do you require
it of somebody who was arrested inside his home just because he had the
bad luck to get mixed up in somebody else's business?" Wolf asked.
###

Oakland Officials Hope Curfew Will Reduce Crime
Jan. 17 (AP) - Police in Oakland are hoping a curfew imposed on people
on probation will help cut down on crime in the city.

As a condition of release from jail, probationers in Oakland are now
required to stay in their homes between the hours of 10 p.m. and 6 a.m.
seven days a week. The only exceptions are for work and emergencies.

Oakland Mayor Jerry Brown says 80 percent of homicides in the city
involve felons who are on probation and parole, and 70 percent of
homicides occur at night.

The curfew has been in place since last fall, but officials say it could
be six months to a year before they see results from the program.

KTVU.Com
Oakland Officials Use Curfew To Stem Crime

POSTED: 3:05 pm PST January 17, 2005

OAKLAND, Calif. -- Authorities in Oakland hope a curfew imposed on
people on probation will help cut down on crime.

As a condition of release from jail, probationers in Oakland are now
required to stay in their homes between the hours of 10 p.m. and 6 a.m.
seven days a week. The only exceptions are for work and emergencies.

Oakland Mayor Jerry Brown said the plan has been in the works for two
years and getting it implemented, at just the county level, was "like
climbing Mount Everest."

Brown said 80 percent of homicides in the city involve felons who are on
probation and parole, and 70 percent of homicides occur at night.

"People believe there is a right to travel on probation and parole,"
Brown said. "I believe their right to roam the streets of Oakland can be
limited. I think it's very (beneficial) for these probationers and
parolees to spend time in their homes."

Oakland civil rights attorney John Burris said he was "a little
disappointed" when he first heard about the curfew.

It creates another layer of law enforcement on youth and more hostility
towards police, he said.

Copyright 2005 by KTVU.com. The Associated Press contributed to this
report. All rights reserved. This material may not be published,
broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Rose Braz, Director
Critical Resistance
1904 Franklin St.,Ste. 504
Oakland, CA 94612
510.444.0484
fax 510.444.2177
email: rose@criticalresistance.org
MEMBERSHIP IS POWER
Become a dues-paying member of Critical Resistance! Every donation -
big and small - is vital to sustaining CR's fight to end the prison
industrial complex. Go to
http://www.criticalresistance.org/index.php?name=Support-CR, or mail
checks
to Critical Resistance, 1904 Franklin Street, Suite 504, Oakland, CA
94612.
Thank you for your contributions to this struggle.

For all list information and functions, including changing
your subscription mode and options, visit the Web page:
http://lists.criticalresistance.org/lists/info/crnews

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

5) Support our troops: Bring them home
BY HOWARD ZINN
pmproj@progressive.org
Posted on Sat, Jan. 22, 2005
IRAQ
http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/opinion/10705669.htm?template=cont
entModules/printstory.jsp

We must withdraw our military from Iraq, the sooner the better.
The reason is simple: Our presence there is a disaster for the
American people and an even bigger disaster for the Iraqi people.

It is a strange logic to declare, as so many in Washington do, that
it was wrong for us to invade Iraq but right for us to remain.
A recent New York Times editorial sums up the situation accurately:
``Some 21 months after the American invasion, United States
military forces remain essentially alone in battling what seems
to be a growing insurgency, with no clear prospect of decisive
success any time in the foreseeable future.''

And then, in an extraordinary non sequitur: ``Given the lack of
other countries willing to put up their hands as volunteers, the
only answer seems to be more American troops, and not just
through the spring, as currently planned. . . . Forces need to
be expanded through stepped-up recruitment.''

Here is the flawed logic: We are alone in the world in this invasion.
The insurgency is growing. There is no visible prospect of success.
Therefore, let's send more troops? The definition of fanaticism is
that when you discover that you are going in the wrong direction,
you redouble your speed.

In all of this, there is an unexamined premise: that military victory
would constitute ``success.''

Conceivably, the United States, possessed of enormous weaponry,
might finally crush the resistance in Iraq. The cost would be great.
Already, tens of thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands, have
lost their lives (and we must not differentiate between ''their''
casualties and ''ours'' if we believe that all human beings have
an equal right to life.) Would that be a ``success''?

In 1967, the same arguments that we are hearing now were
being made against withdrawal in Vietnam. The United States
did not pull out its troops for six more years. During that time,
the war killed at least one million more Vietnamese and perhaps
30,000 U.S. military personnel.

We must stay in Iraq, it is said again and again, so that we can
bring stability and democracy to that country. Isn't it clear that
after almost two years of war and occupation we have brought
only chaos, violence and death to that country, and not any
recognizable democracy?

Can democracy be nurtured by destroying cities, by bombing,
by driving people from their homes?

There is no certainty as to what would happen in our absence.
But there is absolute certainty about the result of our presence
-- escalating deaths on both sides.

The loss of life among Iraqi civilians is especially startling. The
British medical journal Lancet reports that 100,000 civilians
have died as a result of the war, many of them children. The
casualty toll on the American side includes more than 1,350
deaths and thousands of maimed soldiers, some losing limbs,
others blinded. And tens of thousands more are facing
psychological damage in the aftermath.

Have we learned nothing from the history of imperial
occupations, all pretending to help the people being occupied?

The United States, the latest of the great empires, is perhaps
the most self-deluded, having forgotten that history, including
our own: our 50-year occupation of the Philippines, or our
long occupation of Haiti (1915-1934) or of the Dominican
Republic (1916-1924), our military intervention in Southeast
Asia and our repeated interventions in Nicaragua, El Salvador
and Guatemala.

Our military presence in Iraq is making us less safe, not more
so. It is inflaming people in the Middle East, and thereby
magnifying the danger of terrorism. Far from fighting ''there
rather than here,'' as President Bush has claimed, the occupation
increases the chance that enraged infiltrators will strike us
here at home.

In leaving, we can improve the odds of peace and stability
by encouraging an international team of negotiators, largely
Arab, to mediate among the Sunnis, Shiites and Kurds and
work out a federalist compromise to give some autonomy
to each group. We must not underestimate the capacity of
he Iraqis, once free of both Saddam Hussein and the U.S.
occupying army, to forge their own future.

But the first step is to support our troops in the only way that
word support can have real meaning -- by saving their lives,
their limbs, their sanity. By bringing them home.
Howard Zinn is author of the best-selling A People's History
of the United States.

(c) 2005 Herald.com and wire service sources. All Rights Reserved.
http://www.miami.com

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

6) Dying for Democracy
Sunday Herald
January 23, 2004
** Dahr Jamail's Iraq Dispatches **
** http://dahrjamailiraq.com **

Violence and fear is growing in Iraq ahead of next Sunday's vote. Dahr
Jamail, in Baghdad, Foreign Editor David Pratt, in Basra, and Diplomatic
Editor Trevor Royle report/


"I will not be voting because it is a useless charade," says Salah
Abrahim as he pushes his car towards a petrol station to get fuel in a
bustling street in the Karrada district of Baghdad, a sector of the
capital city populated primarily by Shia Muslims.

"Any clever person can see that this war and its expenditures would lead
to a government that opposes the Americans."

Others on the same street are more sanguine about Iraq's first free
elections in more than half a century and will obey the fatwa issued by
the Shia spiritual leader Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, the most
revered religious leader in Iraq and a supporter of the elections. As
the majority of the Shia in Iraq live by his edicts, it is likely that
his representatives will gain the most seats in the transitional
parliament and that is a powerful spur for younger Shia voters like Alia
Halaf who can only remember the oppression of the Saddam Hussein period
and the hegemony of the Ba'ath Party. "I will vote no matter how many
car bombs are used," he explains. "My 17-year-old neighbour was
kidnapped, so I hope the elections will bring us more security. They
simply must."

Abrahim and Halaf represent two contrasting views from a capital which
is in one of the four provinces where voting will be dangerous and, to
all intents and purposes, undemocratic. They are the two extremes of
this election on which so many hopes are pinned.

Hope, expectation and fear are the emotions that are coursing through
Iraq this weekend. The hope is driven by the fact that opinion polls
show that 85% of Iraqis are anxious to vote, balanced by the fact that
perhaps only half that number will actually manage to get through to one
of the 5000 specially prepared polling stations. The expectation is
that, despite all the problems, there will be a sufficiently high
turnout to ensure that enough votes are cast to enable the new 275-seat
National Assembly to come into being. But everywhere throughout this
war-torn country is the fear that insurgents and foreign fighters will
attempt to disrupt the process by causing chaos and intimidating the
electorate. Speaking after suicide bombers had killed 25 people in two
attacks in Baghdad last week, interim prime minister Iyad Allawi
admitted yesterday that the attackers would "try to make the political
process fail" and that the security forces would be hard pushed to
contain them.

The admission comes at a time of heightened tensions, with Sunni
terrorist groups targeting the Shia population in a last-ditch attempt
to dissuade them from voting as part of a wider campaign to create an
atmosphere of fear and panic. Yesterday, the rebel group Ansar al-Sunnah
said it had shot dead 15 Iraqi National Guard members it abducted
northwest of Baghdad this month. In some parts of the country,
especially in the capital, fear is taking grip. People might want to
vote but they also dread the consequences. Last Wednesday, five suicide
car bombs detonated across the capital in nearly 90 minutes, killing at
least 26 people and the following day two polling stations were attacked
with mortars and gunfire in Beji, along with a school which was being
set up as a polling station. Shops distributing polling papers along
with the monthly food ration cards have been burned down and their
owners attacked.

For the US-led coalition, a successful election could herald a return to
normality, although senior commanders are not putting too much faith in
Allawi's assertion that the "elections will play a big role in calming
the situation and enable the next government to face the upcoming
challenges in a decisive manner." For the majority Shia population,
repressed during the Saddam era, a good turnout will enhance their
chances of dominating the new assembly and finally getting their place
in the sun.

The Kurds in the north feel much the same way and will vote in force for
their parties which have formed a united front. They enjoyed a measure
of stability and self-confidence during the 1990s when they were under
the protection of the no-fly zones imposed by Britain and the US, but it
is the Sunni population who bring the other extreme to the equation.
Their main party, the Iraqi Islamic Party, has already decided to
boycott the election and there is bound to be a low turnout in Sunni
areas; they represent 50% of the population in the four provinces where
voting is already expected to be low - Nineveh, Anbar, Salahadin and
Baghdad - which together make up a quarter of Iraq's population. In
Mosul, Iraq's third largest city, 700 officials of the Independent
Commission for Elections, including the head and members of the
committee and polling staff, have resigned after receiving death threats.

In a bid to end the boycott, Iraq's defence minister Hazem Saalan has
called on Egypt to approach Sunni leaders urging them to participate in
the poll, but in Iraq the request will fall on deaf ears. Some Sunnis
have already made their feelings clear by tearing up their ballots.
"That is what I think of this mess," said one young Sunni as he threw
the torn pieces of his ballot paper into the mud on Baghdad's Sa'adoun
Street, "Allawi-Bush will stay in power anyhow!"

To add to the complications, the process of voting has been obscured to
the point where many voters will have little clue about the candidates
until they see the ballot papers next Sunday. These will list party
coalitions, with only a few running independently, but the majority of
the parties have removed the names of their candidates from the list. An
estimated 5000 names will not be recorded until the day itself. This has
nothing to do with unnecessary secrecy but everything to do with
necessary security as at least eight candidates have been assassinated
in the past few days. But with more than 83 lists on the ballot, each
with up to 275 unnamed candidates, confusion reigns among many Iraqis
who will be expected to vote in order to fill the seats in the new assembly.

After the count, the seats will be allocated by exact proportional
representation and, as the whole country is being treated as a single
constituency, each party group will get the same proportion of seats as
it receives in the ballot. As the Sunnis will either refuse to take part
in the election or will be intimidated by the violence the process will
tell against them. Already they only represent 20% of the electorate and
there is bound to be a diminution of their representation and that will
play into the hands of the Shias whose parties are standing under the
coalition list known as the United Iraqi Alliance. Also expected to do
well is Allawi's Iraqi List which represents the interests of the
interim administration which will attract voters like Ghassan, a young
biology teacher in Diyallah province. "I don't know who is nominated for
them and I worry about how all of this will succeed but I will vote
because I think it will be good," he admits. "We've never had an
election in my life.

To protect those who want to vote, whatever the circumstances, the
interim administration has put in place a wide range of security
measures. The country's borders will be closed from Saturday, January 29
- the eve of polling - for three days and mobile and satellite phone
services will be taken off-air to prevent them being used as triggers
for suicide bombers. Traffic around polling stations will also be
controlled and each will be protected by three rings of heavy security
to lessen the risk of car bombs. A dawn-to-dusk curfew has already been
instituted and travel on the main highways is being limited to essential
services with special permits, but even these strict measures are not
expected to keep the determined terrorists at bay. Bowing to the
inevitable fact that the suicide bomber will always get through, the
ministry of health has announced that hospitals will be on high alert
throughout the day to deal with the expected casualties. And that is the
unhappy bottom line for this election.

Carlos Valenzuela, the head of the UN's election advisory team, has
voiced the hope that despite the fear which is all too apparent all over
Iraq it is important "to convince Iraqis that this is a real election
and not a Mickey Mouse election". However, as he has already seen in
places like East Timor where there were similar problems during the
period of transition, he also admits violence could easily derail the
process. Officially the responsibility for overseeing the security on
election day falls to the fledgling Iraqi security forces, but the
reality is that the election stands or falls on the capacity of the
US-led coalition forces. The US and British garrisons have both been
reinforced - there are now 150,000 US troops in the country - and
commanders will keep their forces on high alert throughout the election
period. They know that for all the rhetoric of Iraqification they hold
primacy in security matters, a point that was made clear when a senior
US commander earlier declared that Iraqi policemen were "just lambs
being sent to slaughter". Even Sir Jeremy Greenstock, the former British
representative to the coalition authority, admitted last week that the
security situationwas "irremediable and ineradicable".

In its short and troubled history, Iraq is no stranger to the turmoil
caused by internecine strife. The country only came into being in the
aftermath of the first world war when Britain and France carved out
spheres of influence - previously it was the Ottoman province of
Mesopotamia - and in that time it has witnessed the assassination of
leaders such as King Faisal II in 1958 and the long period of Saddam's
dictatorship. Small wonder its people have an ambivalent attitude to the
forthcoming elections. Most want a return to normality and everyone
wants to see the removal of the occupying forces but they also fear what
the future might bring.

As palm fronds blow in the breeze at the end of a grey day in Baghdad, a
policeman who asks to be called Ali, pulls his black ski-mask further up
his face as he articulates the conundrum facing his people. "I think
most Iraqis just want security and jobs," he says. "I don't care which
party wins, we just want peace and a better living situation. But I
don't see how January 30 will change any of this."

More writing, photos and commentary at http://dahrjamailiraq.com

You can visit http://dahrjamailiraq.com/email_list/
to subscribe or unsubscribe to the email list.

(c)2004 Dahr Jamail.

Iraq_Dispatches mailing list
http://lists.dahrjamailiraq.com/mailman/listinfo/iraq_dispatches

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

7) FROM MANIFEST DESTINY AND LEBENSRAUM TO
BUSH'S "CALLING OF OUR TIME"
DAVE SILVER
JANUARY 22, 2005

A new and profitable fix was sought after the U.S. economic
Depression of 1839 which followed on the heels of the genocide
against Native Americans during the Presidency of Andrew
Jackson. (1829-37) William Harrison of the Virginia planter
aristocracy died shortly after taking office in 1841. His
successors Presidents Tyler and Pierce talked about Manifest
Destiny, a 19th century form of imperialism whose aim it was
to pump up the economy by "extending the boundaries of
freedom to others." The conquest and annexation of a huge
chunk of Mexico and the imposition of "our values" was the
response

Sounds like G.W.'s "spread of liberty" as the "calling of our
time." But Bush is partially correct in pronouncing that the
nation's "vital interests and deepest beliefs are now one." For
this was so since the highest stage of capitalism, namely
imperialism from about 1900. That is, whatever is good for
capital accumulation is also good for the people including its
morality and values. Or to phrase it more elegantly as Marx
did; "the ideas of the ruling class are in every epoch the ruling
ideas: the class which is the ruling material force of society,
is at the same time its ruling intellectual force." As Phyllis
Bennis aptly notes in her book Before and After that U.S.
foreign policy in the context of terrorism/anti-terrorism had
its roots in a "permanent war agenda" long before 9/11.

Meanwhile in Germany in the 1920's Hitler was putting the
finishing touches to his magnum opus Mein Kampf which
postulated among other things the inevitability of war.
Lebensraum or literally living space was the pretext, but
the goal was the strengthening of a German industrial base,
its war making potential and huge profits. What better way
to sell the program to Germans at a time when a few ounces
of butter cost a million Marks and blame the sad state of
affairs on the Bolsheviks and Jews.

Of course today Bush the second no longer can use the
Red Devil so we turn to the Terrorist Devil. (a Drug Devil was
in fashion between the other two Devils) Just as the Bush-Bin-
Laden financial and military connections have been adequately
documented, we must also remember that Grandpa Bush,
Prescott, was V.P. at W.A. Harriman and was the head of
capital investments which included the pro-Nazi firm of Fritz
Thyssen called Vereinigte Stahlwerke or United Steel Works.
Fritz along with another Adolph-Krupp, were the chief providers
of necessary materials needed by the Wermacht and Luftwaffe.
(Panzer tanks and Stuka dive bombers for instance)

Pre-emptive strikes, genocidal war and regime change is done
in the name of "freedom" against "tyranny" and those who died
in Iraq according to G.W. Bush died for "human dignity and
idealism." This is the Big Lie that the German Chancellor perfected
in the 1930's. "Freedom" has become the ideological cover for
U.S. imperialist adventures seeking domination and control over
resources like oil whether in Baghdad, the Ukraine, the Caspian
Sea or Caracas. But just as the U.S. had the Apartheid State of
South Africa as a puppet proxy to keep Liberation movements in
check, so today Israel plays that role to keep order and protect
our economic interest in the Middle East.

The reaction to the Inaugural speech by the Paris daily Le Monde,
aptly notes that "in the eyes of Mr. Bush, the criteria for tyranny
would essentially be hostility toward the United States and that
he would be inclined to close his eyes to the democratic failings
of regimes that show cooperativeness." Yes indeed.

UNITED FOR PEACE & JUSTICE | 212-868-5545

To post news articles or event announcements of interest to
member groups of UFPJ, join our news list by sending a blank
email to ufpj-news-subscribe@yahoogroups.com
* To visit your group on the web, go to:
* http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ufpj-disc/

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

8) Few but Organized, Iraq Veterans
Turn War Critics
By NEELA BANERJEE
January 23, 2005
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/23/national/23vets.html?oref=login

Sean Huze enlisted in the Marine Corps right after the Sept. 11 attacks
and was, in his own words, "red, white and blue all the way" when he
deployed to Iraq 16 months later. Unquestioning in his support of the
invasion, he grew irritated when his father, a former National
Guardsman, expressed doubts about the war.

Today, all that has changed. Haunted by the civilian casualties he
witnessed, Corporal Huze has become one of a small but increasing
number of Iraq veterans who have formed or joined groups to oppose
the war or to criticize the way it is being fought.

The two most visible organizations - Operation Truth, of which
Corporal Huze is a member, and Iraq Veterans Against the War -
were founded only last summer but are growing in membership and
sophistication. The Internet has helped them spread their word and
galvanize like-minded people in ways unimaginable to activist
veterans of previous generations, who are also lending help.

"There's strength in numbers," Corporal Huze said. "By ourselves,
we're lone voices, a whisper in a swarm of propaganda out there.
Combined, we can become a roar and have an impact on the issues
that we care about."

Those who turn to the groups are generally united in their
disillusionment, though their responses to the war vary: Iraq
Veterans seeks a quick withdrawal from Iraq; Operation Truth
focuses on the day-to-day issues affecting troops and veterans.

Iraq Veterans Against the War, which started in July with 8 people,
now has more than 150 members, including some still serving in
Iraq, said Michael Hoffman, a former lance corporal in the Marines
and a co-founder of the group.

Operation Truth, based in New York, began with 5 members and
now has 300, with an e-mail list of more than 25,000 people. Its
Web site is a compendium of soldiers and veterans' stories,
a media digest on the war, and a rallying point on issues
affecting troops.

Iraq veterans are keenly aware of the need to argue for their
interests, given the struggles of veterans of Vietnam and the
Persian Gulf war. The older veterans have offered a reservoir of
knowledge and compassion to help Iraq veterans avoid the
mistakes they made.

It took Vietnam Veterans of America almost 15 years to have an
effect on government policy, said Steve Robinson, executive
director of the National Gulf War Resource Center, an advocacy
group for gulf war veterans. Mr. Robinson said his group did not
come into its own for about eight years, despite help from
Vietnam Veterans of America.

Mr. Robinson is working closely with Operation Truth, which
he said had already surpassed his operation in raising money.

For Corporal Huze, the transformation began when he returned
home in fall 2003. Unable to forget the carnage he had seen in
Iraq, he began to grapple with the justification for the war, he said.

"By sometime in December 2003, I came to the conclusion that
W.M.D.'s weren't there and that Saddam Hussein had nothing to
do with 9/11, and now I'm left with all that I'd experienced in Iraq
and nothing to balance it," Corporal Huze said, emphasizing that
he was speaking as a citizen, not as a marine. "When I came to
that conclusion, I felt this sense of betrayal. I was full of rage and
depression."

That rage has since fueled Corporal Huze, a native of Baton
Rouge, La., who is awaiting a medical discharge for a head injury.
With the consent of his commanding officers at Camp Lejeune,
he speaks regularly to the media and others as a representative
for Operation Truth.

"Who I was before the war, who I was in Iraq and who I am
now are three very different men," Corporal Huze said. "I don't
think I can ever have the blind trust in the government like I had
before. I think that my being over in Iraq as an active participant,
I'm a bit more responsible than others for things there. And I think
by speaking out now, it's my amends." He added, "I don't know if
it will ever balance."

Operation Truth does not address the necessity of the war. David
Chasteen of suburban Washington, a former Army captain in the
Third Infantry Division and a member of the group's board, said
Operation Truth hoped to stake out a nonpartisan position on
aspects of the war that could realistically be changed, as opposed
to tackling the administration's Middle East policy.

"Our attitude was 'Want to do something? Here's what you can do:
get body armor to the guys on the ground, get interpreters to
people on the ground, get people who know how to plan this stuff
on the ground,' " said Mr. Chasteen, who said his experience in
Iraq as an expert on unconventional weapons left him disillusioned
about the war. "Maybe if we tell people what we saw, maybe some
of these things can get fixed. I definitely think we added
momentum to some issues."

Operation Truth points out that when Secretary of Defense Donald
H. Rumsfeld took questions from soldiers in Kuwait last month
about equipment shortages, the Web site's readers sent 3,400
e-mail messages in 24 hours to members of Congress asking
for hearings into the issue, which are to be held in the next
few months.

Organizing those who have recently returned from Iraq is an
uphill battle, older veterans and Iraq veterans agreed. The first
priority for many is resuming their lives. And unlike most Vietnam
veterans, many Iraq veterans have remained in the military after
returning, limiting their ability to participate in groups critical
of the government.

Despite their different focuses, Operation Truth and Iraq
Veterans Against the War overlap on some issues, most notably
with lobbying the government to address what is expected by
many veterans of Iraq and previous wars to be a high incidence
of post-traumatic stress disorder among those who served in Iraq.

Some who served in Vietnam, like Tim Origer of the Santa Fe, N.M.,
chapter of Veterans for Peace, have said Iraq veterans face a more
intense version of the stresses they experienced: constant threats
inherent to guerrilla war, inability to distinguish friend from foe,
and profound despair that often accompanies taking a life,
especially a civilian's.

In March 2003, reports of suicide-bombing attacks on American
soldiers had reached Sgt. Rob Sarra's Marine Corps unit in an Iraqi
town called al-Shatra. A short time later, soldiers saw an older
woman walking toward them with a small bundle. The marines,
fearing that she might be a bomber, called to her to stop, but
she kept walking.

"I was looking at her, and I thought 'I have to stop this woman,'
" Mr. Sarra said. "So I fired on her, and then the other marines
fired on her."

"When we got to her, we saw that she was pulling out a white
flag," he said. "She had tea and bread in her bag. I kept thinking,
'Was she a grandmother? Was she a mother?' "

Mr. Sarra, who has left the Marines after nine years, struggled
with post-traumatic stress disorder in Iraq and at home in
Chicago before seeking counseling and help from other veterans.
Now he is one of the leaders of Iraq Veterans Against the War.

"When someone is wounded or goes through P.T.S.D., it brings
what they went through to the forefront," Mr. Sarra said. "I knew
when I joined the Marines that if I was going to be there for 20
years, I'd face combat. But the question is, why did we go?"

A grenade tossed into Robert Acosta's Humvee in Baghdad in
July 2003 left him without his right hand and shattered his
legs. Mr. Acosta, 21, spent months in hospitals surrounded
by other young amputees, watching news about government
commissions concluding that Iraq had no unconventional
weapons.

He began reading, watching the news and talking to people,
especially Vietnam veterans like Mr. Origer in Santa Fe. Last
summer, his girlfriend heard Paul Rieckhoff, the founder of
Operation Truth, speak on the radio. Mr. Acosta contacted him.
By the fall, Mr. Acosta had become the organization's public face,
appearing in a provocative television advertisement.

Mr. Acosta, who is attending community college in Southern
California, said he hoped to bring friends from his old unit in
the First Armored Division into Operation Truth as they leave the
Army, because they might start to experience some of the
problems he faced. For instance, he said, he once used duct
tape to hold his prosthesis together because he could not get
it repaired quickly at the local Veterans Affairs hospital. And
people often asked about his injury.

"People would just come up to me and say, 'How'd you lose
your arm?' " Mr. Acosta said. "And I'd say, 'In the war.' And
they would be like, 'What war?' "

Copyright 2005 The New York Times

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

9) Mystery Oil Slick Kills Seabirds Off California
By CHARLIE LeDUFF
LOS ANGELES
January 22, 2005
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/22/national/22spill.html?oref=login

LOS ANGELES, Jan. 21 - A phantom oil slick floating somewhere
along a 90-mile stretch of Southern California coastline is killing
sea life as investigators scramble to find its whereabouts and origins.

More than 700 seabirds have died, another 700 are under care,
and at least one sea lion has been taken to a marine mammal
center, officials say.

Scientists were unaware that a killer blob was at sea until birds
started turning up a week ago on the shoreline from Santa Barbara
to Venice Beach. Most of the birds affected have been Western
grebes, though a few are rare pelicans.

The Coast Guard has conducted an aerial search of the shoreline,
and oil samples have been taken from the birds and shipped to
laboratories for analysis. Still, officials are flummoxed.

"We haven't been able to eliminate anything," said Dana Michaels,
a spokeswoman for the California Department of Fish and Game.
"We've got a full-court-press investigation going, even things
that sound silly on the surface."

Among the possible sources that investigators are looking into
are pipes broken during the La Conchita mudslide that killed
10 people last week, leaking oil platforms in the ocean, seepage
from the seafloor, abandoned oil wells, runoff from the Los
Angeles metropolis, even cars and trucks that slid into the
ocean during the torrential rains that recently pummeled
California.

Officials have found no large concentrations of oil offshore,
and there has been nothing like a grounding of an oil tanker.
Nor have there been any reports of leaking or distressed
vessels at sea.

After the rain subsided last weekend, aerial surveillance did
spot at least two dozen small patches of oil off the shoreline.
But investigators do not think those isolated patches could
have harmed so many animals.

At last count, 733 birds had died, and 686 were convalescing
at the Los Angeles Oiled Bird Care and Education Center in the
San Pedro district, which abuts the busy Los Angeles Harbor.
In addition, 13 endangered brown pelicans had been taken to
Sea World in San Diego for treatment.

But all that is almost certainly not the final toll. Biologists believe
that as many as 5,000 birds may have been harmed, said
Ms. Michaels, the fish and game spokeswoman. Whatever the
case, the phantom spill's damage to wildlife makes it the worst
since a spill off the Orange County coast in 1990 killed
about 3,400 birds.

A photograph this week showed an oil patch floating on the
water near Platform Holly, one of 21 oil-producing platforms
off the coast of Santa Barbara, Ventura and Orange Counties.
But inspectors found no malfunctions by any of the rigs.

"None of the oil can be attributed to Platform Holly," said Ellen
Faurot-Daniels, oil spill program supervisor for the California
Coastal Commission.

Offshore drilling is a politically and environmentally delicate
issue in California, where oil companies are pushing to develop
36 undeveloped tracts off the coast. The companies' leases on
those tracts have been extended by the federal government and
are due for review in coming months by the Coastal Commission.

Copyright 2005 The New York Times

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

10) Community Labor News
Social Security Information & Resources
As the debate on Social Security progresses, please
check this page frequently for additional information and
resources on Social Security and the proposed changes to the
program.
Recent articles and materials on Social Security:
http://www.pacesteelalliance.org/pacealliance/program/content/930.php

Readers may email your article submissions
or your comments to ListAdmin@CLNews.org

You may Subscribe or Un-Subscribe through a
Confirmed Opt-In or Opt-out Automatic Process at
http://www.clnews.org/MailList/subscribtion.htm

"Freedom is always and exclusively
freedom for the one who thinks differently"
--Rosa Luxemburg

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