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BAUAW NEWSLETTER Subscribe/Unsubscribe
Friday, August 05, 2005
BAUAW NEWSLETTER-FRIDAY, AUGUST 5, 2005
1) There's still time to get tickets to:
Howard Zinn's one-man play, MARX IN SOHO Starring Jerry Levy as Karl Marx Directed by Michael Fox Kennedy. Friday, August 5, 7:00 p.m. Saturday, August 6, 2:00 p.m. Jon Sims Center for the Performing Arts 1519 Mission Street near 11th Street Advance tickets: $10 Door: $20.00 For advance tickets call: 415-824-8730 Bay Area United Against War Benefit Presentation www.bauaw.org 2) LAWRENCE LIVERMORE NATIONAL LABS (LLNL) ACTIONS AUG. 6 & 9 3) A call for a COLLEGE NOT COMBAT contingent in the Sept 24 protests in Washington D.C. and San Francisco 4) "Slow Falling Bird" Performances are Thursday, Friday and Saturday through August 20th, at the EXIT on Taylor, 277 Taylor Street, San Francisco. 415-351-0277 - the EXIT I encourage reservations, as the first weekend sold out. 5) (This has made my day. How can they kill Tookie now? ...Bonnie Weinstein) Gang founder on death row gets presidential award for good deeds KIM CURTIS Associated Press SAN FRANCISCO -Convicted murderer Stanley "Tookie" Williams has received an award for his good deeds on death row, complete with a letter from President Bush praising the notorious gang founder for demonstrating "the outstanding character of America." Williams, co-founder of the notorious Crips street gang, has been an anti-gang activist during his many years on death row at San Quentin State Prison, where he was sent after being convicted in 1981 for killing four people. He's authored 10 books, mostly warning young people to stay away from gangs. The President's Call to Service Award arrived as Williams, 53, continues his final fight for clemency. His case is now being reviewed by the U.S. Supreme Court. It was doubtful that the president, who oversaw 152 executions during his six years as Texas governor, knew that Williams had received a congratulatory letter bearing his signature. http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/local/states/california/northern_california/12309010.htm 6) Blair Vows New Laws to End Sanctuary for Muslim Extremists By ALAN COWELL Published: August 5, 2005 LONDON, Aug. 5 - After years of taunts that Britain offered easy sanctuary to Muslim extremists, Prime Minister Tony Blair promised new anti-terrorism measures today to close down mosques and ban or deport clerics deemed to be fostering hatred and violence. http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/05/international/europe/05cnd-britain.html?hp&ex=1123300800&en=dfd0a450e735ea71&ei=5094&partner=homepage 7) U.S. Begins Big Push in Iraqi Area Held by Insurgents By EDWARD WONG Published: August 5, 2005 BAGHDAD, Iraq, Aug. 5 - The American military said today that it had begun a major offensive in the insurgent-controlled desert region of western Iraq, where at least 22 marines have been killed since Monday, in one of the deadliest weeks of the war for American troops. http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/05/international/middleeast/05cnd-baghdad.html?ei=5094&en=fda2c5e1bc38acc6&hp=&ex=1123300800&adxnnl=1&partner=homepage&adxnnlx=1123254153-2aF9TmYmcRI9SaOEPJwKxg 8) "The London Bombings: The Footprints of State Terror. Ralph Schoenman and Mya Shone Wednesday, August 31, 7:00 -10:00 p.m. Women's Building 3543 18th Street SF, CA 9) CALIFORNIA CENTRAL VALLEY ~ EPITOME OF Police Department REPRESSION AGAINST LA RAZA! In a message dated 8/5/05 1:06:39 AM, Iolmisha@cs.com writes: PRESS CONFERENCE AND PROTEST PLEASE FORWARD WIDELY 8-9-05, 8 A.M. 203 W. 4th Street Madera, Ca. 93638 (Madera Police Station) To protest the murder of Everardo "Lalo" Torres by Madera Police. http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Justice4Everardo_Lalo/ Police Department calls Lalo's death an "accident", therefore a non issue... Justice 4 Lalo, NOW! We hope in spite of distance that many of you will come ! Let's show our love and support to Lalo's family ! Mesha Idriss Stelley Foundation 10) Our Health is Our Wealth August 20, 2005, Noon to Midnight Brava Theater, 2789 24th Street, Mission District, SF Film Screenings, Tribute, Workshops, and Music by DJ Fonzilla Films: Tales from the streets of San Francisco Redemption - The Stan "Tookie" Williams Story The Streets Has Spoken (featuring Colored Ink) Get Yo Mind Right (A Barbershop Tale with Marvin X & West MacArthur) Filmmakers and producers will be on hand for panel discussions. Performances/Testimonies on Violence, Health, and Community Activism: Colored Ink, Oonka, Howie J., Tai Soul, Duce Eclipse, Symeon, Aretha Jones, Mothers Against Violence, TBone, Paradise, Legal Services for Prisoners with Children and CA Coalition for Women Prisoners, and Pam-Pam, of Conscious Eyes (Ch. 29) and SF Peacemakers Organizer. Finally, a birthday tribute to Idriss Stelley – Idriss was shot (47 times!) and killed by SFPD. RIP Idriss. Admission: Donations, NOTA www.coloredink.org www.sfpeacemakers.org 11) Galloway says Blair and Bush 'have blood on their hands' Press Association Friday August 5, 2005 Guardian Unlimited Tony Blair and George Bush have "far more blood on their hands" than the terrorists who carried out the London tube bombings, George Galloway said today. http://politics.guardian.co.uk/terrorism/story/0,15935,1543291,00.html 12) "What Have We Done?" Dahr Jamail's Iraq Dispatches Dahr's personal log from Iraq. August 05, 2005 http://dahrjamailiraq.com/weblog/ 13) Galloway praises Iraqi insurgents GETHIN CHAMBERLAIN AND GERRI PEEV Key points •Respect MP George Galloway calls Iraqi insurgents 'martyrs' on Arab TV •Galloway says that UK, US and Iraq 'puppet regime' will lose in Iraq •Calls for remarks that incide attacks on British troops to be criminalised Key quote "Even the puppet ministers and regime in Baghdad know it ... America is losing the war in Iraq. And this will not change. The resistance is getting stronger every day, and the will to remain as an occupier by Britain and America is getting weaker every day" - George Galloway, Respect MP http://news.scotsman.com/index.cfm?id=1730212005 14) Bay Area Coalition for Our Reproductive Rights invites you to... Defend Women's Rights! Sunday, August 14th at 3pm Women's Building, 3543 18th Street (between Valencia and Guerrero), San Francisco 15) After reading the following statement , I got the chilling feeling that there is nothing worse for a soldier who is risking his life to protect his countrymen than to realize that his leaders have betrayed him . m.hasan http://mathaba.net/0_index.shtml?x=297326 I am a concerned veteran of the Iraq War. 16) UPDATE FROM LEONARD PELTIER from the LPDC Blog -- http://lpdcinc.blogspot.com/ Wednesday, August 03, 2005 July 30, 2005 17) Neil Mackay | Iraq's Child Prisoners A Sunday Herald investigation has discovered that coalition forces are holding more than 100 children in jails such as Abu Ghraib. Witnesses claim that the detainees - some as young as 10 - are also being subjected to rape and torture. http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/080405S.shtml 18) "While there is a lower class I am in it; while there is a criminal element I am of it; while there is a soul in prison I am not free." --Eugene V. Debs A PEOPLE'S HISTORY OF IRAQ 19) HANDS OFF VENEZUELA (HOV) CAMPAIGN NEEDS YOUR HELP! 20) Broad Environmental Damage Seen From Shuttle By Jeff Franks, Reuters HOUSTON (Aug. 4) - Commander Eileen Collins said astronauts on shuttle Discovery had seen widespread environmental destruction on Earth and warned on Thursday that greater care was needed to protect natural resources. http://aolsvc.news.aol.com/news/article.adp?id=20050804100809990012 21) PACIFIC FILM ARCHIVE THEATER: 2575 BANCROFT WAY @ BOWDITCH, BERKELEY WWW.BAMPFA.BERKELEY.EDU / $4-$8 TUESDAY AUGUST 9 7:30 The Forest for the Trees: Judi Bari vs. the FBI Bernadine Mellis (U.S., 2005) Artist in Person! 22) Jewish Voice for Peace expresses outrage and sadness over attack on bus in Arab Israeli town. Demands right-wing groups end incitement to violence. Please circulate as far and wide as you can. Press release Contact: Mitchell Plitnick, 510-465-1777 23) Read more about Sgt. Carlos Lazo and efforts by the Bush administration to further divide the Cuban family: with this Radio Progreso commentary from Miami: http://makeashorterlink.com/?Z2EC13F8B ) EL NUEVO HERALD Posted on Fri, Aug. 05, 2005 Perspective The cruelty of a policy By: Carlos F. Lazo 24) Ghosts of Little Boy: Artists for Peace Reception August 13, 2005 5pm - 8pm Free A group exhibition of 24 artists, in commemoration of the 60th anniversary of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki August 6 through October 7. Artists: Lucy Arai, Marlene Aron, Robert Brady, Sayko Dairiki, Ronald Garrigues, Esther Hernandez, Chiei Ishida, Betty Kano, Betsie Miller- Kusz & Masaru Tanaka, Diana Krevsky, Lucien Kubo, Dawn Nakanishi, Glen Moriwaki, Asuka Ohsawa, Arthur Okamura, Emiko Oye, Jos Sances, Ben Sakoguchi, Lewis Suzuki, Kana Tanaka, Kumiko Tanaka, Scott Tsuchitani, Jeremy Waltman. Curated by Bob Hanamura. Gallery Hours: Mon-Sat. Noon-5pm www.hiroshimanagasakipeace.org Venue Info: National Japanese American Historical Society 1684 Post St. San Francisco 415-921-5007 www.njahs.org In San Francisco Japantown, on Post St. across the street from the Japantown Center, just a couple doors east of Buchanan St. ---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*-------- 1) There's still time to get tickets to: Howard Zinn's one-man play, MARX IN SOHO Starring Jerry Levy as Karl Marx Directed by Michael Fox Kennedy. Friday, August 5, 7:00 p.m. Saturday, August 6, 2:00 p.m. Jon Sims Center for the Performing Arts 1519 Mission Street near 11th Street Advance tickets: $10 Door: $20.00 For advance tickets call: 415-824-8730 Bay Area United Against War Benefit Presentation www.bauaw.org 2) LAWRENCE LIVERMORE NATIONAL LABS (LLNL) ACTIONS AUG. 6 & 9 3) A call for a COLLEGE NOT COMBAT contingent in the Sept 24 protests in Washington D.C. and San Francisco 4) "Slow Falling Bird" Performances are Thursday, Friday and Saturday through August 20th, at the EXIT on Taylor, 277 Taylor Street, San Francisco. I encourage reservations, as the first weekend sold out. ---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*-------- 2) LAWRENCE LIVERMORE NATIONAL LABS (LLNL) ACTIONS AUG. 6 & 9 Friends, This saturday evening, August 6th, at 5:00 pm, at Lawrence Livermore National Labs (LLNL) in Livermore, we are putting on one of hundreds of demonstrations worldwide remembering the act of imperial terrorism that was the bombing of Hiroshima. KPFA is covering it live, and various television media will be there. Next Tuesday, August the 9th, the Nagasaki anniversary, there will be a non-violent direct action at LLNL at 8:30 in the morning. Many dozens of people intend to risk arrest. Please see below links to info on how to get to these events by car, carpool or BART/Shuttle. http://www.trivalleycares.org/aug6-2005.asp (Tri-Valley Communities against a Radioactive Environment) Contact: Tara Dorabji, Tri-Valley CAREs, tara@trivalleycares.org , (925) 443-7148 Nukes are not an old fizzled battle— my view is that they are a crucial battle that is starting up all over again right now. http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/080305E.shtml If you're thinking of whether it's worth it to go along to these events (I REALLY want to see you Tuesday), I have a question. Where do you want to be when the imperial finger reaches for the nuclear button with the sights on Iran--which it may well do within a year or so? Where do you want to be in the mean time, now that we know that that's the plan? I don't know whether we can stop it altogether, but I do know that the civilians of Iran will never forgive us if we don't try, and try every bit as hard as we did on behalf of the civilians of Iraq and Afghanistan. Our efforts did save lives, and they will save lives. Hope to see you in the park on Saturday, and see you at the gates on Tuesday! Webb ---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*-------- 3) A call for a COLLEGE NOT COMBAT contingent in the Sept 24 protests in Washington D.C. and San Francisco COUNTER-RECRUITMENT...COMING SOON TO A CITY NEAR YOU! Across the country a new movement has sprung up of students, parents, teachers and community members opposing military recruiters in their schools and neighborhoods. From students kicking recruiters off campus, from Seattle to the Bay Area to New Haven to New York; to parents and teachers' unions opposing the military targeting their children; to the growing unwillingness of young people to kill and die in an unjust war, our message is simple: Military recruiters out of our schools, U.S. troops out of Iraq! On September 24, join us from D.C. to San Francisco to say: COLLEGE, NOT COMBAT! SPONSORED BY: Brooklyn Parents for Peace, Campus Antiwar Network, College Not Combat, Coney Island Avenue Project, Educators to Stop the War, Fuerza de la Revolución, Fuerza Juvenil, Left Hook, Louisiana Activist Network, Prospect-Lefferts Voices for Peace, Rochester Against War, Traprock Peace Center, United Federation of Teachers to Stop the War, Voices in the Wilderness, Women's International League for Peace and Freedom - Monterey Branch, Youth Leadership Support Network - Washington, D.C. ENDORSED BY: ORGANIZATIONS: 100 Year March; Al Awda - San Francisco; American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee - San Francisco; ANSWER - New Hampshire; Albuquerque Center for Peace and Justice; Bay Area United Against War; Bronx Greens; Central Committee for Conscientious Objectors; Chapter 60 Veterans for Peace; Chapter 93 Veterans For Peace (Washtenaw County Michigan), Citizens for Legitimate Government; Coalition Against War & Injustice of Baton Rouge; Code Pink - Bay Area; DC Anti-War Network; Free Palestine Alliance; Global Exchange; International Socialist Organization; March for Justice; Mid-South Peace & Justice Center (Memphis); Middle East Children's Alliance; National Lawyers Guild - San Francisco/Bay Area; Oregon PeaceWorks, Peace and Justice Center (Burlington, VT); Peaceful Vocations; People Against the Draft; Political Action Committee for Peace and Justice at Pace University; Queens Antiwar Committee; Radio Free Eirean; San Juan Peace Net; San Mateo Green Party; Santa Cruz Peace Coalition; Suffolk Peace Network's Counter Military Recruiting Committee; Texans for Peace (Austin); Vets Speak Out NYC INDIVIDUALS*: · Kevin and Monica Benderman - Kevin is a conscientious objector who refused re-deployment to Iraq and was sentenced to 15 months for missing movement; Natylie Baldwin, organizer and writer for Mt. Diablo Peace Center, associate editor for Newtopia Magazine; Amy Hagopian, parent and co-chair of Garfield High School PTSA that voted to ban recruiters from their school; Kathy Kelly, Voices in the Wilderness; Dennis Kyne, Gulf War veteran and activist; Michael Letwin, Co-Convener, New York City Labor Against the War and Former President, UAW Local 2325; Rania Masri, writer and researcher; Peter Camejo, Green Party 2004 California gubernatorial candidate; Gloria Mattera, Green Party candidate for Brooklyn Borough President; Camilo Mejía, the first soldier to go public with his refusal to redeploy. He spent seven months in military confinement for his decision, and was released in mid-February, 2005; Sunny Miller and Charles Jenks, Executive Director and President of Advisory Boards, respectively, Traprock Peace Center; David Mitchell, Vietnam draft resister active in Rockland Coalition for Peace and Justice; Wafaa' Al-Natheema, writer, editor & translator; Victor Paredes, brother of war resister Pablo Paredes; Ward Reilly, Louisiana Activist Network and South East Contact for Vietnam Veterans Against the War and Veterans For Peace; Justino Rodriguez, Hadas Thier and Nick Bergreen of the City College 4 - who were arrested for opposing the military at their school; David Rovics, singer/songwriter; Cindy Sheehan, founding member of Gold Star Families for Peace; Norman Solomon, author of "War Made Easy"; Annie and Buddy Spell, activists; Carl Webb, war resister; Brian Willson, Vietnam Veterans Against the War, Veterans For Peace; Katrina Yeaw, Michael Hoffman, and Pardis Esmaeili- the SFSU 3, who were targeted by their school administration for opposing recruiters; Howard Zinn and Anthony Arnove, co-editors of "Voices of a People's History of the United States." *Organizational affiliations for identification purposes only. (ALL sponsors/endorsers welcome; email recruitersout@yahoo.com) * For information on the MILITARY OUT OF OUR SCHOOLS buses from NYC to DC, contact: recruitersout@yahoo.comrecruitersout@yahoo.com * For information on the PEACE TRAIN to D.C. from across the South, contact the Louisiana Activist Network: http://www.newdemocracyrising.com/ Rally time and location TBA. Contact recruitersout@yahoo.com for more info. Campus Antiwar Network http://www.campusantiwar.net College Not Combat http://www.collegenotcombat.org/ Marxism mailing list Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism ---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*-------- 4) "Slow Falling Bird" Performances are Thursday, Friday and Saturday through August 20th, at the EXIT on Taylor, 277 Taylor Street, San Francisco. 415-351-0277 - the EXIT I encourage reservations, as the first weekend sold out. Disclaimer: The following is a shameless plug. Hey everyone, I want you all to come see my set design for "Slow Falling Bird", the new show by the Crowded Fire Theater Company. In addition to my set design, there are also some actors in the play, and some dialogue, and other stuff such as one sees in plays. You may come for those things as well, if you like. Right, yes, the play: is about Woomera detention camp in Australia. From our website: "Based on real events in the Woomera Immigration Detention Centre, /Slow Falling Bird/ goes far beyond the documentary impulse, creating a hallucinatory world of song and magic that is beautiful, heartbreaking, and unforgettable." You can get more info about the show at crowdedfire.org. Also, there is an article about the show in this past Saturday's Chronicle Datebook, if you happen to have that lying around. I'd like to get a group together to see the show Friday, August 12th. Let me know if you would like to join me then and I can include you in my reservation. If you can't make it then, go some other time (see below) or else I will be sad. Either way, be sure to mention my name when you arrive, I get some sort of brownie points for that. Performances are Thursday, Friday and Saturday through August 20th, at the EXIT on Taylor, 277 Taylor Street, San Francisco. I encourage reservations, as the first weekend sold out. Also, please bring your friends, and forward this invite to anyone you like (but not people you don't like), especially if you know they know me but I don't have their e-mail. Hope to see you there, Joel P.S.: I can get two tickets for free. Ask for them if you wouldn't come otherwise. You can also reach me at 415 606 1805. ---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*-------- 5) (This has made my day. How can they kill Tookie now? ...Bonnie Weinstein) Gang founder on death row gets presidential award for good deeds KIM CURTIS Associated Press SAN FRANCISCO -Convicted murderer Stanley "Tookie" Williams has received an award for his good deeds on death row, complete with a letter from President Bush praising the notorious gang founder for demonstrating "the outstanding character of America." Williams, co-founder of the notorious Crips street gang, has been an anti-gang activist during his many years on death row at San Quentin State Prison, where he was sent after being convicted in 1981 for killing four people. He's authored 10 books, mostly warning young people to stay away from gangs. The President's Call to Service Award arrived as Williams, 53, continues his final fight for clemency. His case is now being reviewed by the U.S. Supreme Court. It was doubtful that the president, who oversaw 152 executions during his six years as Texas governor, knew that Williams had received a congratulatory letter bearing his signature. http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/local/states/california/northern_california/12309010.htm ---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*-------- 6) Blair Vows New Laws to End Sanctuary for Muslim Extremists By ALAN COWELL Published: August 5, 2005 LONDON, Aug. 5 - After years of taunts that Britain offered easy sanctuary to Muslim extremists, Prime Minister Tony Blair promised new anti-terrorism measures today to close down mosques and ban or deport clerics deemed to be fostering hatred and violence. http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/05/international/europe/05cnd-britain.html?hp&ex=1123300800&en=dfd0a450e735ea71&ei=5094&partner=homepage ---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*-------- 7) U.S. Begins Big Push in Iraqi Area Held by Insurgents By EDWARD WONG Published: August 5, 2005 BAGHDAD, Iraq, Aug. 5 - The American military said today that it had begun a major offensive in the insurgent-controlled desert region of western Iraq, where at least 22 marines have been killed since Monday, in one of the deadliest weeks of the war for American troops. http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/05/international/middleeast/05cnd-baghdad.html?ei=5094&en=fda2c5e1bc38acc6&hp=&ex=1123300800&adxnnl=1&partner=homepage&adxnnlx=1123254153-2aF9TmYmcRI9SaOEPJwKxg ---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*-------- 8) "The London Bombings: The Footprints of State Terror. Ralph Schoenman and Mya Shone Wednesday, August 31, 7:00 -10:00 p.m. Women's Building 3543 18th Street SF, CA To: All News Department Managers and Reporters and Community Calendar From: Friends of " Taking Aim with Ralph Schoenman and Mya Shone" Contact: Douglas MacDonald, 925-890-6430 Slug: The London Bombings: The Footprints of State Terror San Francisco , CA . Friends of " Taking Aim " is sponsoring a discussion by Pacifica Radio hosts Ralph Schoenman and Mya Shone. The presentation is entitled "The London Bombings: The Footprints of State Terror. Ralph Schoenman and Mya Shone document and analyze the relationship between foreign and domestic intelligence operations, _The War on Terror ,_ and the economic problems of everyday Americans. Who: Ralph Schoenman was Secretary General of the International Tribunal on U.S. War Crimes in Indochina. He worked with Malcolm X with respect to the battle for the Congo and negotiated the release of political prisoners in many countries. Today, he is an author and investigative journalist and produces _ Taking Aim, heard weekly on Pacifica's WBAI-NY and archived at www.takingaim.info . Mya Shone is an economist and has a long history as an activist involved in political, community and labor issues. She worked closely with both Casa Nicaragua and Casa El Salvador during the struggles taking place in Central America, was the coordinator of the Tri-County ( Santa Barbara ,Ventura , San Luis Obispo ) Labor Party chapter, and was a founder of Health Care for All-California. She was also a newscaster and reporter at KPFK in Los Angeles . For interviews: Contact Ralph Schoenman and Mya Shone at 707-552-9992 $10.00 donation at the door. No one turned away for lack of funds. For calendar listing: The " London Bombings: The Footprints of State Terror." Ralph Schoenman and Mya Shone analyze the relationship between foreign and domestic intelligence operations, “The War on Terror ,” and the economic problems of everyday Americans. Wednesday, August 31, 7:00 -10:00 p.m., Women’s Building 3543 18th St.,San Francisco . ---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*-------- 9) CALIFORNIA CENTRAL VALLEY ~ EPITOME OF Police Department REPRESSION AGAINST LA RAZA! In a message dated 8/5/05 1:06:39 AM, Iolmisha@cs.com writes: PRESS CONFERENCE AND PROTEST PLEASE FORWARD WIDELY 8-9-05, 8 A.M. 203 W. 4th Street Madera, Ca. 93638 (Madera Police Station) To protest the murder of Everardo "Lalo" Torres by Madera Police. http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Justice4Everardo_Lalo/ Police Department calls Lalo's death an "accident", therefore a non issue... Justice 4 Lalo, NOW! We hope in spite of distance that many of you will come ! Let's show our love and support to Lalo's family ! Mesha Idriss Stelley Foundation To get direction You can visit Mapquest.com and enter your trip starting and destination points and it will give the directions you need from San Francisco to Fresno or Fresno to Madera PD DepartmeNT. I keep Mapquest.com in my favorites because it comes really handy. Gracias por su ayuda Melchor Torres Jr. ---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*-------- 10) Our Health is Our Wealth August 20, 2005, Noon to Midnight Brava Theater, 2789 24th Street, Mission District, SF Film Screenings, Tribute, Workshops, and Music by DJ Fonzilla Films: Tales from the streets of San Francisco Redemption - The Stan "Tookie" Williams Story The Streets Has Spoken (featuring Colored Ink) Get Yo Mind Right (A Barbershop Tale with Marvin X & West MacArthur) Filmmakers and producers will be on hand for panel discussions. Performances/Testimonies on Violence, Health, and Community Activism: Colored Ink, Oonka, Howie J., Tai Soul, Duce Eclipse, Symeon, Aretha Jones, Mothers Against Violence, TBone, Paradise, Legal Services for Prisoners with Children and CA Coalition for Women Prisoners, and Pam-Pam, of Conscious Eyes (Ch. 29) and SF Peacemakers Organizer. Finally, a birthday tribute to Idriss Stelley – Idriss was shot (47 times!) and killed by SFPD. RIP Idriss. Admission: Donations, NOTA www.coloredink.org www.sfpeacemakers.org ---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*-------- 11) Galloway says Blair and Bush 'have blood on their hands' Press Association Friday August 5, 2005 Guardian Unlimited Tony Blair and George Bush have "far more blood on their hands" than the terrorists who carried out the London tube bombings, George Galloway said today. http://politics.guardian.co.uk/terrorism/story/0,15935,1543291,00.html ---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*-------- 12) "What Have We Done?" Dahr Jamail's Iraq Dispatches Dahr's personal log from Iraq. August 05, 2005 http://dahrjamailiraq.com/weblog/ As the blood of US soldiers continues to drain into the hot sands of Iraq over the last several days with at least 27 US soldiers killed and the approval rating for his handling of the debacle in Iraq dropping to an all-time low of 38%, Mr. Bush commented from the comforts of his ranch in Crawford, Texas today, "We will stay the course, we will complete the job in Iraq." Just a two hour drive away in Dallas, at the Veterans for Peace National Convention in Dallas, I'm sitting with a roomful of veterans from the current quagmire. When asked what he would say to Mr. Bush if he had the chance to speak to him, Abdul Henderson, a corporal in the Marines who served in Iraq from March until May, 2003, took a deep breath and said, "It would be two hits-me hitting him and him hitting the floor. I see this guy in the most prestigious office in the world, and this guy says 'bring it on.' A guy who ain't never been shot at, never seen anyone suffering, saying 'bring it on?' He gets to act like a cowboy in a western movie...it's sickening to me." The other vets with him nod in agreement as he speaks somberly...his anger seething. One of them, Alex Ryabov, a corporal in an artillery unit which was in Iraq the first three months of the invasion, asked for some time to formulate his response to the same question. "I don't think Bush will ever realize how many millions of lives he and his lackeys have ruined on their quest for money, greed and power," he says, "To take the patriotism of the American people for granted...the fact that people (his administration) are willing to lie and make excuses for you while you continue to kill and maim the youth of America and ruin countless families...and still manage to do so with a smile on your face." Taking a deep breath to steady himself he continues as if addressing Bush first-hand; "You needs to resign, take the billions of dollars you've made off the blood and sweat of US service members....all the suffering you've caused us, and put those billions of dollars into the VA to take care of the men and women you sent to be slaughtered. Yet all those billions aren't enough to even try to compensate all the people who have been affected by this." These new additions to Veterans for Peace are actively living the statement of purpose of the organization, having pledged to work with others towards increasing public awareness of the costs of war, to work to restrain their government from intervening, overtly and covertly, in the internal affairs of other nations and to see justice for veterans and victims of war, among other goals. I type furiously for three hours, trying to keep up with the stories each of the men shared.... about the atrocities of what they saw, and committed, while in Iraq. Camilo Mejia, an army staff sergeant who was sentenced to a year in military prison in May, 2004 for refusing to return to Iraq after being home on leave, talks openly about what he did there: "What it all comes down to is redemption for what was done there. I was turning ambulances away from going to hospitals, I killed civilians, I tortured guys...and I'm ashamed of that. Once you are there, it has nothing to do with politics...it has to do with you as an individual being there and killing people for no reason. There is no purpose, and now I'm sick at myself for doing these things. I kept telling myself I was there for my buddies. It was a weak reasoning...because I still shut my mouth and did my job." Mejia then spoke candidly about why he refused to return: "It wasn't until I came home that I felt it-how wrong it all was and that I was a coward for pushing my principles aside. I'm trying to buy my way back into heaven...and it's not so much what I did, but what I didn't do to stop it when I was there. So now it's a way of trying to undo the evil that we did over there. This is why I'm speaking out, and not going back. This is a painful process and we're going through it." Camilo Mejia was then quick to point towards the success of his organization and his colleagues. "When I went back to Iraq in October of 2003, the Pentagon said there were 22 AWOL's. Five months later it was 500, and when I got out of jail that number was 5,000. These are the Pentagons' numbers for the military. Two things are significant here- the number went from 500-5,000 in 11 months, and these are the numbers from the Pentagon." While the military is falling short of its recruitment goals across the board and the disaster in Iraq spiraling deeper into chaos with each passing day, these are little consolation for these men who have paid the price they've had to pay to be at this convention. They continue to pay, but at the same time stand firm in their resolve to bring an end to the occupation of Iraq and to help their fellow soldiers. Ryabov then begins to tell of his unit firing the wrong artillery rounds which hit 5-10 km from their intended target. "We have no idea where those rounds fell, or what they hit," he says quietly while two of the men hold their heads in their hands, "Now we've come to these realizations and we're trying to educate people to save them from going through the same thing." After talking of the use of uranium munitions, of which Ryabov stated 300 tons of which were used in the '91 Gulf War, and 2,200 tons and counting having been used thus far in the current war, he adds, "We were put in a foreign country and fire artillery and kill people...and it shouldn't have even happened in the first place. It's hard to put into words the full tragedy of it-the death and suffering on both sides. I feel a grave injustice has been done and I'm trying to correct it. You do all these things and come back and think, 'what have we done?' We just rolled right by an Iraqi man with a gunshot in his thigh and two guys near him waving white flags.... he probably bled to death." Harvey Tharp sitting with us served in Kirkuk. His position of being in charge of some reconstruction projects in northern Iraq allowed him to form many close friendships with Iraqis...something that prompts him to ask me to tell more people of the generous culture of the Iraqi people. His friendships apparently brought the war much closer to home for him. "What I concluded last summer when I was waiting to transfer to NSA was that not only were our reasons for being there lies, but we just weren't there to help the Iraqis. So in November of '04 I told my commander I couldn't take part in this. I would have been sent into Fallujah, and he was going to order me in to do my job. I also chose not to go back because the dropping of bombs in urban areas like Fallujah are a violation of the laws of warfare because of the near certainty of collateral damage. For me, seeing the full humanity of Iraqis made me realize I couldn't participate in these operations." Tharp goes on to say that he believes there are still Vietnam vets who think that that was a necessary war and adds, "I think it's because that keeps the demons at bay for them to believe it is justified...this is their coping mechanism. We, as Americans, have to face the total obvious truth that this was all because of a lie. We are speaking out because we have to speak out. We want to help other vets tell other vets their story...to keep people from drinking themselves to death." When he is asked what he would say to Mr. Bush if he had a few moments with him, he too took some time to think about it, then says, "It is obvious that middle America is starting to turn against this war and to turn against you...for good reason. The only thing I could see that would arrest this inevitable fall that you deserve, is another 9/11 or another war with say, Iran. There are some very credible indications in the media that we are already in pre-war with Iran. What I'm trying to do is find a stand Americans can take against you, but I think people are willing to say 'don't you dare do this to us again.' My message to the American people is this-do you want to go another round with these people? If not-now is the time to say so." The men are using this time to tell more of why they are resisting the illegal occupation, and it's difficult to ask new questions as they are adding to what one another share. "I didn't want to kill another soul for no reason. That's it," adds Henderson, "We were firing into small towns....you see people just running, cars going, guys falling off bikes...it was just sad. You just sit there and look through your binos and see things blowing up, and you think, man they have no water, living in the third world, and we're just bombing them to hell. Blowing up buildings, shrapnel tearing people to shreds." Tharp jumps in and adds, "Most of what we're talking about is war crimes...war crimes because they are directed by our government for power projection. My easy answer for not going is PTSD...but the deeper moral reason is that I didn't want to be involved in a crime against humanity." Ryabov then adds, "We were put in a foreign country to fire artillery and kill people...and it shouldn't have even happened in the first place. It's hard to put into words the full tragedy of it-the death and suffering on both sides. I feel a grave injustice has been done and I'm trying to correct it. You do all these things and come back and think, what have we done?" Michael Hoffman served as a Marine Corps corporal who fought in Tikrit and Baghdad, and has since become a co-founder of Iraq Veterans Against the War. "Nobody wants to kill another person and think it was because of a lie. Nobody wants to think their service was in vain," says Hoffman. His response to what he would say to Mr. Bush is simple, "I would look him straight in the eye and ask him 'why?' And I would hold him there and make him answer me. He never has to deal with us one on one. I dare him to talk to any of us like that, one on one, and give us an answer." Hoffman then adds, "What about the 3 year old Iraqi girl who is now an orphan with diseases and nightmares for the rest of her life for what we did? And the people who orchestrated this don't have to pay anything. How many times are my children going to have to go through this? Our only choice is to fight this to try to stop it from happening again." Earlier this same day Mr. Bush said, "We cannot leave this task half finished, we must take it all the way to the end." However, Charlie Anderson, another Iraq veteran, had strong words for Bush. After discussing how the background radiation in Baghdad is now five times the normal rate-the equivalent of having 3 chest x-rays an hour, he said, "These are not accidents-the DU [Depleted Uraniaum]-it's important for people to understand this-the use of DU and its effects are by design. These are very carefully engineered and orchestrated incidents." While the entire group nods in agreement and two other soldiers stand up to shake his hand, Anderson says firmly, "You subverted us, you destroyed our lives, you owe us. I want your resignation in my hand in the next five minutes. Get packin' Georgie." Posted by Dahr_Jamail at August 5, 2005 07:17 AM (c)2004, 2005 Dahr Jamail. -- "I'd rather vote for something I want and not get it than vote for something I don't want, and get it". Eugene Debs Richard Mellor Retired member, AFSCME Local 444 Oakland CA Check out our website: http://www.laborsmilitantvoice.com ---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*-------- 13) Galloway praises Iraqi insurgents GETHIN CHAMBERLAIN AND GERRI PEEV Key points •Respect MP George Galloway calls Iraqi insurgents 'martyrs' on Arab TV •Galloway says that UK, US and Iraq 'puppet regime' will lose in Iraq •Calls for remarks that incide attacks on British troops to be criminalised Key quote "Even the puppet ministers and regime in Baghdad know it ... America is losing the war in Iraq. And this will not change. The resistance is getting stronger every day, and the will to remain as an occupier by Britain and America is getting weaker every day" - George Galloway, Respect MP http://news.scotsman.com/index.cfm?id=1730212005 ---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*-------- 14) Bay Area Coalition for Our Reproductive Rights invites you to... Defend Women's Rights! Sunday, August 14th at 3pm Women's Building, 3543 18th Street (between Valencia and Guerrero), San Francisco Come to this planning meeting to get involved with BACORR in a variety of activites to build the movement and defend our reproductive rights. Proposed activities include building a possible rally and march regarding Roe v. Wade and the Supreme Court; clinic defense to keep abortion safe and legal; a women's rights conference in the fall; street theatre actions, and more. Everyone is welcome! There is an immediate urgency to defend women's rights. We need to build a movement with a strong response to attacks on our rights--to be at the abortion clinics to keep them open and safe; to tell Congess that if they will not filibuster right-wing nominations to the courts, we will on the streets; to confront the right wherever they rear their heads; to debate and discuss strategy and tactics to move our struggle forward. Some of the issues that make this meeting so important: **John Roberts' confirmation to the Supreme Court seems inevitable--many Democrats, including Sen. Diane Feinstein, have said they will not filibuster, despite the fact that he has continuously lobbied to overturn Roe v. Wade. **Conservatives are forcing Proposition 73, the Parental Notification Initiative (PNI), that approximates an invasive parental consent law, to be on the ballot in either November or the early spring (if the Special Election in November fails) in California. **This past month, the Crusade for Life has felt emboldened enough to travel the state of California harassing women outside abortion clinics. "Walk For Life" plans to have another march in San Francisco in January of 2006. **Nearly 90% of counties in the US have no access to abortion providers. Access to any contraception at all is under further attack: the Workplace Religious Freedom Act, currently under consideration in the Senate, gives pharmacists the right to refuse to fill any contraception perscriptions, emergency or otherwise, if it goes against their faith. Additionally, many women of color and poor women continue to be threatened by coerced sterilization. **Women still make $0.75 for every $1.00 a man earns, and decent, affordable healthcare and childcare is for too many women an unattainable dream. Sponsored by Bay Area Coalition for Our Reproductive Rights (BACORR). BACORR puts defense of basic reproductive rights around abortion in a broader historical context of demands for reproductive freedom, which includes free abortion on demand, no parental consent laws, no Medicaid/MediCal cuts for abortion, no coerced sterilization, free birth control, free quality healthcare, explicit non-moralistic sex education, and the right to have children, including access to free quality child care and free quality pre-natal care. To build the strongest and broadest pro-choice movement possible, we must fight all forms of oppression. We see reproductive choice as an integral part of a larger struggle for the liberation/self-determination of all people. To this end, BACORR recognizes the leadership of and organizes to address the needs of those hardest hit by the escalating rightwing climate and dismantling of social services, including women of color; poor, immigrant and disabled women; lesbian/bisexual/transgender people, and young women. For more information, please contact: lichi_d@yahoo.com or call 415-864-1278. BACORR: Bay Area Coalition for Our Reproductive Rights www.bacorr.org | http://lists.riseup.net/www/info/bacorr Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com ---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*-------- 15) After reading the following statement , I got the chilling feeling that there is nothing worse for a soldier who is risking his life to protect his countrymen than to realize that his leaders have betrayed him . m.hasan http://mathaba.net/0_index.shtml?x=297326 I am a concerned veteran of the Iraq War. Speech to the "Out of Iraq" Congressional Caucus on July 19, 2005 By John Bruhns I am a concerned veteran of the Iraq War. I am not an expert on the vast and wide range of issues throughout the political spectrum, but I can offer some first hand experience of the war in Iraq through the eyes of a soldier. My view of the situation in Iraq will differ from what the American People are being told by the Bush Administration. The purpose of this message is to voice my concern that we were misled into war and continue to be misled about the situation! in Iraq every day. My opinions on this matter come from what I witnessed in Iraq personally. George Bush and his political advisors have been successful in presenting a false image to the American people that Saddam Hussein was an "imminent" threat to the security of the United States. We were told that there was overwhelming evidence that Saddam Hussein possessed a massive WMD program, and some members of the Bush Administration even hinted that Saddam may have been involved in the 9/11 attacks. We now know most of the information given to us by the current Administration concerning Iraq, if not all the information, was false. This was information given to the American people to justify a war. The information about weapons of mass destruction and a link to Osama Bin Laden scared the American people into supporting the war in Iraq. They presented an atmosphere of intimidation that suggested if we did not act immediately there was the possibility of another attack. Bush said himself that we do not want the proof or the smoking gun to come in the form of a "mushroom cloud." Donald Rumsfeld said, "We know where the weapons are." After 9/11, comments like this proved to be a successful scare tactic to use on the American People to rally support for the invasion. Members of the Bush Administration created an image of "wine and roses" in terms of the aftermath of the war. Vice-President Dick Cheney said American troops would be greeted as "liberators." And there was a false perception created that we would go into Iraq and implement a democratic government and it would be over more sooner than later. The White House also expressed confidence that the alleged WMD program would be found once we invaded. I participated in the invasion, stayed in Iraq for a year afterward, and what I witnessed was the total opposite of what President Bush and his Administration stated to the American People. The invasion was very confusing, and so was the period of time I spent in Iraq afterward. At first it did seem as if some of the Iraqi people were happy to be rid of Saddam Hussein. But that was only for a short period of time. Shortly after Saddam's regime fell, the Shiite Muslims in Iraq conducted a pilgrimage to Karbala, a pilgrimage prohibited by Saddam while he was in power. As I witnessed the ! Shiite pilgrimage, which was a new freedom that we provided to them, they used the pilgrimage to protest our presence in their country. I watched as they beat themselves over the head with sticks until they bled, and screamed at us in anger to leave their country. Some even carried signs that stated, "No Saddam, No America." These were people that Saddam oppressed; they were his enemies. To me, it seemed they hated us more than him. At that moment I knew it was going to be a very long deployment. I realized that I was not being greeted as a liberator. I became overwhelmed with fear because I felt I never would be viewed that way by the Iraqi people. As a soldier this concerned me. Because if they did not view me as a liberator, then what did they view me as? I felt that they viewed me as foreign occupier of their land. That led me to believe very early on that I was going to have a fight on my hands. During my year in Iraq I had many altercations with the so-called "insurgency." I found the insurgency I saw to be quite different from the insurgency described to the American people by the Bush Administration, the media, and other supporters of the war. There is no doubt in my mind there are foreigners from other surrounding countries in Iraq. Anyone in the Middle East who hates America now has the opportunity to kill Americans because there are roughly 140,000 US troops in Iraq. But the bulk of the insurgency I faced was primarily the people of Iraq who were attacking us as a reaction to what they felt was an occupation of their country. I was engaged actively in urban combat in the Abu Ghraib area west of Baghdad. Many of the people who were attacking me were the poor people of Iraq. They were definitely not members of Al Qaeda, left over Baath Party members, and they were not former members of Saddam's regime. They were just your average Iraqi civilian who wanted us out of their country. On October 31st, 2003, the people of Abu Ghraib organized a large uprising against us. They launched a massive assault on our compound in the area. We were attacked with AK-47 machine guns, RPGs and mortars. Thousands of people took to the streets to attack us. As the riot unfolded before my eyes, I realized these were just the people who lived there. There were men, women, and children participating. Some of the Iraqi protesters were even carrying pictures of Saddam Hussein. My battalion fought back with everything we had and eventually shut down the uprising. So while President Bush speaks of freedom and liberation of the Iraqi people, I find his statements are not credible after witnessing events such as these. During the violence that day I felt so much fear throughout my entire body. I remember going home that night and praying to God, thanking him that I was still alive. A few months earlier President Bush made the statement, "Bring it on" when referring to the attacks on Americans by the insurgency. To me, that felt like a personal invitation to the insurgents to attack me and my friends who desperately wanted to make it home alive. I did my job well in Iraq. During the deployment, my superiors promoted me to the rank of sergeant. I was made a rifle team leader and was put in charge of other soldiers when we carried out missions. My time as a Team Leader in Iraq was temporarily interrupted when I was sent to the "Green Zone" in Baghdad to train the Iraqi army. I was more than happy to do it because we were being told that in order for us to get out of Iraq completely the Iraqi military would have to be able to take over all security operations. The training of the Iraqi Army became a huge concern of mine. During the time I trained them, their basic training was only one week long. We showed them some basic drill and ceremony such as marching and saluting. When it came time for weapons training, we gave each Iraqi recruit an AK-47 and just let them shoot it. They did not even have to qualify by hitting a target. All they had to do was pull the trigger. I was instructed by my superiors to stand directly behind them with caution while they were shooting just in case they tried to turn the weapon on us so we could stop them. Once they graduated from basic training, the Iraqi soldiers in a way became part of our battalion and we would take them on missions with us. But we never let them know where we were going, because we were afraid some of them might tip off the insurgency that we were coming and we would walk directly into an ambush. When they would get into formation prior to the missions we made them a part of, they would cover their faces so the people of their communities did not identify them as being affiliated with the American troops. Not that long ago President Bush made a statement at Fort Bragg when he addressed the nation about the war in Iraq. He said we would "stand down" when the Iraqi military is ready to "stand up." My experience with the new Iraqi military tells me we won't be coming home for a long time if that's the case. I left Iraq on February 27, 2004 and I acknowledge a lot may have changed since then, but I find it hard to believe the Iraqi people are any happier now than they were when was I was there. I remember the day I left there were hundreds of Iraqis in the streets outside the compound that I lived in. They watched as we moved out to the Baghdad Airport to finally go home. The Iraqis cheered, clapped, and shouted with joy as we were le! aving. As a soldier, that hurt me inside because I thought I was supposed to be fighting for their freedom. I saw many people die for that cause, but that is not how the Iraqi people looked at it. They viewed me as a foreign occupier and many of the people of Iraq may have even preferred Saddam to the American soldiers. I feel this way because of the consistent attacks on me and my fellow soldiers by the Iraqi people, who felt they were fighting for their homeland. To us the mission turned into a quest for survival. I wish I could provide an answer to this mess. I wish I knew of a realistic way to get our troops home. But we are very limited in our options in my opinion. If we pull out immediately, it's likely the Iraqi security forces will not be able to provide stability on their own. In that event, the new Iraqi government could possibly be overthrown. The other option would be to reduce our troop numbers and have a gradual pullout. That is very risky because it seems that even with the current number of troops the violence still continues. With a significant troop reduction, there is a strong possibility the violence and attacks on US and coalition forces could escalate and get even worse. In my opinion, that is more of a certainty. And then there is the option that President Bush brings to the table which is to "Stay the Course." That means more years of bloodshed and a lot more lives to be lost. Also, it will aggravate the growing opposition to the US presence in Iraq throughout the region and that could very well recruit more extremists to join terror organizations that will infiltrate into Iraq and kill more US troops. So it does not seem to me we have a realistic solution, and that frightens me. It has become very obvious that we have a serious dilemma that needs to be resolved as soon as possible to end the ongoing violence in Iraq. But how do we end it is the question? We must always support the troops. If there were a situation in which the United States is attacked again by a legitimate enemy, they are the people who are going to risk their lives to protect us and our freedom. In my opinion, the best way to support them now is to bring them home with the honor and respect they deserve. In closing, I ask that we never forget why this war started. The Bush Administration cried weapons of mass destruction and a link to Al Queda. We know that this is false and the Bush administration concedes it as well. As a soldier who fought in that war, I feel misled. I feel that I was sent off to fight for a cause that never existed. When I joined the military I did so to defend the United States of America, not to be sent off to a part of the world to fight people who never attacked me or my country. Many have died as a result of this. The people who started this war need to start being honest with t! he American people and take responsibility for their actions. More than anything, they need to stop saying everything is rosy and create a solution to this problem they created. Thank you for hearing me out. God Bless our great nation, the United States of America. John Bruhns Click link below to watch Congresswoman Marcy Kaptur, read this letter into the congressional record http://www.kaptur.house.gov/Speech.aspx?NewsID=1422 The short URL for this item is: http://mathaba.net/0_index.shtml?x=297326 Marxism mailing list Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism ---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*-------- 16) UPDATE FROM LEONARD PELTIER from the LPDC Blog -- http://lpdcinc.blogspot.com/ Wednesday, August 03, 2005 July 30, 2005 Aho my relations, As I sit here in my solitary confinement cell at USP Terre Haute, and reflect over the past month's events, I can't help but feel an overwhelming sense of love and gratitude for each and every one of you who have so diligently stood by me in this time of crisis. As you already know by now, on June 30, 2005, I was transferred from Leavenworth Facility, to Terre Haute USP. The reason for my transfer, according to the Federal Bureau of Prisons Administrative staff was that the Leavenworth Facility was downgraded from maximum-security level to medium, and therefore I could not remain at Leavenworth due to my illegal sentencing and consequent maximum-security rank. I was transferred without notification to my attorney, Barry Bachrach, and my family. Upon my arrival to Terre Haute I was placed in solitary confinement and was told that I would remain in solitary confinement until my personal file arrived. My personal file arrived, but I remain in solitary confinement allegedly for security reasons. I am confined to a cell that is 8'X 8', it has a window that is covered from the outside with an elaborate shield that allows me to see 2-3 inches of the sky out of the top and 2-3 inches of the ground. All prisoners are supposed to get at least one hour of sunlight or outdoors and so I am taken from my cell to what is called a Recreation Room (Rec Cage), and the only sun or outdoors that I see is from some windows high up in this large room with a few air holes in them. I am able to walk up and down and this fulfills the one hour of sunlight or outdoors recreation time. Whatever the system's logic is, it seems that I won't stay in Terre Haute for much longer and will be transferred again. I do not know when and where, nor do I know if this cruel game will be over after another transfer. After all, removal and relocation have been used to break our people from the beginning of this country's history. This keeps my Defense Committee from taking the necessary steps to re-establish an office, but they are doing everything they can to help me in this most precarious and uncertain situation. Before this situation developed, I asked Russ Redner to be the National/ International Executive Director of the LPDC. Russ is a brother from our original Northwest AIM crew, a long time ally, and one of the original founders of the LPDC. I have trusted Russ with my life many times and he's proven himself at every turn. I want him to be the last person I ever have to ask to guide the LPDC, and as such I have given him full authority to do whatever is necessary to prevent problems that have plagued us in the past from ever surfacing again. He and his wife, Paula, bring a renewed energy to the LPDC. It is essential that Russ, Barry Bachrach, Mike Kuzma, and the new team at the LPDC be supported so they can work most effectively to achieve my freedom and accomplish the things that need to be done for my people. I have confidence that all of you who truly support me will extend your vote of confidence to Russ and my new team. A month in solitary is beginning to take a toll on me but your letters give me much hope and encouragement. Many of you have written, e-mailed and called USP Terre Haute, and other organizations. This has brought some improvement to my solitary confinement. I am now getting my medications on a daily basis, I can write out, I am receiving my mail, and I am allowed one phone call a month. I am allowed contact visits for those persons authorized on my visiting list. The contact visit is restricted to a two-hour period, and is conducted through a glass pane and a phone. I am allowed to visit with my attorney without those restrictions. At this time I am asking that you continue to call/write /e-mail the contacts below requesting that my security level be downgraded to medium due to my health, age and good behavior and that I be transferred to a medium security institution with all my hard earned prisoner privileges restored. In case I am transferred please add the new facility (keep checking our official website: http://www.leonardpeltier.org) to your contact list and ask them to respect my human rights and prisoner privileges. Again, I thank you for your support and prayers, and hope that I may one day soon be among you. In the Spirit of Crazy Horse, Leonard Peltier *-*-*-* CONTACT LIST: U.S. Penitentiary 4700 Bureau Road South Terre Haute, IN 47802 Phone-812-244-4400 Fax----812-244-4789 THP/EXECASSISTANT@BOP.GOV Federal Bureau of Prisons 320 First Street NW Washington, DC 20534 202-307-3198 info@bop.gov Amnesty International 5 Penn Plaza ˆ 14th Floor New York, NY 10001 Phone: 212-807-8400 Fax: 212-463-9193 / 212-627-1451 admin-us@aiusa.org Human Rights Watch 350 Fifth Avenue, 34th floor New York, NY 10118-3299 Tel: 1-(212) 290-4700 Fax: 1-(212) 736-1300 hrwnyc@hrw.org Senate Judiciary Committee: * Arlen Specter, Chairman 711 Hart Building Washington, DC 20510 Tel: 202-224-4254 * Senator Patrick Leahy, Ranking Member 433 Russell Senate Office Bldg Washington, DC 20510 (202) 224-4242 senator_leahy@leahy.senate.gov * Senator Edward Kennedy 317 Russell Senate Office Building Washington, DC 20510 202/224-4543 FAX: 202/224-2417 * Senator Joseph Biden 201 Russell Senate Office Building Washington, D.C. 20510 Phone: 202-224-5042 Fax: 202-224-0139 * Senator Dianne Feinstein United States Senate 331 Hart Senate Office Building Washington, DC 20510 Phone: (202) 224-3841 Fax: (202) 228-3954 * Senator Richard Durbin 332 Dirksen Senate Bldg. Washington, DC 20510 Phone: (202) 224-2152 Fax: (202) 228-0400 * Senator Herb Kohl 330 Hart Senate Office Building United States Senate Washington, D.C. 20510 Phone: (202) 224-5653 Fax: (202) 224-9787 * Sen. Charles E. Schumer 313 Hart Senate Building Washington, DC 20510 Phone: 202-224-6542 Fax: 202-228-3027 TDD: 202-224-0420 Congressional Judiciary Committee: * Honorable John Conyers, Jr. 2426 Rayburn Building Washington, DC 20515 (202) 225-5126 John.Conyers@mail.house.gov * Honorable Robert C. Scott 1201 Longworth House Office Building Washington, DC 20515 Phone: (202) 225-8351 Fax: (202) 225-8354 bobby.scott@mail.house.gov * Honorable Sheila Jackson Lee 2435 Rayburn Building Washington, DC 20515 (202) 225-3816 * Honorable Maxine Waters 2344 Rayburn House Office Building Washington, D.C. 20515 202-225-2201 phone 202-225-7854 fax * Honorable Martin Meehan 2229 Rayburn House Office Building Washington, DC 20515 Phone: (202) 225-3411 Fax: (202) 226-0771 TTY: (202) 225-1904 * Honorable Bill Delahunt 2454 Rayburn House Office Building Washington, DC 20515 Phone: (202) 225-3111 Fax: (202) 225-5658 William.Delahunt@mail.house.gov * Honorable Anthony Weiner 1122 Longworth House Office Building Washington DC 20515 (202) 225-6616 weiner@mail.house.gov United Nations: Louise Arbour, U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights United Nations Office at Geneva 1211 Geneva 10 Switzerland Fax: 41-22-917-9022 E-mail: tb-petitions@ohchr.org U.N. Working Group on Indigenous Populations United Nations Office at Geneva 1211 Geneva 10 Switzerland Email: WGindigenous@ohchr.org Fax: 41-22-917-9008 The Special Rapporteur on human rights and fundamental freedoms of indigenous peoples: Mr. Rodolfo Stavenhagen His contact person is: Pablo Espiniella, Human Rights Officer Tel. 41-22-917-9413 Fax 41-22-917-9008 email: indigenous@ohchr.org U.N. Working Group on Arbitrary Detentions c/o Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights CH-1211, Geneva 10 Switzerland Fax: 41-22- 917-9006 FREE LEONARD PELTIER NOW! From: International Peltier Forum [mailto:kolahq@skynet.be] Sent: Thursday, August 04, 2005 2:50 PM To: IPF Subject: [LP Forum News] Update from Leonard Peltier INTERNATIONAL FORUM of VIPs for PELTIER August 4th 2005 : 10772 days of WRONGFUL IMPRISONMENT! ONLINE PETITION FOR EXECUTIVE CLEMENCY http://users.skynet.be/kola/lppet.htm ONLINE PETITION FOR PAROLE http://campaign-pyramid.com/kola/leonard/ ---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*-------- 17) Neil Mackay | Iraq's Child Prisoners A Sunday Herald investigation has discovered that coalition forces are holding more than 100 children in jails such as Abu Ghraib. Witnesses claim that the detainees - some as young as 10 - are also being subjected to rape and torture. http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/080405S.shtml ---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*-------- 18) "While there is a lower class I am in it; while there is a criminal element I am of it; while there is a soul in prison I am not free." --Eugene V. Debs A PEOPLE'S HISTORY OF IRAQ Why Iraqi's Don't Need the U.S to Run their Country Calls for the U.S. to pull out of Iraq are growing every day. Yet Bush and others justify the continuing occupation with the blatantly racist notion that the Iraqi people are somehow incapable of governing the land that is rightfully theirs. To gain an understanding of the Iraqi resistance we must first learn about the history of the Leftist movements in Iraq. A new book, "A People's History of Iraq" by Ilario Salucci, shows how the Iraqi Communist Party has contributed to workers movements and stood up to such oppresive regimes such as the British imperialists, their subsequent installed monarchy, and the brutal dictatorship of Saddam Hussein. Come to our public meeting where we'll celebrate the publishing of this new book, and discuss the history of the Iraqi Left, and its implications for the anti-war movement in this country. Sponsored by the International Socialist Organization on Wed. August 8, 7pm 110 Capp St. (near 16th St. BART) 2nd fl. buzz#202 at gate Call for info. (415) 336-5034 or check us out at: www.internationalsocialist.org www.haymarketbooks.org Visit your group "SF_Mission_ISO ---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*-------- 19) HANDS OFF VENEZUELA (HOV) CAMPAIGN NEEDS YOUR HELP! Dear Friend: The Hands Off Venezuela campaign (HOV) is an organization of groups and individuals who support the right of the people of Venezuela to self-determination and oppose any intervention by the United States against the democratically elected government of Venezuela. Hands Off Venezuela in the San Francisco Bay Area is part of a relatively new national campaign, and joins with activists from Minneapolis, Boston, Miami, and Seattle, St. Louis, Fargo, and Providence, and others. HOV is also part of an international campaign, based in London, England, to build a worldwide campaign in defense of Venezuela against U.S. interference and aggression. It looks like the U.S. government is on a collision course with Hugo Chavez, the most popular president elected in the last twenty years in Latin America. (The latest public opinion polls show his rating at 70 percent.) Your help is needed now. We cannot stop U.S. intervention by words alone, but only by the action of the people of the United States, and they cannot take action without knowledge. That is why we are calling on all freedom loving people in the U.S. to help us bring the truth about Venezuela to this country by bringing here one of its most important trade union leaders, Stalin Perez Borges. Borges comes from the UTIPC (Union de Trabajadores de la Industria Procesadora del Cigarillo), the union at the big Filtrona cigarette filter factory in Valencia. With decades of experience, he became a founding member of the UNT (Union Nacional de Trabjadores, National Union of Workers), and is one of its national coordinators. He played a key role in the struggle against the coup in April 2002 and the bosses' lockout of December 2002. We believe that by bringing him here we can begin to build a dialogue between the people of the United States and the people of Venezuela. To do this we need your financial help. Please help the campaign to bring this labor leader to the Bay area and stop U.S. intervention in the internal affairs of Venezuela by making a donation of $5, $10, $15, $100, or whatever you can. Checks should be made payable to Hands Off Venezuela. If you prefer to use a credit card, you can make a donation using PayPal at http://www.ushov.org/donate.html We thank you for your support in this struggle. Sincerely, For Hands Off Venezuela, Gerry Foley Cristina Gutierrez Gabriel Cabrera Hands Off Venezuela San Francisco Bay Web: www.ushov.org Email: sfbay@ushov.org Phone: (415) 864-3537 ---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*-------- 20) Broad Environmental Damage Seen From Shuttle By Jeff Franks, Reuters HOUSTON (Aug. 4) - Commander Eileen Collins said astronauts on shuttle Discovery had seen widespread environmental destruction on Earth and warned on Thursday that greater care was needed to protect natural resources. http://aolsvc.news.aol.com/news/article.adp?id=20050804100809990012 ---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*-------- 21) PACIFIC FILM ARCHIVE THEATER: 2575 BANCROFT WAY @ BOWDITCH, BERKELEY WWW.BAMPFA.BERKELEY.EDU / $4-$8 TUESDAY AUGUST 9 7:30 The Forest for the Trees: Judi Bari vs. the FBI Bernadine Mellis (U.S., 2005) Artist in Person! Tonight we present two very different portraits of activism that detail visionary citizens' efforts to preserve the natural world. The Forest for the Trees documents Earth First! organizer Judi Bari's case against the FBI and Oakland police. Following her passionate and effective efforts to create alliances between environmental activists and loggers and mill workers, in 1990, the car she was driving in Oakland was bombed, and within hours she was accused of transporting the explosives and labeled a terrorist. The filmmaker's father was one of Bari's lawyers, giving inside access to the intricacies of the legal battle, which continued to be waged in Oakland courtrooms after Bari's death from cancer in 1997. * (2005, 54 mins, Video) Preceded by: Under Foot and Overstory Jason Livingston (U.S., 2004) Under Foot and Overstory is a playful and poetic portrait of an Iowa City-based group of environmentalists who work together to protect 200 acres of urban parkland...but first they must write their mission statement. Revealing a love of nature, group dynamics, and wordplay, Underfoot and Overstory explores "an aesthetics of ecology" (JL). * (2004, 35 mins, 16mm) * (Total running time: 89 mins, Color, From the artists) -- Laura Deutch Outreach Coordinator Pacific Film Archive 2625 Durant Avenue Berkeley, CA 94720-2250 510/642-6883 www.bampfa.berkeley.edu/pfa ---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*-------- 22) Jewish Voice for Peace expresses outrage and sadness over attack on bus in Arab Israeli town. Demands right-wing groups end incitement to violence. Please circulate as far and wide as you can. Press release Contact: Mitchell Plitnick, 510-465-1777 Friday August 5, 2005 (Oakland, CA) - American peace group Jewish Voice for Peace expressed its sadness and outrage at the murder of four Palestinian citizens of Israel by an AWOL Israeli soldier. The attack also injured 12 other innocents on a bus in the Arab town of Shfaram in Israel. The soldier, Edan Natan-Zada, who was killed by enraged residents of Shfaram, was apparently a member of the radical group, Kach, which calls for the expulsion of Arabs from Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories. He had deserted the army about one month ago, in opposition to the planned Israeli pullout from the Gaza Strip. "This attack was the direct result of the extremist rhetoric and ideology of the settler movement,‰ said Mitchell Plitnick, JVP‚s co-director. "The killer was a 19-year old soldier, who had recently moved to a West Bank settlement and apparently came under the sway of so-called Œreligious Jews‚ who preach a doctrine of hatred and of valuing Jewish life above others. This atrocity is the result of the same ideology that inspired Baruch Goldstein over a decade ago and led to the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin. It is high time that Jews everywhere took a firm stand against the preachers of hate in our own community.‰ On February 25, 1994, Dr. Baruch Goldstein of the Kiryat Arba settlement near Hebron, killed 29 Muslim worshippers at Friday prayers at the Tomb of the Patriarchs in Hebron. On November 4, 1995, Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin was killed by a fanatical law student named Yigal Amir at a peace rally in Tel Aviv. Natan-Zada, Plitnick said, was inspired by the same ideologues that inspired Goldstein and Amir. „These preachers of hate are the inevitable result of the settlement ideology, which claims the West Bank and Gaza Strip without the slightest thought to the needs of non-Jews. World Jewry must stand up and say enough is enough. The settlements breed killers among both Israeli Jews and Palestinian Arabs. Only with their removal and with the clear and honest move by Israel toward being a state where all of its citizens have full and equal rights will horrors like yesterday‚s be ended.‰ Jewish Voice for Peace is a national grassroots organization dedicated to promoting a US foreign policy in the Middle East based on democracy, human rights and respect for international law. JVP is a voice for the silent majority of American Jews who polls consistently show support a peaceful resolution of the Israeli- Palestinian conflict and an end to Israel‚s occupation of the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem. For information about the conflict and expert sources go to www.JewishVoiceforPeace.org To engage in online discussion of UFPJ matters, join our discussion list by sending a blank email to ufpj-disc-subscribe@yahoogroups.com YAHOO! GROUPS LINKS Visit your group "ufpj-news ---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*-------- 23) Read more about Sgt. Carlos Lazo and efforts by the Bush administration to further divide the Cuban family: with this Radio Progreso commentary from Miami: http://makeashorterlink.com/?Z2EC13F8B ) EL NUEVO HERALD Posted on Fri, Aug. 05, 2005 Perspective The cruelty of a policy By: Carlos F. Lazo A CubaNews translation by Ana Portela. Edited by Walter Lippmann. http://www.walterlippmann.com/docs239.html from the original at El Nuevo Herald (Miami) http://www.miami.com/mld/elnuevo/news/opinion/12305625.htm Going to fight on the other side of the world in the name of freedom and democracy and, later, upon returning to your country finding that you have lost your freedoms as a citizen, is a sad irony. That is precisely what happened to me after being a part of the troops in Iraq and fighting in Falluja last year. For the past months, the United States press have mentioned my case as an example of the inconsistency and cruelty of the policy regarding Cuba. I am a Cuban American and arrived at this country on a raft during the early years of the 90s. In Cuba I left two sons, now 16 and 19 years of age, with whom I have always had a strong attachment, supporting them financially and visiting them in the Island. I live in the state of Washington where I became a sergeant medic of the National Guard and councilor of handicapped persons for the State Department of Social Services Department. During my leave in the Middle East, in June of 2004, I tried to visit my sons in Cuba. My chances of being killed in Iraq were a daily constant urging me to see my children since it could be the last. My wish did not come true. The White House, involved in a tight election campaign and to please a minority but powerful sector of the Cuban community, decreed measures to reduce trips to the island to once every three years. I had to return to Iraq without going to Cuba. The planes between Miami and Havana took off almost empty while dozens of travelers were left stranded at the airport. A year has passed and the cruel measures have been a fiasco. The alleged destabilizing effect on the Cuban economy has not borne fruit and the only evident result is the unjust restriction that has castrated our most basic rights as citizenz. Not even in the extreme case of a family emergency are we free to board a plane and visit our families in Cuba. The measures, in addition to being inhuman in essence and anti-American by nature, have transformed thousands of persons into delinquents, faced with the choice of complying with the law or giving support to their relatives. The latter choose to travel to the Island clandestinely, without mentioning those who profess a religion they do not have to obtain a special permission to visit and embrace their family. Behind these injustices that today had an identity in me, there are thousands of victims, of Cuban Americans, who have nowhere to voice their protest and demand such a basic right as having normal relationships with their family in Cuba. They number in the thousands of anonymous and pained compatriots who are steeped in sorrow and hopelessness. Who gave those representatives of our community the right to decide how often we can embrace our family in Cuba, or that my uncle is not an uncle and a cousin is no longer a cousin? It's ironic that I have lost my freedoms as an American citizen while I fought for democracy in other lands. Now, another is added to the list: the unlimited hypocrisy of congress members who claim to support family values and, at the same time, have served this merciless attack against Cuban families. Because of this, more so because of them, thousands of Cuban Americans, today, cannot fulfill their rights and duties to their families. Cuban American lawmakers have been deaf to our demands to abolish or modify this freak law that prohibits travel to Cuba. The victims have no other choice, the thousands in our community, but to elect representatives whose priority in their political agendas is to respect our rights as human beings and the sanctity of family values. Sergeant of the National Guard Marxism mailing list Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism ---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*-------- 24) Ghosts of Little Boy: Artists for Peace Reception August 13, 2005 5pm - 8pm Free A group exhibition of 24 artists, in commemoration of the 60th anniversary of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki August 6 through October 7. Artists: Lucy Arai, Marlene Aron, Robert Brady, Sayko Dairiki, Ronald Garrigues, Esther Hernandez, Chiei Ishida, Betty Kano, Betsie Miller- Kusz & Masaru Tanaka, Diana Krevsky, Lucien Kubo, Dawn Nakanishi, Glen Moriwaki, Asuka Ohsawa, Arthur Okamura, Emiko Oye, Jos Sances, Ben Sakoguchi, Lewis Suzuki, Kana Tanaka, Kumiko Tanaka, Scott Tsuchitani, Jeremy Waltman. Curated by Bob Hanamura. Gallery Hours: Mon-Sat. Noon-5pm www.hiroshimanagasakipeace.org Venue Info: National Japanese American Historical Society 1684 Post St. San Francisco 415-921-5007 www.njahs.org In San Francisco Japantown, on Post St. across the street from the Japantown Center, just a couple doors east of Buchanan St. ---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*-------- ---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*-------- ---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*--------
BAUAW NEWSLETTER-FRIDAY, AUGUST 5, 2005
1) There's still time to get tickets to:
Howard Zinn's one-man play, MARX IN SOHO Starring Jerry Levy as Karl Marx Directed by Michael Fox Kennedy. Friday, August 5, 7:00 p.m. Saturday, August 6, 2:00 p.m. Jon Sims Center for the Performing Arts 1519 Mission Street near 11th Street Advance tickets: $10 Door: $20.00 For advance tickets call: 415-824-8730 Bay Area United Against War Benefit Presentation www.bauaw.org 3) A call for a COLLEGE NOT COMBAT contingent in the Sept 24 protests in Washington D.C. and San Francisco 4) "Slow Falling Bird" Performances are Thursday, Friday and Saturday through August 20th, at the EXIT on Taylor, 277 Taylor Street, San Francisco. I encourage reservations, as the first weekend sold out. 5) (This has made my day. How can they kill Tookie now? ...Bonnie Weinstein) Gang founder on death row gets presidential award for good deeds KIM CURTIS Associated Press SAN FRANCISCO -Convicted murderer Stanley "Tookie" Williams has received an award for his good deeds on death row, complete with a letter from President Bush praising the notorious gang founder for demonstrating "the outstanding character of America." Williams, co-founder of the notorious Crips street gang, has been an anti-gang activist during his many years on death row at San Quentin State Prison, where he was sent after being convicted in 1981 for killing four people. He's authored 10 books, mostly warning young people to stay away from gangs. The President's Call to Service Award arrived as Williams, 53, continues his final fight for clemency. His case is now being reviewed by the U.S. Supreme Court. It was doubtful that the president, who oversaw 152 executions during his six years as Texas governor, knew that Williams had received a congratulatory letter bearing his signature. http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/local/states/california/northern_california/12309010.htm 6) Blair Vows New Laws to End Sanctuary for Muslim Extremists By ALAN COWELL Published: August 5, 2005 LONDON, Aug. 5 - After years of taunts that Britain offered easy sanctuary to Muslim extremists, Prime Minister Tony Blair promised new anti-terrorism measures today to close down mosques and ban or deport clerics deemed to be fostering hatred and violence. http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/05/international/europe/05cnd-britain.html?hp&ex=1123300800&en=dfd0a450e735ea71&ei=5094&partner=homepage 7) U.S. Begins Big Push in Iraqi Area Held by Insurgents By EDWARD WONG Published: August 5, 2005 BAGHDAD, Iraq, Aug. 5 - The American military said today that it had begun a major offensive in the insurgent-controlled desert region of western Iraq, where at least 22 marines have been killed since Monday, in one of the deadliest weeks of the war for American troops. http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/05/international/middleeast/05cnd-baghdad.html?ei=5094&en=fda2c5e1bc38acc6&hp=&ex=1123300800&adxnnl=1&partner=homepage&adxnnlx=1123254153-2aF9TmYmcRI9SaOEPJwKxg 8) "The London Bombings: The Footprints of State Terror. Ralph Schoenman and Mya Shone Wednesday, August 31, 7:00 -10:00 p.m. Women's Building 3543 18th Street SF, CA 9) CALIFORNIA CENTRAL VALLEY ~ EPITOME OF Police Department REPRESSION AGAINST LA RAZA! In a message dated 8/5/05 1:06:39 AM, Iolmisha@cs.com writes: PRESS CONFERENCE AND PROTEST PLEASE FORWARD WIDELY 8-9-05, 8 A.M. 203 W. 4th Street Madera, Ca. 93638 (Madera Police Station) To protest the murder of Everardo "Lalo" Torres by Madera Police. http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Justice4Everardo_Lalo/ Police Department calls Lalo's death an "accident", therefore a non issue... Justice 4 Lalo, NOW! We hope in spite of distance that many of you will come ! Let's show our love and support to Lalo's family ! Mesha Idriss Stelley Foundation 10) Our Health is Our Wealth August 20, 2005, Noon to Midnight Brava Theater, 2789 24th Street, Mission District, SF Film Screenings, Tribute, Workshops, and Music by DJ Fonzilla Films: Tales from the streets of San Francisco Redemption - The Stan "Tookie" Williams Story The Streets Has Spoken (featuring Colored Ink) Get Yo Mind Right (A Barbershop Tale with Marvin X & West MacArthur) Filmmakers and producers will be on hand for panel discussions. Performances/Testimonies on Violence, Health, and Community Activism: Colored Ink, Oonka, Howie J., Tai Soul, Duce Eclipse, Symeon, Aretha Jones, Mothers Against Violence, TBone, Paradise, Legal Services for Prisoners with Children and CA Coalition for Women Prisoners, and Pam-Pam, of Conscious Eyes (Ch. 29) and SF Peacemakers Organizer. Finally, a birthday tribute to Idriss Stelley – Idriss was shot (47 times!) and killed by SFPD. RIP Idriss. Admission: Donations, NOTA www.coloredink.org www.sfpeacemakers.org 11) Galloway says Blair and Bush 'have blood on their hands' Press Association Friday August 5, 2005 Guardian Unlimited Tony Blair and George Bush have "far more blood on their hands" than the terrorists who carried out the London tube bombings, George Galloway said today. http://politics.guardian.co.uk/terrorism/story/0,15935,1543291,00.html 12) "What Have We Done?" Dahr Jamail's Iraq Dispatches Dahr's personal log from Iraq. August 05, 2005 http://dahrjamailiraq.com/weblog/ 13) Galloway praises Iraqi insurgents GETHIN CHAMBERLAIN AND GERRI PEEV Key points •Respect MP George Galloway calls Iraqi insurgents 'martyrs' on Arab TV •Galloway says that UK, US and Iraq 'puppet regime' will lose in Iraq •Calls for remarks that incide attacks on British troops to be criminalised Key quote "Even the puppet ministers and regime in Baghdad know it ... America is losing the war in Iraq. And this will not change. The resistance is getting stronger every day, and the will to remain as an occupier by Britain and America is getting weaker every day" - George Galloway, Respect MP http://news.scotsman.com/index.cfm?id=1730212005 14) Bay Area Coalition for Our Reproductive Rights invites you to... Defend Women's Rights! Sunday, August 14th at 3pm Women's Building, 3543 18th Street (between Valencia and Guerrero), San Francisco 15) After reading the following statement , I got the chilling feeling that there is nothing worse for a soldier who is risking his life to protect his countrymen than to realize that his leaders have betrayed him . m.hasan http://mathaba.net/0_index.shtml?x=297326 I am a concerned veteran of the Iraq War. 16) UPDATE FROM LEONARD PELTIER from the LPDC Blog -- http://lpdcinc.blogspot.com/ Wednesday, August 03, 2005 July 30, 2005 17) Neil Mackay | Iraq's Child Prisoners A Sunday Herald investigation has discovered that coalition forces are holding more than 100 children in jails such as Abu Ghraib. Witnesses claim that the detainees - some as young as 10 - are also being subjected to rape and torture. http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/080405S.shtml 18) "While there is a lower class I am in it; while there is a criminal element I am of it; while there is a soul in prison I am not free." --Eugene V. Debs A PEOPLE'S HISTORY OF IRAQ 19) HANDS OFF VENEZUELA (HOV) CAMPAIGN NEEDS YOUR HELP! 20) Broad Environmental Damage Seen From Shuttle By Jeff Franks, Reuters HOUSTON (Aug. 4) - Commander Eileen Collins said astronauts on shuttle Discovery had seen widespread environmental destruction on Earth and warned on Thursday that greater care was needed to protect natural resources. http://aolsvc.news.aol.com/news/article.adp?id=20050804100809990012 21) PACIFIC FILM ARCHIVE THEATER: 2575 BANCROFT WAY @ BOWDITCH, BERKELEY WWW.BAMPFA.BERKELEY.EDU / $4-$8 TUESDAY AUGUST 9 7:30 The Forest for the Trees: Judi Bari vs. the FBI Bernadine Mellis (U.S., 2005) Artist in Person! 22) Jewish Voice for Peace expresses outrage and sadness over attack on bus in Arab Israeli town. Demands right-wing groups end incitement to violence. Please circulate as far and wide as you can. Press release Contact: Mitchell Plitnick, 510-465-1777 23) Read more about Sgt. Carlos Lazo and efforts by the Bush administration to further divide the Cuban family: with this Radio Progreso commentary from Miami: http://makeashorterlink.com/?Z2EC13F8B ) EL NUEVO HERALD Posted on Fri, Aug. 05, 2005 Perspective The cruelty of a policy By: Carlos F. Lazo ---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*-------- 1) There's still time to get tickets to: Howard Zinn's one-man play, MARX IN SOHO Starring Jerry Levy as Karl Marx Directed by Michael Fox Kennedy. Friday, August 5, 7:00 p.m. Saturday, August 6, 2:00 p.m. Jon Sims Center for the Performing Arts 1519 Mission Street near 11th Street Advance tickets: $10 Door: $20.00 For advance tickets call: 415-824-8730 Bay Area United Against War Benefit Presentation www.bauaw.org 2) LAWRENCE LIVERMORE NATIONAL LABS (LLNL) ACTIONS AUG. 6 & 9 3) A call for a COLLEGE NOT COMBAT contingent in the Sept 24 protests in Washington D.C. and San Francisco 4) "Slow Falling Bird" Performances are Thursday, Friday and Saturday through August 20th, at the EXIT on Taylor, 277 Taylor Street, San Francisco. I encourage reservations, as the first weekend sold out. ---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*-------- 2) LAWRENCE LIVERMORE NATIONAL LABS (LLNL) ACTIONS AUG. 6 & 9 Friends, This saturday evening, August 6th, at 5:00 pm, at Lawrence Livermore National Labs (LLNL) in Livermore, we are putting on one of hundreds of demonstrations worldwide remembering the act of imperial terrorism that was the bombing of Hiroshima. KPFA is covering it live, and various television media will be there. Next Tuesday, August the 9th, the Nagasaki anniversary, there will be a non-violent direct action at LLNL at 8:30 in the morning. Many dozens of people intend to risk arrest. Please see below links to info on how to get to these events by car, carpool or BART/Shuttle. http://www.trivalleycares.org/aug6-2005.asp (Tri-Valley Communities against a Radioactive Environment) Contact: Tara Dorabji, Tri-Valley CAREs, tara@trivalleycares.org , (925) 443-7148 Nukes are not an old fizzled battle— my view is that they are a crucial battle that is starting up all over again right now. http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/080305E.shtml If you're thinking of whether it's worth it to go along to these events (I REALLY want to see you Tuesday), I have a question. Where do you want to be when the imperial finger reaches for the nuclear button with the sights on Iran--which it may well do within a year or so? Where do you want to be in the mean time, now that we know that that's the plan? I don't know whether we can stop it altogether, but I do know that the civilians of Iran will never forgive us if we don't try, and try every bit as hard as we did on behalf of the civilians of Iraq and Afghanistan. Our efforts did save lives, and they will save lives. Hope to see you in the park on Saturday, and see you at the gates on Tuesday! Webb ---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*-------- 3) A call for a COLLEGE NOT COMBAT contingent in the Sept 24 protests in Washington D.C. and San Francisco COUNTER-RECRUITMENT...COMING SOON TO A CITY NEAR YOU! Across the country a new movement has sprung up of students, parents, teachers and community members opposing military recruiters in their schools and neighborhoods. From students kicking recruiters off campus, from Seattle to the Bay Area to New Haven to New York; to parents and teachers' unions opposing the military targeting their children; to the growing unwillingness of young people to kill and die in an unjust war, our message is simple: Military recruiters out of our schools, U.S. troops out of Iraq! On September 24, join us from D.C. to San Francisco to say: COLLEGE, NOT COMBAT! SPONSORED BY: Brooklyn Parents for Peace, Campus Antiwar Network, College Not Combat, Coney Island Avenue Project, Educators to Stop the War, Fuerza de la Revolución, Fuerza Juvenil, Left Hook, Louisiana Activist Network, Prospect-Lefferts Voices for Peace, Rochester Against War, Traprock Peace Center, United Federation of Teachers to Stop the War, Voices in the Wilderness, Women's International League for Peace and Freedom - Monterey Branch, Youth Leadership Support Network - Washington, D.C. ENDORSED BY: ORGANIZATIONS: 100 Year March; Al Awda - San Francisco; American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee - San Francisco; ANSWER - New Hampshire; Albuquerque Center for Peace and Justice; Bay Area United Against War; Bronx Greens; Central Committee for Conscientious Objectors; Chapter 60 Veterans for Peace; Chapter 93 Veterans For Peace (Washtenaw County Michigan), Citizens for Legitimate Government; Coalition Against War & Injustice of Baton Rouge; Code Pink - Bay Area; DC Anti-War Network; Free Palestine Alliance; Global Exchange; International Socialist Organization; March for Justice; Mid-South Peace & Justice Center (Memphis); Middle East Children's Alliance; National Lawyers Guild - San Francisco/Bay Area; Oregon PeaceWorks, Peace and Justice Center (Burlington, VT); Peaceful Vocations; People Against the Draft; Political Action Committee for Peace and Justice at Pace University; Queens Antiwar Committee; Radio Free Eirean; San Juan Peace Net; San Mateo Green Party; Santa Cruz Peace Coalition; Suffolk Peace Network's Counter Military Recruiting Committee; Texans for Peace (Austin); Vets Speak Out NYC INDIVIDUALS*: · Kevin and Monica Benderman - Kevin is a conscientious objector who refused re-deployment to Iraq and was sentenced to 15 months for missing movement; Natylie Baldwin, organizer and writer for Mt. Diablo Peace Center, associate editor for Newtopia Magazine; Amy Hagopian, parent and co-chair of Garfield High School PTSA that voted to ban recruiters from their school; Kathy Kelly, Voices in the Wilderness; Dennis Kyne, Gulf War veteran and activist; Michael Letwin, Co-Convener, New York City Labor Against the War and Former President, UAW Local 2325; Rania Masri, writer and researcher; Peter Camejo, Green Party 2004 California gubernatorial candidate; Gloria Mattera, Green Party candidate for Brooklyn Borough President; Camilo Mejía, the first soldier to go public with his refusal to redeploy. He spent seven months in military confinement for his decision, and was released in mid-February, 2005; Sunny Miller and Charles Jenks, Executive Director and President of Advisory Boards, respectively, Traprock Peace Center; David Mitchell, Vietnam draft resister active in Rockland Coalition for Peace and Justice; Wafaa' Al-Natheema, writer, editor & translator; Victor Paredes, brother of war resister Pablo Paredes; Ward Reilly, Louisiana Activist Network and South East Contact for Vietnam Veterans Against the War and Veterans For Peace; Justino Rodriguez, Hadas Thier and Nick Bergreen of the City College 4 - who were arrested for opposing the military at their school; David Rovics, singer/songwriter; Cindy Sheehan, founding member of Gold Star Families for Peace; Norman Solomon, author of "War Made Easy"; Annie and Buddy Spell, activists; Carl Webb, war resister; Brian Willson, Vietnam Veterans Against the War, Veterans For Peace; Katrina Yeaw, Michael Hoffman, and Pardis Esmaeili- the SFSU 3, who were targeted by their school administration for opposing recruiters; Howard Zinn and Anthony Arnove, co-editors of "Voices of a People's History of the United States." *Organizational affiliations for identification purposes only. (ALL sponsors/endorsers welcome; email recruitersout@yahoo.com) * For information on the MILITARY OUT OF OUR SCHOOLS buses from NYC to DC, contact: recruitersout@yahoo.comrecruitersout@yahoo.com * For information on the PEACE TRAIN to D.C. from across the South, contact the Louisiana Activist Network: http://www.newdemocracyrising.com/ Rally time and location TBA. Contact recruitersout@yahoo.com for more info. Campus Antiwar Network http://www.campusantiwar.net College Not Combat http://www.collegenotcombat.org/ Marxism mailing list Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism ---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*-------- 4) "Slow Falling Bird" Performances are Thursday, Friday and Saturday through August 20th, at the EXIT on Taylor, 277 Taylor Street, San Francisco. I encourage reservations, as the first weekend sold out. Disclaimer: The following is a shameless plug. Hey everyone, I want you all to come see my set design for "Slow Falling Bird", the new show by the Crowded Fire Theater Company. In addition to my set design, there are also some actors in the play, and some dialogue, and other stuff such as one sees in plays. You may come for those things as well, if you like. Right, yes, the play: is about Woomera detention camp in Australia. From our website: "Based on real events in the Woomera Immigration Detention Centre, /Slow Falling Bird/ goes far beyond the documentary impulse, creating a hallucinatory world of song and magic that is beautiful, heartbreaking, and unforgettable." You can get more info about the show at crowdedfire.org. Also, there is an article about the show in this past Saturday's Chronicle Datebook, if you happen to have that lying around. I'd like to get a group together to see the show Friday, August 12th. Let me know if you would like to join me then and I can include you in my reservation. If you can't make it then, go some other time (see below) or else I will be sad. Either way, be sure to mention my name when you arrive, I get some sort of brownie points for that. Performances are Thursday, Friday and Saturday through August 20th, at the EXIT on Taylor, 277 Taylor Street, San Francisco. I encourage reservations, as the first weekend sold out. Also, please bring your friends, and forward this invite to anyone you like (but not people you don't like), especially if you know they know me but I don't have their e-mail. Hope to see you there, Joel P.S.: I can get two tickets for free. Ask for them if you wouldn't come otherwise. You can also reach me at 415 606 1805. ---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*-------- 5) (This has made my day. How can they kill Tookie now? ...Bonnie Weinstein) Gang founder on death row gets presidential award for good deeds KIM CURTIS Associated Press SAN FRANCISCO -Convicted murderer Stanley "Tookie" Williams has received an award for his good deeds on death row, complete with a letter from President Bush praising the notorious gang founder for demonstrating "the outstanding character of America." Williams, co-founder of the notorious Crips street gang, has been an anti-gang activist during his many years on death row at San Quentin State Prison, where he was sent after being convicted in 1981 for killing four people. He's authored 10 books, mostly warning young people to stay away from gangs. The President's Call to Service Award arrived as Williams, 53, continues his final fight for clemency. His case is now being reviewed by the U.S. Supreme Court. It was doubtful that the president, who oversaw 152 executions during his six years as Texas governor, knew that Williams had received a congratulatory letter bearing his signature. http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/local/states/california/northern_california/12309010.htm ---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*-------- 6) Blair Vows New Laws to End Sanctuary for Muslim Extremists By ALAN COWELL Published: August 5, 2005 LONDON, Aug. 5 - After years of taunts that Britain offered easy sanctuary to Muslim extremists, Prime Minister Tony Blair promised new anti-terrorism measures today to close down mosques and ban or deport clerics deemed to be fostering hatred and violence. http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/05/international/europe/05cnd-britain.html?hp&ex=1123300800&en=dfd0a450e735ea71&ei=5094&partner=homepage ---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*-------- 7) U.S. Begins Big Push in Iraqi Area Held by Insurgents By EDWARD WONG Published: August 5, 2005 BAGHDAD, Iraq, Aug. 5 - The American military said today that it had begun a major offensive in the insurgent-controlled desert region of western Iraq, where at least 22 marines have been killed since Monday, in one of the deadliest weeks of the war for American troops. http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/05/international/middleeast/05cnd-baghdad.html?ei=5094&en=fda2c5e1bc38acc6&hp=&ex=1123300800&adxnnl=1&partner=homepage&adxnnlx=1123254153-2aF9TmYmcRI9SaOEPJwKxg ---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*-------- 8) "The London Bombings: The Footprints of State Terror. Ralph Schoenman and Mya Shone Wednesday, August 31, 7:00 -10:00 p.m. Women's Building 3543 18th Street SF, CA To: All News Department Managers and Reporters and Community Calendar From: Friends of " Taking Aim with Ralph Schoenman and Mya Shone" Contact: Douglas MacDonald, 925-890-6430 Slug: The London Bombings: The Footprints of State Terror San Francisco , CA . Friends of " Taking Aim " is sponsoring a discussion by Pacifica Radio hosts Ralph Schoenman and Mya Shone. The presentation is entitled "The London Bombings: The Footprints of State Terror. Ralph Schoenman and Mya Shone document and analyze the relationship between foreign and domestic intelligence operations, _The War on Terror ,_ and the economic problems of everyday Americans. Who: Ralph Schoenman was Secretary General of the International Tribunal on U.S. War Crimes in Indochina. He worked with Malcolm X with respect to the battle for the Congo and negotiated the release of political prisoners in many countries. Today, he is an author and investigative journalist and produces _ Taking Aim, heard weekly on Pacifica's WBAI-NY and archived at www.takingaim.info . Mya Shone is an economist and has a long history as an activist involved in political, community and labor issues. She worked closely with both Casa Nicaragua and Casa El Salvador during the struggles taking place in Central America, was the coordinator of the Tri-County ( Santa Barbara ,Ventura , San Luis Obispo ) Labor Party chapter, and was a founder of Health Care for All-California. She was also a newscaster and reporter at KPFK in Los Angeles . For interviews: Contact Ralph Schoenman and Mya Shone at 707-552-9992 $10.00 donation at the door. No one turned away for lack of funds. For calendar listing: The " London Bombings: The Footprints of State Terror." Ralph Schoenman and Mya Shone analyze the relationship between foreign and domestic intelligence operations, “The War on Terror ,” and the economic problems of everyday Americans. Wednesday, August 31, 7:00 -10:00 p.m., Women’s Building 3543 18th St.,San Francisco . ---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*-------- 9) CALIFORNIA CENTRAL VALLEY ~ EPITOME OF Police Department REPRESSION AGAINST LA RAZA! In a message dated 8/5/05 1:06:39 AM, Iolmisha@cs.com writes: PRESS CONFERENCE AND PROTEST PLEASE FORWARD WIDELY 8-9-05, 8 A.M. 203 W. 4th Street Madera, Ca. 93638 (Madera Police Station) To protest the murder of Everardo "Lalo" Torres by Madera Police. http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Justice4Everardo_Lalo/ Police Department calls Lalo's death an "accident", therefore a non issue... Justice 4 Lalo, NOW! We hope in spite of distance that many of you will come ! Let's show our love and support to Lalo's family ! Mesha Idriss Stelley Foundation To get direction You can visit Mapquest.com and enter your trip starting and destination points and it will give the directions you need from San Francisco to Fresno or Fresno to Madera PD DepartmeNT. I keep Mapquest.com in my favorites because it comes really handy. Gracias por su ayuda Melchor Torres Jr. ---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*-------- 10) Our Health is Our Wealth August 20, 2005, Noon to Midnight Brava Theater, 2789 24th Street, Mission District, SF Film Screenings, Tribute, Workshops, and Music by DJ Fonzilla Films: Tales from the streets of San Francisco Redemption - The Stan "Tookie" Williams Story The Streets Has Spoken (featuring Colored Ink) Get Yo Mind Right (A Barbershop Tale with Marvin X & West MacArthur) Filmmakers and producers will be on hand for panel discussions. Performances/Testimonies on Violence, Health, and Community Activism: Colored Ink, Oonka, Howie J., Tai Soul, Duce Eclipse, Symeon, Aretha Jones, Mothers Against Violence, TBone, Paradise, Legal Services for Prisoners with Children and CA Coalition for Women Prisoners, and Pam-Pam, of Conscious Eyes (Ch. 29) and SF Peacemakers Organizer. Finally, a birthday tribute to Idriss Stelley – Idriss was shot (47 times!) and killed by SFPD. RIP Idriss. Admission: Donations, NOTA www.coloredink.org www.sfpeacemakers.org ---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*-------- 11) Galloway says Blair and Bush 'have blood on their hands' Press Association Friday August 5, 2005 Guardian Unlimited Tony Blair and George Bush have "far more blood on their hands" than the terrorists who carried out the London tube bombings, George Galloway said today. http://politics.guardian.co.uk/terrorism/story/0,15935,1543291,00.html ---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*-------- 12) "What Have We Done?" Dahr Jamail's Iraq Dispatches Dahr's personal log from Iraq. August 05, 2005 http://dahrjamailiraq.com/weblog/ As the blood of US soldiers continues to drain into the hot sands of Iraq over the last several days with at least 27 US soldiers killed and the approval rating for his handling of the debacle in Iraq dropping to an all-time low of 38%, Mr. Bush commented from the comforts of his ranch in Crawford, Texas today, "We will stay the course, we will complete the job in Iraq." Just a two hour drive away in Dallas, at the Veterans for Peace National Convention in Dallas, I'm sitting with a roomful of veterans from the current quagmire. When asked what he would say to Mr. Bush if he had the chance to speak to him, Abdul Henderson, a corporal in the Marines who served in Iraq from March until May, 2003, took a deep breath and said, "It would be two hits-me hitting him and him hitting the floor. I see this guy in the most prestigious office in the world, and this guy says 'bring it on.' A guy who ain't never been shot at, never seen anyone suffering, saying 'bring it on?' He gets to act like a cowboy in a western movie...it's sickening to me." The other vets with him nod in agreement as he speaks somberly...his anger seething. One of them, Alex Ryabov, a corporal in an artillery unit which was in Iraq the first three months of the invasion, asked for some time to formulate his response to the same question. "I don't think Bush will ever realize how many millions of lives he and his lackeys have ruined on their quest for money, greed and power," he says, "To take the patriotism of the American people for granted...the fact that people (his administration) are willing to lie and make excuses for you while you continue to kill and maim the youth of America and ruin countless families...and still manage to do so with a smile on your face." Taking a deep breath to steady himself he continues as if addressing Bush first-hand; "You needs to resign, take the billions of dollars you've made off the blood and sweat of US service members....all the suffering you've caused us, and put those billions of dollars into the VA to take care of the men and women you sent to be slaughtered. Yet all those billions aren't enough to even try to compensate all the people who have been affected by this." These new additions to Veterans for Peace are actively living the statement of purpose of the organization, having pledged to work with others towards increasing public awareness of the costs of war, to work to restrain their government from intervening, overtly and covertly, in the internal affairs of other nations and to see justice for veterans and victims of war, among other goals. I type furiously for three hours, trying to keep up with the stories each of the men shared.... about the atrocities of what they saw, and committed, while in Iraq. Camilo Mejia, an army staff sergeant who was sentenced to a year in military prison in May, 2004 for refusing to return to Iraq after being home on leave, talks openly about what he did there: "What it all comes down to is redemption for what was done there. I was turning ambulances away from going to hospitals, I killed civilians, I tortured guys...and I'm ashamed of that. Once you are there, it has nothing to do with politics...it has to do with you as an individual being there and killing people for no reason. There is no purpose, and now I'm sick at myself for doing these things. I kept telling myself I was there for my buddies. It was a weak reasoning...because I still shut my mouth and did my job." Mejia then spoke candidly about why he refused to return: "It wasn't until I came home that I felt it-how wrong it all was and that I was a coward for pushing my principles aside. I'm trying to buy my way back into heaven...and it's not so much what I did, but what I didn't do to stop it when I was there. So now it's a way of trying to undo the evil that we did over there. This is why I'm speaking out, and not going back. This is a painful process and we're going through it." Camilo Mejia was then quick to point towards the success of his organization and his colleagues. "When I went back to Iraq in October of 2003, the Pentagon said there were 22 AWOL's. Five months later it was 500, and when I got out of jail that number was 5,000. These are the Pentagons' numbers for the military. Two things are significant here- the number went from 500-5,000 in 11 months, and these are the numbers from the Pentagon." While the military is falling short of its recruitment goals across the board and the disaster in Iraq spiraling deeper into chaos with each passing day, these are little consolation for these men who have paid the price they've had to pay to be at this convention. They continue to pay, but at the same time stand firm in their resolve to bring an end to the occupation of Iraq and to help their fellow soldiers. Ryabov then begins to tell of his unit firing the wrong artillery rounds which hit 5-10 km from their intended target. "We have no idea where those rounds fell, or what they hit," he says quietly while two of the men hold their heads in their hands, "Now we've come to these realizations and we're trying to educate people to save them from going through the same thing." After talking of the use of uranium munitions, of which Ryabov stated 300 tons of which were used in the '91 Gulf War, and 2,200 tons and counting having been used thus far in the current war, he adds, "We were put in a foreign country and fire artillery and kill people...and it shouldn't have even happened in the first place. It's hard to put into words the full tragedy of it-the death and suffering on both sides. I feel a grave injustice has been done and I'm trying to correct it. You do all these things and come back and think, 'what have we done?' We just rolled right by an Iraqi man with a gunshot in his thigh and two guys near him waving white flags.... he probably bled to death." Harvey Tharp sitting with us served in Kirkuk. His position of being in charge of some reconstruction projects in northern Iraq allowed him to form many close friendships with Iraqis...something that prompts him to ask me to tell more people of the generous culture of the Iraqi people. His friendships apparently brought the war much closer to home for him. "What I concluded last summer when I was waiting to transfer to NSA was that not only were our reasons for being there lies, but we just weren't there to help the Iraqis. So in November of '04 I told my commander I couldn't take part in this. I would have been sent into Fallujah, and he was going to order me in to do my job. I also chose not to go back because the dropping of bombs in urban areas like Fallujah are a violation of the laws of warfare because of the near certainty of collateral damage. For me, seeing the full humanity of Iraqis made me realize I couldn't participate in these operations." Tharp goes on to say that he believes there are still Vietnam vets who think that that was a necessary war and adds, "I think it's because that keeps the demons at bay for them to believe it is justified...this is their coping mechanism. We, as Americans, have to face the total obvious truth that this was all because of a lie. We are speaking out because we have to speak out. We want to help other vets tell other vets their story...to keep people from drinking themselves to death." When he is asked what he would say to Mr. Bush if he had a few moments with him, he too took some time to think about it, then says, "It is obvious that middle America is starting to turn against this war and to turn against you...for good reason. The only thing I could see that would arrest this inevitable fall that you deserve, is another 9/11 or another war with say, Iran. There are some very credible indications in the media that we are already in pre-war with Iran. What I'm trying to do is find a stand Americans can take against you, but I think people are willing to say 'don't you dare do this to us again.' My message to the American people is this-do you want to go another round with these people? If not-now is the time to say so." The men are using this time to tell more of why they are resisting the illegal occupation, and it's difficult to ask new questions as they are adding to what one another share. "I didn't want to kill another soul for no reason. That's it," adds Henderson, "We were firing into small towns....you see people just running, cars going, guys falling off bikes...it was just sad. You just sit there and look through your binos and see things blowing up, and you think, man they have no water, living in the third world, and we're just bombing them to hell. Blowing up buildings, shrapnel tearing people to shreds." Tharp jumps in and adds, "Most of what we're talking about is war crimes...war crimes because they are directed by our government for power projection. My easy answer for not going is PTSD...but the deeper moral reason is that I didn't want to be involved in a crime against humanity." Ryabov then adds, "We were put in a foreign country to fire artillery and kill people...and it shouldn't have even happened in the first place. It's hard to put into words the full tragedy of it-the death and suffering on both sides. I feel a grave injustice has been done and I'm trying to correct it. You do all these things and come back and think, what have we done?" Michael Hoffman served as a Marine Corps corporal who fought in Tikrit and Baghdad, and has since become a co-founder of Iraq Veterans Against the War. "Nobody wants to kill another person and think it was because of a lie. Nobody wants to think their service was in vain," says Hoffman. His response to what he would say to Mr. Bush is simple, "I would look him straight in the eye and ask him 'why?' And I would hold him there and make him answer me. He never has to deal with us one on one. I dare him to talk to any of us like that, one on one, and give us an answer." Hoffman then adds, "What about the 3 year old Iraqi girl who is now an orphan with diseases and nightmares for the rest of her life for what we did? And the people who orchestrated this don't have to pay anything. How many times are my children going to have to go through this? Our only choice is to fight this to try to stop it from happening again." Earlier this same day Mr. Bush said, "We cannot leave this task half finished, we must take it all the way to the end." However, Charlie Anderson, another Iraq veteran, had strong words for Bush. After discussing how the background radiation in Baghdad is now five times the normal rate-the equivalent of having 3 chest x-rays an hour, he said, "These are not accidents-the DU [Depleted Uraniaum]-it's important for people to understand this-the use of DU and its effects are by design. These are very carefully engineered and orchestrated incidents." While the entire group nods in agreement and two other soldiers stand up to shake his hand, Anderson says firmly, "You subverted us, you destroyed our lives, you owe us. I want your resignation in my hand in the next five minutes. Get packin' Georgie." Posted by Dahr_Jamail at August 5, 2005 07:17 AM (c)2004, 2005 Dahr Jamail. -- "I'd rather vote for something I want and not get it than vote for something I don't want, and get it". Eugene Debs Richard Mellor Retired member, AFSCME Local 444 Oakland CA Check out our website: http://www.laborsmilitantvoice.com ---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*-------- 13) Galloway praises Iraqi insurgents GETHIN CHAMBERLAIN AND GERRI PEEV Key points •Respect MP George Galloway calls Iraqi insurgents 'martyrs' on Arab TV •Galloway says that UK, US and Iraq 'puppet regime' will lose in Iraq •Calls for remarks that incide attacks on British troops to be criminalised Key quote "Even the puppet ministers and regime in Baghdad know it ... America is losing the war in Iraq. And this will not change. The resistance is getting stronger every day, and the will to remain as an occupier by Britain and America is getting weaker every day" - George Galloway, Respect MP http://news.scotsman.com/index.cfm?id=1730212005 ---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*-------- 14) Bay Area Coalition for Our Reproductive Rights invites you to... Defend Women's Rights! Sunday, August 14th at 3pm Women's Building, 3543 18th Street (between Valencia and Guerrero), San Francisco Come to this planning meeting to get involved with BACORR in a variety of activites to build the movement and defend our reproductive rights. Proposed activities include building a possible rally and march regarding Roe v. Wade and the Supreme Court; clinic defense to keep abortion safe and legal; a women's rights conference in the fall; street theatre actions, and more. Everyone is welcome! There is an immediate urgency to defend women's rights. We need to build a movement with a strong response to attacks on our rights--to be at the abortion clinics to keep them open and safe; to tell Congess that if they will not filibuster right-wing nominations to the courts, we will on the streets; to confront the right wherever they rear their heads; to debate and discuss strategy and tactics to move our struggle forward. Some of the issues that make this meeting so important: **John Roberts' confirmation to the Supreme Court seems inevitable--many Democrats, including Sen. Diane Feinstein, have said they will not filibuster, despite the fact that he has continuously lobbied to overturn Roe v. Wade. **Conservatives are forcing Proposition 73, the Parental Notification Initiative (PNI), that approximates an invasive parental consent law, to be on the ballot in either November or the early spring (if the Special Election in November fails) in California. **This past month, the Crusade for Life has felt emboldened enough to travel the state of California harassing women outside abortion clinics. "Walk For Life" plans to have another march in San Francisco in January of 2006. **Nearly 90% of counties in the US have no access to abortion providers. Access to any contraception at all is under further attack: the Workplace Religious Freedom Act, currently under consideration in the Senate, gives pharmacists the right to refuse to fill any contraception perscriptions, emergency or otherwise, if it goes against their faith. Additionally, many women of color and poor women continue to be threatened by coerced sterilization. **Women still make $0.75 for every $1.00 a man earns, and decent, affordable healthcare and childcare is for too many women an unattainable dream. Sponsored by Bay Area Coalition for Our Reproductive Rights (BACORR). BACORR puts defense of basic reproductive rights around abortion in a broader historical context of demands for reproductive freedom, which includes free abortion on demand, no parental consent laws, no Medicaid/MediCal cuts for abortion, no coerced sterilization, free birth control, free quality healthcare, explicit non-moralistic sex education, and the right to have children, including access to free quality child care and free quality pre-natal care. To build the strongest and broadest pro-choice movement possible, we must fight all forms of oppression. We see reproductive choice as an integral part of a larger struggle for the liberation/self-determination of all people. To this end, BACORR recognizes the leadership of and organizes to address the needs of those hardest hit by the escalating rightwing climate and dismantling of social services, including women of color; poor, immigrant and disabled women; lesbian/bisexual/transgender people, and young women. For more information, please contact: lichi_d@yahoo.com or call 415-864-1278. BACORR: Bay Area Coalition for Our Reproductive Rights www.bacorr.org | http://lists.riseup.net/www/info/bacorr Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com ---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*-------- 15) After reading the following statement , I got the chilling feeling that there is nothing worse for a soldier who is risking his life to protect his countrymen than to realize that his leaders have betrayed him . m.hasan http://mathaba.net/0_index.shtml?x=297326 I am a concerned veteran of the Iraq War. Speech to the "Out of Iraq" Congressional Caucus on July 19, 2005 By John Bruhns I am a concerned veteran of the Iraq War. I am not an expert on the vast and wide range of issues throughout the political spectrum, but I can offer some first hand experience of the war in Iraq through the eyes of a soldier. My view of the situation in Iraq will differ from what the American People are being told by the Bush Administration. The purpose of this message is to voice my concern that we were misled into war and continue to be misled about the situation! in Iraq every day. My opinions on this matter come from what I witnessed in Iraq personally. George Bush and his political advisors have been successful in presenting a false image to the American people that Saddam Hussein was an "imminent" threat to the security of the United States. We were told that there was overwhelming evidence that Saddam Hussein possessed a massive WMD program, and some members of the Bush Administration even hinted that Saddam may have been involved in the 9/11 attacks. We now know most of the information given to us by the current Administration concerning Iraq, if not all the information, was false. This was information given to the American people to justify a war. The information about weapons of mass destruction and a link to Osama Bin Laden scared the American people into supporting the war in Iraq. They presented an atmosphere of intimidation that suggested if we did not act immediately there was the possibility of another attack. Bush said himself that we do not want the proof or the smoking gun to come in the form of a "mushroom cloud." Donald Rumsfeld said, "We know where the weapons are." After 9/11, comments like this proved to be a successful scare tactic to use on the American People to rally support for the invasion. Members of the Bush Administration created an image of "wine and roses" in terms of the aftermath of the war. Vice-President Dick Cheney said American troops would be greeted as "liberators." And there was a false perception created that we would go into Iraq and implement a democratic government and it would be over more sooner than later. The White House also expressed confidence that the alleged WMD program would be found once we invaded. I participated in the invasion, stayed in Iraq for a year afterward, and what I witnessed was the total opposite of what President Bush and his Administration stated to the American People. The invasion was very confusing, and so was the period of time I spent in Iraq afterward. At first it did seem as if some of the Iraqi people were happy to be rid of Saddam Hussein. But that was only for a short period of time. Shortly after Saddam's regime fell, the Shiite Muslims in Iraq conducted a pilgrimage to Karbala, a pilgrimage prohibited by Saddam while he was in power. As I witnessed the ! Shiite pilgrimage, which was a new freedom that we provided to them, they used the pilgrimage to protest our presence in their country. I watched as they beat themselves over the head with sticks until they bled, and screamed at us in anger to leave their country. Some even carried signs that stated, "No Saddam, No America." These were people that Saddam oppressed; they were his enemies. To me, it seemed they hated us more than him. At that moment I knew it was going to be a very long deployment. I realized that I was not being greeted as a liberator. I became overwhelmed with fear because I felt I never would be viewed that way by the Iraqi people. As a soldier this concerned me. Because if they did not view me as a liberator, then what did they view me as? I felt that they viewed me as foreign occupier of their land. That led me to believe very early on that I was going to have a fight on my hands. During my year in Iraq I had many altercations with the so-called "insurgency." I found the insurgency I saw to be quite different from the insurgency described to the American people by the Bush Administration, the media, and other supporters of the war. There is no doubt in my mind there are foreigners from other surrounding countries in Iraq. Anyone in the Middle East who hates America now has the opportunity to kill Americans because there are roughly 140,000 US troops in Iraq. But the bulk of the insurgency I faced was primarily the people of Iraq who were attacking us as a reaction to what they felt was an occupation of their country. I was engaged actively in urban combat in the Abu Ghraib area west of Baghdad. Many of the people who were attacking me were the poor people of Iraq. They were definitely not members of Al Qaeda, left over Baath Party members, and they were not former members of Saddam's regime. They were just your average Iraqi civilian who wanted us out of their country. On October 31st, 2003, the people of Abu Ghraib organized a large uprising against us. They launched a massive assault on our compound in the area. We were attacked with AK-47 machine guns, RPGs and mortars. Thousands of people took to the streets to attack us. As the riot unfolded before my eyes, I realized these were just the people who lived there. There were men, women, and children participating. Some of the Iraqi protesters were even carrying pictures of Saddam Hussein. My battalion fought back with everything we had and eventually shut down the uprising. So while President Bush speaks of freedom and liberation of the Iraqi people, I find his statements are not credible after witnessing events such as these. During the violence that day I felt so much fear throughout my entire body. I remember going home that night and praying to God, thanking him that I was still alive. A few months earlier President Bush made the statement, "Bring it on" when referring to the attacks on Americans by the insurgency. To me, that felt like a personal invitation to the insurgents to attack me and my friends who desperately wanted to make it home alive. I did my job well in Iraq. During the deployment, my superiors promoted me to the rank of sergeant. I was made a rifle team leader and was put in charge of other soldiers when we carried out missions. My time as a Team Leader in Iraq was temporarily interrupted when I was sent to the "Green Zone" in Baghdad to train the Iraqi army. I was more than happy to do it because we were being told that in order for us to get out of Iraq completely the Iraqi military would have to be able to take over all security operations. The training of the Iraqi Army became a huge concern of mine. During the time I trained them, their basic training was only one week long. We showed them some basic drill and ceremony such as marching and saluting. When it came time for weapons training, we gave each Iraqi recruit an AK-47 and just let them shoot it. They did not even have to qualify by hitting a target. All they had to do was pull the trigger. I was instructed by my superiors to stand directly behind them with caution while they were shooting just in case they tried to turn the weapon on us so we could stop them. Once they graduated from basic training, the Iraqi soldiers in a way became part of our battalion and we would take them on missions with us. But we never let them know where we were going, because we were afraid some of them might tip off the insurgency that we were coming and we would walk directly into an ambush. When they would get into formation prior to the missions we made them a part of, they would cover their faces so the people of their communities did not identify them as being affiliated with the American troops. Not that long ago President Bush made a statement at Fort Bragg when he addressed the nation about the war in Iraq. He said we would "stand down" when the Iraqi military is ready to "stand up." My experience with the new Iraqi military tells me we won't be coming home for a long time if that's the case. I left Iraq on February 27, 2004 and I acknowledge a lot may have changed since then, but I find it hard to believe the Iraqi people are any happier now than they were when was I was there. I remember the day I left there were hundreds of Iraqis in the streets outside the compound that I lived in. They watched as we moved out to the Baghdad Airport to finally go home. The Iraqis cheered, clapped, and shouted with joy as we were le! aving. As a soldier, that hurt me inside because I thought I was supposed to be fighting for their freedom. I saw many people die for that cause, but that is not how the Iraqi people looked at it. They viewed me as a foreign occupier and many of the people of Iraq may have even preferred Saddam to the American soldiers. I feel this way because of the consistent attacks on me and my fellow soldiers by the Iraqi people, who felt they were fighting for their homeland. To us the mission turned into a quest for survival. I wish I could provide an answer to this mess. I wish I knew of a realistic way to get our troops home. But we are very limited in our options in my opinion. If we pull out immediately, it's likely the Iraqi security forces will not be able to provide stability on their own. In that event, the new Iraqi government could possibly be overthrown. The other option would be to reduce our troop numbers and have a gradual pullout. That is very risky because it seems that even with the current number of troops the violence still continues. With a significant troop reduction, there is a strong possibility the violence and attacks on US and coalition forces could escalate and get even worse. In my opinion, that is more of a certainty. And then there is the option that President Bush brings to the table which is to "Stay the Course." That means more years of bloodshed and a lot more lives to be lost. Also, it will aggravate the growing opposition to the US presence in Iraq throughout the region and that could very well recruit more extremists to join terror organizations that will infiltrate into Iraq and kill more US troops. So it does not seem to me we have a realistic solution, and that frightens me. It has become very obvious that we have a serious dilemma that needs to be resolved as soon as possible to end the ongoing violence in Iraq. But how do we end it is the question? We must always support the troops. If there were a situation in which the United States is attacked again by a legitimate enemy, they are the people who are going to risk their lives to protect us and our freedom. In my opinion, the best way to support them now is to bring them home with the honor and respect they deserve. In closing, I ask that we never forget why this war started. The Bush Administration cried weapons of mass destruction and a link to Al Queda. We know that this is false and the Bush administration concedes it as well. As a soldier who fought in that war, I feel misled. I feel that I was sent off to fight for a cause that never existed. When I joined the military I did so to defend the United States of America, not to be sent off to a part of the world to fight people who never attacked me or my country. Many have died as a result of this. The people who started this war need to start being honest with t! he American people and take responsibility for their actions. More than anything, they need to stop saying everything is rosy and create a solution to this problem they created. Thank you for hearing me out. God Bless our great nation, the United States of America. John Bruhns Click link below to watch Congresswoman Marcy Kaptur, read this letter into the congressional record http://www.kaptur.house.gov/Speech.aspx?NewsID=1422 The short URL for this item is: http://mathaba.net/0_index.shtml?x=297326 Marxism mailing list Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism ---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*-------- 16) UPDATE FROM LEONARD PELTIER from the LPDC Blog -- http://lpdcinc.blogspot.com/ Wednesday, August 03, 2005 July 30, 2005 Aho my relations, As I sit here in my solitary confinement cell at USP Terre Haute, and reflect over the past month's events, I can't help but feel an overwhelming sense of love and gratitude for each and every one of you who have so diligently stood by me in this time of crisis. As you already know by now, on June 30, 2005, I was transferred from Leavenworth Facility, to Terre Haute USP. The reason for my transfer, according to the Federal Bureau of Prisons Administrative staff was that the Leavenworth Facility was downgraded from maximum-security level to medium, and therefore I could not remain at Leavenworth due to my illegal sentencing and consequent maximum-security rank. I was transferred without notification to my attorney, Barry Bachrach, and my family. Upon my arrival to Terre Haute I was placed in solitary confinement and was told that I would remain in solitary confinement until my personal file arrived. My personal file arrived, but I remain in solitary confinement allegedly for security reasons. I am confined to a cell that is 8'X 8', it has a window that is covered from the outside with an elaborate shield that allows me to see 2-3 inches of the sky out of the top and 2-3 inches of the ground. All prisoners are supposed to get at least one hour of sunlight or outdoors and so I am taken from my cell to what is called a Recreation Room (Rec Cage), and the only sun or outdoors that I see is from some windows high up in this large room with a few air holes in them. I am able to walk up and down and this fulfills the one hour of sunlight or outdoors recreation time. Whatever the system's logic is, it seems that I won't stay in Terre Haute for much longer and will be transferred again. I do not know when and where, nor do I know if this cruel game will be over after another transfer. After all, removal and relocation have been used to break our people from the beginning of this country's history. This keeps my Defense Committee from taking the necessary steps to re-establish an office, but they are doing everything they can to help me in this most precarious and uncertain situation. Before this situation developed, I asked Russ Redner to be the National/ International Executive Director of the LPDC. Russ is a brother from our original Northwest AIM crew, a long time ally, and one of the original founders of the LPDC. I have trusted Russ with my life many times and he's proven himself at every turn. I want him to be the last person I ever have to ask to guide the LPDC, and as such I have given him full authority to do whatever is necessary to prevent problems that have plagued us in the past from ever surfacing again. He and his wife, Paula, bring a renewed energy to the LPDC. It is essential that Russ, Barry Bachrach, Mike Kuzma, and the new team at the LPDC be supported so they can work most effectively to achieve my freedom and accomplish the things that need to be done for my people. I have confidence that all of you who truly support me will extend your vote of confidence to Russ and my new team. A month in solitary is beginning to take a toll on me but your letters give me much hope and encouragement. Many of you have written, e-mailed and called USP Terre Haute, and other organizations. This has brought some improvement to my solitary confinement. I am now getting my medications on a daily basis, I can write out, I am receiving my mail, and I am allowed one phone call a month. I am allowed contact visits for those persons authorized on my visiting list. The contact visit is restricted to a two-hour period, and is conducted through a glass pane and a phone. I am allowed to visit with my attorney without those restrictions. At this time I am asking that you continue to call/write /e-mail the contacts below requesting that my security level be downgraded to medium due to my health, age and good behavior and that I be transferred to a medium security institution with all my hard earned prisoner privileges restored. In case I am transferred please add the new facility (keep checking our official website: http://www.leonardpeltier.org) to your contact list and ask them to respect my human rights and prisoner privileges. Again, I thank you for your support and prayers, and hope that I may one day soon be among you. In the Spirit of Crazy Horse, Leonard Peltier *-*-*-* CONTACT LIST: U.S. Penitentiary 4700 Bureau Road South Terre Haute, IN 47802 Phone-812-244-4400 Fax----812-244-4789 THP/EXECASSISTANT@BOP.GOV Federal Bureau of Prisons 320 First Street NW Washington, DC 20534 202-307-3198 info@bop.gov Amnesty International 5 Penn Plaza ˆ 14th Floor New York, NY 10001 Phone: 212-807-8400 Fax: 212-463-9193 / 212-627-1451 admin-us@aiusa.org Human Rights Watch 350 Fifth Avenue, 34th floor New York, NY 10118-3299 Tel: 1-(212) 290-4700 Fax: 1-(212) 736-1300 hrwnyc@hrw.org Senate Judiciary Committee: * Arlen Specter, Chairman 711 Hart Building Washington, DC 20510 Tel: 202-224-4254 * Senator Patrick Leahy, Ranking Member 433 Russell Senate Office Bldg Washington, DC 20510 (202) 224-4242 senator_leahy@leahy.senate.gov * Senator Edward Kennedy 317 Russell Senate Office Building Washington, DC 20510 202/224-4543 FAX: 202/224-2417 * Senator Joseph Biden 201 Russell Senate Office Building Washington, D.C. 20510 Phone: 202-224-5042 Fax: 202-224-0139 * Senator Dianne Feinstein United States Senate 331 Hart Senate Office Building Washington, DC 20510 Phone: (202) 224-3841 Fax: (202) 228-3954 * Senator Richard Durbin 332 Dirksen Senate Bldg. Washington, DC 20510 Phone: (202) 224-2152 Fax: (202) 228-0400 * Senator Herb Kohl 330 Hart Senate Office Building United States Senate Washington, D.C. 20510 Phone: (202) 224-5653 Fax: (202) 224-9787 * Sen. Charles E. Schumer 313 Hart Senate Building Washington, DC 20510 Phone: 202-224-6542 Fax: 202-228-3027 TDD: 202-224-0420 Congressional Judiciary Committee: * Honorable John Conyers, Jr. 2426 Rayburn Building Washington, DC 20515 (202) 225-5126 John.Conyers@mail.house.gov * Honorable Robert C. Scott 1201 Longworth House Office Building Washington, DC 20515 Phone: (202) 225-8351 Fax: (202) 225-8354 bobby.scott@mail.house.gov * Honorable Sheila Jackson Lee 2435 Rayburn Building Washington, DC 20515 (202) 225-3816 * Honorable Maxine Waters 2344 Rayburn House Office Building Washington, D.C. 20515 202-225-2201 phone 202-225-7854 fax * Honorable Martin Meehan 2229 Rayburn House Office Building Washington, DC 20515 Phone: (202) 225-3411 Fax: (202) 226-0771 TTY: (202) 225-1904 * Honorable Bill Delahunt 2454 Rayburn House Office Building Washington, DC 20515 Phone: (202) 225-3111 Fax: (202) 225-5658 William.Delahunt@mail.house.gov * Honorable Anthony Weiner 1122 Longworth House Office Building Washington DC 20515 (202) 225-6616 weiner@mail.house.gov United Nations: Louise Arbour, U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights United Nations Office at Geneva 1211 Geneva 10 Switzerland Fax: 41-22-917-9022 E-mail: tb-petitions@ohchr.org U.N. Working Group on Indigenous Populations United Nations Office at Geneva 1211 Geneva 10 Switzerland Email: WGindigenous@ohchr.org Fax: 41-22-917-9008 The Special Rapporteur on human rights and fundamental freedoms of indigenous peoples: Mr. Rodolfo Stavenhagen His contact person is: Pablo Espiniella, Human Rights Officer Tel. 41-22-917-9413 Fax 41-22-917-9008 email: indigenous@ohchr.org U.N. Working Group on Arbitrary Detentions c/o Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights CH-1211, Geneva 10 Switzerland Fax: 41-22- 917-9006 FREE LEONARD PELTIER NOW! From: International Peltier Forum [mailto:kolahq@skynet.be] Sent: Thursday, August 04, 2005 2:50 PM To: IPF Subject: [LP Forum News] Update from Leonard Peltier INTERNATIONAL FORUM of VIPs for PELTIER August 4th 2005 : 10772 days of WRONGFUL IMPRISONMENT! ONLINE PETITION FOR EXECUTIVE CLEMENCY http://users.skynet.be/kola/lppet.htm ONLINE PETITION FOR PAROLE http://campaign-pyramid.com/kola/leonard/ ---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*-------- 17) Neil Mackay | Iraq's Child Prisoners A Sunday Herald investigation has discovered that coalition forces are holding more than 100 children in jails such as Abu Ghraib. Witnesses claim that the detainees - some as young as 10 - are also being subjected to rape and torture. http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/080405S.shtml ---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*-------- 18) "While there is a lower class I am in it; while there is a criminal element I am of it; while there is a soul in prison I am not free." --Eugene V. Debs A PEOPLE'S HISTORY OF IRAQ Why Iraqi's Don't Need the U.S to Run their Country Calls for the U.S. to pull out of Iraq are growing every day. Yet Bush and others justify the continuing occupation with the blatantly racist notion that the Iraqi people are somehow incapable of governing the land that is rightfully theirs. To gain an understanding of the Iraqi resistance we must first learn about the history of the Leftist movements in Iraq. A new book, "A People's History of Iraq" by Ilario Salucci, shows how the Iraqi Communist Party has contributed to workers movements and stood up to such oppresive regimes such as the British imperialists, their subsequent installed monarchy, and the brutal dictatorship of Saddam Hussein. Come to our public meeting where we'll celebrate the publishing of this new book, and discuss the history of the Iraqi Left, and its implications for the anti-war movement in this country. Sponsored by the International Socialist Organization on Wed. August 8, 7pm 110 Capp St. (near 16th St. BART) 2nd fl. buzz#202 at gate Call for info. (415) 336-5034 or check us out at: www.internationalsocialist.org www.haymarketbooks.org Visit your group "SF_Mission_ISO ---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*-------- 19) HANDS OFF VENEZUELA (HOV) CAMPAIGN NEEDS YOUR HELP! Dear Friend: The Hands Off Venezuela campaign (HOV) is an organization of groups and individuals who support the right of the people of Venezuela to self-determination and oppose any intervention by the United States against the democratically elected government of Venezuela. Hands Off Venezuela in the San Francisco Bay Area is part of a relatively new national campaign, and joins with activists from Minneapolis, Boston, Miami, and Seattle, St. Louis, Fargo, and Providence, and others. HOV is also part of an international campaign, based in London, England, to build a worldwide campaign in defense of Venezuela against U.S. interference and aggression. It looks like the U.S. government is on a collision course with Hugo Chavez, the most popular president elected in the last twenty years in Latin America. (The latest public opinion polls show his rating at 70 percent.) Your help is needed now. We cannot stop U.S. intervention by words alone, but only by the action of the people of the United States, and they cannot take action without knowledge. That is why we are calling on all freedom loving people in the U.S. to help us bring the truth about Venezuela to this country by bringing here one of its most important trade union leaders, Stalin Perez Borges. Borges comes from the UTIPC (Union de Trabajadores de la Industria Procesadora del Cigarillo), the union at the big Filtrona cigarette filter factory in Valencia. With decades of experience, he became a founding member of the UNT (Union Nacional de Trabjadores, National Union of Workers), and is one of its national coordinators. He played a key role in the struggle against the coup in April 2002 and the bosses' lockout of December 2002. We believe that by bringing him here we can begin to build a dialogue between the people of the United States and the people of Venezuela. To do this we need your financial help. Please help the campaign to bring this labor leader to the Bay area and stop U.S. intervention in the internal affairs of Venezuela by making a donation of $5, $10, $15, $100, or whatever you can. Checks should be made payable to Hands Off Venezuela. If you prefer to use a credit card, you can make a donation using PayPal at http://www.ushov.org/donate.html We thank you for your support in this struggle. Sincerely, For Hands Off Venezuela, Gerry Foley Cristina Gutierrez Gabriel Cabrera Hands Off Venezuela San Francisco Bay 4579-18th Street San Francisco, CA 94114 Web: www.ushov.org Email: sfbay@ushov.org Phone: (415) 864-3537 ---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*-------- 20) Broad Environmental Damage Seen From Shuttle By Jeff Franks, Reuters HOUSTON (Aug. 4) - Commander Eileen Collins said astronauts on shuttle Discovery had seen widespread environmental destruction on Earth and warned on Thursday that greater care was needed to protect natural resources. http://aolsvc.news.aol.com/news/article.adp?id=20050804100809990012 ---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*-------- 21) PACIFIC FILM ARCHIVE THEATER: 2575 BANCROFT WAY @ BOWDITCH, BERKELEY WWW.BAMPFA.BERKELEY.EDU / $4-$8 TUESDAY AUGUST 9 7:30 The Forest for the Trees: Judi Bari vs. the FBI Bernadine Mellis (U.S., 2005) Artist in Person! Tonight we present two very different portraits of activism that detail visionary citizens' efforts to preserve the natural world. The Forest for the Trees documents Earth First! organizer Judi Bari's case against the FBI and Oakland police. Following her passionate and effective efforts to create alliances between environmental activists and loggers and mill workers, in 1990, the car she was driving in Oakland was bombed, and within hours she was accused of transporting the explosives and labeled a terrorist. The filmmaker's father was one of Bari's lawyers, giving inside access to the intricacies of the legal battle, which continued to be waged in Oakland courtrooms after Bari's death from cancer in 1997. * (2005, 54 mins, Video) Preceded by: Under Foot and Overstory Jason Livingston (U.S., 2004) Under Foot and Overstory is a playful and poetic portrait of an Iowa City-based group of environmentalists who work together to protect 200 acres of urban parkland...but first they must write their mission statement. Revealing a love of nature, group dynamics, and wordplay, Underfoot and Overstory explores "an aesthetics of ecology" (JL). * (2004, 35 mins, 16mm) * (Total running time: 89 mins, Color, From the artists) -- Laura Deutch Outreach Coordinator Pacific Film Archive 2625 Durant Avenue Berkeley, CA 94720-2250 510/642-6883 www.bampfa.berkeley.edu/pfa ---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*-------- 22) Jewish Voice for Peace expresses outrage and sadness over attack on bus in Arab Israeli town. Demands right-wing groups end incitement to violence. Please circulate as far and wide as you can. Press release Contact: Mitchell Plitnick, 510-465-1777 Friday August 5, 2005 (Oakland, CA) - American peace group Jewish Voice for Peace expressed its sadness and outrage at the murder of four Palestinian citizens of Israel by an AWOL Israeli soldier. The attack also injured 12 other innocents on a bus in the Arab town of Shfaram in Israel. The soldier, Edan Natan-Zada, who was killed by enraged residents of Shfaram, was apparently a member of the radical group, Kach, which calls for the expulsion of Arabs from Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories. He had deserted the army about one month ago, in opposition to the planned Israeli pullout from the Gaza Strip. "This attack was the direct result of the extremist rhetoric and ideology of the settler movement,‰ said Mitchell Plitnick, JVP‚s co-director. "The killer was a 19-year old soldier, who had recently moved to a West Bank settlement and apparently came under the sway of so-called Œreligious Jews‚ who preach a doctrine of hatred and of valuing Jewish life above others. This atrocity is the result of the same ideology that inspired Baruch Goldstein over a decade ago and led to the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin. It is high time that Jews everywhere took a firm stand against the preachers of hate in our own community.‰ On February 25, 1994, Dr. Baruch Goldstein of the Kiryat Arba settlement near Hebron, killed 29 Muslim worshippers at Friday prayers at the Tomb of the Patriarchs in Hebron. On November 4, 1995, Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin was killed by a fanatical law student named Yigal Amir at a peace rally in Tel Aviv. Natan-Zada, Plitnick said, was inspired by the same ideologues that inspired Goldstein and Amir. „These preachers of hate are the inevitable result of the settlement ideology, which claims the West Bank and Gaza Strip without the slightest thought to the needs of non-Jews. World Jewry must stand up and say enough is enough. The settlements breed killers among both Israeli Jews and Palestinian Arabs. Only with their removal and with the clear and honest move by Israel toward being a state where all of its citizens have full and equal rights will horrors like yesterday‚s be ended.‰ Jewish Voice for Peace is a national grassroots organization dedicated to promoting a US foreign policy in the Middle East based on democracy, human rights and respect for international law. JVP is a voice for the silent majority of American Jews who polls consistently show support a peaceful resolution of the Israeli- Palestinian conflict and an end to Israel‚s occupation of the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem. For information about the conflict and expert sources go to www.JewishVoiceforPeace.org To engage in online discussion of UFPJ matters, join our discussion list by sending a blank email to ufpj-disc-subscribe@yahoogroups.com YAHOO! GROUPS LINKS Visit your group "ufpj-news ---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*-------- 23) Read more about Sgt. Carlos Lazo and efforts by the Bush administration to further divide the Cuban family: with this Radio Progreso commentary from Miami: http://makeashorterlink.com/?Z2EC13F8B ) EL NUEVO HERALD Posted on Fri, Aug. 05, 2005 Perspective The cruelty of a policy By: Carlos F. Lazo A CubaNews translation by Ana Portela. Edited by Walter Lippmann. http://www.walterlippmann.com/docs239.html from the original at El Nuevo Herald (Miami) http://www.miami.com/mld/elnuevo/news/opinion/12305625.htm Going to fight on the other side of the world in the name of freedom and democracy and, later, upon returning to your country finding that you have lost your freedoms as a citizen, is a sad irony. That is precisely what happened to me after being a part of the troops in Iraq and fighting in Falluja last year. For the past months, the United States press have mentioned my case as an example of the inconsistency and cruelty of the policy regarding Cuba. I am a Cuban American and arrived at this country on a raft during the early years of the 90s. In Cuba I left two sons, now 16 and 19 years of age, with whom I have always had a strong attachment, supporting them financially and visiting them in the Island. I live in the state of Washington where I became a sergeant medic of the National Guard and councilor of handicapped persons for the State Department of Social Services Department. During my leave in the Middle East, in June of 2004, I tried to visit my sons in Cuba. My chances of being killed in Iraq were a daily constant urging me to see my children since it could be the last. My wish did not come true. The White House, involved in a tight election campaign and to please a minority but powerful sector of the Cuban community, decreed measures to reduce trips to the island to once every three years. I had to return to Iraq without going to Cuba. The planes between Miami and Havana took off almost empty while dozens of travelers were left stranded at the airport. A year has passed and the cruel measures have been a fiasco. The alleged destabilizing effect on the Cuban economy has not borne fruit and the only evident result is the unjust restriction that has castrated our most basic rights as citizenz. Not even in the extreme case of a family emergency are we free to board a plane and visit our families in Cuba. The measures, in addition to being inhuman in essence and anti-American by nature, have transformed thousands of persons into delinquents, faced with the choice of complying with the law or giving support to their relatives. The latter choose to travel to the Island clandestinely, without mentioning those who profess a religion they do not have to obtain a special permission to visit and embrace their family. Behind these injustices that today had an identity in me, there are thousands of victims, of Cuban Americans, who have nowhere to voice their protest and demand such a basic right as having normal relationships with their family in Cuba. They number in the thousands of anonymous and pained compatriots who are steeped in sorrow and hopelessness. Who gave those representatives of our community the right to decide how often we can embrace our family in Cuba, or that my uncle is not an uncle and a cousin is no longer a cousin? It's ironic that I have lost my freedoms as an American citizen while I fought for democracy in other lands. Now, another is added to the list: the unlimited hypocrisy of congress members who claim to support family values and, at the same time, have served this merciless attack against Cuban families. Because of this, more so because of them, thousands of Cuban Americans, today, cannot fulfill their rights and duties to their families. Cuban American lawmakers have been deaf to our demands to abolish or modify this freak law that prohibits travel to Cuba. The victims have no other choice, the thousands in our community, but to elect representatives whose priority in their political agendas is to respect our rights as human beings and the sanctity of family values. Sergeant of the National Guard Marxism mailing list Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism ---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*-------- ---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*-------- ---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*-------- ---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*--------
Wednesday, August 03, 2005
BAUAW NEWSLETTER-WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 3, 2005
1) MARX IN SOHO--REVIEW
Sacramento, California 7-30-05 It's weird to experience a topic like political economy as anything but dry and boring. It's even stranger to expect that an academic professor of sociology could entertain a crowd with historic lessons of the origins of economic contradictions and deep-seated social troubles. Yet Marlboro College sociologist and Brattleboro, Vermont veteran actor Jerry Levy did just that in a one-man show of Howard Zinn's Marx in Soho. Jerry Levy is on academic sabbatical to professionally act this year, touring with his rendition of Zinn's surreal return of Karl Marx to earth, 120 years after his death. Zinn does not spare Marx of his warts and boils, but characterizes the divine presentation of Marx as a sort of 'second coming'. The world metaphorically shares Marx's proverbial case of boils, and needs to go beyond historical report of the ills of the world, to ?get up off its ass?, to change the world. What's promising about Levy's interpretation as Marx in Soho is what he injects emotionally into the character of Karl Marx. It's refreshing to see and hear an actor make such an important historical personage like Marx, reviled by the West yet lionized by the South, seem so very human, despite his eerie return. Jesus would have made it, but declined. Marx has unfinished business, however. There are lessons to be learned, and Professor Levy insists upon telling them. He catechizes about praxis, surplus value, and the brutality of revolutionary dogmatism. What's novel about his thespian endeavors is that he has presented this work in the Dominican Republic with an accompanying Spanish language powerpoint translation. One can only shudder at the empowering conscientiousness engendered at such a proletarian production. See this play. Contact www.levyarts.com. Then get up off your asses. After all, boils can be painful. Review by Michael Monasky at thegeneralwelfare@yahoo.com Bay Area United Against War presents a Benefit Presentation of Howard Zinn's one man play, MARX IN SOHO Starring Jerry Levy as Karl Marx Directed by Michael Fox Kennedy. Thursday, August 4, 7:00 p.m. Friday, August 5, 7:00 p.m. Saturday, August 6, 2:00 p.m. Jon Sims Center for the Performing Arts 1519 Mission Street near 11th Street Advance tickets: $10 Door: $20.00 For advance tickets call: 415-824-8730 Pick up advance tickets at the door. No one turned away for lack of funds. Bay Area United Against War www.bauaw.org ---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*-------- 2) Disclaimer: The following is a shameless plug. Hey everyone, I want you all to come see my set design for "Slow Falling Bird", the new show by the Crowded Fire Theater Company. In addition to my set design, there are also some actors in the play, and some dialogue, and other stuff such as one sees in plays. You may come for those things as well, if you like. Right, yes, the play: is about Woomera detention camp in Australia. From our website: "Based on real events in the Woomera Immigration Detention Centre, /Slow Falling Bird/ goes far beyond the documentary impulse, creating a hallucinatory world of song and magic that is beautiful, heartbreaking, and unforgettable." You can get more info about the show at crowdedfire.org. Also, there is an article about the show in this past Saturday's Chronicle Datebook, if you happen to have that lying around. I'd like to get a group together to see the show Friday, August 12th. Let me know if you would like to join me then and I can include you in my reservation. If you can't make it then, go some other time (see below) or else I will be sad. Either way, be sure to mention my name when you arrive, I get some sort of brownie points for that. Performances are Thursday, Friday and Saturday through August 20th, at the EXIT on Taylor, 277 Taylor Street, San Francisco. I encourage reservations, as the first weekend sold out. Also, please bring your friends, and forward this invite to anyone you like (but not people you don't like), especially if you know they know me but I don't have their e-mail. Hope to see you there, Joel P.S.: I can get two tickets for free. Ask for them if you wouldn't come otherwise. You can also reach me at 415 606 1805. ---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*-------- 3) Dear Friends, The San Francisco Mime Troupe will be performing "DOING GOOD" back at Civic Center, WED. AUG. 3, NOON for the first time in MANY years! Take a long lunch break, bring a picnic and come out into the sun! If you'd like to table, you are welcome! Best, Juliette Delventhal SF Mime Troupe 415/285-1717 ---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*-------- 4) Antiwar movement debate over Palestine: Unity on what basis? August 5, 2005 | Page 11 LANCE SELFA is a columnist for Socialist Worker and editor of The Struggle for Palestine, a collection of essays published by Haymarket Books. Here, he looks at an important debate in the antiwar movement. AS GEORGE W. Bush left Washington for his annual month-long vacation in Texas, public approval for his administration hit the lowest level ever. The Gallup survey taken in late July put his job approval rating at 44 percent--a new low. A Quinnipiac University poll had Bush at 41 percent. It's clear that the main issue sapping Bush's support is the war in Iraq. Having once provided him with the aura of "commander in chief," which he brandished to silence all critics, the war is now proving to be a weight around his neck. The same Gallup survey showed that only 36 percent --most of that the Republican Party's "base"--supported Bush's Iraq policy. The reasons for the decline in Bush's support are simple. First, he sold the war on a number of pretences that have been proven to be lies. Second, he has proclaimed several "turning points"--from the capture of Saddam Hussein in December 2003 to the Iraqi elections held in January 2005 --which, he said, augured better days ahead. Instead, an increase in Iraqi resistance activity has wiped out each of these false dawns. Independent journalist Patrick Cockburn described the real situation in Iraq today: "For future historians, Iraq will probably replace Vietnam as the stock example of the truth of Wellington's dictum about small wars escalating into big ones. Ironically, the U.S. and Britain pretended in 2003 that Saddam ruled a powerful state capable of menacing his neighbors. Secretly, they believed this was untrue and expected an easy victory. Now, in 2005, they find to their horror that there are people in Iraq more truly dangerous than Saddam, and they are mired in an unwinnable conflict." These factors have produced a crisis of credibility for Bush, which finds its echoes in many arenas: from declining military recruitment to the investigation of White House aides for blowing the cover of a CIA operative. Things have gone so badly for Bush that his spin masters are actually trying to re-brand his signature foreign policy rhetoric. Out is the "the war on terrorism" and in is "the war against extremism." Perhaps in the wake of the bombings in London, Madrid and elsewhere, the "war on terrorism" appears to be another war that Bush is losing. THIS DENTING of Bush's armor has helped breathe new life into opposition to the war. One historic marker of this was the nearly unanimous approval of an AFL-CIO resolution calling for Bush to remove U.S. troops from Iraq "rapidly." This was the first time in the 50-year history of the labor federation that it had ever passed a resolution opposing a U.S. war during wartime. Another indication of the growing opposition is the willingness of some Democrats--and even some Republicans --in Congress to put forward resolutions calling for various plans for troop withdrawals. But the most hopeful sign of spreading antiwar sentiment are the planned national demonstrations against the war called for the weekend of September 24-25 in Washington, D.C., San Francisco and other cities. The September 24 protests represent a real opportunity to regain antiwar momentum after more than a year in which the public presence of the antiwar movement was sidelined into electioneering for the pro-war Democrat John Kerry. However, as activists prepare for this show of opposition, a problem has arisen in the ranks of the antiwar movement. The specter of two separate demonstrations in Washington --rather than one, united show of force--hangs over the weekend. Already, much energy has been spent on debates, discussions and "unity" meetings attempting to head this off. Unfortunately, this isn't a new problem. As far back as the 1991 national demonstrations against Bush Sr.'s war on Iraq, two national coalitions, unable to agree on a common platform, held national antiwar demonstrations in Washington on successive weekends in January. Echoes of the 1991 split can be found today in the fact that many of the same leaders and political issues have resurfaced in the current division between the liberal United for Peace and Justice (UFPJ) and the more radical International ANSWER-led National Coalition. It's tempting to write off the squabbling between the two national coalitions as a case of sectarian turf battles and personality conflicts. For many antiwar activists, the chief goal is to forge unity between the two marches and leave the disputes between them to another time. However, another element--the crystalization of political differences on the crucial question of Palestine--has been added into the debate. This makes it imperative to confront this question--and to make attempts at forging genuine unity on the basis of incorporating demands about Palestine in one united march. PALESTINE IS not an abstract question peripheral to the war in Iraq. In fact, as this newspaper has demonstrated in numerous articles, U.S. support for Israel's occupation of Palestine can't be separated from the Iraq occupation. Not only do they flow from the same plan of U.S.-Israeli domination of the Middle East, but Israel has actually advised the U.S. on every aspect of the occupation of Iraq, from training Kurdish militias to the torturers in Abu Ghraib. What's more, leading Arab and Muslim activists have demanded that the antiwar movement take up the issue of Palestine, including endorsing the demand for the United Nations-recognized right of Palestinians to return to their homes in what is now Israel. In a July 22 statement, titled "Where the Arab and Muslim Community Will Stand on September 24," eight Arab and Muslim organizations and a representative of another wrote: "In its behavior, the leadership of UFPJ is fanning the flames of separation and is unnecessarily pitting trusting movement activists against our community and people. Last year, hundreds of organizations and thousands upon thousands of activists took a clear stand against the marginalization of the Arab and Muslim community, and in favor of a principled political position. Yet here we are again, facing the same attempts of separation by the same leadership of UFPJ." For its part, UFPJ argued, in a May 23 letter to its supporters, that it limited march demands to make it "possible for the largest and widest array of people to come together in opposition to the war, including military families, Iraq war veterans and other veterans, and the labor movement." But opinion polls show consistent support among Americans for Palestinian rights, which makes it very likely that military families, veterans and rank-and-file members of the labor movement either already support Palestinian rights in some form, or could be convinced to do so if the antiwar movement gave a lead on the question. What UFPJ doesn't say is that the people it is more worried about alienating are Zionists in their ranks and Democratic Party politicians, whose support for Israel is a given. UFPJ's leaders would rather sideline thousands of Arabs and Muslims who have been the targets of state repression than a handful of Democrats and their liberal supporters. For a movement that chides itself about the need to attract more people of color into its ranks, this is a curious position to hold. A "unity" that leaves Arabs and Muslims on the sidelines is no unity at all. It is reminiscent of 1964 Democratic Party convention, when leading liberals sold out the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party--in order to maintain party unity with the Mississippi segregationists who ran the state party. Or of the Northern politicians who told Black civil rights activists that they had to "wait" until there was more popular support for them. The letter from the nine Arab and Muslim organizations makes this connection, quoting Martin Luther King's Why We Can't Wait in support of their position. The only unity worth fighting for is one that incorporates the legitimate demands of Arabs and Muslims fully into the protest. A July statement from the Campus Antiwar Network, one of the organizations spearheading the growing movement to get military recruiters out of universities and high schools, gets this right: "As a new counter -recruitment movement is exploding across the country, it is vital for students, teachers, parents, and others who wish to reclaim our schools from recruitment for a war most Americans oppose to be able to march alongside one another. This unity is threatened by the specter of two separate protests in D.C. Therefore, in the interests of building the strongest movement possible to end occupation, we call on United for Peace and Justice to drop its opposition to demands in support of Palestine and civil liberties, so that all of us--including broad segments of the populations most affected by the war at home--can come together as one united protest in Washington." Socialist Worker stands in solidarity with Arab and Muslim activists in calling on the antiwar movement to take up the issue of Palestine and oppose Israel's occupation. http://al-awda.org ---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*-------- ~~~~~~Please Circulate Recklessly~~~~~~ 5) This years KMEL Summer Jam will be sponsored by the US Navy—We say NO! Dear Friends, We have been disturbed to learn that this years KMEL Summer Jam will be sponsored by the US Navy. Because we are opposed to the war against Iraq and the tactics that have been used by US military recruiters, staff and interns of Global Exchange, Youth Media Council, and Media Alliance have been meeting to discuss this matter. We are sending this letter to you because we would like to add signatories before presenting this to the representatives at KMEL and Clear Channel. If you and your organization would like to add your names to this letter, please contact CODE PINKs Jennifer Low at jlow@ucsc.edu , or at (415) 575-5555 by Friday, August 5, 2005. Your voice is important in showing KMEL and Clear Channel the breadth of the anti-war movement. Additionally, we will be delivering this letter with signatories to the KMEL and Clear Channel Headquarters in San Francisco on Tuesday, August 9, 2005 at noon. We will be contacting media to make this event well-publicized. If you would like to attend this event, and if you are interested in helping us with this campaign, please contact Jennifer Low (see above). Thank you very much for your time and consideration. We hope to be able to count on your support for this important issue! Sincerely, Global Exchange & CODE PINK ---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*-------- 6) August 2, 2005 Dear Friends of United for Peace and Justice, We, United for Peace and Justice-Bay Area, invite you to join us and members of the national UFPJ steering committee who reside in the San Francisco Bay Area for a social evening and informal discussion on Thursday, August 18. We will network, socialize and eat as well as participate in a more structured conversation. It will be from 6:00 to 9:00 p.m. at the First Congregational Church in Oakland at 2501 Harrison St. at 27th St. This evening will give us all an opportunity to meet and share ideas with people who are directing those efforts locally and nationally. We hope to increase the sense of connection and coordination between the national and local organizing of UFPJ and to inspire more participation by member groups. We hope you will join us. Great and concerted actions are needed if we are going to change the destructive course our nation is on. Even as we are inspired by the on-going flourish of resistance voices from around the world, the succinct and passionate calls of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. continue to carry special weight. We must not be "mesmerized by uncertainty" as we challenge the "triple evils of racism, militarism and extreme materialism" in what must necessarily be a "revolution of values." UFPJ is committed to creating a strong and undeniable force from the millions of people who don't yet believe that they are the key for our resistance movement to make a difference. We, members of United for Peace and Justice along with the Bay Area members of the UFPJ national steering committee look forward to meeting with you on August 18,6 p.m at the First Congregational Church, 2501 Harrison St., Oakland, CA for a wonderful evening of sharing, planning and getting to know each other. RSVP by August 15, 2005to Jim Haber at 415-282-6580, jimhabersf@yahoo.com or Jackie Barshak at 415-308-9416, jbarshak@hotmail.com. Sincerely, Jackie Cabasso, Western States Legal Foundation, and UFPJ Steering Committee Jim Haber, War Resisters League West Eve Lindi, People's Nonviolent Response Coalition Siri Margerin - Community Representative Sandra Schwartz - American Friends Service Committee Acting United for Peace and Justice-Bay Area Steering Committee ---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*-------- 7) Fourteen Marines killed in bombing Twenty-one Marines killed in three days; U.S. journalist slain BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- A roadside bomb blast killed 14 Marines and a civilian interpreter Wednesday as they rode in a vehicle near Haditha, Iraq, U.S. military officials said. http://www.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/meast/08/03/iraq.main/index.html ---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*-------- ---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*-------- ---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*-------- ---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*--------
Sunday, July 31, 2005
BAUAW NEWSLETTER-SUNDAY, JULY 31, 2005
1) In honor of Karl Marx, the BBC Radio 4's "In Our Time
Greatest Philosopher Vote" winner, Bay Area United Against War is presenting a Benefit Presentation of Howard Zinn's one man play, MARX IN SOHO Starring Jerry Levy as Karl Marx Directed by Michael Fox Kennedy. Thursday, August 4, 7:00 p.m. Friday, August 5, 7:00 p.m. Saturday, August 6, 2:00 p.m. Jon Sims Center for the Performing Arts 1519 Mission Street near 11th Street Advance tickets: $10 Door: $20.00 For advance tickets call: 415-824-8730 Bay Area United Against War The premise of the play is that Marx dies in 1883,but he is able to see what's happening on earth for next 100 years and then comes back to talk about it. Imagine all Karl Marx would have to say after one hundred years of just being able to watch... The single actor in this one-man play is Jerry Levy, who has been teaching sociology at Marlboro College and been acting with the Actors' Theater of Brattleboro since he moved there from Chicago in 1975. Originally directed by Michael Fox Kennedy of the Actors' Theater, Levy has been on the road with Zinn's version of Karl Marx for a year, performing at benefits, colleges, small theaters and other venues around the state. At Middle Earth he was sponsored by the Bradford-based Coos Peace and Justice Alliance and performed free of charge but charged with mighty talent and a bottomless love of the play. www.bauaw.org MARX IN SOHO--REVIEW Sacramento, California 7-30-05 It's weird to experience a topic like political economy as anything but dry and boring. It's even stranger to expect that an academic professor of sociology could entertain a crowd with historic lessons of the origins of economic contradictions and deep-seated social troubles. Yet Marlboro College sociologist and Brattleboro, Vermont veteran actor Jerry Levy did just that in a one-man show of Howard Zinn's Marx in Soho. Jerry Levy is on academic sabbatical to professionally act this year, touring with his rendition of Zinn's surreal return of Karl Marx to earth, 120 years after his death. Zinn does not spare Marx of his warts and boils, but characterizes the divine presentation of Marx as a sort of 'second coming'. The world metaphorically shares Marx's proverbial case of boils, and needs to go beyond historical report of the ills of the world, to ?get up off its ass?, to change the world. What's promising about Levy's interpretation as Marx in Soho is what he injects emotionally into the character of Karl Marx. It's refreshing to see and hear an actor make such an important historical personage like Marx, reviled by the West yet lionized by the South, seem so very human, despite his eerie return. Jesus would have made it, but declined. Marx has unfinished business, however. There are lessons to be learned, and Professor Levy insists upon telling them. He catechizes about praxis, surplus value, and the brutality of revolutionary dogmatism. What's novel about his thespian endeavors is that he has presented this work in the Dominican Republic with an accompanying Spanish language powerpoint translation. One can only shudder at the empowering conscientiousness engendered at such a proletarian production. See this play. Contact www.levyarts.com. Then get up off your asses. After all, boils can be painful. Review by Michael Monasky at thegeneralwelfare@yahoo.com ---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*-------- 2) Military Classes are Off Course By Danny Westneat The Seattle Times Friday 29 July 2005 In Seattle, the public schools are hostile territory for the military, as parents shoo away recruiters and are pushing to bar them entirely. In the suburbs, though, the armed forces are welcomed for more than just visits. They're teaching some of the classes. Two high schools in Federal Way will debut Air Force courses this fall. Students as young as 14 will wear uniforms, march in drills with decommissioned guns and get schooled in military history, customs and technology. Course materials are mostly created by the Air Force, and the classes taught by retired officers. Costs will be split between the Air Force and the school district. Federal Way is the third King County school district to ask the military to set up shop as part of the Junior Reserve Officer Training Corps (JROTC). Kentwood High in Covington has a program taught by the Marines; two Issaquah high schools have courses taught by the Navy. http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/073005A.shtml http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2002408579_danny29.html ---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*-------- 3) Democratic Leadership Council drafts right-wing platform for coming elections By Joseph Kay 28 July 2005 Clinton emphasized her commitment to creating "a unified, coherent strategy focused on eliminating terrorists wherever we find them" and "improving homeland defense." She envisioned a future society in which "we've put more troops in uniform, we've equipped them better, and we've trained them to face today's stress, not yesterday's." In calling for more troops, she repeated the main criticism that Democrats have directed against Bush's handling of the war in Iraq-that not enough forces were committed to guarantee victory. http://www.wsws.org/articles/2005/jul2005/dlc-j28.shtml ---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*-------- 4) The Hidden Scourge Unending Graft Is Threatening Latin America By LARRY ROHTER and JUAN FORERO Published: July 30, 2005 So widespread is the disgust that last year another regionwide poll found that a majority of Latin Americans would prefer a return to dictatorship if it would bring economic benefits. Despite improved economic indicators since then, the ranks of the poor have continued to swell, as has the resentment of those who are pocketing the wealth of the nation for their own benefit. http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/30/international/americas/30latin.html?hp ---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*-------- 5) Children Are Left Behind After Immigration Raid in Arkansas Published: July 31, 2005 ARKADELPHIA, Ark., July 30 (AP) - About 30 children, some as young as 3 months old, were left without their parents this week after immigration officials raided a poultry plant here and took the parents away to face possible deportation. "A lot of those families had kids in day care in different places," said Mayor Charles Hollingshead, "and they didn't know why Mommy and Daddy didn't come pick them up." The federal officials arrested 119 people on Tuesday in the raid at the plant, Petit Jean Poultry, after a former worker said she had supplied others with fake ID cards. The authorities said that 115 of the people were from Mexico and the others from Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala. http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/31/national/31arkansas.html ---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*-------- 6) Senate Makes Permanent Nearly All Provisions of Patriot Act, With a Few Restrictions By ERIC LICHTBLAU Published: July 30, 2005 http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/30/politics/30patriot.html ---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*-------- 7) Military Recruiters Teaching High School Classes In Seattle, the public schools are hostile territory for the military, as parents shoo away recruiters and are pushing to bar them entirely. In the suburbs, though, the armed forces are welcomed for more than just visits. They're teaching some of the classes. http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/073005A.shtml ---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*-------- 8) SPLENDOR ON THE GRASS - VENUS AT WIMBLEDON [Col. Writ. 7/2/05] Copyright '05 Mumia Abu-Jamal To the surprise of some, I'm a tennis fan. Well, to be honest, it's to my own surprise. Tennis has always seemed like an effete, genteel, even snobbish game, and it never captured my interest. Years ago, an older guy on Death Row, Bro. Karim, mentioned his growing fascination with, of all things, tennis! I could hardly believe my ears. Why would this Black guy, in his later 50s, give a hoot about tennis? "Mu, brotha -- You gotta see these two young sistas -- from the ghetto of Compton, California, with braids in they hair, whippin' everything that come in front of them!" "Two *sistas*? C'mon, Bro. Karim -- playyin' *tennis*?" "Mu -- I'm tellin' ya! And they just as *black*! It's a wonderful thing to see, man -- seriously though!" "I ain't no tennis fan, Bro. Karim. It just don't grab me; I can't make no sense of it." "Bro. Mu -- I'm sayin' -- I know you busy, man; but, just take twenty minutes, and watch them play this afternoon. I guarantee -- I'm sayin' - I *guarantee*! -- you'll become a fan!" "Bro. Karim -- you *guarantee*? How you gonna guarantee, man?" "'Cuz, Mu -- these ain't just 'sistas' -- they Sisters! From the same family! And, Mu -- they changin' the game!" I knew that Karim, a former trainer, loved boxing; but tennis? I watched that afternoon -- and I've been a fan ever since. At this year's Wimbledon, it was with sheer pleasure that I saw the stunning rebound of Venus Williams, the elder sister of the two tennis stars, win, in straight sets, over the much-favored, younger, Russian-born star (and multi-millionairess) Maria Sharapova. In her semi-final victory she showed pure exaltation at her win, which came over the doubting chorus of commentators and sportswriters, who gave her little chance of winning. And then came the final -- two American women -- the 6-foot, 2-inch Lindsay Davenport, known as a master of ball placement, and groundstrokes; versus Venus Williams, and the doubts were still raised. "This is Venus's game, *if* she plays Lindsay like she played Sharapova." But commentators, at their very best, are but spectators of the game. Venus played. And Lindsay played. And like a seesaw in a children's playground, the games veered one way, only to turn, moments later, the other. Twice, Venus came within a breath of losing to the better-serving Davenport. But a double-fault crept in; then, an aching back, and a Time was called, to allow a trainer to tape muscles in pain. Fierce hitting exploded between the two tall women, and at last, after nearly 3 hours of the seesaw, Lindsay, visibly wincing, launched a ball into the sagging net, and it was over. Venus looked like a child wrapped in a warm blanket of joy, leaping vertically, like a Masai warrior. A great smile suffused her countenance, and the doubters fell silent. It took years, and fights, and great losses, but here, in tennis's greatest English-speaking shrine, on a green and fraying field, Venus Williams took the trophy that marked her once again, as Champion. For what seemed like a full ten minutes, Venus grinned and laughed like it was her first and greatest win. Like it was new. And for a fan, it was a wonderful, thrilling moment to behold. For, Venus rarely showed her emotions on the screen. She was the introvert to sister Serena's extrovert. She was cerebral, calm, even placid in her comments. And even when she won, it was often painfully bittersweet, coming at the cost of her beloved sister's loss. This time, joy burst forth like sunshine through clouds. She was, for now -- Champion. Copyright 2005 Mumia Abu-Jamal ---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*-------- 9) On Farthest U.S. Shores, Iraq Is a Way to a Dream By JAMES BROOKE July 31, 2005 http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/31/national/31recruit.html SAIPAN, Northern Mariana Islands - By jogging at sunset on the white sands of a palm-fringed beach here, 17-year-old Audrey O. Bricia is doing more than toning up for her next try in this island's Miss Philippines contest. She is getting in shape for United States Army boot camp. To gain an edge on the competition for enlistment, she reserved a seat two days in advance to take Army's aptitude test on a recent Saturday morning here. Safely ensconced in her seat, she watched an Army recruiter turn away 10 latecomers, all new high school graduates. "I am scared about Iraq, but I am going to have to give something in return for those benefits I want," said Ms. Bricia, a daughter of Filipino immigrants whose ambition is to attend nursing school in California. From Pago Pago in American Samoa to Yap in Micronesia, 4,000 miles to the west, Army recruiters are scouring the Pacific, looking for high school graduates to enlist at a time when the Iraq war is turning off many candidates in the States. The Army has found fertile ground in the poverty pockets of the Pacific. The per capita income is $8,000 in American Samoa, $12,500 in the Northern Marianas and $21,000 in Guam, all United States territories. In the Marshalls and Micronesia, former trust territories, per capita incomes are about $2,000. The Army minimum signing bonus is $5,000. Starting pay for a private first class is $17,472. Education benefits can be as much as $70,000. "You can't beat recruiting here in the Marianas, in Micronesia," said First Sgt. Olympio Magofna, who grew up on Saipan and oversees Pacific recruiting for the Army from his base in Guam. "In the states, they are really hurting," he said. "But over here, I can afford go play golf every other day." Here, where "America starts its day," the Army recruiting station in Guam has 4 of the Army's top 12 "producers." While small in real terms, enlistments from Guam, Saipan, and American Samoa are the nation's highest per capita. Saipan, with a population of about 60,000 American citizens and green card holders, has 245 soldiers in Iraq. [American Samoa, population of 67,000, has lost six soldiers in Iraq, most recently Staff Sgt. Frank F. Tiai of Pago Pago on July 17. Guam has lost three. Saipan has lost one.] "I see yellow ribbons everywhere," Staff Sgt. Levi Suiaunoa said by telephone from the Army recruiting station in Pago Pago, capital of the territory. " 'Come home safely' signs almost litter the streets." Despite the casualties, poverty and patriotism fuel enlistments. "I buried at least one myself, but it hasn't stopped the number of recruits going in," said the Rev. J. Quinn Weitzel, bishop of the Catholic Diocese of Samoa-Pago Pago. "They still feel like they want to do something special for the United States." In Guam and Saipan, the letters U.S.A. are emblazoned on license plates, as if to educate tourists that these territories are American. "There is a very strong sense of patriotism throughout the U.S. territories," David B. Cohen, deputy assistant secretary of the Interior for Insular Affairs, said. "How else can you explain someone like Ray Yumul, a sitting Northern Marianas congressman who has spent a year serving in Iraq? He's certainly not someone who needed the military as a ticket out." In the Marianas, the tradition of American military service stretches back three generations, starting with the defeat of Japanese rule here in the summer of 1944. "We support our Liberation Days, our Memorial Days, our Flag Days," said Ruth A. Coleman, military and veterans affairs director for the Northern Marianas. A retired Air Force officer, she said: "Look at me: my father, husband and I were in the service. My youngest son is an M.P. His wife is an M.P. commander. My middle son is in the Air Force." The tie between military service and economic advancement is clear to many young people here. "It's the benefits," said Arnold Balisalisa, who took the aptitude test here in late June. Taking a break from his $3.25-an-hour job at a McDonald's, he said: "It is better than staying on this island. There's nothing going on here. I'm 19, and I have never even been to Guam." His friend Ms. Bricia spent a year at a high school in California, and she can see the difference. "People in the states have the higher pay, the residency," she said, referring to residency requirements to attend a state university at lower rates. "A lot of people in Saipan are joining the Army for the higher pay, the benefits." Clouding Saipan's economic future, Japan Airlines, the carrier for one-quarter of Saipan's tourists, is to suspend service here in October. The garment industry, the island's largest source of employment, laid off thousands of workers after the recent liberalization of American import rules for clothing made in China. To a tourist, Saipan may look like a paradise. For a restless teenager, it may look like a dead end. On the eastern flank of Mount Tapochao, Ross Delarosa, 18, looked beyond the cows and chickens near his front yard and seethed with ambition. "There's hardly any life this island," Mr. Delarosa said. The son of Filipino immigrants, he confronts a society where land ownership and government jobs are largely the preserves of the indigenous Chamorro and Carolinean groups. A self-taught mechanic, he said: "Here it is not what you know, but who you know." For teenagers who think they are invincible, the brakes often come from their mothers. Ms. Bricia's mother, Mira, kept her arms crossed during most of her daughter's interview. "I heard about that Jessica Lynch, and I thought, 'My daughter? No way!' " she said, recalling the American private who was briefly captured early in the war. In the end, she signed the Army authorization papers for her daughter, a minor. Potential recruits say that Iraq weighs heavily in their decision. "The scary part is, what if you go to Iraq, and someone shoots you?" Mr. Balisalisa during his break at work. But soon he was worrying about how he fared on the Army's aptitude test. Turning to Audrey Bricia, he said: "He's called you. Why hasn't he called me?" ---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*-------- 10) Tuesday, August 2, 7pm ANSWER/Haiti Action Committee Forum: EYEWITNESS HAITI San Francisco Women's Building, 3543 18th St. (btwn Valencia and Guerrero, near 16th St. BART) Join us for a special forum, co-sponsored by the ANSWER Coalition and the Haiti Action Committee, featuring a report back and video footage from a Bay Area labor delegation recently returned from Haiti. The delegation was able to document the massacre of civilians in the neighborhood of Cite Soleil on July 6th by United Nations troops. Speakers from the Haiti Action Committee include Pierre Labossiere, Dave Welsh - participant in the delegation, and Doug Spalding - who was in the Haitian capital when Father Gerard Jean-Juste was arrested and thrown in the National Penitentiary on false charges. $3-10 donation (no one turned away for lack of funds) Wheelchair accessible. Call to reserve free childcare. For more info, call 415-821-6545. ---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*-------- 11) From: Susan Quinlan Sent: Jul 30, 2005 11:10 AM MOOS-Bay Friends, At our 7/28 meeting we agreed to accept an invitation from the Campus Anitwar Network to join On The Frontlines-Options for Youth in Times of War with the national CAN conference on October 22-23 at UC Berkeley. We will be meeting on Sunday evening to work out the specifics of how to build a combined conference that will empower high school and college students, parents, educators and community members to counter the military recruitment of youth in our schools, and to provide non-military alternatives for all young people. Please come contribute your best thinking and energy to build an amazing conference! Sunday, July 31st, 7pm AFSC-65 9th St. (Btwn. Market and Mission, near Civic Center BART) ---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*-------- 12) Campus Antiwar Network Statement on Self- Determination and Unity in the Antiwar Movement As students organizing against the war on campuses across the United States, we stand in support of full self-determination throughout the Middle East, including the self-determination of Iraqis and of Palestinians. As our generation is asked to sacrifice our consciences and our lives for the sake of U.S. empire-building, we are committed to opposing that empire-building in its entirety. In the Middle East today, illegal occupations exist not only in Iraq, but also in Palestine. We believe the antiwar movement must stand solidly against them both. This task takes on a particular urgency today, amid the very real possibility of a bloodbath in Palestine, if Israel takes the occasion of withdrawing settlers from Gaza to unleash a full-scale assault on that region. It would be a tragedy for the antiwar movement to remain silent in the face of the ongoing violence against an occupied population in the Middle East -- funded by our own government. We also believe it is imperative to condemn the racism directed against Arabs, Muslims, and immigrants in the United States. These populations have faced the brunt of the war at home -- targeted for racially-motivated suspicion, detention and deportation. As every original excuse for the war has been disproven, racism has become the central justification for continuing to occupy Iraq. The effects of this daily dehumanization of Arabs and Muslims can be seen in the horrific torture at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay. For this reason we believe opposing this racism must be a primary task of the antiwar movement. Our generation is refusing to become cannon fodder in an unjust occupation. As such, we are one of several groups organizing a College Not Combat contingent in the September 24 protests on the East and West Coasts. As a new counter-recruitment movement is exploding across the country, it is vital for students, teachers, parents, and others who wish to reclaim our schools from recruitment for a war most Americans oppose to be able to march alongside one another. This unity is threatened by the specter of two separate protests in DC. Therefore, in the interests of building the strongest movement possible to end occupation, we call on United for Peace and Justice to drop its opposition to demands in support of Palestine and civil liberties, so that all of us -- including broad segments of the populations most affected by the war at home -- can come together as one united protest in Washington. All out for September 24, from DC to San Francisco! College, Not Combat! Campus Antiwar Network http://www.campusantiwar.net Forwarded by Charles Jenks Traprock Peace Center http://www.traprockpeace.org/ Charles Jenks Web Manager and Past President Traprock Peace Center 103A Keets Road Deerfield, MA 01342 413-773-7427 fax 413-773-7507 http://www.traprockpeace.org ---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*-------- ---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*--------
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