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    Thursday, May 11, 2006
     

    BAUAW NEWSLETTER-SUNDAY, MAY 21, 2006

    Guantánamo Poets
    May 21, 2006
    http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/21/weekinreview/21read1.html

    Prisons make poets of many, no less so the detainees
    of Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. A few of their poems have been
    declassifed by the Pentagon and are published in this week's
    issue of Bookforum. Marc D. Falkoff, a lawyer who has worked
    with the prisoners, arranged for the translations from Arabic
    and Pashto. The first one reprinted here is by an ethnic Uighar,
    a Chinese Muslim. The second is an excerpt from a longer
    work by a Yemeni detainee.

    "Even if the Pain"
    By Saddiq Turkestani

    Even if the pain of the wound increases
    There must be a remedy to treat it.
    Even if the days in prison endure
    There must be a day when we will get out.

    From "The Truth"
    By Imad Abdullah Hassan

    O History, reflect. I will now
    Disclose the secret of secrets.
    My song will expose the damned oppression,
    And bring the system to collapse.
    The tyrants, full-equipped and numbered,
    Stand unmoved in the face of the Light.
    They proceed in the Dark, led by
    The Devil, in pride and arrogance.
    They have turned their land of peace
    Into a home for hypocrites.
    They have exchanged piety
    For cheap commodity.

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

    More Abu Ghraib Photos Posted
    Dahr Jamail's Iraq Dispatches
    May 21, 2006
    http://dahrjamailiraq.com

    We have posted a new collection of Abu Ghraib images
    from a variety of sources.

    Afterdowningstreet.org
    http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/
    supplied the images.

    We have decided to post these in our continuing effort
    to show the true face of the U.S. occupation of Iraq.

    Click here

    http://209.97.202.24/gallery/view_album.php?set_albumName=abu_ghraib_torture_pictures_images_iraq_war

    to view these images.

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

    ABOLISHING JROTC in SAN FRANCISCO SCHOOLS
    Tues, May 23
    6:00 P.M. (space is limited, please arrive on time)
    School District Office
    555 Franklin St
    San Francisco
    415/241-6427
    School board to hear resolution to phase out jrotc by the end of the
    2006-2007 school year!!!

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

    TWO VERY IMPORTANT ARTICLES ON IMMIGRATION:

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

    The Border War Comes Home
    Our Lives are on the Line
    By JUAN SANTOS
    May 18, 2006
    http://www.counterpunch.org/santos05182006.html

    He looked squarely into my eyes. "So, you see what's coming," he said.

    I was speaking with one of the core leaders of the movement for
    migrant's rights, and had laid before him a sketch of a plan of
    resistance for the nation's barrios, for the protection of people
    from the mass raids and mass deportations that will result from
    new anti-migrant legislation being birthed in Washington.

    "This is the calm before the storm; they're going to make it tough,"
    Professor Armando Navarro had told LA's La Opinion. "They're
    talking about raids, deportations. In every barrio we have to
    organize migrant defense committees, and get ready for civil
    disobedience."

    The meeting we had just attended unanimously called for the
    rejection of the so-called Hagel-Martinez "compromise" in the
    US Senate, under which as many as 7 million migrants could face
    deportation. Such a compromise would then have to be "reconciled"
    with House bill 4437, an even more extreme measure inspired
    by supporters of the ultra-Right and the racist shock troops
    called the Minutemen.

    The House bill calls for the universal deportation of every woman,
    child and man in the country without papers, for an utterly
    devastating depopulation -an ethnic cleansing - of the barrio,
    and the destruction of much of its cultural and economic life.

    The difference between the bills under consideration is the
    difference between partial and virtually complete ethnic cleansing,
    and any "compromise" between such measures will not change
    the racist and quasi-genocidal nature of the result. A "compromise"
    can only mean the deportation of millions and the legal
    stigmatization and terrorization of millions more.

    Under international law, ethnic cleansing means the expulsion
    from a territory of one ethnic group by another, and pertains
    to official policies aimed at the forcible removal of a targeted
    group. The crime is considered a form of forced emigration,
    deportation and genocide.

    International law recognizes ethnic cleansing as a crime against
    humanity when carried out in a time of literal warfare.
    The US war on migrants is the moral equivalent of ethnic
    cleansing. It is a crime against humanity.

    Fittingly, the Bush administration has flatly stated its intent
    to make "enforcement" the cutting edge of its new approach
    to migrants, and to prove the point it recently initiated the
    largest single mass arrest of migrants in US history, and put
    a severe new focus on penalizing employers, as well.

    Bush has already deported more people than any other
    president in U.S. history.

    Since he took office ICE has deported some 150,000 migrants
    a year and had deported 881,478 people through 2005, figures
    that do not include, for example, the 1.2 million people who
    were arrested at the U.S.-Mexican border itself last year.

    Now, in his Monday night speech, Bush has promised to fulfill
    one of the Minutemen's most draconian hopes ­ turning the
    border into a green zone, a quasi-military zone occupied
    by forces of the National Guard, backed by a super high
    tech "virtual" wall a wall more deadly, and more effective,
    than a mere fence.

    And, in apparent defiance of the Posse Comitatus Act ­
    which forbids the use of military troops within US borders -
    the House recently passed legislation that, according to the
    Pentagon, "gives authority to the Defense Department to
    assign military members to assist Homeland Security
    organizations in preventing the entry of terrorists, drug
    traffickers and illegal aliens into the United States"

    Migrant deaths at the border are expected to skyrocket,
    and the State is already building mass detention centers
    for migrants. Bush claims he's not "militarizing" the border.
    His claim will mean nothing to the dead and the incarcerated.

    Every version of the so-called "immigration reform laws"
    now under renewed consideration in Washington also
    authorizes and pays local police to act as immigration
    agents and to oversee the deportation of those they arrest,
    effectively adding a permanent quasi-military force of 650,000
    for "internal enforcement" of immigration laws.

    This is an example of the "middle ground" on migrants
    trumpeted by the US's white colonial ruling elite: the state
    will combine mass raids with the slow process of day by day
    racial profiling to eliminate the migrant population. According
    to an ICE plan called Operation Engame, they mean to deport
    every "deportable" migrant by the year 2012.

    In his Monday speech Bush said migrants are "beyond the
    reach and protection of American law." Indeed, he means
    to get them in his grasp, but their "protection" is nowhere
    on the agenda.

    The plan is to control and terrorize the migrants who will
    remain in the US, and to incarcerate and deport the rest.
    When that much is achieved, the ruling elites will find
    themselves in a comfortable position to continuously
    exploit the labor of a subjugated, highly controlled and
    vulnerable ethnic under-caste, and they will have
    provided themselves with the kind of ethnic scapegoat
    essential to the development of a new US-style fascism.

    False Hopes

    The hopes of millions of migrants have been ignited by
    the recent wave of protests, and by the hope that white
    America will find them with their white t-shirts and
    American flags -acceptable, tolerable, even welcome.

    The shock will be immense.

    Migrants will learn in a brutal fashion that the concern
    of America's elite has never had anything to do with
    surrender, white shirts, white dreams, or any other
    indication of who, as people, migrants might be or wish
    to be. The only concern of the ruling elites is their own
    need for migrants as exploitable workers like the slave
    master of the Old South they need their workers.

    There is another motive as well: today's elites also fear
    the very people they need - just like any slave master.
    The fear is compounded by the knowledge that today's
    master is not only an exploiter, he is also a usurper: the
    land he thrives on was stolen from the very people he
    degrades and dehumanizes with the epithet "illegal."

    And it's not just Republicans and open white racists who
    are afraid. It's many "liberals," too. Ed Schultz, the liberal
    talk show host, recently offered two factors as a bottom
    line on why migrants should stay: "the economy needs
    them" and "they can make trouble."

    The fear is so intense that, because of our mass protests,
    the worst elements of the Sensenbrenner bill HR4437 ­
    were momentarily derailed as different elements of the
    ruling class scrambled and bickered among themselves
    to determine who will have the final say - to determine
    who among them can assure the needs of their economy
    while averting the threat that migrants represent to them all.

    With every passing day, with every demonstration, with
    each child who prays each night that her parents can come
    out from the shadow of the stigma of being hunted and
    despised, with each heartbeat of rising hope, the noose
    around the neck of the ruling class gets just a little tighter;
    the options contract.

    With each day, each hour, the danger for the ruling elites
    of crushing the life and death expectations of migrants
    grows exponentially. Politically correct or not, every
    American flag carried in the recent mass demonstrations
    represents a rising, fluttering expectation, a sea of
    expectations whose depths promise shipwreck for the
    State, when, as it must, it betrays the promise of
    "freedom" and racial "equality."

    The crushing of those expectations could lead directly
    to rebellion in the streets, following the example of the
    recent rebellion of migrants in France, and of the African
    American rebellions of the 1960s. When Martin Luther
    King was overcome, when he lay dead of an assassin's
    bullet in Memphis, a hundred cities burned across the
    nation.

    They burned because it had become clear to the African
    American people that after more than a decade of struggle
    nothing fundamental in the structure of oppression had
    changed, that the changes that occurred had been mere
    surface changes, compromises, like the Hagel-Martinez
    bill today, aimed at silencing them, not at transforming
    the conditions of their lives or the oppression that afflicted
    them.

    The ruling elites have not forgotten for a moment the mass
    rebellion in Los Angeles of 1992. Migrant neighborhoods
    were a focal point of intense uprisings; the unity between
    Black and Brown was as palpably intense as the flames
    that engulfed the city and utterly terrifying to all of those
    whose daily task is to keep us down.

    As if to underscore the point, police were all but invisible
    in the recent pro-migrant marches in downtown LA ­
    although over a million of us were in the streets. But in
    Pico Union, where another million marched, riot squads
    were visible everywhere, even until past midnight. Pico
    Union was a storm center of the LA rebellion. Half of those
    arrested in that period were Brown.

    Is it any wonder, then, that the rulers have taken pause
    for thought about just how far they dare to go in the war
    on immigrants? Sensenbrenner went too far with HR4437
    he awakened the threat. Now they must gauge a thing all
    but impossible to gauge: just how far is too far?

    No one on either side of the equation knows the answer
    to that question.

    One thing at least is clear no one in the white mainstream
    is going to come to the support of migrants unless migrants
    themselves stop wrapping themselves in the flag of the
    oppressor, and dare to stand up to oppression and unless
    they are willing to polarize the nation against their persecutors
    and defiantly challenge their racism.

    At the same time our demands must be made clear and
    millions must be challenged to re-think their prejudices.
    That's exactly how the Black movement for freedom did it,
    and nothing less will do. The "problem," as one writer
    recently put it, isn't at the border; the problem isn't with
    immigration it's that migrants are being persecuted.

    And voting won't change that, no matter what the "We
    Are America" coalition claims. A vote in November and
    face it, most migrants simply aren't eligible to vote will
    change nothing for the child whose mother or father
    is deported today. Even if the Democrats win in November,
    there is absolutely no guarantee that they will take
    up the question of immigration anew.

    No. The harsh reality is that the Democrats have supported
    extremely draconian anti-migrant measures in their
    willingness to "compromise" with the overtly fascistic
    elements of the Republican Party.

    The "compromise" already accepted by the Democrats
    includes mass deportations of up to several million people,
    the indefinite detention of migrants without due process,
    the treatment of minor offenses as "aggravated felonies"
    which would trigger harsh mandatory detention and
    deportation, and of course, unleashing the police as
    migrant hunters in a program of daily terror against
    our communities.

    When the matter goes to the House/ Senate reconciliation
    committee, it can only get worse. The Democrats are no
    more likely to repeal the war on migrants than they have
    been willing to reverse their criminal support for the unjust
    colonial war of occupation against Iraq.

    They will not relent unless we leave them no choice, unless,
    like the forces of resistance in other places and other times,
    we make the political price of continuing the war on migrants
    too high.

    The Ultimate Showdown

    The National Immigrant Solidarity Network says it clearly.
    "This is a critical moment for the immigrant struggle."

    "We should brace ourselves," they say, "for the ultimate
    showdown of the immigrant struggle soon, and we should
    mobilize ourselves quickly to respond to the racist anti-
    immigrant xenophobia that will go down."

    The group is calling for emergency community meetings
    to strategize rapid response to a possible nationwide
    crackdown or attack on immigrants.

    No matter what the rulers do, short of a general legalization,
    they will present our people with unbearable choices, with
    an unimaginable grief of separation; with the mass
    destruction of what is most sacred to us; our families
    and communities.

    Will we allow the rulers of America to deport our children,
    2/3 of whom are citizens of their nation? Will we allow
    them to force us to leave our children behind? Will we let
    our children live in fear that their parents may not come
    home from work? That they will disappear? At what point
    will the grief, fear and rage become unbearable, and
    uncontainable? At what point must we say "¡Ya Basta!" ?

    Flying the American flag has disarmed us. It is not our
    willingness to live by the rules that impresses the slave
    master his entire regime is designed to ensure our
    compliance. What impresses him is our potential to
    awaken, to shatter the framework, to throw away the "rules".

    Flying the US flag means we don't understand the
    ruthless nature of our enemies; it means a basic and
    unconscious allegiance to the idea of getting ahead and
    doing so on the backs of others, an unconscious allegiance
    to and imitation of the very foundations of the oppressor's
    outlook and his control of us, and an implicit acceptance
    of his colonial rule over stolen land and subjugated peoples.

    Our enemies want to split our allegiances, they want us
    to grasp at individual chances for "acceptance" and
    "freedom," and to ignore the well being of our people
    as a whole. That, after all, is the real "American Dream"
    ­ private wealth and well being on the backs of other,
    subjugated peoples.

    But we can no longer leave the fate of our children
    in their hands. We cannot allow our families to be
    shattered and our dreams to be crushed. We must
    refuse to live any longer in the shadows, refuse to live
    under slavery in any form. It is time to take matters
    into our own hands, to do once more what every
    migrant has already done just by crossing the border
    make the decision to live, to survive together, no matter
    what they throw at us.

    Let them deal with the ramifications of attempting mass
    repression against a people in resistance here, while
    they face a similar problem overseas. Let them worry
    about alienating Latin America and their European
    partners in war and conquest. Let them worry about
    permanently alienating the millions Black and White -
    who already support us, and who understand that the
    powers that be are taking the nation toward fascism.
    Let them worry what will happen when they invade our
    barrios and workplaces in mass raids.

    Let them worry while we organize; while we create mass
    networks of direct action and resistance. Let us truly
    follow the example of the Black Civil Rights Movement
    and of the Black Power Movement that followed it. The
    Black movement of the 1950s and 60s was a resistance
    movement, one that both obeyed the law, and which,
    through civil disobedience and other strategies, broke
    the law, as necessary, in obedience to a Higher Law.

    Black people of that era laid their lives on the line for
    their freedom. We can do no less.

    Let us put the slogan to the test: ¡Un Pueblo Unido
    Jamás Será Vencido!

    Si, se puede.

    Juan Santos is an editor and writer in Los Angeles.
    He can be reached at JuanSantos@Mexica.net

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

    From the Soldiers of Solidarity's Gregg Shotwell - On Immigration
    Date: Thurs, May 18 2006 1:10am
    From: GreggShotwell@aol.com
    mailto:GreggShotwell@aol.com

    What distrubs me about this immigrant
    issue is that it is not fundamentally
    about immigration. It is cloaked in
    nationalism and racism but it is really
    anti worker. If we allow one set of
    workers to be treated like criminals, where
    will it end? First they came for (fill
    in the blank) and I didn't say anything
    because I wasn't one.

    Well, the way I see it, I am one. First,
    foremost, and always, I am a worker.

    The bossing class wants me to make
    other workers my enemies but workers don't
    cut wages, steal pensions, deprive
    us of health care, monoplize natural
    resources, and destroy our communities,
    the bosses do. The real criminals are the
    bastards that gave us NAFTA, which
    exploited Mexican workers and US workers.
    NAFTA displaced Mexican farmers by
    dumping US corn grown by Corporate farms onto
    the Mexican market. Even the small
    tortilla makers lost jobs because of
    NAFTA.

    How is that capital can cross borders
    at will to exploit workers but we can't
    cross borders to buy drugs in Canada,
    and workers who have been deprived of
    jobs through no fault of their own are
    treated like criminals because they want
    to work for a living? NO WORKER IS MY ENEMY.

    I volunteered for many years at a half
    way house for federal prisoners. They
    all told me about the Prison Industrial
    Complex. Well, PIC wants more prison
    labor. Who benefits when workers are
    turned into criminals? It won't stop them
    from crossing the borders. Criminalization
    will just make it easier for bosses
    to exploit them. Encouraging workers
    to hate the latest set of immigrants is
    a traditonal tool of bosses in America.
    Sure, they were legal when they came
    through Ellis Island, but then the bosses
    found out that legal workers could
    get organized, so they encouraged
    illegal immigration.

    It's the rich bastards that are depriving
    us of national health care, and
    stealing our pensions, and profiting
    from war, and driving our wages down while
    they rake in the profits. I will not
    be tricked into believing poor underpaid
    workers are my enemies. I know
    who the enemy is. There's no dirt under his
    fingernails, no sorrow in his eyes,
    and he wouldn't risk his life and sacrifice
    his own comfort in order to send
    money home to his family.

    Let us not lose our focus. Workers
    are our allies. The bosses are trying to
    whipsaw us against immigrant workers.
    Criminalization plays into the bosses
    hands. They want illegal workers.
    They want all workers to be treated like
    outlaws. They aren't going to stop
    with Mexicans. Ask anybody who's ever been on a
    picket line. Workers are outlaws in
    America. It's no wonder they don't want us
    to own guns.

    sos, Gregg Shotwell

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

    SCROLL DOWN TO READ:
    EVENT ANNOUNCEMENTS
    GENERAL ANNOUNCEMENTS
    ARTICLES IN FULL
    LINKS ONLY

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

    "In times of universal deceit, telling the truth will be a revolutionary act."
    --George Orwell

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

    Great Counter-Recruitment Website
    http://notyoursoldier.org/article.php?list=type&type=14

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

    [Please read, respond and forward]
    Action Alert: Release Sameeh Hammoudeh!
    For Immediate Release
    May 9, 2006

    Talking Points:

    * On 6 December 2005 a jury found
    Sameeh Hammoudeh not guilty of all
    charges brought against him.
    Hence, there is no legal basis for
    keeping him imprisoned by the
    Immigration and Customs
    Enforcement Service. He should
    be released forthwith.

    * Sameeh Hammoudeh wishes to
    return to his home in Ramallah, Palestine. By
    holding him prisoner, the ICE is
    preventing him from exercising his
    inalienable, natural and legal right
    to return to his home.

    E-MAIL, CALL and WRITE:

    * Attorney General, Alberto Gonzales
    E-MAIL: AskDOJ@usdoj.gov
    PHONE: 202-514-2001 and 202-353-1555
    MAIL: U.S. Department of Justice
    950 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
    Washington, DC 20530-0001

    * Florida Governor Jeb Bush
    Email: jeb.bush@myflorida.com

    * Florida Attorney General Charlie Crist
    The Capitol PL-01
    Tallahassee, FL 32399-1050
    Main office telephone numbers
    Switchboard: 850-414-3300
    Citizens Services: 850-414-3990
    Florida Relay/TDD: 800-955-8771
    Florida Toll Free: 1-866-966-7226
    Fax: 850-410-1630

    To obtain contact information for media outlets, go to:
    http://newslink.org/

    Please cc your correspondence to alerts@al-awda.org

    Al-Awda, The Palestine Right to Return Coalition
    PO Box 131352
    Carlsbad, CA 92013, USA
    Tel: 760-685-3243
    Fax: 360-933-3568
    E-mail: info@al-awda.org
    WWW: http://al-awda.org

    Memo to: All those who have the power
    to free Sameeh Hammoudeh

    AskDOJ@usdoj.gov
    jeb.bush@myflorida.com

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

    GREAT FLASH FILM BY PINK
    (I didn't know who she was. Now I do...BW)
    http://thinkwebworks.com/redraidernation/TAPES/dear-mr.html

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

    R A I L W A Y W O M E N
    Exploitation, Betrayal & Triumph in the Workplace
    by Helena Wojtczak
    http://www.railwaywomen.co.uk/book.html

    ---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*--------
    EVENT ANNOUNCEMENTS
    ---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*--------
    GENERAL AND UNCONDITIONAL AMNESTY FOR ALL!
    ---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*--------

    "Baghdad ER," new HBO documentary to air Sunday, May 21
    The documentary, titled "Baghdad ER," chronicles two months
    at the 86th Combat Support Hospital, where filmmakers were
    given broad access to follow doctors, nurses, medics and others
    as they treated soldiers wounded by roadside bombs and in combat.
    As one nurse, Specialist Saidet Lanier, says in the film: "This is
    hard-core, raw, uncut trauma. Day after day, every day."
    The film, directed by Jon Alpert and Matthew O'Neill, will
    be shown Sunday, May 21 on HBO.

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

    National Day of Out(r)age Against the Telcos!
    Heads Up! on an upcoming rally - Let me know if you or your
    organization would like to participate.
    Peace, Nancy/CODEPINK

    National Day of Out(r)age Against the Telcos!
    Wednesday May 24, 2006 4:00-6:00pm
    AT&T Building
    600 Folsom Street (Btwn 2nd & 3rd Sts.)
    San Francisco, CA

    Join Media Alliance, Access-SF Center, CODEPINK and others for a
    lively rally outside of the AT&T building where the National Security
    Agency (NSA) set up a secret spy room to collect phone calls.

    Recent news also has exposed the privacy violation of millions of
    telephone users by AT&T and Verizon who willingly handed over call
    records to the National Security Agency without proper legal
    warrants. AT&T has also been in the news about it's collusion with
    the NSA to install computers to track the internet traffic on their
    Worldnet backbone. Now these same corporation want even more access
    to homes throughout the country with their fiber networks. We demand
    accountability and
    better protections!

    If you'd like to participate in a fun & creative action outside of
    AT&T Ballpark on Weds. May 24th at 11:30am-12:30pm contact Jeff
    jeffp123@gmail.com

    For more info. contact Nancy codepinkbayarea at riseup.net

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

    Please circulate!

    Break the Silence Mural Project and Members of the JIP Culture
    Committee Invite you to attend:

    CLOSING PARTY for
    HOPE UNDER SIEGE
    a collaborative photo exhibition depicting the Israeli
    occupation of Palestinian land and people.
    Friday, MAY 26, 6-9 PM
    Michelle O'Connor Gallery
    2111 Mission Street @ 17th St. in San Francisco
    Admission is FREE (Donations welcome).

    Refreshments, Spoken Word, Music, Break the Silence Presentation
    Documentary photographers Aisha Mershani and Lisa Nessan capture
    resistance to Israeli occupation and current life in Palestine. The
    images in this diverse collection of photographs taken between 2002
    and 2006 go beyond the headlines of the mainstream media toward
    a deeper understanding of reality on-the-ground in West Bank,
    Palestine.

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

    Please join CODEPINK Women for Peace and Ti Couz Restaurant
    for A Celebration of Resistance
    Friday May 26, 2006 7:00-11:00pm
    Ti Couz Too
    3108 16th Street (@ Valencia Street)
    San Francisco, CA 94103

    Vive Le Resistance!

    Join us for an evening of food, drinks, music and dancing as we
    honor those Bay Area residents who have led the way of resistance
    on different fronts.

    with
    Medea Benjamin, Co-founder of Global Exchange and
    CODEPINK Women for Peace

    Music by Los Nadies along with traditional Mexican dancers.

    Evening Recognitions

    Hunger Strikers' for Immigrant Rights, a broad Bay Area Coalition
    launched a seven-day hunger strike at the U.S. Federal Building
    in San Francisco to protest the Anti-Immigrant Specter Bill
    pending in Congress. They are calling for fair and just
    immigration reform, and denouncing Senator Arlen Specter's
    bill that designates all undocumented immigrants as
    aggravated felons.

    San Francisco State University 10, Ten SFSU students protested
    military recruitment at the university's career fair. Campus
    police interrupted their protest and physically took the
    students from the school's gymnasium where they were
    protesting. The police then notified the students that they
    were banned from campus. They were protesting the military's
    recruiting of university students into careers that would foster
    death, destruction and injustice.

    Clarence Thomas, is a long-time labor activist who has worked
    consistently on a number of international issues. He travelled
    to Iraq with a delegation from U.S. Labor Against the War.
    He is the national co-chair of the Million Worker March
    Movement and a member of International Longshore and
    Warehouse Union, Local 10.

    Elizabeth "Betita" Martinez, A long-time activist, author and
    educator, Martinez has published six books and many articles
    on social justice movements in the Americas. Best known
    is her bilingual volume 500 Years of Chicano History in
    Pictures, which became the basis for a video she co-directed.
    In 1997 she co-founded and currently directs the Institute
    for MultiRacial Justice in San Francisco, and was one of
    a 1000 women nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize in 2005.

    Additional honorees TBA

    Space is limited so please RSVP now to Nancy Mancias at
    codepinkbayarea@riseup.net

    A request for donations of $10.00-100.00 sliding scale
    will be made to Esteklal! Independence for Iraq! ad campaign.

    With your help, we are sending a message of sorrow, friendship
    and peace directly to the women of Iraq and their families
    by challenging the free press in Iraq to print an advertisement
    calling on people of both nations to work together to end the
    occupation. www. esteklal.org

    Special thanks to Sylvie Le Mer and Ti Couz staff.

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

    PUSH FOR PEACE
    MEMORIAL DAY KICKOFF
    MONDAY, MAY 29, 2006
    GOLDEN GATE PARK, S.F.
    (Exact location to be announced.)

    Welcome to the Official Push for Peace Site!
    http://www.pushforpeace.us/civic/index.php?q

    The Push For Peace movement is geared to combine the efforts of
    able-bodied activists to those with special needs or challenges,
    so that all people can participate and be counted.

    The Push for Peace logo shows a Navy veteran in a wheelchair
    with a peace sign on the wheel, with people marching behind
    him. It can be seen at:

    http://www.pushforpeace.us/civic/index.php?q=node/71

    Just in case we don't get to modify the map before the weekend,
    I'll just name our proposed stops. We start, of course with Golden
    Gate Park, from there we head south to Los Angeles. Turning
    east we move to Phoenix, then on to Albuquerque. Now it's
    north to Denver, and east to St Louis. North again to Chicago,
    and east to Detroit. Continue east to Cleveland, and then NYC
    if all goes well Central Park (Imagine), culminating at the gates
    of the White House on July 4, 2006

    Push For Peace is a collective of veterans, progressive activists,
    and everyday citizens working together through education,
    motivation, and truth to bring America's troops home from the
    war in Iraq and to help bring healing and peace to our nation.
    The Push For Peace movement is geared to combine the efforts
    of able-bodied activists to those with special needs or challenges,
    so that all people can participate and be counted. The Push
    For Peace effort will include organized rallies and marches,
    as well as appearances and performances by high-profile
    speakers and entertainers, to rally the American people and
    show them we stand united with our fellow citizen and soldier.
    It is our goal to grow the base of participants each day resulting
    in a cross-country Push culminating at the gates of the White
    House on July 4, 2006. Events will be scheduled across the
    country leading up to the big Push in July. So keep checking
    the Push calendar for events near you. Mapping it all out...
    [Website shows map of stops in US en route to DC on July 4, 2006...bw]

    This is a tentative and unfinished P4P route and is only a work in progress.
    The Push is set to leave Golden Gate Park on Memorial Day 2006 (currently
    working on permits) and then we will Push our way across the country
    to arrive in DC across from the White House gathering at Lafayette Park
    (currently working on permits) on July 4th, 2006. Golden Gate Park,
    San Francisco, California Las Vegas Nevada Phoenix, Arizona Denver,
    Colorado Crawford, Texas New Orleans, Louisiana more states pending...
    Pushing real Democracy! http://www.pushforpeace.us/civic/index.php?q=

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

    Fourth Annual International Al-Awda Convention
    San Francisco - July 14-16, 2006
    To register: http://al-awda.org/sf-conv_reserve.html
    To flyer, the writing is on the wall: http://al-awda.org/pdf/flyer.pdf
    For all other info: http://al-awda.org

    ---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*--------
    GENERAL ANNOUNCEMENTS
    ---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*--------

    REMINDER TO ALL GROUPS: BE SURE AND POST ALL ACTIONS AND
    EVENTS TO WWW.INDYBAY.ORG TO REACH THE MOST PEOPLE
    AGAINST THE WAR IN THE BAY AREA!
    http://www.indybay.org

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

    FYI
    According to "Minimum Wage History" at
    http://oregonstate.edu/instruct/anth484/minwage.html "

    "Calculated in real 2005 dollars, the 1968 minimum wage was the
    highest at $9.12. "The 8 dollar per hour Whole Foods employees
    are being paid $1.12 less than the 1968 minimum wage.

    "A federal minimum wage was first set in 1938. The graph shows
    both nominal (red) and real (blue) minimum wage values. Nominal
    values range from 25 cents per hour in 1938 to the current $5.15/hr.
    The greatest percentage jump in the minimum wage was in 1950,
    when it nearly doubled. The graph adjusts these wages to 2005
    dollars (blue line) to show the real value of the minimum wage.
    Calculated in real 2005 dollars, the 1968 minimum wage was the
    highest at $9.12. Note how the real dollar minimum wage rises and
    falls. This is because it gets periodically adjusted by Congress.
    The period 1997-2006, is the longest period during which the
    minimum wage has not been adjusted. States have departed from
    the federal minimum wage. Washington has the highest minimum
    wage in the country at $7.63 as of January 1, 2006. Oregon is next
    at $7.50. Cities, too, have set minimum wages. Santa Fe, New
    Mexico has a minimum wage of $9.50, which is more than double
    the state minimum wage at $4.35."

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

    PRESERVE INTERNET NETWORK NEUTRALITY

    Hi,
    I can't imagine that you haven't seen this, but if you
    haven't, please sign the petition to keep our access.
    Everything we do online will be hurt if Congress
    passes a radical law next week that gives giant
    corporations more control over what we do and see on
    the Internet.

    Internet providers like AT&T are lobbying Congress
    hard to gut Network Neutrality--the Internet's First
    Amendment and the key to Internet freedom. Right now,
    Net Neutrality prevents AT&T from choosing which
    websites open most easily for you based on which site
    pays AT&T more. BarnesandNoble.com doesn't have to
    outbid Amazon for the right to work properly on your
    computer.

    If Net Neutrality is gutted, many sites--including
    Google, eBay, and iTunes--must either pay protection
    money to companies like AT&T or risk having their
    websites process slowly. That why these high-tech
    pioneers, plus diverse groups ranging from MoveOn to
    Gun Owners of America, are opposing Congress' effort
    to gut Internet freedom.

    So please! sign this petition telling your member of
    Congress to preserve Internet freedom? Click here:

    http://www.civic.moveon.org/save_the_internet?track_referer=706%7C1152463-5QFocRE05wmGUuh8yAMSzg

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

    Flash Film: Ides of March
    http://isahaqi.chris-floyd.com/

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

    NO BORDERS! NO WALLS! NO FENCES! GENERAL AMNESTY FOR ALL!
    OUR HOMELAND IS WHERE WE LIVE!

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

    REPEAL THE NO CHILD LEFT BEHIND ACT IN 2007!
    Check out: 10 EXCELLENT REASONS NOT TO JOIN THE MILITARY
    http://www.10reasonsbook.com/
    Public Law print of PL 107-110, the No Child Left Behind
    Act of 2001 [1.8 MB]
    http://www.ed.gov/policy/elsec/leg/esea02/index.html
    Also, the law is up before Congress again in 2007.
    See this article from USA Today:
    Bipartisan panel to study No Child Left Behind
    By Greg Toppo, USA TODAY
    February 13, 2006
    http://www.usatoday.com/news/education/2006-02-13-education-panel_x.htm

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

    TELL BUSH AND CONGRESS: STOP THE WAR
    ON IRAN BEFORE IT STARTS!
    Please join the online campaign to
    STOP THE WAR ON IRAN BEFORE IT STARTS!
    YOUR EMERGENCY ACTION IS NEEDED NOW!
    Send emails to President Bush, Vice President
    Cheney, Secretary of State Rice, U.N. Secretary-
    General Annan, Congressional leaders and
    the media demanding NO WAR ON IRAN!
    http://stopwaroniran.org/

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

    WHY WE FIGHT
    A film by Eugene Jarecki
    [Check out the trailer about this new film.
    This looks like a very powerful film.]
    http://www.sonyclassics.com/whywefight/

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

    The Declaration of Independence of the Thirteen Colonies
    http://www.law.indiana.edu/uslawdocs/declaration.html
    http://www.law.ou.edu/hist/decind.html
    http://www.usconstitution.net/declar.html
    http://www.indybay.org/news/2006/02/1805195.php

    Bill of Rights
    http://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/constitution.billofrights.html
    http://www.indybay.org/news/2006/02/1805182.php

    ---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*--------
    ARTICLES IN FULL:
    ---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*--------

    1) Waking A Sleeping Giant
    From : Airline Workers New Service
    Date : Tue, May 16, 2006 09:05 AM
    awns@bubbles.com

    2) A City's Changing Face
    Wealth, Race Guiding Which New Orleanians Stay, and Which Never Return
    By Blaine Harden
    Washington Post Staff Writer
    Wednesday, May 17, 2006; A01
    http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/16/AR2006051601595.html?sub=AR

    3) Cruel and unusual punishment
    Homelessness was recently put on trial in California.
    It was found not guilty.
    Bay Guardian OpEd
    by Tommi Avicolli Mecca

    4) Latinos enlisting in record numbers
    Despite opposition to the Iraq war, pride motivates many
    to sign up for military duty
    "Mayorga enlisted to take advantage of President Bush's decision
    after Sept. 11 to speed the citizenship process for green card
    holders who enlist. "The first reason is for citizenship," Mayorga
    said flatly. "I don't have a second or third reason," he said."
    - Justin Berton, Chronicle Staff Writer
    Monday, May 15, 2006
    http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2006/05/15/MNGE4IRVTN1.DTL

    5) Celebration of GI Resistance
    Shuts Oakland Military Recruiting Station
    by Jeff Paterson, Not in Our Name Tuesday, May. 16, 2006 at 1:12 PM
    jeff@paterson.net
    Oakland, California (May 15, 2006) -- 100 people shut down
    Oakland military recruiting station to celebrate GI resistance
    to immoral war and occupation.
    http://www.indybay.org/news/2006/05/1823560.php

    6) U.S. reserves nearly 'broken,' says chief
    Iraq, Afghan conflicts sap military resources
    Reuters
    Updated: 8:28 a.m. ET Jan. 6, 2005
    http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6790738/

    7) Standing Up to Repression and Fear:
    The Real "War on Terror"
    10 SFSU students face discipline for counter-
    recruitment protest
    By Karen Knoller
    May 14th, 2006

    8) Senate Continues to Work on Immigration Bill
    By CARL HULSE and JIM RUTENBERG
    May 18, 2006
    http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/18/washington/18cnd-immig.html?hp&ex=1148011200&en=a1054fb2fa46ad96&ei=5094&partner=homepage

    9) Coming Down to Earth
    By PAUL KRUGMAN
    May 19, 2006
    http://select.nytimes.com/2006/05/19/opinion/19krugman.html?hp

    10) Ground Workers Reach Deal With Northwest
    By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
    Filed at 10:43 a.m. ET
    May 19, 2006
    http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/business/AP-Northwest-Labor.html

    11) Mexico to Protest U.S. Border Plan
    By REUTERS
    May 19, 2006
    http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/19/world/americas/19mexico.html

    12) Ecuador Cancels an Oil Deal With Occidental Petroleum
    By REUTERS
    May 17, 2006
    http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/17/business/worldbusiness/17oil.html

    13) Japanese Cars, American Retirees
    Japanese companies face little of this burden in Japan, where
    the government covers retirees' health care and pays a bigger
    share of workers' pensions.
    By EDUARDO PORTER
    May 19, 2006
    http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/19/automobiles/19auto.html

    14) Autopsy Finds That Soldier Under Army Medical Care Died
    From Painkiller Overdose (Fort Sill...bw)
    By RALPH BLUMENTHAL
    May 19, 2006
    http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/19/us/19training.html

    15) Gambling on a Weaker Dollar
    New York Times Editorial
    May 20, 2006
    http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/20/opinion/20sat1.html?hp

    16) At Unforgiving Arizona-Mexico Border,
    Tide of Desperation Is Overwhelming
    By GINGER THOMPSON
    May 21, 2006
    http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/21/us/21border.html?hp&ex=1148184000&en=a319e1a5cf6dae63&ei=5094&partner=homepage

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

    1) Waking A Sleeping Giant
    From : Airline Workers New Service
    Date : Tue, May 16, 2006 09:05 AM
    awns@bubbles.com

    Members of the International Association of Machinists have exploded onto
    the scene as a result of Northwest Airlines' unwillingness to bargain in
    good faith after union baggage handlers and stock clerks rejected a
    proposed contract. On Sunday, May 14, at NWA's Minneapolis hub,
    eyewitnesses said approximately 400 union members gathered at gate C-11 for
    a ramp rally. Negotiators for the Company were on board an aircraft at that
    gate, bound for New York. They were going to present arguments in
    bankruptcy court to abrogate baggage handlers and stock clerks union
    contracts. Workers used the sides of baggage carts to write messages in
    chalk to the negotiators, who were seen looking out aircraft windows. Among
    the messages were- "We have given enough." "We are united." "190 million?
    No way!"

    Workers had driven their equipment to the gate, creating a sea of vehicles.
    As the aircraft pushed back from the gate workers walked with it, gathering
    nearby as it reached the taxi way. Some workers turned their pockets inside
    out, indicating to the negotiators they had no more to give. One baggage
    handler explained that he had not seen this kind of unity in years. "
    People around here have not had much to smile about lately, but realizing
    you do have power made me smile for the rest of the day. I think we are
    onto something.", he said. One hour earlier a group of about 100 workers
    had escorted out another flight with company representatives on it. At both
    events managers had sought unsuccessfully to send workers away.

    The following day, Monday, Northwest attempted to discipline several
    workers who they say had been at the ramp rally. When ground crews learned
    of this, over 100 of them gathered outside the site of the Company
    investigation to protest management's action. After several minutes the
    investigation was canceled. Also on Monday, Northwest union stock clerks
    gathered at a "prayer meeting" to show unity. They later joined several
    dozen baggage handlers at Northwest Company Headquarters in Eagan,
    Minnesota to show their dissatisfaction with company contract demands. Many
    workers reported they will not accept any contract which does not contain
    substantial improvements over the Company's last offer. " We will be
    looking to hook up with our fellow union members throughout the system and
    with the flight attendants so we can strengthen our fight." said one long
    time baggage handler.

    Airline Workers News Service is maintained by a group of airline industry
    workers. Our aim is to seek out and report on information about the state
    of our industry and what workers are doing to fight back against some of
    the biggest attacks by the airlines in decades. Please share this with your
    coworkers. If you know of others who would like to receive these mailings,
    please forward their email addresses to awns@bubbles.com. Thank you.

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

    2) A City's Changing Face
    Wealth, Race Guiding Which New Orleanians Stay, and Which Never Return
    By Blaine Harden
    Washington Post Staff Writer
    Wednesday, May 17, 2006; A01
    http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/16/AR2006051601595.html?sub=AR

    NEW ORLEANS -- Block by block, this city is springing back to life.
    Block by block, it is receding into the past tense.

    With Hurricane Katrina nearly nine months gone and about 60
    percent of New Orleans's pre-storm population still somewhere
    else, the rebirth and the wasting away are closely tracking
    neighborhood patterns of race and poverty.

    Disparities in wealth and in the distance of evacuees from
    their ruined houses are dictating, in many cases, which
    neighborhoods will be part of the city's future and which
    will be consigned to its history. For a city that was two-
    thirds black and nearly one-third poor before the storm,
    the uneven pilgrimage back to New Orleans has already
    changed voter turnout and seems certain to transform
    the culture and character of the city, making it substantially
    whiter, richer and less populous than before.

    This article, part of an occasional series about two severely
    flooded streets in the city, examines an affluent white and
    a poor black neighborhood that appear to have reached
    their tipping points.

    That point has clearly arrived for the 6500 block of Memphis
    Street in Lakeview, a white neighborhood hit hard by Katrina.
    It is roaring back to middle-class life, and most owners on
    the block have committed to coming home.

    Landscapers are rolling out sod for new lawns. Granite
    countertops and commercial-grade stainless-steel stoves
    are being installed in rebuilt kitchens. There is electricity,
    water, gas, mail service, newspaper delivery and garbage pickup.
    Two neighborhood banks are up and lending. A post-Katrina
    restaurant, Touché, serves breakfast and lunch. Two blocks
    away, St. Dominic Catholic church has been refurbished and
    is open each morning for Mass.

    "Every day and every week is better, and people need to know
    that," said Bea Quaintance. With the help of a trailer from the
    Federal Emergency Management Agency that is parked in her
    front yard, she and her husband, Gary, and their son, Steven,
    were the first family back on Memphis Street. "I think this country
    has done a wonderful job of providing for us."

    Across town, in a 98-percent-black, mostly working-class
    neighborhood that was also wrecked by the storm, the 2500
    block of Delery Street has tipped the other way.

    Like much of the Lower Ninth Ward, the block is empty and
    silent, with no electricity, no drinkable water, no gas, no FEMA
    trailers and no signs of rebuilding on a street where many families
    owned their homes for generations.

    No nearby churches, banks or restaurants are open, and no one,
    not even organizers from groups demanding the reconstruction
    of the Lower Ninth, seems to have a list of residents with firm plans
    to come home. Throughout the spring, bodies were found
    in neighborhood houses.

    A sign in the window of Daphne Jones's brick house at 2531 Delery
    declares: "No Bulldozing. We Are Coming Home." But Jones concedes
    that the sign is more wish than pledge.

    College students on spring break gutted her house free of charge
    in April, but she says she does not have enough money to rebuild.
    She has been trying for months to contact and mobilize her neighbors,
    dropping "Rebuilding Our Own Neighborhood" fliers in their abandoned
    houses. But such fervent, low-tech efforts have not worked.

    "A lot of them are far away, and they don't know what is going on,"
    said Jones, 55, whose two grown daughters and entire extended family
    have fled the Lower Ninth, mostly for Georgia. She evacuated to
    a shelter in Hammond, La., filtered back to New Orleans at the
    beginning of the year, and lives now with a disabled friend in
    a FEMA trailer across town. The lack of progress in re-creating
    her old neighborhood leaves her baffled and sad.

    "If the levees are being rebuilt stronger than before, why can't
    we rebuild here?" she said. "It feels strange to me."

    To Return or Not?
    After fleeing the storm, black residents, especially poor ones
    from the Lower Ninth Ward and the city's public housing projects,
    were much more likely than whites to end up living far out of
    town, according to city, state and federal studies. After long
    bus rides, many ended up in cities such as Houston and Atlanta.

    For these African Americans, generations-old networks of kinfolk,
    church folk and friends have been obliterated or transplanted
    to another state where distance and the cost of travel undermine
    their ability to come home, even for short visits.

    Middle-class whites fled in their own cars and tended not to
    go so far, according to the studies. Many of them rented apartments,
    bought houses, or moved in with friends or relatives in the mostly
    white suburbs that developed as whites fled school integration.
    These New Orleanians have remained close enough to get building
    permits, deal with insurance agents, hire contractors and bird-dog
    the reconstruction of their houses.

    "The people from Lakeview are not poor," said the Rev. Donald
    Dvorak, pastor at St. Dominic, the largest church in Lakeview, which
    is 94 percent white. "They all had the means to leave on their own
    terms and a place to go -- and the means to come back. That is
    the difference between us and the Lower Ninth Ward."

    Out of 23 houses on the 6500 block of Memphis Street, three have
    been refurbished and are occupied. Owners of 10 others have firm
    plans to demolish and rebuild. Architects are finishing drawings
    for new and -- in some cases -- larger houses.

    The block is a work in progress. Three houses are for sale, and
    seven owners have yet to decide whether they are coming home.
    The neighborhood's storm-drainage system is damaged and clogs
    up after heavy rain -- a worrisome reminder of what could happen
    when the hurricane season starts next month.

    Still, the momentum of return now seems unstoppable.

    "It's not a wager, it's a sure thing," said John Pippenger, an
    accountant and deacon at St. Dominic. He and his wife, Linda,
    bought a house on Memphis Street early this year to replace
    one that Katrina destroyed a few blocks away.

    There is a large bulletin board in the back of St. Dominic
    church with a computer-generated map of Lakeview. It shows
    that more than 1,400 families have pledged to come home.
    Every Sunday after Mass, worshipers wander back to the map
    and the pledge list grows longer.

    A Toll on the Polls
    The post-storm difference between the Lower Ninth and Lakeview
    was starkly quantified by voter turnout in the first election since
    Katrina, a mayoral primary held April 22.

    Despite months of national publicity and an intensive effort
    to encourage out-of-town voting, turnout in the Lower Ninth
    fell 40 percent compared with the 2002 mayoral election. In
    the precinct that includes the 2500 block of Delery, turnout
    was down 50 percent. The falloff was mirrored in other black
    districts across the city.

    In Lakeview, where most houses are also still empty, turnout
    dipped by only 6 percent. On the day of the primary, the
    neighborhood's polling center at St. Dominic became the site
    of a joyous homecoming party -- as cars rolled in all day long
    from the suburbs. In the precinct that includes the 6500 block
    of Memphis, turnout increased as it did in undamaged, mostly
    white neighborhoods such as the French Quarter and the
    Garden District.

    Election results -- and the results of a mayoral runoff on Saturday
    -- will "have a big effect on what neighborhood voices are heard
    by city politicians," predicted John R. Logan, a sociology professor
    at Brown University who has begun a long-term study of demographic
    change in post-Katrina New Orleans.

    "Lakeview is going to be an increasingly important political
    constituency in the future," he said. "And the Lower Ninth is almost
    certainly going to have less clout in coming years, and that really
    puts its future on the line."

    The prospect of increased political power is an enticement drawing
    homeowners back to Lakeview, said Dvorak of St. Dominic. There
    is a growing certainty among returnees to the neighborhood, he
    said, that they will shape the future of New Orleans.

    Waiting in the Suburbs
    "When people don't vote, you lose your right to complain about
    services," said Ron Martinez, an architect who expects to move
    back with his family to Memphis Street by the end of the summer.

    Ever since the storm, Martinez has been saying that race relations
    are as great a problem for New Orleans as hurricanes. But he says
    he can do little to redress the imbalances that have been worsened
    by Katrina. He and his wife, Cathy, have been preoccupied with the
    cost and complexities of finding a way to bring their own family
    back to New Orleans.

    After the storm, they agonized about the financial sense and
    physical risks of returning to Memphis Street. It is below sea
    level (lower by five feet, in fact, than the Lower Ninth Ward) and
    just half a mile from where a levee breached along the 17th
    Street Canal, flooding Lakeview.

    They opted last October for a holding pattern in the suburbs,
    buying a house in Destrehan, a 40-minute drive west of New
    Orleans. Since then, Ron has been commuting to his office in the
    Garden District. Their children, Evan, 12, and Marcelle, 11,
    commute to St. Dominic's School, in its temporary location
    about two miles from Lakeview. Ron usually takes the children
    in and Cathy drives them home.

    On the first day of spring, they decided enough was enough.
    They took a financial leap that will soon take them back to
    Lakeview. They bought another house on Memphis Street and
    will use it as a base while fixing up their larger house on that
    street. They have not yet sold their house in the suburbs.
    "We weren't risk-takers before, but after Katrina, what the
    hell," Cathy Martinez said.

    The Martinezes said they are taking the risk because their block,
    their church and their neighbors are all up and running. They
    want to be part of it without driving in from the suburbs every
    day. And St. Dominic School is scheduled to reopen in August
    in Lakeview. The kids will need to walk only two blocks to get there.

    'Look and Leave'
    Until last week, the city had designated the entire Lower Ninth
    Ward as a "look and leave" area because city water tested unsafe
    for drinking. That order has now been lifted, but only for about
    half of the neighborhood.

    There is another post-storm fact of life that is even more
    maddening to former neighborhood residents. Just two blocks
    to the east of Delery Street -- where New Orleans Parish ends
    and St. Bernard Parish starts -- homeowners have been back
    for months. Their houses and their neighborhoods were
    ravaged by floodwaters to the same terrible degree as the
    Lower Ninth, but they have electricity, drinkable water and
    FEMA trailers.

    Most of the residents across the parish line are white and,
    like many white residents of New Orleans, they tended not to
    have fled far from the metropolitan area. Many stayed with
    friends or relatives, and have exerted political pressure on
    officials in St. Bernard Parish to restore services to their ruined
    neighborhoods.

    "I am not a conspiracy person," said William Quigley, a professor
    at Loyola University Law School in New Orleans and director
    of its Gillis Long Poverty Law Center, "but it is pretty hard
    to argue with the facts on the ground. If you are black in the
    Lower Ninth and you don't have electricity, water or a FEMA
    trailer and nobody is giving you a timeline when you will,
    that is a hell of a lot of conspiracy dots to connect."

    City, state and federal officials have repeatedly said that they
    do indeed want residents of the Lower Ninth to come home
    and rebuild -- when the neighborhood is safe and when
    appropriate services are available.

    But nearly nine months of delays in making the Lower Ninth
    safe and appropriate -- as similarly flood-damaged white
    neighborhoods are provided with a full complement of city
    services -- strikes Quigley as unfair.

    "People in Lakeview have had the chance to decide whether
    to come home," he said. "People in the Lower Ninth have not
    yet had the choice. With every week that passes, it means they
    are less likely to come home. These delays are remaking the city."

    Anna Valdery and her husband, David Stirgus, would like
    to go home to Delery Street.

    They finally own their house, thanks to an $84,000 flood insurance
    payment that allowed them to pay off their mortgage and have
    $27,000 left over.

    The brick house, part of what had been a highly successful project
    for low-income, first-time home buyers, is seven years old and,
    unlike most houses in the Lower Ninth, appears structurally sound.

    But Stirgus, a retired truck driver, and his wife, a nursing-home
    aide, agree that returning is all but impossible. For one thing, their
    house on Delery is in the part of the Lower Ninth that remains closed
    to reconstruction. For another, they have only about $16,000 left
    in savings from the Katrina flood insurance settlement -- not nearly
    enough to rebuild their gutted house.

    They live now in a FEMA trailer parked in a row of 52 identical
    white trailers lined up along a gravel road in Gonzales, La., a small
    town about 50 miles west of New Orleans. They arrived there after
    a seven-month multi-state post-Katrina evacuation that took them
    by helicopter, bus and airplane to Texas, Arizona and California.

    In the past month, they have been back to New Orleans for a couple
    of short, depressing looks at their house and the moldering,
    abandoned neighborhood that surrounds it.

    "The feeling I got when I went back to Delery Street was: Leave
    it alone, forget about it, go someplace else," Stirgus said.

    Database editor Sarah Cohen in Washington contributed
    to this report.

    © 2006 The Washington Post Company

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    3) Cruel and unusual punishment
    Homelessness was recently put on trial in California.
    It was found not guilty.
    Bay Guardian OpEd
    by Tommi Avicolli Mecca

    Homelessness was recently put on trial in California.
    It was found not guilty.

    The US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit declared
    April 14 that the city of Los Angeles can't arrest
    those who have no choice but to sleep on its streets.
    It's a victory for those of us who believe that
    homelessness is not a crime, but a symptom of an
    unjust economic system.

    At issue in the LA case was a 37-year-old law
    prohibiting sitting, lying, and sleeping on the
    sidewalks. Six homeless folks brought the complaint in
    2003 with the aid of the ACLU and the National Lawyers
    Guild.

    In her ruling against the statute, Judge Kim McLane
    Wardlaw wrote: "Because there is substantial and
    undisputed evidence that the number of homeless
    persons in Los Angeles far exceeds the number of
    available shelter beds at all times," the city is
    guilty of criminalizing people who engage in "the
    unavoidable act of sitting, lying, or sleeping at
    night while being involuntarily homeless." She termed
    this criminalization "cruel and unusual" punishment, a
    violation of the Eighth Amendment to the US
    Constitution.

    Her enlightened opinion should guide public policy
    everywhere, especially here in San Francisco. In our
    "progressive" city, we have gay weddings at City Hall
    and an annual S-M street fair, yet our views on the
    homeless are as 19th century as the rest of the
    country's opinions on gay marriage and kinky sex. The
    majority of voting people here still favor the
    old-fashioned method of punishing the poor and the
    homeless. That's how Care Not Cash and our current
    antipanhandling measure managed to become law.

    According to Religious Witness with the Homeless, in
    the first 22 months of Mayor Gavin Newsom's
    administration, San Francisco police issued 1,860
    citations for panhandling and sleeping on the
    sidewalks, as well as 11,000 "quality of life"
    tickets. That's more than were issued under former
    mayor Willie Brown in a similar time period. How many
    officers did it take to issue those citations? How
    much money did it cost the city? What better things
    could San Francisco have done with the money to
    actually help those who were cited? How many of the
    people cited are now in permanent affordable housing
    with access to services they need to put their lives
    back together?

    Homelessness can't be eradicated with punitive
    measures. Addressing homelessness in America doesn't
    mean sweeping the poor out of sight of tourists or
    upscale neighbors. It doesn't mean taking away the
    possessions of homeless folks or fining people for
    sleeping in their cars. It means addressing the basic
    social inequities that create homelessness, among them
    low-paying jobs, the immorally high cost of housing,
    and the prohibitive price of health care.

    It means having drug and mental health treatment for
    those who need it when they need it.

    That's the real message behind Wardlaw's ruling.

    Tommi Avicolli Mecca is a radical, working-class,
    queer, southern Italian activist, performer, and writer.

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    4) Latinos enlisting in record numbers
    Despite opposition to the Iraq war, pride motivates many
    to sign up for military duty
    "Mayorga enlisted to take advantage of President Bush's decision
    after Sept. 11 to speed the citizenship process for green card
    holders who enlist. "The first reason is for citizenship," Mayorga
    said flatly. "I don't have a second or third reason," he said."
    - Justin Berton, Chronicle Staff Writer
    Monday, May 15, 2006
    http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2006/05/15/MNGE4IRVTN1.DTL

    Amalia Avila never supported the war. But after her first son, Victor
    Gonzalez, told her he wanted to join the Marines, she felt a mixture
    of fear, concern and, finally, pride.

    "This war makes no sense to me," Avila said last week in her
    Watsonville home. "I'd ask him why he wanted to go, and he'd just
    say his brothers needed his help. ... But when Victor did get into the
    Marines, when that day came, I was so proud of him."

    Avila paused to allow her tears. "It was a beautiful day."

    It was also one of the last days Avila saw her son. Gonzalez, 19,
    who was born in Salinas shortly after Avila arrived in the United
    States from Mexico, served a little more than a month in Anbar
    province before he was killed by a roadside mortar explosion
    in October 2003.

    The discord between Avila's unsettled feelings toward the war
    and her son's sacrifice reflects a growing paradox within the
    Latino community. A majority of Latinos believe the troops
    should come home as soon as possible, according to Pew
    Hispanic Center surveys, yet enlistment of Latinos has steadily
    risen in the past decade.

    According to the Department of Defense, in 2004, the most
    recent year of confirmed data, Latinos made up 13 percent
    of new recruits. This is an all-time high, nearly twice the
    percentage of 10 years earlier.

    Latinos' presence in the military still does not match their
    17 percent share of the overall population ages 18 to 24. And
    African Americans continue to be overrepresented in the military,
    making up about 18 percent of active duty personnel but only
    13 percent of the U.S. population. Nonetheless, the absolute
    number of Latinos entering the armed forces continues to grow.

    "The dichotomy is this," said Steven Ybarra, a member of the
    nonprofit political advocacy group Latinos for America, "on the
    one hand, our children view serving in the military as showing
    they are part of this community; while on the other, their
    grandparents and parents have seen this all before.

    "But within the Latino family unit," Ybarra added, "maybe more
    than others, there's a value system where the parents will look
    at their son and say, 'Hijo, you're a man now. You're going to
    do what you're going to do, and I will respect that' -- even
    if it means going to war."

    Historically, Latinos have been underrepresented in the military,
    said Beth Asch, a senior economist at the Rand National Defense
    Research Institute who has studied Latino recruitment trends.
    An informal theory held that the rising number of Latino
    enlistments during the 1990s and early part of this decade
    simply mirrored a rise in the group's overall population.

    "Their growth in population was fast," Asch said. "Their growth
    in the military was faster."

    Latinos accounted for about 17.5 percent of Americans ages
    18 to 24 in 2000, while 13.7 percent were African American,
    61.6 percent were non-Hispanic white and 4.1 percent were
    Asian American.

    The reasons Latinos are drawn to the military vary, Asch said.

    Carlos Montes, an organizer with Latinos Against the War in Los
    Angeles, cites a variety of reasons: aggressive recruiters who
    prey on youth; the enticement of skipping the usual five years
    that legal permanent residents must wait before applying for
    citizenship; the immigrant's desire to assimilate.

    "When you're young and naive you see a guy show up on
    campus, all dressed up, promising things you don't have,"
    Montes said. "That kind of influence, especially in the barrio,
    can be greater than even a parent's words."

    Curtis Gilroy, director of accession policy for the office of the
    secretary of defense, said that in a national youth poll conducted
    last year, Latinos ages 18-24 simply showed a "higher propensity
    to serve" than other ethnic groups.

    Gilroy said a full 25 percent of Latino respondents answered
    the question, "How likely is it that you'll be serving in the military
    in the next few years?" by marking the box "definitely" or
    "probably likely." Meanwhile, only 16 percent of African Americans
    and just 11 percent of whites showed the same interest.

    "We just don't know why that is," Gilroy said. "We don't try
    and get behind the numbers too much."

    On the ground in San Jose, Army recruiter Sgt. Brian Ditzler
    recently fashioned a theory behind the numbers. Ditzler, who
    was raised by his mother in Corozal, Puerto Rico, and speaks
    fluent Spanish, staffed a booth during the city's Cinco de Mayo
    festival. He said of the 22 recruits he enlisted last year,
    15 were Latino.

    "The remarkable thing that is consistent with Latinos is the
    sense of pride," Ditzler said. "More than any other group, they
    have a deep sense of pride about serving for this country."

    By comparison, Ditzler observed that his Asian American
    enlistees were more interested in job-training skills, while
    African Americans spoke of college tuition as the trade-off.
    Whites, the recruiter observed, were most intrigued by the
    "sense of adventure" the Army provided.

    "So, knowing that Latinos were focused more on pride," Ditzler
    added, "that's the thing I'm going to show them: how they can
    make themselves and their families proud."

    For more empirical evidence, researchers such as Asch are
    just now beginning to examine the results from field studies.
    Already consistent with Ditzler's observations, Asch said recent
    post-enlistment surveys indicate Latinos noted "patriotism"
    and "service to country" as the top two reasons for joining,
    as well as "duty" and "honor."

    Still, according to a Department of Defense poll conducted
    last year that was aimed at tracking the influences that lead
    a civilian to enlist, Latino parents were more likely than their
    African American counterparts to recommend military service
    to their children as a way to fight the war on terrorism.

    "It's a conundrum, for sure," Asch said of the results.

    When Orlando Mayorga, a 24-year-old in Antioch, told his
    mother he wanted to join the Army, he said she was happy for
    him. Mayorga, who is still awaiting a call for active duty, makes
    his living cleaning buildings in the East Bay. Born in Nicaragua,
    he migrated to the United States and obtained an alien resident
    card as a teenager, he said.

    Mayorga enlisted to take advantage of President Bush's decision
    after Sept. 11 to speed the citizenship process for green card
    holders who enlist. "The first reason is for citizenship," Mayorga
    said flatly. "I don't have a second or third reason," he said.

    Mayorga's father and three brothers still live in their native
    Nicaragua, and a sister lives in Costa Rica, he said. After his
    four-year service, Mayorga will be awarded full citizenship.
    If he dies while in the Army, citizenship is awarded
    posthumously.

    Despite the risk, Mayorga said family discussions about his
    enlistment have focused only on what he stands to gain. Even
    though he signed up to obtain citizenship, his family is proud
    of his choice.

    "My grandfather is proud that I'll be serving," Mayorga said.
    "My mother is, my father is. My whole family is."

    Fernando Suarez del Solar, whose son, Marine Lance Cpl. Jesus
    Suarez, was killed in Iraq in 2003, said he felt a reluctance to
    discuss the casualty risk with his son, who had been a citizen
    since he was 15.

    Suarez said Jesus enlisted only after a recruiter told him a year's
    commitment in the Marines would lead to a job as a Drug
    Enforcement Administration agent. Since his son's death, Suarez
    has become a counter-recruitment activist and recently participated
    in the immigration protests in Los Angeles. The combination
    of the rising Latino death toll, Suarez said, and the recent
    proposed immigration legislation has only stirred more
    contentious feelings within him.

    "I feel it twice," Suarez said. "First it's: 'My son served this country
    in the military and died,' and now: 'They're attacking the parents
    with this legislation.' On one end of the school campus, they want
    our sons to enlist. On the other, they want us out of the country.

    "When my son told me he wanted to join, I said, 'No, no, no!' "
    Suarez added. "I never believed in this war, but I believed in him."

    Of the more than 2,400 U.S. casualties in Iraq since 2003,
    270 have been Latino, according to the Department of Defense.

    Jesse Martinez, 19, was killed after his vehicle crashed in Tal Afar,
    Iraq, in 2004. Jan Martinez described her son as a couch potato
    before he joined, the kind of teenager who, "didn't have a smile
    on his face most of the time."

    As they watched the events of Sept. 11 on television from their
    Tracy home, mother and son had different responses.

    Martinez said she sensed a war was coming. She did not favor it,
    she said, nor could she disagree with the action, either. Her son,
    meanwhile, felt compelled to join the Marines.

    "I asked him to wait a little while," she recalled. "I asked him to
    let things blow over, because I knew things could get worse.

    "But once he signed up, he started smiling. He felt good about
    himself. It gave him a sense of purpose."

    After her son's death, Martinez said she still felt ambivalent
    about the war.

    "There are good things and bad things that have come from
    this," she said. "One of the bad things is that kids die.
    ... But you still got to be proud of them."

    E-mail Justin Berton at jberton@sfchronicle.com.

    Page A - 1
    URL: http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2006/05/15/MNGE4IRVTN1.DTL

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    5) Celebration of GI Resistance
    Shuts Oakland Military Recruiting Station
    by Jeff Paterson, Not in Our Name Tuesday, May. 16, 2006 at 1:12 PM
    jeff@paterson.net
    Oakland, California (May 15, 2006) -- 100 people shut down
    Oakland military recruiting station to celebrate GI resistance
    to immoral war and occupation.
    http://www.indybay.org/news/2006/05/1823560.php

    Oakland, California (May 15, 2006) -- 100 people marched this
    afternoon from Oakland City Center to the nearby military recruiting
    station to celebrate GI resistance to immoral war and occupation.
    Behind a colorful banner for “International Conscientious Objector Day”,
    and under a giant peace dove, drummers led the procession
    of high school students, senior citizens, musicians, artists, and
    community members north on Broadway. At the recruiting station,
    large posters were unrolled and pasted over the station’s windows
    to better inform potential recruits of the realities of military service.

    Earlier in the day a delegation of Bay Area community members met
    with a representative of the Canadian consulate to press the case
    for safe haven for the scores of US military service members now
    in Canada resisting the ongoing Iraq War.

    The initial march and rally was organized by Courage to Resist
    and the Central Committee for Conscientious Objectors, with the
    help of Not in Our Name, Grandmothers Against the War, CodePink,
    International Capoeira Angola Foundation Oakland, Not Your Soldier,
    Act Against Torture, and the Heads Up Collective.

    www.couragetoresist.org

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    6) U.S. reserves nearly 'broken,' says chief
    Iraq, Afghan conflicts sap military resources
    Reuters
    Updated: 8:28 a.m. ET Jan. 6, 2005
    http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6790738/

    WASHINGTON - The U.S. Army Reserve, tapped heavily to provide
    soldiers for wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, is “degenerating into a
    ‘broken’ force” due to dysfunctional military policies, the Army
    Reserve’s chief said in a memo made public Wednesday.

    “I do not wish to sound alarmist. I do wish to send a clear, distinctive
    signal of deepening concern,” Lt. Gen. James Helmly said in
    a Dec. 20 memo to Army Chief of Staff Gen. Peter Schoomaker.

    The Army Reserve is a force of 200,000 part-time soldiers who
    opted not to sign up for the active-duty Army but can be mobilized
    from their civilian lives in times of national need. About 52,000
    Army Reserve soldiers are on active duty, with 17,000 in Iraq and
    2,000 in Afghanistan, the Army said.

    The Army Reserve has provided many military police, civil affairs
    soldiers, medics and truck drivers for the wars.

    “While ability to meet the current demands associated with OIF
    (Operational Iraqi Freedom) and OEF (Operation Enduring Freedom
    in Afghanistan) is of great importance, the Army Reserve is
    additionally in grave danger of being unable to meet other
    operational requirements including those in named OPLANS
    (operational plans) and CONUS (continental United States)
    emergencies, and is rapidly degenerating into a 'broken’ force,”
    Helmly wrote.

    Helmly said military leaders had rebuffed his proposals for
    change. The memo’s purpose was to inform Schoomaker
    of the Army Reserve’s “inability — under current policies,
    procedures and practices governing mobilization, training
    and reserve component manpower management — to meet
    mission requirements” for the two wars, Helmly wrote.

    'Dysfunctional practices’
    In his eight-page memo, first disclosed by the Baltimore Sun,
    Helmly titled one section “US Army Reserve Readiness Discussion,
    Past Dysfunctional Practices/Policies.”

    The Pentagon, maintaining higher-than-expected troop levels
    after failing to anticipate that a bloody guerrilla war would follow
    Iraqi President Saddam Hussein’s ouster in 2003, has relied heavily
    on Army Reserve and Army National Guard soldiers. These part-
    time troops comprise about 40 percent of the U.S. force in Iraq.

    Some reservists and families have complained about frequent
    and lengthy tours in war zones, inferior equipment and scant
    notice before being pressed into service.

    Helmly’s remarks gave fuel to critics of Defense Secretary Donald
    Rumsfeld who argue that his policies and his resistance to a large
    increase in the active-duty Army are harming the all-volunteer military.

    Democratic Sen. Jack Reed of Rhode Island called the memo ”deeply
    disturbing,” adding: “By consistently underestimating the number
    of troops necessary for the successful occupation of Iraq, the
    administration has placed a tremendous burden on the Army
    Reserve and created this crisis.”

    Volunteer versus mercenary
    Helmly referred to “potential ‘sociological’ damage” to the all-volunteer
    military by paying inducements of $1,000 extra per month to reservists
    who volunteer to remobilize.

    “We must consider the point at which we confuse ’volunteer to become
    an American Soldier’ with ' mercenary,”’ Helmly said.

    Helmly said Pentagon reluctance to issue orders calling reservists
    to active duty “in a timely manner” resulted in more than 10,000
    reserve soldiers getting as little as three to five days notice before
    being compelled back into uniform.

    A senior Army official said Schoomaker and Army Secretary Francis
    Harvey were reviewing the memo. “Changes are expected over time,
    and the Army is already working these issues. The memo just brings
    it to the forefront,” the official said.

    Copyright 2006 Reuters
    © 2006 MSNBC.com

    URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6790738/

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    7) Standing Up to Repression and Fear:
    The Real "War on Terror"
    10 SFSU students face discipline for counter-
    recruitment protest
    By Karen Knoller
    May 14th, 2006

    The San Francisco State University
    administration is stepping up its attack on student
    anti-war activists. The university‚s office of
    judicial affairs has targeted 10 individuals in an
    attempt to intimidate, divide, and stifle student
    protests on campus. The 10 students have each received
    letters requesting confidential meetings to discuss
    and „investigate‰ a complaint filed by the Chief of
    Public Safety regarding a counter-recruitment protest
    the students participated in on April 14th.
    That day, students gathered at the
    school‚s career fair to protest the presence of
    military recruiters and the war in the Iraq that has
    viciously claimed the lives of over 2,400 U.S.
    soldiers and over 100,000 Iraqis. Their activities
    included questioning recruiters and talking to
    potential recruits, distributing anti-war literature,
    and chanting while holding up signs. The students were
    loud but peaceful. Soon after the chanting begun, ten
    protestors were suddenly, and without warning
    confronted by a wall of policemen who forcibly removed
    the students from the fair and cited them for
    „disrupting university activity.‰ The citation,
    sanctioned by university president Robert Corrigan,
    barred them from campus for two weeks and threatened
    the activists with immediate arrest and a fine if they
    returned within that period. Three of the students
    live on campus and were in effect made homeless as a
    result of the citation
    It is important to note exactly what these
    students were protesting. SFSU allowed the military on
    campus, a discriminatory apparatus of war and
    exploitation that attempts to recruit students with
    false promises of job training, education, and
    benefits. They coerce young people to go senselessly
    kill and be killed in an imperialistic war for profit
    and the domination of resources. By allowing military
    recruiters on campus, the SFSU administration is
    complicit, and an active participant in the war
    machine.
    As the war rages on, students on campuses
    all around the country are standing up and then
    getting smacked down by their university
    administrations who want to maintain business as usual
    as the U.S. military destroys and ravages Iraq while
    threatening to spread the war to Iran. Bodies are
    piling up as the military grows more and more
    desperate to fill its‚ ranks with able college and
    high school students. The SFSU administration has made
    it a priority to help them in this sick endeavor.
    Their loyalties lie not with the students, but with
    the exploiters and war profiteers.
    The protestors, who were subjected to
    outrageous repression by the campus police and
    administration, stood up and fought back. On April
    17th, the students held a press conference in order to
    defend their actions and condemn the „liberal‰ frauds
    that clearly stand on the side of war and
    exploitation. The response from the community and the
    country, which flooded the president‚s office with
    phone calls and e-mails in support of the activists,
    forced the administration to momentarily back down.
    Later that day all 10 of the students received word
    that they were allowed back on campus. But the fear of
    future disciplinary action still loomed. A petition
    and open letter of support and solidarity has been
    signed by over 1,000 people, including many prominent
    members of the anti-war movement like Cindy Sheehan
    and Dahr Jamail. The signatories also include Denis
    Halliday, former UN Assistant Secretary General who
    resigned in protest from his position as the UN's
    Humanitarian Coordinator for Iraq.
    Chief of Public Safety Kim Wible released
    a response to the open letter of solidarity that
    includes a litany of blatant lies, in an attempt to
    discredit the students and quell the anger that came
    after the public was made aware of the university‚s
    actions. She asserts that the students were asked by
    the director of the career fair as well as the
    commander of DPS to leave before they were confronted
    and accosted by the police. This is a lie. She plainly
    refutes any instances of police aggression. There are
    photographs of the event that depict otherwise. And
    finally, she has the audacity to claim that „the
    University remains committed to the ideals of free
    speech.‰ Chief Wible must be referring to the „free
    speech‰ students are allowed only in designated zones
    from the hours of 12-2pm. The hypocrisy of this
    university, that commemorates and celebrates the
    efforts of people like Malcolm X, Rosa Parks, and
    Cesar Chavez, is nothing short of astounding.
    Now the administration is trying to
    discipline the students further, just when they think
    no one is paying attention. They are most certainly
    wrong in this assumption. We are all paying attention
    and will not stand idly by as these hypocrites and
    war-facilitators, who claim to foster an educational
    environment of free-speech and respect for student
    activism, tries to punish and divide these students in
    the bureaucratic shadows of a „conference.‰ These
    thugs will attempt to marginalize and isolate these
    protestors, who are in fact representative and a part
    of the anti-war majority in this country and around
    the world. The students will not be intimidated, as
    they acted in unity and will fight back in unity. They
    will not sit down and apologize for protesting the
    sexist, racist, and homophobic military that attempts
    to funnel people into a brutal and ceaseless war for
    economic and political hegemony. In this current
    crisis, it is imperative that students be allowed to
    protest and voice their concern and outrage without
    fear of reprisal from police or school officials. The
    struggle for a better world, one not plagued by the
    horrors of war and ruthless competition for profit
    must continue.

    Sign the petition:
    http://www.petitiononline.com/sfsu10/petition.html

    Call, Email and Fax support to

    Donna Cunningham Judicial Affairs Officer
    Telephone: (415) 338-2032
    E-mail: drcunn@sfsu.edu

    Robert Corrigan President
    Telephone: (415) 338-1381
    E-mail: corrigan@sfsu.edu

    Penny Saffold Vice President / Dean of Students
    Telephone: (415) 338-2032
    E-mail: psaffold@sfsu.edu
    Fax: (415) 338.6327

    Open letter to the above by Bonnie Weinstein
    Bay Area United Against War, www.bauaw.org
    (415) 824-8730

    Dear All:

    I understand that although you let the students back onto campus
    you are now "investigating" them--treating them as if they are
    criminals, threatening their education and acting, yourself, like
    you are the CIA. Come to your senses. Young people have every
    right to protest the war and to demand that the military stay away
    from them. There is no honor in killing innocent people on the
    basis of proven lies! Too many have already died! The students
    are right in their protest!

    Bless and cherish and help these students to achieve their goals.
    It is in the interests of education, democracy and a truly free world.

    You--all of you--are supposed to be dedicated to education--
    to searching for the truth so that solutions to problems can be
    found. This, an educator must be dedicated to.

    You are all supposed to uphold the U.S. Constitution as well.
    The right to protest doesn't mean the right to protest as long
    as you get permission from the authorities! That is not the sense
    of our right to free speech and freedom of assembly.

    The purpose of having those rights in the first place are so that
    if the government or the authorities are acting consistently against
    the wishes of the majority of its people, then the people have
    a right to protest this and voice their opposition to this freely
    and try to change it. It is called, "democracy."

    Certainly, the majority of students have no intentions of signing
    up to fight this horrific, unjust, immoral and inhuman war. They,
    clearly, are not willing to loose their lives, limbs and humanly
    functions so the blood-thirsty war mongers can continue
    to rack up a fortune at their expense.

    They have educated themselves about the lies the military tells
    potential recruits. The military, with their two-billion-dollar
    advertising budget, like most slick salesmen, offer to students
    and youth whatever it is they don't have yet always wanted.
    The problem is--and the students have found out, by the way,
    without your help--that these promises are all lies. The
    statistics point to the exact opposite. Less than ten percent
    of all who serve ever finish college or become U.S. Citizens.
    They are far more likely to become homeless and that's a fact!

    And the stories recently in the New York Times as well as
    many other newspapers about the lack of treatment and care
    and downright cruelty toward wounded soldiers and enlistees
    and their families, right here at home as well as on the
    battlefield, is astoundingly shameful.

    (Could this be the reason the wealthy don't let their children
    serve in the military or let the military in their children's schools?)

    This is a filthy disgusting war carried out by a corrupt, filthy
    and disgusting government whose only concern is to increase
    the rate of profit for themselves--the super rich--and damned
    the world!

    LEAVE THESE STUDENTS ALONE! THEY ARE THE ONES WHO
    CAN HELP PUT AN END TO THIS MADNESS!

    Sincerely,

    Bonnie Weinstein, Bay Area United Against War, www.bauaw.org

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

    8) Senate Continues to Work on Immigration Bill
    By CARL HULSE and JIM RUTENBERG
    May 18, 2006
    http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/18/washington/18cnd-immig.html?hp&ex=1148011200&en=a1054fb2fa46ad96&ei=5094&partner=homepage

    WASHINGTON, May 18 — The Senate continued its work on an
    immigration bill today, approving an amendment that would allow
    immigrant workers to apply for permanent residence without the
    sponsorship of their employers.

    The amendment, offered by Senators Edward M. Kennedy and John
    McCain, was intended to prevent "abuse of employees," according
    to Senator Kennedy. It was adopted by a vote of 56 to 43. .

    President Bush also today wrote to the House speaker, J. Dennis
    Hastert, today, formally asking for an emergency appropriation
    of $1.9 billion to pay for the deployment of 6,000 National Guard
    troops to assist the Border Patrol, a plan he outlined in a speech
    on Monday. Mr. Bush said he would cut a similar amount from
    an emergency request for funds for the Department of Defense.

    Since the speech, administration officials have focused on border
    security. But Mr. Bush is facing a revolt among conservatives over
    a proposal that would allow some illegal immigrants to qualify
    for residency, and the White House on Wednesday dispatched
    Karl Rove, the president's political adviser, to a meeting of House
    Republicans to make the case for the president's call for
    comprehensive changes in immigration laws.

    House members said that Mr. Rove had made little headway
    and that most Republicans remained adamantly opposed
    to any plan that leads to citizenship for those unlawfully
    in the United States.

    One House Republican also warned Mr. Rove that it was
    dangerous to work too closely with Senator Kennedy, the
    Massachusetts Democrat who is one of the authors of the
    Senate legislation.

    The Senate voted overwhelmingly on Wednesday to bar illegal
    immigrants convicted of a felony or three misdemeanors from
    having a chance at citizenship and to add hundreds of miles of
    fencing along the Mexican border. The actions bolstered the law
    enforcement provisions of the Senate bill, which the White House
    has signaled it supports.

    Another House Republican, J. D. Hayworth of Arizona, said of
    the divide between House Republicans and the White House over
    citizenship and temporary foreign workers, "This is a polite
    but profound disagreement." At a demonstration near the
    Capitol on Wednesday afternoon, scores of immigrants chanted
    "Work, yes! Deportation, no!" as they protested provisions in
    the Senate legislation.

    They said the measure would impose new hardships on asylum
    seekers, expand the deportation and detention of illegal immigrants
    and deny a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants who had
    been here for less than two years.

    By a vote of 83 to 16, the Senate approved a proposal by Senator
    Jeff Sessions, Republican of Alabama, to construct about 370
    miles of "triple layer" fencing on the Southwest border along
    with 500 miles of vehicle barriers.

    Mr. Sessions said that type of fencing would cost about $3.2
    million a mile, but he said the cost would be offset by reductions
    in the expense of detaining and processing people illegally
    crossing the border. The House has approved 700 miles of fencing.

    "It is important for the country to make clear to our own citizens
    and to the world that a lawful system is going to be created, that
    there is no longer an open border," he said.

    The Senate also agreed 99 to 0 to a proposal by two Republican
    senators, Jon Kyl of Arizona and John Cornyn of Texas, that would
    deny potential citizenship to convicted criminals and those who
    ignored deportation orders.

    "I think it reflects the will of the American people that however
    we treat people who are here illegally, there are some limits,"
    Mr. Kyl said.

    He said about 500,000 illegal aliens out of more than 11 million
    could come under the plan, most for failing to comply with
    deportation demands.

    The provision, initially seen as a proposal that could sink the
    Senate bill, was narrowed to allow for family hardships and
    other exceptions. It was endorsed by Democrats.

    "We want to keep those who can harm us, the criminal element,
    out," Mr. Kennedy said.

    The Senate, on a 66-to-33 vote, defeated an effort by Senator
    David Vitter, Republican of Louisiana, to kill a provision that
    would allow illegal immigrants who meet certain qualifications
    and pay a fine and back taxes to seek citizenship.

    Mr. Vitter said the provision would result in illegal immigrants'
    "being treated better than the folks who have lived by the
    rules from the word go." He said that amounted to amnesty.

    Advocates of the Senate bill said critics were distorting it to
    stir opposition. "The American people deserve an honest
    debate," said Senator Chuck Hagel, Republican of Nebraska.
    "Let's stop this nonsense."

    As the debate unfolded, the White House asserted that the
    president's speech on Monday and efforts on Capitol Hill
    were paying dividends, if only small ones.

    Tony Snow, the White House press secretary, pointed to
    remarks by Mr. Hagel supporting the president's plan to send
    as many as 6,000 National Guard troops to the border with
    Mexico. Mr. Hagel had been critical of the Guard proposal but
    said he had warmed to it after hearing its particulars.

    Pressed to name one Republican House member who had
    moved from the position that the president's call for possible
    citizenship for some illegal immigrants — namely, those here
    for many years who pay fines and back taxes — amounted
    to amnesty, Mr. Snow did not.

    He said it would take time to define the meaning of "amnesty."
    "It's not amnesty," Mr. Snow said. "Amnesty means 'sorry, no harm,
    no foul, no crime, go about your business.' "

    An indication of the difficulty facing the proposals came from
    Representative F. James Sensenbrenner Jr., Republican of Wisconsin.
    Mr. Sensenbrenner, the Judiciary Committee chairman, would take
    the lead for the House in efforts to draft compromise legislation.

    "Regardless of what the president says, what he is proposing
    is amnesty," Mr. Sensenbrenner said.

    On Wednesday night, President Bush took his case to an influential
    group of party faithful during a speech at the Republican National
    Committee's annual gala dinner in Washington.

    "The Republican Party needs to lead on this issue of immigration,"
    Mr. Bush said. "The immigration system is not working, and we
    need to do something about it now. America can be a lawful
    society and a welcoming society."

    Mr. Hayworth, an outspoken critic of the president's approach,
    planned to travel to Arizona on Air Force One with Mr. Bush on
    Thursday for an immigration event. Mr. Hayworth, who attended
    the signing of the tax bill on Wednesday, said the president had
    offered a playful warning about the trip and Mr. Hayworth's opposition.

    "He said, 'Hey, be careful over by the emergency exit at 30,000 feet,'
    " Mr. Hayworth recounted.

    Rachel L. Swarns contributed reporting from Washington for this
    article, and John Holusha and John O'Neil from New York..

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

    9) Coming Down to Earth
    By PAUL KRUGMAN
    May 19, 2006
    http://select.nytimes.com/2006/05/19/opinion/19krugman.html?hp

    Um, wasn't the stock market supposed to bounce back after Wednesday's big drop?

    We shouldn't read too much into a couple of days' movements in
    stock prices. But it seems that investors are suddenly feeling uneasy
    about the state of the economy. They should be; the puzzle is why
    they haven't been uneasy all along.

    The rise in stock prices that began last fall was essentially based
    on the belief that the U.S. economy can defy gravity — that both
    individuals and the nation as a whole can spend more than their
    income, not on a temporary basis, but more or less indefinitely.

    To be fair, for a while the data seemed to confirm that belief. In
    2005, the trade deficit passed $700 billion, yet the dollar actually
    rose against the euro and the yen. Housing prices soared, yet
    houses kept selling. The price of gasoline neared $3 a gallon,
    yet consumers kept buying both gas and other items, even
    though they had to borrow to keep spending (the personal
    savings rate went negative for the first time since the 1930's).

    Over the last few weeks, however, gravity seems to have started
    reasserting itself.

    The dollar began falling about a month ago. So far it's down
    less than 10 percent against the euro and the yen, but there's
    a definite sense that foreign governments, in particular, are
    becoming less willing to keep the dollar strong by buying
    lots of U.S. debt.

    The housing market seems to be weakening rapidly. As late
    as last October, the National Association of Home Builders/
    Wells Fargo housing market index, a measure of builders'
    confidence, was still close to the high point it reached last
    summer. But on Monday the association announced that
    the index had fallen to its lowest level since 1995.

    Finally, there are preliminary indications that consumers,
    hard-pressed by high gasoline prices, may be reaching
    their limit.

    The National Retail Federation, reporting on a new survey,
    warns that "while consumers have seemed resilient in the
    face of higher energy costs, a tipping point may soon be
    in sight."

    I can't resist pointing out that the Bush administration's
    response to the squeeze on working families has been,
    you guessed it, to accuse the news media of biased
    reporting.

    On May 10 the White House issued a press release titled
    "Setting the Record Straight: The New York Times Continues
    to Ignore America's Economic Progress." The release attacked
    The Times for asserting that paychecks weren't keeping up
    with fixed costs like medical care and gasoline. The White
    House declared, "But average hourly earnings have risen
    3.8 percent over the past 12 months, their largest increase
    in nearly five years."

    On Wednesday Treasury Secretary John Snow repeated that
    boast before a House committee. However, Representative
    Barney Frank was ready. He asked whether the number was
    adjusted for inflation; after flailing about, Mr. Snow admitted,
    sheepishly, that it wasn't. In fact, nearly all of the wage
    increase was negated by higher prices.

    Meanwhile, the return of economic gravity poses a definite
    threat to U.S. economic growth. After all, growth over the
    past three years was driven mainly by a housing boom and
    rapid growth in consumer spending. People were able to buy
    houses, even though housing prices rose much faster than
    incomes, because foreign purchases of U.S. debt kept interest
    rates low. People were able to keep spending, even though
    wages didn't keep up with inflation, because mortgage
    refinancing let them turn the rising value of their houses
    into ready cash.

    As I summarized it awhile back, we became a nation in which
    people make a living by selling one another houses, and they
    pay for the houses with money borrowed from China.

    Now that game seems to be coming to an end. We're going
    to have to find other ways to make a living — in particular,
    we're going to have to start selling goods and services, not
    just I.O.U.'s, to the rest of the world, and/or replace imports
    with domestic production. And adjusting to that new way of
    making a living will take time.

    Will we have that time? Ben Bernanke, the chairman of the
    Federal Reserve, contends that what's happening in the housing
    market is "a very orderly and moderate kind of cooling." Maybe
    he's right. But if he isn't, the stock market drop of the last two
    days will be remembered as the start of a serious economic
    slowdown.

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

    10) Ground Workers Reach Deal With Northwest
    By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
    Filed at 10:43 a.m. ET
    May 19, 2006
    http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/business/AP-Northwest-Labor.html

    MINNEAPOLIS (AP) -- Northwest Airlines Corp. and its baggage
    handlers and ramp workers reached a tentative agreement early
    Friday aimed at slashing the bankrupt airline's labor expenses,
    union and airline officials said.

    Terms of the tentative agreement and the schedule for a ratification
    vote were being prepared for distribution to members of the union
    representing about 5,600 ground workers.

    ''The negotiating committee unanimously recommends ratification
    of the agreement to avoid the elimination of our contract,'' said
    Bobby DePace, president of District 143 of the International
    Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers.

    ''We are not recommending ratification because the terms are
    favorable, but because the alternative is worse,'' DePace said
    in a statement.

    The union will also hold a simultaneous strike authorization
    vote in case the tentative agreement is rejected and the union
    contract is nullified by the court, DePace said.

    Northwest Airlines said it was pleased the sides reached an
    agreement. ''We hope that our equipment service employees
    and stock clerks will ratify the agreement,'' the airline said
    in a statement.

    The agreement came hours before a bankruptcy court hearing
    in New York, where Judge Allan Gropper was to consider
    whether to allow Northwest to throw out the union contract
    and impose its own terms.

    Bankruptcy law allows companies to reject their union contracts
    with a judge's permission, a threat that prompted pilots and
    flight attendants to also make deals.

    The ground workers had rejected an earlier wage-cut and
    layoff offer.

    Northwest has been seeking concessions from its workers
    to exit bankruptcy, including $190 million in payroll savings
    from the baggage handlers' union. Northwest says it has
    among the highest labor costs in the airline industry.

    On the Net:

    Union: http://www.iam143.org

    Northwest: http://www.nwa.com

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    11) Mexico to Protest U.S. Border Plan
    By REUTERS
    May 19, 2006
    http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/19/world/americas/19mexico.html

    MEXICO CITY, May 18 — Mexico will formally complain to the United
    States about plans to build security fences and deploy National Guard
    troops on the border to curb illegal immigration, Mexico's foreign
    minister, Luis Ernesto Derbez, said Thursday.

    "There are 12 million Mexicans on the other side, 12 million people
    who live every day in anguish about the need for a reform to let them
    live peacefully," Mr. Derbez said. He said Mexico would send
    a diplomatic note to the United States about American plans
    for the border.

    Such notes are often sent as a form of protest when nations are
    at odds with each other.

    Mexico wants the United States to make it easier for immigrants to
    attain legal status, and supports a guest-worker program rather
    than a tightening of the border.

    The status of illegal immigrants in the United States is a major
    political issue in Mexico. Opponents have criticized President
    Vicente Fox as not protesting strenuously enough against
    American efforts to tighten the porous frontier. Andrés Manuel
    López Obrador, the leftist candidate in the presidential election,
    which will be held in July, accused Mr. Fox on Wednesday
    of being "a plaything, a puppet of foreign governments."

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

    12) Ecuador Cancels an Oil Deal With Occidental Petroleum
    By REUTERS
    May 17, 2006
    http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/17/business/worldbusiness/17oil.html

    QUITO, Ecuador, May 16 (Reuters) — Ecuador began to take over
    operations of the United States oil giant Occidental Petroleum on
    Tuesday, the latest move in Latin America against foreign energy
    producers after nationalization in Bolivia and state intervention
    in Venezuela.

    Ecuador revoked Occidental's contract Monday after accusing it
    of transferring part of an oil field without authorization. Occidental
    says it has complied with its obligations and still hopes to settle.

    Occidental shares fell by 2.2 percent Tuesday, to $96.97.

    President Alfredo Palacio has been under pressure from Indian
    groups in the oil-rich Amazon to expel Occidental. The Indians
    accuse the company of exploiting natural resources with no
    benefit for Ecuadoreans.

    The surprise contract cancellation came a little more than two
    weeks after President Evo Morales, a leftist who is Bolivia's first
    indigenous president, nationalized the industry and ordered
    the military to occupy natural gas fields.

    Bolivia's move set off Wall Street fears that President Hugo
    Chávez of Venezuela, a self-styled revolutionary known for his
    anti-United States rhetoric, was pushing his neighbors in
    a campaign to tighten state control over natural resources.

    Ecuador ruled out any nationalization of the oil industry. Officials
    say the country will receive an extra $100 million a year in
    revenues because of the Occidental contract cancellation.

    Occidental is Ecuador's largest investor and extracts 100,000
    barrels of oil a day, about 20 percent of Ecuador's total production.

    The Associated Press reported that the Bush administration had
    broken off talks on a free trade agreement with Ecuador because
    of the move on Occidental.

    In Bolivia, the head of a pension fund run by Zurich Financial
    Services said Tuesday that it had agreed to hand over shares
    in three energy companies to the government.

    The president of Futuro de Bolivia, Gonzalo Bedoya, said the
    fund had no choice but to comply.

    On Monday, the government gave two private pension funds
    three days to transfer the shares they hold in two energy firms
    — Andina, which is controlled by Repsol , and Chaco, run by
    BP — and in the gas transport company Transredes, controlled
    by Royal Dutch Shell.

    Higher Royalties in Venezuela

    CARACAS, Venezuela, May 16 (Bloomberg News) — Venezuela's
    congress approved higher royalties for oil companies like Exxon
    Mobil and Chevron that are shareholders in four heavy-oil
    ventures as President Hugo Chávez seeks a bigger share
    of industry profits.

    The law increases royalties to 33.3 percent from 16.67 percent
    on all oil companies operating in the country, including the four
    heavy-oil ventures, the state oil company Petroleos de Venezuela
    said on its Web site.

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

    13) Japanese Cars, American Retirees
    Japanese companies face little of this burden in Japan, where
    the government covers retirees' health care and pays a bigger
    share of workers' pensions.
    By EDUARDO PORTER
    May 19, 2006
    http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/19/automobiles/19auto.html

    GEORGETOWN, Ky. — For the last quarter-century, Toyota, Honda
    and Nissan have strived to appear to American consumers like
    homegrown companies.

    They built a string of manufacturing plants in the South, employing
    tens of thousands of local workers. They hired American designers.
    They spent millions on ads to trumpet their growing roots in
    communities across the country.

    "Being a good corporate citizen starts with hiring lots of good
    citizens," one Toyota ad says.

    Yet as they built up their operations, the Japanese "transplants"
    have worked hard not to resemble an American car company
    in one vital respect: how they treat their retirees.

    "We want to avoid commitments when we have no control over
    their costs," said Pete Gritton, the head of human resources
    for Toyota's United States manufacturing operations. "We
    can't build in things in such a way that we won't be able
    to keep our commitments later."

    Until recently, the issue has mostly been academic for the
    Japanese car companies. Most of the American factory workers
    they started hiring in the mid-1980's are still working.

    But age is creeping up on them. All three Japanese companies
    are anticipating that the ranks of retirees will swell over the
    next several years. Toyota's American arm, for example, has
    just 258 retired production workers (G.M., by contrast, has
    more than 400,000 retirees).

    But things will change over the next five years. In 2011 and
    2012, a combined 1,700 workers will be eligible for retirement
    at Toyota — about 6 percent of its current labor force.

    Their retirement will contrast in a crucial way with their
    counterparts who have retired from the Big Three auto
    companies in that they will bear much more of the costs and
    the risks of retirement on their own.

    This difference adds up to an important cost disadvantage for
    the Big Three as they fight to regain market share.

    The benefit packages offered by Detroit's three carmakers to
    its blue-collar workers, negotiated over time with the United
    Automobile Workers union, pretty much fit a standard model.
    Retirees receive a pension check every month, which varies
    with the number of years served.

    An average worker who reaches retirement age at G.M. will
    get a monthly pension check worth about $50 for every year
    of service, up to a maximum of about $1,500 a month, which
    accrues after 30 years of service, according to a G.M. spokesman,
    Jerry Dubrowski. Retirees with 30 years of service get
    a supplement that brings their monthly check up to about
    $3,000 until they reach 62.

    Moreover, until last year, when General Motors and the union
    cut a deal for retirees to cover co-pays and deductibles,
    G.M. covered retirees' health care expenses.

    With benefits like these, it's no wonder that G.M. was once
    known as "Generous Motors."

    But these days, health care costs are causing enormous
    financial headaches for the Big Three. G.M. has an unfunded
    liability of $85 billion in today's money to cover future health
    care costs for workers and retirees. That is seven to eight times
    the market value of the whole company.

    General Motors estimates that health care costs add about
    $1,500 to the cost of each vehicle it makes in the United States.
    Chrysler claims a health care cost of $1,400 per vehicle.
    Ford says its burden is $1,100.

    G.M.'s pension plan has also been a drain. Since 1992, G.M.
    has plowed $56 billion in stock and cash into it. It is hoping
    to reduce its burden by offering all of its 105,000 U.A.W.
    workers buyout packages worth up to $140,000. It is still
    unclear how many plan to accept the offer.

    "The higher legacy costs are reflected in a less modern product,"
    said George E. Hoffer, a professor of economics at Virginia
    Commonwealth University who has studied the auto industry.
    "They had to cut costs somewhere else and they cut costs
    in retooling."

    Japanese companies face little of this burden in Japan, where
    the government covers retirees' health care and pays a bigger
    share of workers' pensions.

    Toyota expected to pay out about $700 million in pension
    benefits in fiscal year 2006, which ended in March. That's less
    than a tenth of what G.M. expects to pay on its pensions this year.

    In the United States, retirees of the Japanese companies pay part
    of their health care costs. And the Japanese companies' pension
    obligations are a fraction of that of the American carmakers.

    While G.M. paid $5.4 billion last year for the health care of its
    141,000 workers, 449,000 retirees and their dependents, Toyota
    said in its 2005 annual report that its obligations to cover the
    health care expenses for its retirees "are not material."

    At Honda, a 60-year-old retiree with 10 years of service would
    typically pay $345 a month for health care; a 62-year-old retiree
    with 25 years at the company would pay $70. Toyota also requires
    retirees to pay part of their premiums, based on years of service.

    In general, these retirees are cut off from the company health
    plan when they turn 65, and receive instead a lump sum with
    which they can buy supplementary insurance to Medicare. Honda i
    s alone among the big three Japanese carmakers to still offer
    a defined-benefit pension guaranteeing a monthly check to
    newly retired workers in the United States.

    At Toyota, a worker's pension consists of an investment account
    in which the company deposits the equivalent of 5 percent of
    a worker's earnings each year, typically around $3,000 to
    $3,500. An employee can supplement that with a 401(k) plan,
    and the company matches contributions up to a maximum of
    4 percent of the worker's income.

    For the company, these retirement packages carry no uncertainty.
    But they do for workers, whose nest eggs depend on their
    contributions and the financial markets.

    Consider Richard Baugh. The 61-year-old worker, who applies
    sealant on Camrys, Solaras and Avalons in the paint room,
    is planning to retire next January after 17 years at Toyota's
    factory here, to tend his horses and teach at his local church
    in nearby Cynthiana.

    His wife, Ruth, 58, will also retire after 14 years at the plant.
    With total savings of some $700,000, the Baughs feel ready for
    retirement. They were thrifty, plowing at least 12 percent of
    their wages into their 401(k)'s.

    "After the stock market crash we stayed invested and kept buying,
    and our 401(k) roared back," Mr. Baugh said.

    With less than 25 years at the company, they will have to pay
    a portion of their health insurance premium, which Mr. Baugh
    said would amount to some $300 a month.

    Tim Garrett, vice president of administration at Honda
    Manufacturing of America, says talk of the Big Three's "legacy"
    problem is overblown. Had they set enough money aside when
    the workers were active, their retirement would not be costing
    them anything today. "Depending on your decisions you will
    have legacy costs or you will not have legacy costs," Mr. Garrett
    said. "We have no legacy costs."

    To be fair, Detroit's car companies were no more shortsighted
    than many companies in other industries. From steelmakers
    to telephone companies, free health and defined pension checks
    were a staple of the retirement packages negotiated between
    America's industrial titans and their unions half a century ago.

    When these companies were growing quickly, providing generous
    retirement benefits seemed cheaper than offering better pay,
    a future cost that often did not even have to be accounted for
    on the financial books.

    From 1990 to 2005, G.M.'s payroll shrank by two-thirds, and
    its current work force is now just one-third the number of
    its retirees and their dependents.

    Today, defined-benefit pensions are dwindling across industries,
    as companies force retirees and active workers to pick up part
    of their health costs. According to a survey by the Kaiser Family
    Foundation, only one out of three big companies now provide
    health care coverage for their retirees, down from two-thirds
    in 1988.

    In 2003, 22 million workers were covered by some sort of defined
    -benefit pension, 8 million fewer than in 1980, according to the
    Center for Retirement Research at Boston College. And the number
    of workers in defined-contribution plans jumped to 52 million,
    from 14.5 million, over the same period.

    Union contracts have limited what Detroit's car companies can
    do with their blue-collar workers, but they are paring back where
    they can.

    G.M. eliminated health care coverage for its salaried, nonunion
    retirees hired after 1993. This year, it froze the salaried workers'
    defined-contribution pension plan. Chrysler made its salaried
    workers pay more for their health care starting this year.

    Under an agreement last year with the autoworkers' union,
    retirees at G.M. and Ford will start paying part of their health
    care costs, up to $370 a year for an individual and $752 for
    a retiree's family.

    With Detroit sagging under the burden of these "legacy" costs,
    it is unsurprising — even to executives at the Big Three — that
    the Japanese companies arriving in America chose to do things
    differently.

    "These are well-managed companies," said Frederick A. Henderson,
    G.M.'s chief financial officer. "It is natural that they would look
    at our experience and say 'I don't want to do that.' "

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

    14) Autopsy Finds That Soldier Under Army Medical Care Died
    From Painkiller Overdose
    By RALPH BLUMENTHAL
    May 19, 2006
    http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/19/us/19training.html

    HOUSTON, May 18 — An injured Army recruit who died while under
    medical treatment at Fort Sill, in Lawton, Okla., succumbed to an
    accidental overdose of the powerful narcotic painkiller fentanyl,
    according to a military autopsy report released to the family on
    Thursday. But a fellow soldier said he had warned the Army that
    the recruit had been abusing the drug.

    The death was the second drug fatality in two years in the Physical
    Training and Rehabilitation Program, which is intended to treat new
    recruits who are injured in basic training. Last week, The New York
    Times reported that the Army had shaken up the therapy program
    after repeated complaints from soldiers and their parents that
    injured recruits were punished with physical abuse and medical
    neglect.

    The autopsy report, by the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology,
    found that the soldier, Pfc. Mathew Scarano, 21, of Eureka, Calif.,
    died the night of March 18-19 from a blood concentration of
    fentanyl of 0.09 milligrams per liter, at least three times the fatal
    dosage cited in medical studies, the report said. "The manner
    of death is accident," it concluded.

    Col. William L. Greer, Fort Sill's chief of staff, said in a telephone
    interview on Thursday that Private Scarano appeared to have abused
    the medication by removing a three-day skin patch he had been
    given and eating the fentanyl. While the investigation has not yet
    been formally closed, Colonel Greer said, "the death will be ruled
    an accident based on oral ingestion of the patch." He defended
    the medical procedures as proper. "I'm not sure how we could
    have prevented that," he said.

    But a fellow soldier who was also in the therapy unit, and has since
    been medically discharged from the Army, said he knew that Private
    Scarano had been ingesting fentanyl from the skin patch, and had
    told Army doctors about it.

    "I told doctors he was not using the medication the way he should
    have," said the former soldier, Clayton Howell. "But I don't know
    why they didn't do anything."

    Private Scarano's mother, Christen Scarano-Bailey, said the
    findings left crucial questions unanswered. "It was negligence
    or improperly prescribed," she said in a telephone interview.
    "I think the Army was at fault."

    Jon Long, the Army spokesman at Fort Sill, said the Criminal
    Investigation Division Command at the post was completing its
    inquiry into the death. Though the Army declined to release the
    autopsy report, a copy was provided by Ms. Scarano-Bailey.

    In the Army shake-up of the program, one drill sergeant was
    disciplined and reassigned after soldiers said he had kicked
    an injured recruit, and another was reassigned after soldiers
    said he had ordered medicated soldiers repeatedly awakened
    during the night.

    Among the changes in the programs nationwide, commanders
    said, was closer control of medications. A six-month limit on
    stays in the recuperation program would also be enforced,
    they said.

    On Monday, the under secretary of the Army, Pete Geren, was
    at Fort Sill on what the Army called a previously planned visit
    to discuss base realignments. Mr. Geren visited the therapy
    unit and talked to soldiers, and "recommended that the lessons
    learned at Fort Sill be shared with the Army's other P.T.R.P. sites,"
    said a Pentagon spokeswoman, Betsy J. Weiner.

    Private Scarano had been in and out of the unit for more than
    a year, after he injured his groin and then hurt his shoulder falling
    off a rappelling tower, his family said. He was adamantly against
    having Army surgeons operate on his shoulder, he wrote in letters
    home. But he was dedicated to the Army, friends said, and planned
    to re-enlist if he could get out long enough to have his shoulder
    repaired at a civilian hospital.

    Ms. Scarano-Bailey said that when she last saw her son, on
    a Christmas furlough, he showed no signs of drug dependency
    and, though in pain from his shoulder, took nothing stronger
    than Tylenol.

    Other soldiers in the therapy program said in recent interviews
    that they thought Private Scarano showed signs of overmedication.

    "I can't remember ever seeing him conscious after 6:30 p.m.," said
    Pvt. Justin Nugent, 21, of Candor, N.Y. He said that Private Scarano
    had to be awakened earlier than the others because it took him longer
    to shake off sleep and that he might have taken unauthorized extra
    medications, not realizing that doctors had already increased his dosage.

    Pvt. Richard Thurman, now out of the unit, said Private Scarano had
    often been so "doped up" that "somebody would have to hold him
    up when he walked to final formation," and that his medication
    schedule was adjusted so that he would get his dosage only after
    the evening formation.

    Private Thurman said that the night before Private Scarano died,
    he was lying in his bunk on his back and that soldiers who knew
    it was an uncomfortable position for him rolled him onto his stomach.
    He was found dead the next morning.

    "What we felt is that the P.T.R.P. did this to him," Private Thurman
    said, "and that the system itself was flawed."

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

    15) Gambling on a Weaker Dollar
    New York Times Editorial
    May 20, 2006
    http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/20/opinion/20sat1.html?hp

    For some time now, shortsighted lawmakers in Congress have been
    threatening China with tariffs for what they call its unfair currency
    practices. The Bush administration, to its credit, has generally resisted
    the protectionist rant, most notably by refusing to brand China
    a "currency manipulator" in an official report to Congress last week.

    China responded to the administration's responsible policy and
    diplomatic courtesy this week when it loosened, a bit, the tether
    that binds the Chinese currency, the yuan, to the dollar. A stronger
    yuan implies a weaker dollar, as does the general strengthening
    so far this year of the euro and the yen. By making foreign goods
    sold here more expensive and American goods sold abroad cheaper,
    a weaker dollar would, in theory, eventually help reduce the United
    States' huge trade gap.

    The problem is this: unless a falling dollar is paired with reductions
    in the federal budget deficit, it could do more harm than good
    by driving up interest rates, perhaps sharply. That's because the
    foreign investors who finance the administration's "borrow as you
    go" budget are likely to demand higher returns to invest in
    a depreciating dollar.

    But if budget deficits declined over the long run, the government's
    reduced need to borrow would help keep interest rates low as the
    dollar depreciated. Then, after a lag, the falling dollar would shrink
    the trade deficit without risking big increases in interest rates
    in the process.

    Unfortunately, the incessant tax cutting of the past five years
    precludes any serious attempt to reduce the budget deficit. So
    to keep interest rates in check as the dollar falls, the administration
    would have to persuade investors not to believe what they see:
    a dollar that is declining even as the United States does nothing
    to curb its borrowing.

    That would be a difficult trick even for a Treasury Department that
    commanded respect. It will be especially difficult for Mr. Bush's
    Treasury team, which has suffered a diminution of esteem and
    credibility.

    The Bush tax cuts also make it harder for Americans as a nation
    to bail themselves out of the trade deficit by saving more. Higher
    personal savings would allow the government to finance its budget
    deficit without outsized foreign borrowing — another safe route
    to a cheaper dollar and a smaller trade gap. But the Republicans
    who control Congress let a tax credit for low-income savers expire
    this year to free up room in the budget for nearly $70 billion
    in additional tax cuts for high-income Americans over the near
    term.

    That tax cut bill, signed into law this week by President Bush,
    also commits an estimated $53 billion through the middle of
    the century to help those same high earners shift their existing
    savings into tax shelters. This adds not one cent of new savings
    and presages big deficits far into the future.

    A weakening dollar, on top of intractable budget deficits and
    a chronic savings shortfall, is a recipe for recession. The
    question now is whether the country will change direction
    in time. The portents are not good.

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

    16) At Unforgiving Arizona-Mexico Border,
    Tide of Desperation Is Overwhelming
    By GINGER THOMPSON
    May 21, 2006
    http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/21/us/21border.html?hp&ex=1148184000&en=a319e1a5cf6dae63&ei=5094&partner=homepage

    ARIVACA, Ariz., May 18 — All the talk in Washington about putting
    walls and soldiers along the border with Mexico did not stop
    Miguel Espindola from trying to cross the most inhospitable part
    of it this week with his wife and two small children.

    Their 6-year-old daughter, Karla, clutched her mother's back
    pocket with one hand and a bottle of Gatorade with the other
    as the family set out across the Sonora Desert on Thursday.
    Miguelito, 7, lugged a backpack that seemed to weigh almost
    as much as he did.

    "Yes, there is risk, but there is also need," said Mr. Espindola,
    explaining why he had brought his children on a journey that
    killed 464 immigrants last year, and a 3-year-old boy this week.

    Looking out at the vast parched landscape ahead, Mr. Espindola,
    a coffee farmer, talked about the poverty he had left behind,
    and said: "Our damned government forces us to leave our
    country because it does not give us good salaries. The
    United States forces us to go this way."

    Here at ground zero for the world's largest and longest wave
    of illegal migration, about the only thing that is clear is that
    easy answers do not apply. During a drive along a narrow
    highway that runs parallel to the line, it is hard to see how
    increased law enforcement and advanced technologies will
    stop an exodus made up predominantly of Mexicans willing
    to risk everything.

    Meanwhile, it becomes easier to understand the conflicting
    attitudes about migrants that have not only strained relations
    between the United States and its neighbors to the south,
    but also tested America's identity as a melting pot.

    In the last five years, Arizona has become the principal,
    and deadliest, gateway for illegal migrants. It accounts
    for nearly one-third of the 1.5 million people captured
    for illegally crossing the border last year, and nearly half
    the migrants who died, according to the United States
    Border Patrol.

    Those figures have inspired competing responses.

    After the 3-year-old boy was found dead this week in the
    desert, some local law enforcement authorities called for
    charging his mother, Edith Rodriguez Reyes, with reckless
    endangerment. The authorities at the Mexican consulate
    here said Ms. Rodriguez was a victim of smugglers and
    demanded that she be released.

    The mesquite-covered landscape here was a base for the
    Minuteman militias, who have threatened to take the law
    into their own hands in defense of America's southern border.

    It is also home to so-called border Samaritans, who scour
    the desert in search of migrants in distress to deliver water,
    medical attention and, sometimes, advice on how to avoid
    detention.

    "This is a token deployment of unarmed and grossly
    inadequate numbers of National Guardsmen," a Minuteman
    spokeswoman, Connie Hair, told The Arizona Daily Star.
    Ms. Hair said the troops would be placed in the "same
    demoralizing position as the Border Patrol, outmanned
    and outgunned against international crime cartels."

    Jim Walsh, a volunteer with the Samaritans, was not
    optimistic either, but for different reasons. "With this
    president and this Congress," he said, "it's not going
    to be too humane."

    Worried about the enormous drain on taxpayers, voters
    here passed a ballot initiative intended to limit immigrants'
    access to public services. Meanwhile, economists like
    Marshall Vest at the University of Arizona said the illegal
    immigrants were an important source of labor for the
    booming construction and tourism industries that had
    helped make Arizona the second-fastest growing state,
    after Nevada.

    When Mr. Bush deploys an estimated 6,000 National
    Guard troops to the border, it is expected that most
    will be sent here in an effort to seal off the desert.
    So this is likely to be the place where the successes
    and failures of the policy will unfold.

    Arizona has been hurt by "bad immigration policies,"
    said Laura Briggs, an associate professor of women's
    studies at the University of Arizona, and a member of
    the border Samaritans. "There is a long tradition of
    hospitality in the borderlands, and this rising death
    toll is stressing everybody out."

    Those conflicting interests, and growing frustrations,
    come to life on Arivaca Road, which runs about 14 miles
    west of Interstate 19, on the way to Sasabe, Mexico.

    Once a bucolic settlement of horse and cattle ranchers,
    the area around the highway has been overrun, according
    to residents, by illegal immigrants who move in groups
    of up 80 at a time, and up to a thousand a day in the
    peak winter season. Residents must also contend with
    the buzz of Border Patrol agents in trucks and helicopters.

    Frank Ormsby, a rancher, and his brother, Lloyd, said
    that after living for more than a decade in the middle
    of the buildup of the Border Patrol and the growing waves
    of immigrants, they are just plain sick of all of it. There
    are more backpacks littering the desert than rocks, they
    said, and enough money is being spent on equipment
    for the Border Patrol to rebuild New Orleans.

    To them, illegal immigration is a huge business managed
    by powerful interests to make money and political careers.
    Among the beneficiaries, Frank Ormsby said, were immigrant
    smugglers, whose fortunes increased every time a new law
    enforcement effort was announced, and the Border Patrol,
    whose budget has increased fivefold in 10 years.

    "There are so many agents they could stand hand-in-hand
    across the border and stop illegal immigrants if they really
    wanted to," said Mr. Ormsby from beneath a wide black
    cowboy hat. "The money we are spending on the Border
    Patrol, in gas, in equipment, in technology, what do we
    have to show for it?"

    "I see so much waste," he added. "Ray Charles could see it."

    A couple miles down the road, two sunburned men, their
    clothes tattered and their lips severely chapped, look the
    image of needy. Raúl Calderón, 60, and his 22-year-old
    son Samuel, had been walking in the desert heat for four days.

    Natives of the western Mexican state of Michoacán, they
    said they had been abandoned by the smuggler — known
    among immigrants here as "coyotes" — they had hired
    on the second day of their journey.

    On the third night, the men said, they lost track of the
    10 other people traveling with them in the darkness. And by
    the fourth morning, they had run out of food and water.

    "Our government has forgotten about us," the father said.
    Then nodding toward his son, he added, "Each generation
    stays as poor as the last."

    Mr. Calderón said his native town of Churintzio had been
    nearly emptied by migration to the United States. He himself
    had gone back and forth across the border for much of the
    last two decades. But he said he had spent the last five years
    in Mexico, trying to start his own restaurant.

    His son, on the other hand, had made enough money working
    in restaurants between San Antonio and Corpus Christi to
    return to Michoacán and build a home. Now the two of them
    were off to the United States again to seek more work,
    this time in California.

    Mr. Calderón said he had heard that President Bush "is going
    to give work permits, and so I have come to get one."

    He would not, however, get one this day. Border Patrol
    helicopters buzzed overhead. A few minutes later came
    the trucks. And without much of an exchange, Mr. Calderón
    and his son were taken away.

    "It's like saying we're going to stop crime," said a Border
    Patrol spokesman, Gustavo Soto, when asked whether the
    presence of the National Guard would stop undocumented
    immigrants from coming. "It's hard to say that we will be
    able to stop all people from coming across the border.
    But we can achieve better control."

    On the Mexican side of the border, where remittances have
    become the second-largest source of income after oil,
    Mexican immigration agents said they felt helpless in
    stopping the immigrants, even though the law prohibits
    citizens from leaving through unofficial ports.

    Hundreds of people, carrying backpacks and gallon jugs
    of water, filed into the desert on Thursday. Among them,
    were Karla and Miguelito, neither one of them more than
    four-feet tall.

    In a speech cut short so that the migrants could be on
    their way before sundown, Mario López, an agent in Grupo
    Beta, a Mexican government agency that seeks to protect
    the migrants, advised the men, women and children about
    the dangers of their illegal journey and advised them of
    their rights in case they were apprehended by the Border Patrol.

    "This is a sad reality," he said. "We hate to see our people
    leaving this way. But what can we do, except wish them luck."

    ---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*--------
    LINKS ONLY
    ---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*--------

    Middle America: Welcome to the Center of the USA
    http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/0519-05.htm

    4 Guantanamo Prisoners Attempt Suicide in One Day
    http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/0519-01.htm

    ALERT - EXTREME DANGER TO FOOD MANUFACTURING WORKERS
    The Occupational Health Branch is trying to reach workers in the
    food flavoring manufacturing industry, their employers, and their
    health care providers, to alert them about two cases of a life-
    threatening lung disease, bronchiolitis obliterans, among workers
    (both English fluent Latinos) in companies located in southern
    California. Food flavoring companies that may have exposed
    workers are also located in northern California.  The disease
    is associated with inhalation exposure to diacetyl, a butter
    flavoring chemical. The lung disease is also known as "microwave
    popcorn lung disease" based on cases among workers
    in that industry.
    http://www.worksafe.org/news/3_14_06.cfm

    Lawsuit Is Filed to Force FEMA to Continue Housing Vouchers
    By SHAILA DEWAN
    May 20, 2006
    http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/20/us/20vouchers.html

    Explosion at Kentucky Mine Kills 5 Workers
    By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
    May 21, 2006
    http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/21/us/21mine.html?hp&ex=1148184000&en=adc4b3951c5f9259&ei=5094&partner=homepage

    Ecological Extortion in the National Forests
    http://www.counterpunch.org/juel05192006.html

    New Century Of Thirst For World's Mountains
    By the century's end, the Andes in South America will have less than
    half their current winter snowpack, mountain ranges in Europe and
    the U.S. West will have lost nearly half of their snow-bound water,
    and snow on New Zealand's picturesque snowcapped peaks will
    all but have vanished.
    Source: Pacific Northwest National Laboratory
    May 19, 2006
    http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/05/060519102250.htm

    Dead soldiers flown home as British presence in Basra is questioned
    By Kim Sengupta
    Five military coffins, bearing the latest British dead from Iraq, arrived
    home yesterday. At the same time, 105 people died during two days
    of carnage in Afghanistan the next battleground for British forces.
    Published: 19 May 2006
    http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/politics/article548113.ece

    Detective Was 'Walking Camera' Among City Muslims, He Testifies
    By WILLIAM K. RASHBAUM
    May 19, 2006
    http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/19/nyregion/19herald.html

    Senate Votes to Set English as National Language
    By CARL HULSE
    May 19, 2006
    http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/19/washington/19immig.html

    Italy Calls Iraq War 'Grave Error'
    By IAN FISHER
    May 19, 2006
    http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/19/world/europe/19italy.html

    Inquiry Implies Civilian Deaths in Iraq Topped Initial Report
    By THOM SHANKER
    May 19, 2006
    http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/19/world/middleeast/19haditha.html

    U.N. Panel Backs Closing Prison at Guantánamo
    By JOHN O'NEIL
    May 19, 2006
    http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/19/world/19cnd-torture.html?hp&ex=1148097600&en=2d26812555f8c83a&ei=5094&partner=homepage

    House Passes a $2.7 Trillion Spending Plan
    "The measure calls for increasing military spending by 7 percent,
    to nearly $558 billion in 2007, a figure that includes $50 billion
    for military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. The package would
    essentially freeze or cut spending on most domestic discretionary
    programs, including education, energy and national parks, and
    it calls for trimming $6.8 billion over five years from entitlement
    programs like Medicaid and farm subsidies.
    By EDMUND L. ANDREWS
    May 18, 2006
    http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/18/washington/18budget.html

    Bush Turns to Big Military Contractors for Border Control
    By ERIC LIPTON
    WASHINGTON, May 17 — The quick fix may involve sending in the
    National Guard. But to really patch up the broken border, President
    Bush is preparing to turn to a familiar administration partner: the
    nation's giant military contractors.
    Lockheed Martin, Raytheon and Northrop Grumman, three of the
    largest, are among the companies that said they would submit bids
    within two weeks for a multibillion-dollar federal contract to build
    what the administration calls a "virtual fence" along the nation's
    land borders.
    Using some of the same high-priced, high-tech tools these
    companies have already put to work in Iraq and Afghanistan —
    like unmanned aerial vehicles, ground surveillance satellites
    and motion-detection video equipment — the military contractors
    are zeroing in on the rivers, deserts, mountains and settled areas
    that separate Mexico and Canada from the United States.
    May 18, 2006
    http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/18/washington/18border.html?hp&ex=1148011200&en=14e4f28aeaa03b90&ei=5094&partner=homepage

    Return to a Bad Place
    Has Anything Really Changed at Fort Sill?
    By JoAnn WYPIJEWSKI
    May 17, 2006
    http://www.counterpunch.com/jw05172006.html

    Freedom of the Press Under Attack: Government Begins Tracking Phone
    Calls of Journalists
    Democracy Now!
    May 16, 2006
    http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=06/05/16/145201>http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=06/05/16/145201

    How grandma got legal
    Illegal-immigration foes say today's migrants
    are different from their own
    forebears. They don't know U.S. history.
    By Mae M. Ngai
    http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-ngai16may16,0,4068154.story?coll=la-news-comment-opinions

    US Assaults Wiretap Suit; AT&T Accused of Aiding Surveillance
    http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/0516-04.htm

    Aids and a Lost Generation: Kids Raising Kids
    http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/0516-01.htm

    Big Corporate Tax Breaks Upheld
    http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/0516-06.htm

    Global Warming Turns Pristine Coral into Rubble
    http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/0516-02.htm

    Crack of Israeli Bullets Ends Activists' Protest Against Barrier
    http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/0516-07.htm

    Chavez Ridicules Washington's Weapons Ban
    http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/0516-03.htm

    Venezuela Considers U.S. Weapons Ban Sale
    Prelude to Further Aggression
    By: Gregory Wilpert – Venezuelanalysis.com
    Tuesday, May 16, 2006
    www.venezuelanalysis.com/news.php?newsno=1968

    How A Minority Can Change Society
    By George Breitman
    (Spring 1964)
    http://www.marxists.org/history/etol/writers/breitman/1964/xx/minority.htm

    Stocks Plunge; Dow Sinks to 1-Month Low
    By CHRISTOPHER WANG, AP Business Writer
    Wednesday, May 17, 2006
    http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/news/archive/2006/05/17/financial/f103745D20.DTL

    FOCUS | Dahr Jamail: Support Our Troops, Anybody?
    Dahr Jamail points out that if current trends continue, May will be one
    of the deadliest months of the occupation yet for troops, with an
    average of over three being killed per day. 54 coalition soldiers have been
    killed in the first 16 days of May alone. Meanwhile, troops returning
    from Iraq are finding little comfort in the hollow rhetoric of their
    chief chicken-hawk. The medical attention necessary to support the troops
    is becoming scarcer with each passing tax-cut.
    http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/051706Z.shtml

    The Guard Has Heard the Plan. Now It Needs the 'How.'
    By DAVID S. CLOUD
    Over time, the rotations could strain some units in demand in
    Iraq and in Afghanistan, current and former Pentagon officials
    said. Senator Richard J. Durbin, Democrat of Illinois, calculated
    that the plan could result in more than 150,000 Guard members
    being deployed to the border in the next two years.
    To minimize the stress on Guard units, the plan calls for sending
    units to the border as part their annual two-week training obligation,
    which would be lengthened to three weeks to allow time for travel.
    In addition, officials said, some headquarters personnel in each
    state would not be rotated, to ensure continuity.
    May 17, 2006
    http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/17/washington/17guard.html

    Governors of Border States Have Hope, and Questions
    Criticism of the president's plan was bipartisan. Gov. Arnold
    Schwarzenegger of California, a Republican, said that using National
    Guard troops was at best a "Band-Aid solution." And he questioned
    whether the 6,000 troops who would be assigned temporary duty
    on the border would be enough to hold back the flood of migrants.
    "I have not heard the president say that our objective is to secure
    the borders no matter what it takes. That's what I want to hear,"
    Mr. Schwarzenegger said at a bill-signing ceremony on Tuesday.
    "So what if they have 6,000 National Guards at the borders and
    we find out that the same amount of people are coming across?
    Does it mean he will increase it to 12,000, to 15,000, to 50,000?
    We don't know. I have no idea. And so we were not consulted
    on that, and we have not really been included in the decision
    making process, so I cannot tell you."
    By JOHN M. BRODER
    May 17, 2006

    Verizon Denies Turning Over Local Phone Data
    By KEN BELSON and MATT RICHTEL
    May 17, 2006
    http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/17/washington/17phone.html

    C.I.A. Making Rapid Strides for Regrowth
    By MARK MAZZETTI
    May 17, 2006
    http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/17/washington/17cia.html?hp&ex=1147924800&en=b61021cdea26eb03&ei=5094&partner=homepage

    Bush Faces Resistance on Immigration
    By CARL HULSE and JIM RUTENBERG
    May 17, 2006
    http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/17/washington/17immig.html?hp&ex=1147924800&en=5aceeddd2b4f2709&ei=5094&partner=homepage

    Schools Plan in Nebraska Is Challenged
    [A plan to set up separate Black, White and
    Latino school districts....bw]
    By SAM DILLON
    May 17, 2006
    http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/17/us/17naacp.html

    West's Failure over Climate Change 'Will Kill 182m Africans'
    http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/0515-04.htm

    Too Late to Shut the Gate on Killer 'Mad Cow'
    http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/0515-06.htm

    Majority of Americans against Phone Record Collection
    http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/0515-11.htm

    The Spies Who Shag Us
    The Times and USA Today have Missed the Bigger Story -- Again
    A BUZZFLASH GUEST CONTRIBUTION
    by Greg Palast
    http://www.buzzflash.com/contributors/06/05/con06189.html

    Inmate to Be Freed as DNA Tests Upend Murder Confession
    By JIM DWYER
    Today, however, Mr. Warney is due to appear in a Rochester
    courtroom — he uses a wheelchair — and prosecutors have agreed
    that his conviction should be dismissed. A series of DNA tests, which
    prosecutors at first tried to block, have linked blood found at the
    scene to another man, who is in prison for a different killing and
    three other stabbings....Mr. Warney appears poised to join a roster
    of people who confessed to crimes they had not committed,
    a phenomenon whose size has been one of the startling
    revelations of the DNA era.
    May 16, 2006
    http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/16/nyregion/16dna.html

    Wal-Mart Goes Organic: And Now for the Bad News
    By Michael Pollan
    May 15, 2006
    http://pollan.blogs.nytimes.com/

    Behind Bush's Address Lies a Deep History
    By ELISABETH BUMILLER
    May 16, 2006
    http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/16/washington/16assess.html?hp&ex=1147838400&en=570b4467c7f33839&ei=5094&partner=homepage

    President's Middle Path Disappoints Both Sides
    By MONICA DAVEY and RALPH BLUMENTHAL
    May 16, 2006
    http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/16/us/16react.html?hp&ex=1147838400&en=426293d44951e52a&ei=5094&partner=homepage

    Border Illusions
    New York Times Editorial
    President Bush's speech from the Oval Office last night was not
    a blueprint for comprehensive immigration reform. It was
    a victory for the fear-stricken fringe of the debate.
    These are the people who say illegal border crossings must
    be stopped immediately, with military boots in the desert sand.
    May 16, 2006
    http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/16/opinion/16tue1.html?hp

    'Racist' marriage law upheld by Israel
    By Donald Macintyre in Jerusalem
    Published: 15 May 2006
    http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/article484122.ece

    Pictures from mass rally with Chavez in Vienna
    By Hands off Venezuela Committee
    www.haendewegvonvenezuela.org
    Monday, 15 May 2006
    Pictures from the mass rally with Chavez in Vienna. Aleida Guevara,
    Alan Woods and Hugo Chávez address 5,000 enthusiastic youth
    in the meeting organised by the Hands Off Venezuela and
    Cuba campaign.
    http://www.marxist.com/pictures-mass-rally-chavez-vienna150506.htm

    Bush's Plan to Seal Border Worries Mexico
    By JIM RUTENBERG
    May 15, 2006
    http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/15/washington/15bush.html?hp&ex=1147752000&en=a3860fe9f2289fb5&ei=5094&partner=homepage

    Mayor Ken holds lunch for Chavez
    Controversial Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, on a two-day
    visit to London, is due to attend a lunch hosted
    by Mayor Ken Livingstone.
    6.58AM, Mon May 15 2006
    http://www.itv.com/news/britain_1391184.html

    Revolution in the Camden air as Chávez - with amigo Ken -
    gets a hero's welcome
    Show of solidarity for Venezuelan president
    Three-hour speech wins over 800-strong crowd
    Duncan Campbell and Jonathan Steele
    Guardian
    Monday May 15, 2006
    http://www.guardian.co.uk/print/0,,329480223-111259,00.html

    FOCUS | Bush to Deploy Guard at Border
    President Bush tried to ease the worries of his Mexican counterpart
    yesterday as he prepared for a nationally televised address tonight
    unveiling a plan to send thousands of National Guard troops to help seal the
    nation's southern border against illegal immigrants.
    http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/051506Z.shtml

    Chávez Is a Threat Because He Offers the Alternative
    of a Decent Society
    Saturday, May 13, 2006
    By: John Pilger - The Guardian
    www.venezuelanalysis.com/articles.php?artno=1727
    http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,1773908,00.html

    Chavez offers oil to Europe's poor
    Venezuelan President promises fuel to the needy and proclaims
    'final days of the North American empire' before visit to Britain today
    Sunday May 14, 2006
    Observer
    http://observer.guardian.co.uk/world/story/0,,1774649,00.html

    An Army of one wrong recruit
    Mon, 08 May 2006 11:21:17 -0700
    Summary:
    The American Army is being ground to dust in Iraq in several ways:
    insurgent attacks destroy personnel and equipment, desert
    conditions take their toll on machinery, an interminable,
    confusing conflict lowers morale, and experienced soldiers
    increasingly leave at their first available opportunity.
    As this article describes, the quality of the soldiers themselves
    may also be in jeopardy. As the desire of Americans to fight and
    die in the desert declines, military recruiters are being forced to
    recruit less and less qualified applicants. Here’s the story of one
    such recruit.
    [Posted By bacchus]
    By MICHELLE ROBERTS
    Republished from The Oregonian
    Autism - The signing of a disabled Portland man despite warnings
    reflects problems nationally for military enlistment
    http://www.gnn.tv/headlines/9013/An_Army_of_one_wrong_recruit

    Operation Northwoods
    Information Center
    Follow the links provided below to declassified Pentagon documents
    and an ABC News article on Operation Northwoods. Approved by
    the top Pentagon chiefs, Operation Northwoods proposed fabricating
    terrorism in US cities and killing innocent citizens to trick the public
    into supporting a war against Cuba in the early 1960s. Operation
    Northwoods even proposed blowing up a US ship and hijacking
    planes as a false pretext for war. First coming to light in the year
    2000 through a Freedom of Information Act request, key excerpts
    from the Operation Northwoods documents are provided below.
    Operation Northwoods on the ABC News website:
    http://abcnews.go.com/US/story?id=92662&page=1
    15 pages of declassified Joint Chiefs of Staff
    documents on Operation Northwoods
    as posted on the National Security Archive
    of George Washington University:
    http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/news/20010430/northwoods.pdf
    Instructions on how to access 181 pages of
    declassified documents from Operation Northwoods
    on the official website of the
    US National Archives and Records Administration:
    http://www.WantToKnow.info/operationnorthwoods

    Military Plans Tests in Search for an Alternative to Oil-Based Fuel
    By THOM SHANKER
    May 14, 2006
    http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/14/us/14fuel.html

    Full Text: The President of Iran's Letter to President Bush
    The full text of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's letter
    to US President George W. Bush, a historic document, is the first
    written communication between the leadership of Iran and the
    leadership of the United States since the Iranian Revolution of
    1979 overthrew the US-backed Shah of Iran and stormed the
    US Embassy in Tehran.
    http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/051006A.shtml#1

    The Black Stake in the Internet:
    Net Neutrality is an African American Issue
    by BC Editor Bruce Dixon
    http://www.blackcommentator.com/183/183_cover_black_stake_internet_pf.html

    Remember Sheila Detoy
    A police officer's bullet took her life, then came the vicious
    slander of her good name
    Peter Keane
    Thursday, May 11, 2006
    http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2006/05/11/EDGDOIJKH61.DTL

    Ban sought on strike at Delphi
    Customer warns that U.S. economy at risk
    BY JUSTIN HYDE
    FREE PRESS WASHINGTON STAFF
    May 11, 2006
    http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060511/BUSINESS01/605110354

    New UAW Chrysler Stealth Agreement Reveals The Future
    http://futureoftheunion.com/?p=2660

    FINAL STATEMENT OF THE FOURTH PALESTINIANS
    IN EUROPE CONFERENCE
    http://www.prc.org.uk/data/aspx/d2/2822.aspx

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