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

Urgent Call to Support U.S. Military Officer
to Refuse Illegal IraqWar
June 2, 2006: First U.S. military officer poised to publicly refuse
orders in support of the illegal Iraq War requires immediate support
and assistance. Join this unprecedented political and legal support
campaign today! Information updated daily!
Sign the petition!
Thank you LT for standing up for international, US and military
law by refusing to deploy to Iraq in support of the ongoing
illegal war and occupation.
http://www.thankyoult.org/

---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*--------
"It's better to die on your feet than to live on your knees."
- Emilano Zapata
---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*--------

Protest the Minutemen In Fremont! Defend Immigrant Rights!
When: Friday, June 2, 2006 at 4:30pm
Where: Corner of Mowry and Fremont Blvd, Fremont CA
Contact: Jessie Muldoon, 510-467-5579

Protesta contral los Vigilantes en Fremont!
Defienda los Derechos de los Inmigrantes!
Cuando: Viernes 2 de Junio, 2006 a las 4:30pm
Donde: La esquina de Mowry y Fremont Blvd, Fremont CA
Contactar: Jessie Muldoon, 510-467-5579

---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*--------
LEASE RSVP ! 2nd SF Civil Rights Revival Cookout,
Sunday 6-4-06 4 pm

COALITION BUILDING
Please Forward Far & Wide !

2nd San Francisco
Civil Rights RevivalCOOKOUT !

Sponsored by:

SF ANSWER
Community First Coalition
Idriss Stelley Foundation
5 a n s w e r @ a c t i o
When : SUNDAY, JUNE 4TH
4PM - 7PM

Where: In the Heart of Bayview:
Idriss Stelley Foundation,
4921 3RD ST, San Francisco
Between Palou &Quesada

Why : Join the SF Bayview Community to celebrate the past and present,
the Struggle for Equality and Self-Determination of our Lands &
Communities !

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

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

People United For a General and Unconditional Amnesty
Rally Monday, June 19, 2006, 5:00 P.M.
Palou Avenue and Third Street, S.F.

No matter what the decisions the lawmakers make to "reform" the
immigration laws, we know that they will make some immigrant
workers "legal" and others "illegal."

We will hold a rally June 19, 2006 at 5:00 p.m. at Palou Avenue
and Third Street in San Francisco to demand General and
Unconditional Amnesty for All Immigrants. We hold this rally
in celebration of the date of June 19th, 141 years ago when
it was declared the end of slavery by Black people in this country.

Our Black brothers and sisters continue to be a slave of racism
and injustice just as we immigrants. And the government
continues to put on Death Row the great leaders of the Black
movement such as Mumia Abu-Jamal.

We make a call for unity at this rally in the Bayview so we can
honor June 19th by making a commitment to sow the first
seeds together in order to make a reality the emancipation
of the Black people and the immigrants and to demand the
immediate freedom of the great leader of the Black people,
Mumia Abu-Jamal, innocent on Death Row.

For More Information:

People United For a General and Unconditional Amnesty
Barrio Unido Por una Amnistia General e Incondicional
474 Valencia Street
San Francisco, CA 94110
Contact Persons:
Cristina Gutierrez: 415-431-9925
Kati Sanchez: 415-368-2576

Related:

Senate Passes Comprehensive Immigration Bill
By RACHEL L. SWARNS
May 25, 2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/25/washington/25cnd-immig.html?hp&ex=1148616000&en=510a31f6777e6e54&ei=5094&partner=homepage

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

ABOLISHING JROTC in SAN FRANCISCO SCHOOLS
There will be a special meeting in July when
the School Board will vote on this resolution.
The meeting date is to be announced.
School District Office
555 Franklin St
San Francisco
415/241-6427

Report and Open letter to the Board of Education regarding JROTC:

At the first reading of the resolution to rid the schools
of JROTC on the basis of the policy of "Don't ask, don't
tell" that discriminates against gay's in the military, which
was presented to the Board of Education meeting on May 23, the
JROTC teachers (all retired military officers) mobilized students
to speak on behalf of JROTC. Carole Seligman and I spoke to many
students in the lobby before the meeting began. Repeatedly they
expressed that they loved the program. It gives them confidence
in themselves, provides a supportive environment, encourages good
scholarship in school, and encourages comradeship among the members.

So much so, that a young girl had a silver-colored chain with a tiny
silver-colored and diamond studded bullet. I really couldn't believe
it was a bullet so I asked her if it was. She said, "oh! this? Yes,
it's a bullet. You know, it's between me and my friend, you know,
like, 'I'll take a bullet for you!'"

Need I say more about the virtues of JROTC?

Unfortunately, the resolution that follows says nothing of this
aspect of JROTC. Nothing about the war. Nothing about young people
being taught to "take a bullet for each other". Nothing about the
realities of war. Nothing about asking students, gay or not, to
risk their lives and take the lives of Iraqis for this inhuman
and illegal war brought about by an inhuman and illegal
government.

It was announced by gay supporters of JROTC at the meeting
that they expected the military to lift the prohibition on gays
in the military this year. If this is true this will make this
resolution obsolete before it can ever take effect. Are we to cheer
that our gay brothers and sisters will be able to fight in this war?
What is our plan to convince young gay and straight students that they can't
"be all they can be" if they are dead; or legless and armless; or with the
blood of too many dead in their hearts and head; or permanently
brain-damaged; burnt or blinded by exploding eyeballs and deafened by
exploding eardrums? Who will tell them of depleted uranium illness?
Who will tell them that although there is a very high survival rate for
our injured soldiers there is also a very high rate of survival with such
catastrophic injury and illness? Who will tell them that they are more
likely to be homeless after serving than in college? Who will tell
them about the logic of "following orders" and a "chain of command"
Instead of thinking and reasoning and making decisions for themselves
leads to disaster?

If you haven't seen it, I suggest you watch the HBO special,
"Baghdad ER". In fact it should be shown to all of our students
in middle and high school. (It's far too explicit for very young children.)

We and the majority of the voters in San Francisco want
the military out of our schools immediately!

Here are my comments for the meeting. I was cut off midway
through my timed one-minute delivery. The resolution
follows my comments. Please look at it again and see that a
vital antiwar message is missing from it and correct and
amend the resolution immediately to reflect opposition
to the militarization of our schools and the offering up of our
students as cannon fodder for this bloodthirsty and greedy
government and it's military might.

We want a world without war! How can we teach children
that violence is not the answer when the most powerful
and influential adults in the world--our government--
uses it as their ultimate tool to gain wealth and power
for themselves.

You must take a stronger antiwar stand! I don't care how many
antiwar resolutions you have passed. The proof of the pudding
is in the military presence in our schools!

Sincerely,
Bonnie Weinstein

Addressed to the President, Vice President and the
Commissioners of the San Francisco Board of Education:

I commend the board members who are bringing the motion
to rid our schools of JROTC forward. This is in line with the
wishes of the majority of the voters in San Francisco who
voted to get the military out of our schools this past November.
The military’s policy of “don’t ask, don’t tell” is unacceptable.
Our obligation is to educate our children against prejudice
of all kinds—not turn a blind eye—and turn a bigoted military
loose on them. But that is not the only reason we want the
military and JROTC out.

We want our children to engage in physical education, in fact,
to find joy in it; and to study history—to learn how to avoid
the mistakes of the past; to gain satisfaction and experience
joy in learning so they can contribute to human knowledge
themselves as well as help fashion a better world!

We want our children to feel responsible to her or his
community. We want students to gain a sense of
responsibility and pride in a job well done by
contributing to the life and well being of their school,
their home and their community.

We don’t want to teach our children to blindly obey
a chain of command or to glorify war. In fact, it is our
duty to teach our children that blind obedience, violence,
greed, bigotry, prejudice, human inequality, torture, pre-
emptive war, profiting off of war and injustice, inequality
in the application of the law, and poverty in the face of
fantastic wealth is wrong, inhuman and intolerable and
we can do better!

We must rid our schools of the military and JROTC, hire
enough Physical Education teachers immediately, and
re-dedicate our schools to education and human
development—and reject the road to war and militarism.

Just one more thing, I want to correct the notion that the
new school policy regarding military recruiters has resulted
in less military presence in our schools. In fact, it has resulted
in more. Many schools did not invite the military on Career Day
and now they must, and that is a shame, because we want the
military out! We don’t want our children to study war or bigotry
any more! Not for one more second!

Bonnie Weinstein, Bay Area United Against War,
www.bauaw.org, 415-824-8730

The resolution:

Introduction of Replacement Program for JROTC
--Commissioners Mark Sanchez and Dan Kelly

WHEREAS: It is the official policy of the San Francisco Unified School
District to oppose discrimination of any kind against any group
of people; and

WHEREAS: The District’s opposition to discrimination is articulated
in Board Policy 5163, which provides that the San Francisco Unified
School District shall not discriminate on the basis of race, religion,
creed, national origin, age, sex, sexual orientation, or handicapping
condition in the provision of educational programs, services, and
activities, in the admission of students to school programs and
activities; and in the recruitment and employment of personnel; and

WHEREAS: The San Francisco Unified School District deplores the
"Don’t Ask Don’t Tell" policy of the U.S. Department of Defense,
which requires the discharge of any member of the armed forces
if such service member has engaged in "homosexual acts," has
revealed that s/he is a homosexual or bisexual, or the member
has married or attempted to marry a person known to be of the
same biological sex; and

WHEREAS: The District believes that the "Don’t Ask Don’t Tell"
policy is an unjust, indefensible, unintelligent, state-sanctioned
act of homophobia; and

WHEREAS: The San Francisco Unified School District cannot justify
committing any funding to a JROTC program because its connection
to the U.S. Department of Defense suggests that discrimination
against some groups is tolerable.

THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED: That the Board of Education of the
San Francisco Unified School District calls for the phasing –out
of the JROTC program of the United States Department of Defense
on San Francisco Unified School District campuses; and

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED: That the Board of Education instructs
District staff to provide all JROTC units at SFUSD campuses with
one year notice that the programs will be terminated at all SFUSD
campuses after the 2006-2007 school year; and

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED: That the Board of Education calls for the
creation of a special task force to develop alternative, creative,
career-driven programs which provide students with a greater
sense of purpose and respect for self and humankind.

Board has plan to oust ROTC from S.F. schools
Members want to cut program over 'Don't ask, Don't tell'
The students engage in physical training such as running, push-ups
and jumping jacks; and discipline training such as marching,
drill-practice and using a mock chain of command. They also
study military history and perform community service.
- Heather Knight, Chronicle Staff Writer
Tuesday, May 23, 2006
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2006/05/23/MNGIOJ0G7P1.DTL

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

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.
http://209.97.202.24/gallery/view_album.php?set_albumName=abu_ghraib_torture_pictures_images_iraq_war
to view these images.

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

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

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

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!
---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*--------

LEASE RSVP ! 2nd SF Civil Rights Revival Cookout,
Sunday 6-4-06 4 pm

COALITION BUILDING
Please Forward Far & Wide !

2nd San Francisco
Civil Rights RevivalCOOKOUT !

Sponsored by:

SF ANSWER
Community First Coalition
Idriss Stelley Foundation
5 a n s w e r @ a c t i o
When : SUNDAY, JUNE 4TH
4PM - 7PM

Where: In the Heart of Bayview:
Idriss Stelley Foundation,
4921 3RD ST, San Francisco
Between Palou &Quesada

Why : Join the SF Bayview Community to celebrate the past and present,
the Struggle for Equality and Self-Determination of our Lands &
Communities !

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

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

People United For a General and Unconditional Amnesty
Rally Monday, June 19, 2006, 5:00 P.M.
Palou Avenue and Third Street, S.F.

No matter what the decisions the lawmakers make to "reform" the
immigration laws, we know that they will make some immigrant
workers "legal" and others "illegal."

We will hold a rally June 19, 2006 at 5:00 p.m. at Palou Avenue
and Third Street in San Francisco to demand General and
Unconditional Amnesty for All Immigrants. We hold this rally
in celebration of the date of June 19th, 141 years ago when
it was declared the end of slavery by Black people in this country.

Our Black brothers and sisters continue to be a slave of racism
and injustice just as we immigrants. And the government
continues to put on Death Row the great leaders of the Black
movement such as Mumia Abu-Jamal.

We make a call for unity at this rally in the Bayview so we can
honor June 19th by making a commitment to sow the first
seeds together in order to make a reality the emancipation
of the Black people and the immigrants and to demand the
immediate freedom of the great leader of the Black people,
Mumia Abu-Jamal, innocent on Death Row.

For More Information:

People United For a General and Unconditional Amnesty
Barrio Unido Por una Amnistia General e Incondicional
474 Valencia Street
San Francisco, CA 94110
Contact Persons:
Cristina Gutierrez: 415-431-9925
Kati Sanchez: 415-368-2576

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

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

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

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) Laid Off and Left Out
By BOB HERBERT
May 25, 2006
http://select.nytimes.com/2006/05/25/opinion/25herbert.html?hp

2) An Immigration Victory [for the slave-holders, certainly
not for immigrants....bw]
New York Times Editorial
May 27, 2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/27/opinion/27sat1.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin

3) The Energy Challenge
Coal May Be Fuel of the Future, but Industry Battles Over Path
By SIMON ROMERO
May 28, 2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/28/business/28coal.html?hp&ex=1148788800&en=fd524c32f2843a7b&ei=5094&partner=homepage

4) In the war of the super-rich on the rest of us ...
in San Francisco, as in New Orleans
"In the war of the super-rich on the rest of us, whether in Iraq, New
Orleans or San Francisco’s Hunters Point, the plan is to utterly
destroy the land of the vulnerable and then further enrich the
super-rich with contracts for reconstruction – or redevelopment:
In Iraq, shock and awe; in New Orleans, devastation wrought by
a hurricane and the hand of man; in the Hunters Point Shipyard,
without notice to the neighborhood, the clearcutting by developer
Lennar of all the trees covering 64.5 acres to make way
for its Superfund condos."
by Ann Garrison
May 24, 2006
http://www.sfbayview.com/051706/therestofus.shtml

5) Are Enrons Bustin' Out All Over?
By Gretchen Morgenson
May 28, 2006
http://select.nytimes.com/2006/05/28/business/yourmoney/28gret.html

6) Block the Vote
New York Times Editorial
May 30, 2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/30/opinion/30tue1.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin

7) Justices Set Limits on Public Employees' Speech Rights
By DAVID STOUT
May 30, 2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/30/washington/30cnd-scotus.html?hp&ex=1149048000&en=57d52201086729ae&ei=5094&partner=homepage

8) REPORT FROM CENTRO OBRERO
[How the employer uses immigration papers, or lack thereof, as a
tool to lower wages, increase hours and speed-up production
in order to increase their rate of profit at the expense of the
health and well being of workers...bw]

9) Responsible Reform of Immigration Laws Must Protect Working
Conditions for all Workers in the U.S.
March 01, 2006
San Diego, CA
http://www.aflcio.org/aboutus/thisistheaflcio/ecouncil/ec02272006e.cfm

10) Exxon Mobil Shareholders Reject Effort to Restrain Executive Pay
DALLAS, May 31 (AP) — Shareholders of the Exxon Mobil
Corporation, whose last chief executive took home $147
million when he retired, overwhelmingly rejected resolutions
to rein in compensation at the company's annual meeting on
Wednesday...Mr. Raymond was paid $49 million in cash and
restricted stock last year, then got a $98 million lump-sum
pension payment.
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
June 1, 2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/01/business/01exxon.html

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

1) Laid Off and Left Out
By BOB HERBERT
May 25, 2006
http://select.nytimes.com/2006/05/25/opinion/25herbert.html?hp

You don't hear much from the American worker anymore.
Like battered soldiers at the end of a lost war, ordinary
workers seem resigned to their diminished status.

The grim terms imposed on them include wage stagnation,
the widespread confiscation of benefits (including pensions
they once believed were guaranteed), and a permanent state
of employment insecurity.

For an unnecessarily large number of Americans, the workplace
has become a hub of anxiety and fear, an essential but
capricious environment in which you might be shown the
door at any moment.

In his new book, "The Disposable American: Layoffs and
Their Consequences," Louis Uchitelle tells us that since 1984,
when the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics started monitoring
"worker displacement," at least 30 million full-time workers
have been "permanently separated from their jobs and their
paychecks against their wishes."

Mr. Uchitelle writes on economic issues for The Times. In his
book, he traces the evolution of that increasingly endangered
species, the secure job, and the effect that the current culture
of corporate layoffs is having on ordinary men and women.

He said he was surprised, as he did the reporting for the book,
by the extensive emotional fallout that accompanies layoffs.
"There's a lot of mental health damage," he said. "The act of
being laid off is such a blow to the self-esteem. Layoffs are
a national phenomenon, a societal problem — but the laid-off
workers blame themselves."

In addition to being financially strapped, laid-off workers and
their families are often emotionally strapped as well. Common
problems include depression, domestic strife and divorce.

Mr. Uchitelle's thesis is that corporate layoffs have been carried
much too far, that they have gone beyond a legitimate and
necessary response to a changing economy.

"What started as a necessary response to the intrusion of foreign
manufacturers into the American marketplace got out of hand,"
he writes. "By the late 1990's, getting rid of workers had become
normal practice, ingrained behavior, just as job security had
been 25 years earlier."

In many cases, a thousand workers were fired when 500 might
have been sufficient, or 10,000 were let go when 5,000 would
have been enough. We pay a price for these excesses. The losses
that accrue to companies and communities when many years
of improving skills and valuable experience are casually and
unnecessarily tossed on a scrap heap are incalculable.

"The majority of the people who are laid off," said Mr. Uchitelle,
"end up in jobs that pay significantly less than they earned before,
or they drop out altogether."

At the heart of the layoff phenomenon is the myth, endlessly
repeated by corporate leaders and politicians of both parties,
that workers who are thrown out of their jobs can save themselves,
can latch onto spiffy new jobs by becoming better educated
and acquiring new skills.

"Education and training create the jobs, according to this way
of thinking," writes Mr. Uchitelle. "Or, put another way, a job
materializes for every trained or educated worker, a job
commensurate with his or her skills, for which he or she
is appropriately paid."

That is just not so, and the corporate and political elite need
to stop feeding that bogus line to the public.

There is no doubt that the better-educated and better-trained
get better jobs. But the reality is that there are not enough
good jobs currently available to meet the demand of college
-educated and well-trained workers in the United States,
which is why so many are working in jobs for which they
are overqualified.

A chapter in "The Disposable American" details the plight of
exquisitely trained airline mechanics who found themselves
laid off from jobs that had paid up to $31 an hour. Mr. Uchitelle
writes: "Not enough jobs exist at $31 an hour — or at $16 an
hour, for that matter — to meet the demand for them. Jobs
just don't materialize at cost-conscious companies to absorb
all the qualified people who want them."

The most provocative question raised by Mr. Uchitelle is whether
the private sector is capable of generating enough good jobs
at good pay to meet the demand of everyone who is qualified
wants to work.

If it cannot (and so far it has not), then what? If education and
training are not the building blocks to solid employment,
what is? These are public policy questions of the highest
importance, and so far they are being ignored

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

2) An Immigration Victory [for the slave-holders, certainly
not for immigrants....bw]
New York Times Editorial
May 27, 2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/27/opinion/27sat1.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin

Americans should be proud of what the United States Senate did
this week. It passed an ambitious bill that could lead to the most
far-reaching overhaul of immigration laws in the nation's history.
It did so after months of thoughtful debate and through a bipartisan
compromise, a creature that many thought had vanished from
Capitol Hill. The bill has many flaws, but its framework is realistic
and humane. At various low points in the debate, this outcome
could scarcely have been imagined, but the near-impossible
happened on Thursday, by a vote of 62 to 36.

The Senate has given the cause of immigration reform a lot of
momentum, which it will need since it is now heading for a brick
wall: the House of Representatives.

The House Judiciary Committee chairman, James Sensenbrenner Jr.,
in the role of head brick, called the Senate bill "a nonstarter" the
morning after it passed. Discussing the odds of reconciling the
House and Senate legislation into one bill, Mr. Sensenbrenner
struck a tone of deathly pessimism. The chambers had once
been miles apart, but now they were "moons apart or oceans
apart," he said, grasping for words to convey the vastness of his
gloom, and the ferocity of his bargaining stance.

But why was he so down?

The House's immigration bill is tough on security. But so is the
Senate's. The House wants 700 miles of new fencing on the
Mexican border; the Senate wants 370, with another 500 miles
of vehicle barriers. That looks like mere miles apart to us.

But when you add the real crux of the debate — the future flow
of temporary workers and a path to citizenship for the nation's
shadow population of 11 million to 12 million illegal immigrants
— things do get tricky.

Many polls show that the American public has moved decisively
toward favoring a comprehensive immigration solution: tightening
security and giving illegal immigrants a chance to seek the burdens
and benefits of citizenship. But those in the Sensenbrenner camp
are clinging to a fantasy that only a clenched fist will set the nation's
immigrant problems right. They have refused to treat illegal
immigrants as anything but outlaws, and oppose the Senate
bill's citizenship path. They speak with the sullen defeatism
of those who have dug into their positions and can't climb out.

It is hard to understand what — besides election-year pandering
and xenophobic hostility — motivates their unwillingness to bend
toward the flexible, sensible policy that immigrants, their families
and their advocates, many business organizations and labor unions,
and a majority of the Senate are seeking.

Is it their fear that the United States as we know it is on the brink
of disintegrating under a flood of poor people looking for work?
That dread was expressed this month in a much-buzzed-about
report from the Heritage Foundation. It warned that the Senate
bill would increase the United States population by 103 million
in 20 years. An uproar followed, and led to an amendment that
shrank the bill's guest-worker quotas. The foundation then
revised its estimate down to 66 million.

But that is still a staggeringly ridiculous sum, considering that
Mexico's entire work force is only 43 million. We suppose it is
possible that every last worker south of the border could move
here, bringing family members and pets, but Mexico and Central
America would have to be depopulated to make the conservatives'
nightmare come true. To the reality-based community, thankfully,
the Senate bill is not a nightmare.

It is a rough draft of what could end up as a profound achievement.
There is a huge gap between the House and the Senate, but it can
be bridged, and President Bush should bridge it. The coalition
that passed the Senate bill has handed Mr. Bush an opportunity
to lead the country to a better place. He should spend every last
shred of his political capital and skill to take it.

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

3) The Energy Challenge
Coal May Be Fuel of the Future, but Industry Battles Over Path
By SIMON ROMERO
May 28, 2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/28/business/28coal.html?hp&ex=1148788800&en=fd524c32f2843a7b&ei=5094&partner=homepage

WRIGHT, Wyo. — More than a century ago a blustery Wyoming
politician named Fenimore Chatterton boasted that his state alone
had enough coal to "weld every tie that binds, drive every wheel,
change the North Pole into a tropical region, or smelt all hell!"

His words seem prophetic.

The future for American energy users is playing out in coal-rich
areas like northeastern Wyoming, where dump trucks and bulldozers
swarm around 80-foot-thick seams at a Peabody Energy strip mine
here, one of the largest in the world.

Coal, the nation's favorite fuel in much of the 19th century and early
20th century, could become so again in the 21st. The United States
has enough to last at least two centuries at current use rates —
reserves far greater than those of oil or natural gas. And for all
the public interest in alternatives like wind and solar power, or
ethanol from the heartland, coal will play a far bigger role.

But the conventional process for burning coal in power plants
has one huge drawback: it is one of the largest manmade sources
of the gases responsible for global warming.

Many scientists say that sharply reducing emissions of these
gases could make more difference in slowing climate change
than any other move worldwide. And they point out that American
companies are best positioned to set an example for other nations
in adopting a new technique to limit the environmental impact
of the more than 1,000 coal-fired power projects on drawing
boards around the world.

It is on this issue, however, that executives of some of the most
important companies in the coal business diverge. Their
disagreement is crucial in the debate over how to satisfy
Americans' growing energy appetite without accelerating
climate change.

One of those executives, Michael G. Morris, runs American
Electric Power, the nation's largest coal consumer and biggest
producer of heat-trapping carbon dioxide emissions from its
existing plants. He is spearheading a small movement within
the energy industry to embrace the new technology. His
company plans to build at least two 600-megawatt plants,
in Ohio and West Virginia.

The company says these plants are not only better for the
environment but also in the best interests of even its cost-
conscious shareholders. While they would cost 15 to 20 percent
more to build, Mr. Morris says they would be far less expensive
to retrofit with the equipment needed to move carbon dioxide
deep underground, instead of releasing it to the sky, if limits
are placed on emissions of global warming gases.

"Leave the science alone for a minute," Mr. Morris said in an
interview at the Columbus, Ohio, headquarters of his company.
"The politics around climate issues are very real. That's why
we need to move on this now."

But most in the industry are not making that bet. Among
them is Gregory H. Boyce, chief executive of Peabody Energy,
the largest private-sector coal producer in the world thanks
in part to its growing operations here in Wyoming and with
aspirations to operate coal-fired plants of its own. Mr. Boyce's
company alone controls reserves with more energy potential
than the oil and gas reserves of Exxon Mobil.

"We're still not convinced that the technology or cost structure
is there to justify going down a path where we're not
comfortable," Mr. Boyce said.

Mr. Boyce's view has prevailed. No more than a dozen of the
140 new coal-fired power plants planned in the United States
expect to use the new approach.

The decisions being made right now in industry and government
on how quickly to adopt any new but more costly technologies
will be monumental.

"Coal isn't going away, so you have to think ahead," said Gavin
A. Schmidt, a climate modeler at the Goddard Institute for Space
Studies, part of NASA. "Many of these power stations are built
to last 50 years."

Increased Gas Emissions

Michael Morris and Gregory Boyce, both kingpins in their industries,
have a lot in common. They do a lot of business together — Mr. Morris
is one of Mr. Boyce's largest customers. They are solid Republicans.
And they serve together on various industry initiatives.

They agree that energy from coal — the nation's most important source
of electricity — is cheaper than energy from oil and natural gas and
is competitive with the uranium used in nuclear power plants. And
coal could serve new uses: replacing petroleum in making chemicals,
for example, or even fueling vehicles.

But while sooty smokestacks are no longer a big problem in modern
coal-burning power plants, the increase in global warming gases is.
A typical 500-megawatt coal-fired electricity plant, supplying enough
power to run roughly 500,000 homes, alone produces as much
in emissions annually as about 750,000 cars, according to estimates
from Royal Dutch Shell.

Coal has perhaps no stronger evangelist than Mr. Boyce, who
grew up on Long Island, the son of a mining executive, and studied
engineering in Arizona. He argues that a way to reduce carbon
dioxide emissions can be found without having to switch from
the existing cheaper coal-burning technology.

Much in the way that Exxon Mobil influences discussion of climate
issues from the petroleum industry, Peabody is a backer of industry
-supported organizations that seek to prevent mandatory reductions
in global warming emissions and promote demand for coal.

Peabody's executives are also by far the coal industry's largest
political contributors to federal candidates and parties, giving
$641,059 in the 2004 election cycle, with 93 percent of that amount
going to Republicans, according to the Center for Responsive Politics,
an independent research group in Washington that tracks money
in politics. And while Peabody says it expects contributions to
Democrats to increase, under Mr. Boyce the company has cultivated
close contact with the Bush administration.

Mr. Boyce was chairman of an advisory panel for the Energy Department,
organized by the National Coal Council, that produced a controversial
report in March calling for exemptions to the Clean Air Act to encourage
greater consumption of coal through 2025. The thrust of the report,
which Mr. Boyce outlined in an interview, is that improvements in
technology to limit carbon dioxide emissions should be left to the
market instead of government regulation.

By contrast, the environmental advocacy group Natural Resources
Defense Council, which has brought many lawsuits aimed at controlling
pollution, described the report as an "energy fantasy" that would
increase carbon dioxide emissions by more than 2 billion tons a year.

But it is Peabody's economic argument, not the environmental
opposition's, that is resonating throughout the electricity industry
and among energy regulators.

Led by Peabody, dozens of energy companies have embarked on
the most ambitious construction of coal-fired electricity plants
since the 1950's.

Coal, as Mr. Boyce notes, is a bargain. Despite a doubling in
domestic coal prices in the last two years, a surge in prices
for natural gas, the preferred fuel for new power plants in the
1990's, has made coal more attractive.

With coal so favorably priced, Peabody saw an opportunity
to enter the power-plant business itself, setting out to build two
of the largest in the world, the 1,500-megawatt Prairie State
Energy Campus in southern Illinois and the 1,500-megawatt
Thoroughbred Energy Campus in western Kentucky. Both are
in areas where the St. Louis-based company has substantial
coal reserves.

Despite growing concern among some large energy companies
over the liabilities they face if global warming advances or legal
limits on carbon dioxide emissions become a reality, Peabody
remains loyal to its technology choice. Vic Svec, Peabody's senior
vice president for investor relations, said the possibility of near-
term caps on carbon emissions was not viewed as a "material threat."

Cost of Clean Technology

Mr. Morris, at American Electric Power, sees things differently.
He cites cost concerns in arguing for its move to cleaner technology.
At the request of environmental groups that hold shares in the
company, A.E.P. agreed in 2004, shortly after Mr. Morris arrived,
to report on the potential costs it would face if emissions rules
were tightened. The company recognized that its growth beyond
2010 could be limited if it stuck with old technology.

The company has since won important allies in its push for cleaner
coal, including General Electric, which is pinning much of its hopes
for growth in the electricity industry on new technology and is
working with A.E.P. on designing its plants.

One vital element of A.E.P.'s ambitions, and by extension those
of other energy companies with similar projects, fell into place
in April when the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio allowed
the company to bill customers for a portion of the higher pre-
construction costs for the plant it is planning in the state.
The company hopes to complete construction of its first such
plant by 2010.

Proponents of these plants, which turn coal into a gas that is
burned to produce energy, say they would also emit much lower
amounts of other pollutants that contribute to acid rain, smog
and respiratory illness.

But for every small advance of the new technology, there are
bigger setbacks. Many within the industry argue that it would
be a waste of time and money to build such plants in the United
States unless China, which passed the United States several years
ago as the largest coal-consuming nation, also moves to limit
carbon dioxide emissions from its rapidly growing array of
coal-fired plants.

Divided Industry

With widespread uncertainty in the state-regulated power industry,
the debate has moved to the federal level, where testimony by
senior energy executives before the Senate Energy Committee
in April revealed a sharp fault line within the industry.

On one side, A.E.P., lined up with Peabody and other heavy coal
users against mandatory limits on global warming gases if
industrializing countries like China and India are not included.
Others that have less to lose from carbon caps — like Exelon and
Duke Energy, which rely much more on nuclear power — spoke
in favor of national limits that would include coal consumers.

The Bush administration has rejected mandatory limits on carbon
dioxide emissions. But there is some support in Washington for
such legislation. The two senators from New Mexico, Jeff Bingaman,
a Democrat, and Pete V. Domenici, a Republican, are working on
a bill that could require limits on carbon dioxide emissions.

Ahead of the 2008 presidential election, two senators often
mentioned as candidates, Hillary Rodham Clinton, Democrat
of New York, and John McCain, Republican of Arizona, have
endorsed mandatory cuts in emissions. Mr. Morris of A.E.P. said
such support has persuaded him that limits might be imposed
in coming years.

While Peabody supports some coal gasification projects, it remains
skeptical about departing from traditional coal-burning methods
to produce electricity.

The pulverized coal plants it wants to build, which grind coal into
a dust before burning it to make electricity, currently cost about
$2 billion each, or 15 percent to 20 percent less to build than the
cleaner "integrated gasification combined cycle," or I.G.C.C., plants,
which convert coal into a gas.

The hope among scientists is that I.G.C.C. plants could be relatively
quickly fitted with systems to sequester deep underground the
carbon dioxide created from making electricity. Without such
controls, the new coal plants under development worldwide
could pump as much carbon dioxide into the atmosphere over
their lifetimes as all the coal burned in the last 250 years, according
to Jeff Goodell, who has written on coal for several publications,
including The New York Times, and is author of a new book on
the coal industry.

But state and federal regulators have been hesitant to endorse
the technology. Peabody and other companies remain skeptical
that carbon-capture methods, whether for pulverized coal or
combined cycle plants, will become commercially or technologically
feasible until the next decade.

Legal battles over this reluctance have already begun, with the
Natural Resources Defense Council and the American Lung
Association this year challenging the Environmental Protection
Agency for allowing electric companies to move ahead with power
plant projects without evaluating the new technology.

In one key decision on the state level, the Wisconsin Public Service
Commission rejected a proposal from WE Energies of Milwaukee
in 2003 to build a plant with the new technology, saying it was
too expensive and would result in higher electricity prices.

Gas From Coal

Engineers have known how to make gas from coal for more than
a century, using this method in the gaslights that first illuminated
many American cities. A handful of coal gasification plants are
already in operation in the United States, Spain and the Netherlands,
built with generous government assistance.

Selling the captured carbon dioxide from coal gasification plants
could make them more competitive with pulverized coal plants.
One gasification plant in North Dakota, though different from an
electric plant, already sends its carbon dioxide to Saskatchewan,
where it is injected in aging oilfields to force more crude from the
ground. And the oil giant BP announced a similar project in March
for a refinery it owns near Los Angeles, using petroleum coke as
a fuel there instead of coal.

Scientists have developed numerous other plans to pump away
carbon dioxide, like shipping it to offshore platforms to inject it
below the ocean floor. These plans are not without risk, with some
officials concerned that carbon dioxide sequestration could trigger
earthquakes. Yet, time and again, the most limiting factor remains
economics.

As they proceed with plans to build pulverized coal plants, Peabody
and other companies often point to their support of the alternative
technology through their participation in Futuregen, a $1 billion
project started three years ago by the Bush administration to build
a showcase 275-megawatt power station that could sequester
carbon dioxide and reduce other pollutants.

Futuregen's 10 members include some of the world's largest coal
mining companies, among them Peabody and BHP Billiton of Australia,
as well as large coal-burning utilities like A.E.P. and the Southern
Company.

One Chinese company, the China Huaneng Group, is also a member
of Futuregen, while India's government signed on in March. Washington
is financing the bulk of the project, more than $600 million, with about
$250 million coming from coal and electricity companies and the rest
from foreign governments.

But Futuregen is already behind schedule, with planners now hoping
to choose a site for the plant by the end of the year, with an eye on
starting operation by 2012. Environmental groups have criticized
the project as too little, too late.

"Futuregen is a smokescreen, since it's not intended to bring
technology to the market at the pace required to deal with the
problem," said Daniel Lashoff, science director at the climate center
at the Natural Resources Defense Council. "We don't have that
kind of time."


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

4) In the war of the super-rich on the rest of us ...
in San Francisco, as in New Orleans
"In the war of the super-rich on the rest of us, whether in Iraq, New
Orleans or San Francisco’s Hunters Point, the plan is to utterly
destroy the land of the vulnerable and then further enrich the
super-rich with contracts for reconstruction – or redevelopment:
In Iraq, shock and awe; in New Orleans, devastation wrought by
a hurricane and the hand of man; in the Hunters Point Shipyard,
without notice to the neighborhood, the clearcutting by developer
Lennar of all the trees covering 64.5 acres to make way
for its Superfund condos."
by Ann Garrison
May 24, 2006
http://www.sfbayview.com/051706/therestofus.shtml

“It’s a war down here, and there’s a new battle to fight almostevery
day.” – Lorie Arcenaux Seruntine, 21, geography student, ninth
generation native of New Orleans

I met 21-year-old Lorie Arsinaux Seruntine in New Orleans.
She’d told her professors at the University of Memphis that she
had to go home, had to be in New Orleans, doing independent
study until she finished her degree.

What better place for a geography student studying “hazards”
– hazards both human and natural – to become an expert?
Lorie understands levees, hurricanes, storm surges, geology,
topography and the jet stream, most of which are still
a mystery to me, and she knows as well as anyone that
the flood that destroyed three quarters of New Orleans
was no more natural than the bombs that destroyed Iraq.

She knows that the levee system protecting the Black and
poor parts of town had been de-funded and neglected for
years and that, whether the alleged levee explosions occurred
or not, the powerful had been eager to empty the city of its
poor, mostly Black residents for a long time and that they
had no care for preserving more than a tourist industry’s
pale simulacrum of the unique and overwhelmingly Black
New Orleans culture so loved all over the world.

Lorie was among the first to occupy the rectory at historic,
multi-racial St. Augustine’s Parish Church, when the archbishop
of New Orleans threatened to replicate the New Orleans
diaspora by dispersing its members into much larger
neighboring parishes. This battle has been won – for now
– but, like most, it will require continued organization,
support and constant vigilance.

She is now organizing local emergency response committees
to face the next Caribbean hurricane season, beginning June 1,
in New Orleans. Like those she is organizing with, natives left
in the neighborhoods and the Common Ground Collective,
she expects no help from FEMA or from the federal government
in any form. More likely, she and others expect obstruction,
federal authority preventing people from helping one another
or from accepting the assistance last offered by Fidel Castro
and his world famous hurricane doctors, or from Venezuelan
President Hugo Chavez or even from the Black American medics
who rushed to New Orleans from Atlanta, only to be turned
back at the hurricane zone’s perimeter.

Like many of the natives I met still in New Orleans, Lorie believes
that their city was attacked and continues to be under siege by
real estate developers, oil companies, energy and utility giant
Entergy, and the usual suspects, Bechtel and Halliburton and
the Shaw Group, corporations also awarded huge reconstruction
contracts in response to the lobbying efforts of the very same
lobbyists who pressed their interests in Iraq even before the
bombs began to fall.

Many more New Orleans natives still in the city confirmed the
perception that they had been attacked. Grimly, quietly, often
with resignation, most even seemed to believe that the barge
that had catapulted through – or over, according to some
– residential side of the Industrial Canal into the Lower Ninth
Ward levee had been a Halliburton barge. It was not, but its
owner is another story for another day.

Many remaining residents told me horrifying stories but
declined to be quoted. Even the editors of the New Orleans
Times-Picayune, however, joined in an editorial lambasting
the federal government, published on Sept. 4,
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20050926/chronicle.
I later learned that former FEMA chief and longtime Bush
ally Joseph Allbuagh arrived on the Gulf Coast to represent
his clients even before George Bush or then FEMA chief
Michael Brown arrived.

Having spent six weeks in New Orleans, having seen the
deserted and devastated Sixth, Seventh, Eighth and Ninth
Wards and having studied the web of federal “reconstruction
contracts,” I agree: New Orleans is a new front in the war
of the super-rich against the rest of us, a war waged most
virulently against the poorest and most vulnerable.

The highly capitalized and corporate organized now pick
New Orleans’ bones much as vultures picked the bones
of those whose bodies lay in the bayous for an entire week
while FEMA reportedly haggled with Kenyon International,
a subsidiary of Houston-based Service Corporation International
(SCI), over the price of recovering the dead.

SCI, Kenyon International’s owner, is the world’s largest chain
of funeral retail outlets, about to become even larger by merging
with Alderwood Funeral Homes. A little-known corporation,
unlike Halliburton, Bechtel and Shaw, whose war profiteering,
in both Iraq and New Orleans, are quite well known, SCI has
earned most of its headlines by desecrating the dead, in Texas,
Georgia and Florida. In response to a class action lawsuit in
Florida and charges by the Florida State Attorney General,
SCI agreed to pay $100 million dollars to the Jewish families
who had trusted one of SCI’s many subsidiaries, Menorah
Gardens, to bury their dead.

SCI-owned Menorah Gardens books gravesites in advance,
and it had way overbooked the gravesites at Menorah Gardens,
as it often does. Having done so, it overpacked them with bodies,
lost track of who was buried – if they were buried – where, then
dug up and discarded corpses in nearby woods to make room
for more. In one particularly grisly incident, it bashed into
a crypt with a backhoe to remove corpses and discard them
to make room for more.

George Bush, however, is such a close family friend of SCI CEO
Robert Waltrip that he did his best to save SCI from paying
$450,000 in fines for using unlicensed embalmers, with grisly
consequences, in Texas. And he has been so generous in the
extension of reconstruction contracts to his corporate family
friends that it’s quite difficult to believe that “haggling over
the price” really postponed the recovery of New Orleans’
mostly poor, mostly Black dead.

As this “haggling over the price” went on, the number of “American”
soldiers, including the first, a Central American, and the 1,000th,
a Navajo, to die in Iraq was nearing the 2,000 mark, scheduled
to trigger anti-war demonstrations all over the country. And the
national mobilization in D.C. against the war was only days away.

Recovery of more casualties within the bounds of the nation state
that the war on Iraq was said to be defending might have given
this country pause. Some might even have realized that, at that
time, New Orleans had become the newest front in the war of
the super-rich on the rest of us. The 500 tons of yellow cake
uranium ore – that Saddam Hussein had allegedly imported from
French-owned mines in Niger had long since been discounted.

Little could be more audacious, disgusting and tasteless than
hiring Kenyon International, a subsidiary of SCI, already repeatedly
convicted not only of desecrating, but also of even losing track
of and literally discarding the dead. But who would be better
suited to keep New Orleans death count comfortably below the
approaching 2,000 U.S. military casualty number in Iraq and
below the 2,986 9/11 casualty count, reputed victims of Osama
bin Laden? SCI had contracts to recover and bury the dead in
New York and Pennsylvania after 9/11 as well and to counsel
the bereaved in both states.

Finally, embarrassed and disgusted by the so-called “haggling”
between FEMA and SCI subsidiary Kenyon International, Louisiana
Gov. Kathleen Babineaux Blanco took charge and signed Kenyon
International’s contract to begin the recovery of New Orleans dead.
The contract is ongoing, though the official number still has not
topped 2,000. But if anyone believes the official number, I’d like
to sell you the Mississippi River Bridge.

SCI International has not only settled repeated legal charges for
its unceremonious disposal of the dead in the U.S.A. for corporate
profit, but has also rushed to recover remains, count the dead and
“return effects” in the Bali bombings, the truck bombing at the U.N.
in Baghdad and nearly every suspicious plane crash in recent history.
See SCI subsidiary Kenyon International’s list of Disaster Management
contracts at http://www.kenyoninternational.com/kenyoninternatio.html.

Now: Opening a new front on the war in Bayview Hunters Point

The Redevelopment Agency is now fighting hard to open a new
front in the war right here in San Francisco. If passed, their
Redevelopment “Concept Plan” for Bayview Hunters Point will
be an attack of the super-rich, the highly capitalized and corporate
organized, on the rest of us, especially the poorest and most
vulnerable, who are, of course, as a result of colonialism in Bayview
Hunters Point, mostly Black and Brown – 48 percent Black and
43 percent Brown, precisely. Some Supervisors seem to feel
uncomfortable about voting against Sophie Maxwell, the only
Black Supervisor on the Board, and seem confused by what they
perceive as division within the Black community.

There is division indeed in Bayview Hunters Point and division
amongst those of us who will be stuck with the bill for some
$300 million in reconstruction – property taxes that will be
diverted from the City’s General Fund to stuff the pockets
of big developers to “redevelop” Bayview Hunters Point.

There is also division amongst those of us, throughout San
Francisco, who will also be breathing the air stirred up when
bulldozers, backhoes, cranes and the like begin digging into all
the toxics, including radioactive waste, relentlessly dumped in
Bayview Hunters Point for the past 60 years, in what is probably
among the worst of many cases of environmental racism throughout
this country. Even lying where they are, barely beneath the ground,
all the toxics dumped in Bayview Hunters Point have already given
it the highest breast cancer rate per capita in the entire U.S.A.,
infant mortality rates 2.5 times those of the rest of the city and
far higher birth defects rates as well. See:
http://www.sfbayview.com/102704/toxicblight102704.shtml
http://www.sfbayview.com/020905/healthistheissue020905.shtml
http://www.sfbayview.com/120804/lennarbuyssupport120804.shtml
http://www.asaging.org/diversity/EPA_Environment_and_Aging_Report.pdf
http://www.greenaction.org/hunterspoint/documents/
TheStateoftheEnvironment090204Final.pdf.

As to the Supervisors’ fear of voting against Supervisor Sophie Maxwell,
they should get over it. Fast. Of course Sophie Maxwell is voting with
the Redevelopment Agency. Hamed Karsai is also the president of
Afghanistan. Condoleezza Rice is secretary of state. Jalal Talabani
seems to be the president of Iraq for the moment, and someone
named Nuri al-Maliki seems to be Iraq’s prime minister-designate,
also for the moment. All brown-skinned heads of brown-skinned
countries, but so what?

Not one of them is calling for a U.S. military or corporate pull-out
from Afghanistan or Iraq. Black or Brown skin does not disadvantage
those who side with the highly capitalized and corporate-organized
super-rich, no more than white skin protects anyone who happens
to be poor from aggressive military recruitment, toxic employment
or a nuclear waste dump landing in their back yard.

I myself grew up in Bremerton, Washington, a town built around the
Puget Sound Naval Shipyard and, at that time, a far from wealthy,
mostly white town, though it did have an unusually large Black
population, which had migrated north, like those who migrated to
Bayview Hunters Point, to work in the shipyard during World War II.
Most students I went to high school with did not expect to attend
college, and most residents seemed to feel that work in the shipyard
was the best deal they would ever get.

That meant that speaking out against U.S. wars, the U.S. military and
U.S. military expenditures made me unpopular at an early age. However,
after many of those I grew up with died young and two of my own
brothers contracted cancers in their 40s, I dug in to do some research
and learned something the Navy had never told us: that Bremerton
is the final resting and recycling place for all the nuclear-powered
vessels in the U.S. Navy.

Some unfortunate U.S. Navy employees remove the spent nuclear fuel
rods and send them off for disposal in Hanford, Washington, a largely
white town with high cancer rates and a nuclear enrichment plant that
was finally shut down due to irreparable contamination, though Hanford
is still home to the largest nuclear power plant in the U.S.A. I also learned
that Bremerton is on the path planned for nuclear waste returned to the
U.S. for reprocessing, like that transported from a major nuclear
accident in Japan.

Bremerton, despite having a shipyard much like that in Hunters Point,
was nevertheless no San Francisco. Not by any means. Though, at least
to me, it seemed not particularly racist, it was, at that time at least,
extremely homophobic. Same sex love was something people didn’t
even talk about, except to whisper, “Oooh ... disgusting; how could
they do that?” A couple of local college professors and our best high
school English teacher were all suspect. Bremerton also voted for
Ronald Reagan and celebrated his election because it was likely to
mean larger military budgets and thus a bigger budget for the shipyard.

No such behavior, obviously, would be allowed here. Everyone knows
that no Republican nor open racist nor homophobe can be elected in
San Francisco. Nor can anyone supporting a foreign war expect to be
elected here. However, how many of us believe that these foreign wars
are really wars between nation states? Capital has long since become
global, so isn’t it high time that the nation state and its aggressive and
defensive armies become global as well – as in a United Nations not
dominated by the nuclear superpowers of the U.N. Security Council?

Who among us believe that this war fought by American soldiers
– including the Central American who was the first to die, the
19-year-old Navajo Indian who was the 1,000th to die, and the
34-year-old Black Texan who was the 2,000th to die – is really
a war between nation states, between the United States and the
nation state of Iraq, possessed by England at the conclusion of
World War I and turned into a faux European nation state in 1932?

Most of us, especially those in New Orleans and in Bayview Hunters
Point, know that this is a war of the corporate super-rich on the rest
of us, especially, and first, on the poorest and most vulnerable, who,
by the way, always – always – lack nuclear weapons. Why is it that those
so evil as to be subjected to the full force of the U.S. military never
seem to have nuclear weapons?

Nicaragua had none, nor did El Salvador, Panama, Afghanistan or Iraq.
Mightn’t that be why Iran and Venezuela dream of having some, and
the nuclear weapons empowered or nuclear-weapons-capable G-4
now knock on the door of the U.N. Security Council demanding a seat?

Now that the 500 yellow cakes of milled uranium ore from French-
owned mines in Niger have long been discounted, not as French
controlled yellow cakes mined and milled by miners now sick in Niger,
but as Saddam Hussein’s imports to create the dreaded WMD, Donald
Rumsfeld suddenly claims that newly found chemical weapons stores
must have justified this war on Iraq. Some readers, particularly Gulf
War vets, http://www.gulfweb.org/doc_show.cfm?ID=527, may have
ideas about where the chemicals in these weapons came from, but,
for now, let’s return to the basic question:

How many of us believe that these foreign wars are really wars between
nation states? How many of us believe that they are instead, wars of the
super rich, the highly capitalized and corporate organized, on the rest
of us, particularly the poorest and most vulnerable, who are, as a result
of history and whatever else, most often Brown and Black?

Those of us who believe that the war in Iraq is a war of the super-rich
on the rest of us, and that the war my young friend Lorie Arsinaux
Seruntine and many others describe in New Orleans is a front in the
very same war, that of the super-rich on the rest of us, are also seeing
that a new front in the very same war has long been opened here in San
Francisco, by the Redevelopment Agency, which has always represented
the super rich, the highly capitalized and corporate organized, like the
Lennar Corp., its chosen “Master Developer” of the Hunters Point Shipyard
Redevelopment Project, building $100,000 Superfund Condos next to
a 46-acre nuclear waste dumpsite.

Or the Catellus Corp., the “Master Developer” of Mission Bay, which
Sen. Dianne Feinstein and her banker husband Richard Blum own significant
interests in. Or the Treasure Island Redevelopment contract awarded
to former Mayor Willie Brown’s two biggest campaign contributors, who
were guaranteed a 25 percent return on their $40 million investment.
We, the taxpayers of San Francisco, put up the other $350 million.

Laurence Pelosi, stepson of House Whip Nancy Pelosi and former campaign
treasurer for his first cousin, Mayor Gavin Newsome, is also a former vice
president of a Lennar subsidiary redeveloping the Shipyard. Lennar, a
corporation based in Florida, about as far from San Francisco as one
could get, recently “acquired 37 communities in the Phoenix, San Diego
and Orange County areas,
http://www.prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/stories.pl?ACCT=104&STORY=/www/story/04-08-1998/0000628639&EDATE=.

Does San Francisco want any more of its communities acquired,
built and/or re-built by the Lennar Corp. or other huge corporate
“Master Developers” represented by politicians with flagrant conflicts
of interest that flagrantly break the law against such conflicts of interest
in the state of California?

Many of us see, within the Bayview Hunters Point district and without,
strategic similarities in the wars being waged in Iraq, in New Orleans
and here in our own home town. (We have been spared the bombs,
thus far, though not the toxics, especially in Bayview, which may soon
fill the skies above all of us as whoever is named the next Master
Developer starts ramming into the Bay Area’s worst toxic dump with
backhoes, bulldozers, cranes and wrecking balls.)

Basic strategy in Iraq

1) Plan to bomb every major city in the country to rubble.

2) Get your lobbyists – Joseph Allbaugh in the lead – pushing for
reconstruction contracts even before the first bombs drop. Never
mind the U.N.

3) Get the rest of us taxpayers to pay for the bombs and for the
huge reconstruction contracts won by the corporate lobbyists and
woefully fulfilled by the winners. Let the national debt – that owed
by the rest of us, whose assets do not span the globe – soar beyond
$8 trillion dollars to fill the pockets of the global super-rich, the highly
capitalized and corporate-organized.

4) Make sure not to significantly employ or train many Iraqis in the
reconstruction of next to nothing so as to avoid leaving much money
behind.

5) Control local resources, in this case oil, so as to control its price
on the international market.

Basic strategy in New Orleans

1) Let the levees crumble by defunding the Army Corps budget for
repairing them until three quarters of the city floods.

2) Stop as many volunteers as possible from getting in to help the
victims, and stop people – people sharing food and water after the
floodwaters subsided – from helping each other. Drive them out of
their homes at gunpoint into the baking hot sun on the Mississippi
River Bridge and then “evacuate” them, without even asking where
they might have family or might want to go, and keep barely any
records of where they have gone.

3) Get lobbyists – again, with former FEMA Chief Allbaugh turned
Halliburton, Bechtel, Shaw and SCI lobbyist in the lead – down to the
Gulf Coast ahead of FEMA Chief Michael Brown or President George Bush.

4) Get the rest of us to pay millions in sympathy and distraction taxes
to the Red Cross and then use the rest of our taxes to pay for $2.5 billion
in hurricane relief to Louisiana energy companies, including Entergy,
a hugely capitalized new leader in nuclear energy, half a billion in tax
credits to the gambling industry and similarly huge dollar figures to
Bechtel, Halliburton, the Shaw Corp. and little-known Circle B Industries,
a manufacturer of kitschy-coo Western trailer theme parks.

5) Then, in May, kick most of the poor, mostly Black, mostly scattered
evacuees off their FEMA vouchers, even though no one but a smattering
of volunteers have rebuilt anything for them to go home to. They’ll be
so isolated, damaged and discouraged that they won’t have a lot of
fight left.

6) Seize local resources, i.e., the property, which, like all inner city
property, has highly appreciated with the rising oil prices, long
commutes and the end of the safe suburban dream.

Basic strategy in San Francisco and, right now, imminently,
in Bayview Hunters Point

1) Pay the Redevelopment Agency to spend 10 years writing
a “Redevelopment Concept Plan” to destroy a neighborhood neglected
and assaulted with toxics, 80 percent of the City’s solid waste and
high level radiation from the National Radiological Defense Laboratory,
plus a nuclear dumpsite, fallout from weapons tests hauled back
from the Pacific for 60 years.

2) Position corporate lobbyists while the “concept plan” is being
conceptualized.

3) Then give Mayor Gavin Newsom the right of eminent domain
and the land grant authority of a king over “redevelopment” building
contracts for 1,300 plus acres. Rebuild big and fast, making big fast
profits for huge corporations. Shatter the community; then take the
money and run.

4) As in Iraq and New Orleans, make sure not to employ local people
or contract with local business longer than necessary to satisfy token
local employment and training requirements, so as to avoid leaving
any money behind.

5) As in New Orleans, seize the highly appreciated inner city property.

6) Make sure San Francisco taxpayers pay companies like Florida-
based Lennar, Redevelopment’s last big corporate prizewinner, to
destroy a neighborhood, scatter a lot of our neighbors, and make
a bundle building a gargantuan planned “community,” totally out
of character with everything people love about San Francisco –
unique houses, built one by one, by individuals, and neighborhoods
that grew as they built those houses, one by one, over the past
150 years.

The City – that’s us, supposedly – and the Redevelopment Agency
will wait to get theirs in increased property taxes, though some
highly capitalized, corporate-organized members of city government
aren’t likely to have to wait that long, being members and special
friends of the super-rich, the highly capitalized and corporate
organized.

Will our Bayview Hunters Point Redevelopment Plan money stay
in the Bayview? Will it develop skills and businesses there and build
a mutually supportive commercial community that lives beyond the
big building project?

Of course not. The money will leave, become further concentrated
in the hands of fewer corporations – and their local friends – and
vanish into further mergers, disappear in search of new even larger
projects – new wars, disasters, even epidemics, and more urban
“blight” – not high level radiation, but unpainted houses and broken
porches – all projects of a size large enough to guarantee the rate
of return required by highly concentrated capital growing ever more
so. Will the money and the great big plan create community? Of course
not. Community can only be created by the day-to-day interactions
of individuals.

Yes, Black Bayview Supervisor Sophie Maxwell will vote for the plan;
Sophie was elected the same year thousands of ballots were left
untended across the street from City Hall and then found floating
around in the Bay, unreadable. PG&E fought off public power in San
Francisco that year too. If it passes, the Bayview Hunters Point
Redevelopment Plan will take care of Sophie – and Gavin Newsome
– for life. (As though Gavin were not taken care of.) With so much
patronage, they will never have to raise another campaign dollar
in their political lives.

And I’m sure there are plenty of people in Bayview who understandably
think that this is the best deal they can hope for. I understand that.
I honestly do. I grew up in a town that felt the Puget Sound Naval
Shipyard, last resting and recycling place to every nuclear-powered
vessel in the Navy, was the best deal they were ever gonna get.

But I myself am far from perfect, and I have to believe that not
only I, but also Sophie and Gavin and everyone else supporting
this toxic Redevelopment for the Rich Plan could do better, much
better, and that we would all be better for it.

Why not use the same $300 million budgeted for enriching the rich
to make small 0 percent loans to individual Bayview homeowners
who can’t get loans for home improvement, despite good credit
and large amounts of equity in their homes, because banks have
redlined their mostly Black and Brown neighborhoods?

Why not use our money to make 0 percent loans to small, local
developers, those who build a house or two or rehab one building
at a time, then maybe another, those who have roots in the Bayview
Hunters Point community, rather than Florida and the global
corporotacracy?

Don’t Bayview residents deserve this after being saturated with
toxics, including high level radiation for all these years, the highest
breast cancer rate in the entire country and 80 percent of this City’s
solid waste, pushed out there for chemical dousing before being
pushed out into the Bay?

If we’re going to spend $300 million, why not spend it on soil
remediation, solar installation, community gardening, a community
food system, electric rail lines, and everything else that might make
Bayview a stellar example of green reclamation and environmental
recovery?

Why not use some of this $300 million to fund scholarships for Bay
View Hunters Point students to attend the Bay Area’s several excellent
green colleges and universities to learn all the green skills now much
in demand in the booming green industries. It takes less than 16 months
to train a solar installer, and solar business means small business,
distributed business. So do community gardening, community-based
food systems and community waste disposal – unlike the Bay Area’s
disgraceful disposal of all its toxics and most of its solid waste –
in Bayview Hunters Point.

Distributed energy means distributed power, energetic and political.
So does distributed food production and food sales, and so distributed
waste. If every community in America, including Sea Cliff, Pacific Heights,
Russian Hill and Noe Valley, kept the nuclear waste – and the solid waste
they generate – instead of storing or shipping it elsewhere, we’d soon see
the end of nuclear waste and find a more environmentally friendly way of
dealing with our own solid waste, in our own neighborhoods. Some aspects
of life are simply too basic for the oblivious delegation we’ve all indulged
in for so very long.

Email Ann Garrison at
katrinawithoutborders@thefloodnexttime.com.

Related Article:
The crashing barge and the deafening silence
New Orleanians say that Halliburton owned the
industrial barge that crashed through the levee
into the Lower Ninth Ward, making way for the
toxic floodwaters that destroyed neighborhoods
and lives. A lost dog sits forlornly in front of the
barge in this photo taken Sept. 22, 2005.
[sorry I can't post the photo...bw]
Photo: Jessica Rinaldi, Reuters
by Ann Garrison
May 24, 2006
http://www.sfbayview.com/031506/crashingbarge031506.shtml

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

5) Are Enrons Bustin' Out All Over?
By Gretchen Morgenson
May 28, 2006
http://select.nytimes.com/2006/05/28/business/yourmoney/28gret.html

CHIEF executives everywhere probably breathed a sigh of relief last
week when the Enron verdicts came in. With Kenneth L. Lay, the
company's former chairman, and Jeffrey K. Skilling, its former
chief executive, found guilty of fraud and other crimes, maybe
now we can all move past this corporation-run-amok stuff.Enron,
after all, was an anomaly, right?

Sorry, pals. Other news from last week showed that the Enron
verdicts were, at best, the end of the beginning of this dispiriting
corporate crime wave. They were certainly not the beginning of its end.

Last week, for example, investors learned that a throng of former
executives at Fannie Mae, the mortgage-financing giant, had cooked
the company's books to generate munificent bonuses for themselves.
And while this was going on, Fannie's board was AWOL.

While Fannie Mae has not been charged with criminal wrongdoing,
the 350-page report issued by the Office of Federal Housing
Enterprise Oversight, or Ofheo, was a gripping and definitive
account of the company's $10.6 billion accounting debacle..
The report confirmed that Fannie Mae is, as its spinmeisters
say, in "the American Dream business"— for its executives, that is.

Josh Rosner, an analyst at Graham Fisher & Company, an independent
financial research firm in New York, has followed Fannie Mae for years.
The report's revelations were disgraceful on several counts, he said.

First was the disturbing breadth of Fannie Mae's dubious management
and accounting practices. "At Enron, it was really three or four
individuals who were intimately involved in the plan and the
process and the intent to manipulate," he said. "The number
of people who are identified as being problematic here is pretty
staggering."

More than a dozen executives appear in the report, and Fannie
Mae's board also comes in for criticism. "Every bit of this report
says the board was asleep at the switch," Mr. Rosner said.

For example, the Ofheo report noted that the board was advised
in 1999 that the company had adjusted its financial statements
to burnish its 1998 results.

Notes made by J. Timothy Howard, Fannie Mae's chief financial
officer, for a January 1999 board meeting stated the following:
"Taking these adjustments now will mean that we can report
higher levels of net interest income and guaranty fees over
the next year or two. That's one reason we made them."

Ofheo found that the adjustments were meant to mislead
investors. Perhaps the most shocking tidbit in the Ofheo
report was its disclosure that Fannie Mae entered into insurance
contracts to help the company keep its losses artificially low.
The arrangements had no economic value and did not involve
any transfer of risk, as insurance typically does. Instead, the
contracts were designed so that they produced a greater
benefit to the company if more of its mortgages went into
foreclosure.

"Fannie Mae was essentially betting against the American
dream," Mr. Rosner said. "It is truly disgusting that you had
a company entering into a sham transaction that had little
economic benefit but that only paid off if more people had
their homes foreclosed."

One of the central players in the manipulation at Fannie
Mae, according to the Ofheo report, was Franklin D. Raines,
its chief executive from 1999 to 2004. The report said that
he not only created an "unethical and arrogant culture" at
the top of the company, but that more than half of the $90
million in compensation he hauled in between 1998 and 2003
was generated by accounting gimmicks that allowed him to
meet bonus targets artificially.

Robert Bennett, a lawyer representing Mr. Raines, said in
a statement last week that the former chairman "never authorized,
encouraged, or was aware of violations of Generally Accepted
Accounting Principles (GAAP) at Fannie Mae for the purpose
of smoothing earnings, reaching bonus targets, or for any other
improper reason." He noted that Mr. Raines had promised that
he would hold himself accountable "if it was determined that
Fannie Mae misapplied accounting rules."

According to Mr. Bennett's statement, Mr. Raines fulfilled that
pledge by "retiring early" from Fannie Mae. Volunteering to give
back portions of his jury-rigged bonuses was not mentioned
as another way to keep his promise.

Mr. Rosner said that he found the $400 million fine that Ofheo
and the Securities and Exchange Commission leveled against
Fannie Mae to settle the company's accounting shenanigans
to be disturbingly low. He described the fine as a mere "toll."

"For a $10.6 billion minimum restatement, for them to have
to pay $400 million, you may as well tell people 'you can lie
and here's the dollar figure per lie,' " Mr. Rosner said.

After the report came out, Daniel H. Mudd, Fannie Mae's chief
executive said: "We are glad to resolve these matters. We have
all learned some powerful lessons here about getting things
right and about hubris and humility. We are a much different
company than before. But we also recognize that we have
a long road ahead of us."

TWO days later, the Enron verdicts were announced. That was
also when Thomas J. Lehner, director of public policy for the
Business Roundtable, was testifying on Capitol Hill in defense
of current practices in executive compensation. Mr. Lehner
reiterated the Business Roundtable's belief that executive pay
at most American companies is justified and expressed opposition
to legislation that would allow shareholders to approve
compensation plans.

Mr. Lehner's testimony brought back memories from
November 2003, when the Business Roundtable announced
what it called an important initiative on executive pay.
Mr. Raines, who was chairman of the roundtable's Corporate
Governance Task Force, said at that time: "Executive compensation
should reward success and not reward failure."

Do as I say, not as I do?

Yes, the long and sorry story of Enron is nearing a close.
Unfortunately, questionable corporate practices continue apace.
There is obviously much work to be done — by prosecutors and
shareholders — before we can be sure that other Enrons will
not happen.

Prosecutors know what trails to follow. Shareholders, less
accustomed to taking such an active role, may not be as certain.

They should begin by holding directors accountable for trouble
that occurs on their watch. They should demand that executives
forfeit compensation generated by fraudulent practices. And they
must hold their mutual fund managers responsible for proxy
voting practices that encourage excessive pay and cozy,
somnambulant boards. If these managers don't vote against
directors who hand out oversized pay for undersized performance,
they are part of the problem and should be fired.

As the Enron jury eloquently told us last week, silence in the face
of these offenses gives consent.

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

6) Block the Vote
New York Times Editorial
May 30, 2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/30/opinion/30tue1.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin

In a country that spends so much time extolling the glories
of democracy, it's amazing how many elected officials go out
of their way to discourage voting. States are adopting rules that
make it hard, and financially perilous, for nonpartisan groups
to register new voters. They have adopted new rules for
maintaining voter rolls that are likely to throw off many
eligible voters, and they are imposing unnecessarily tough
ID requirements.

Florida recently reached a new low when it actually bullied
the League of Women Voters into stopping its voter
registration efforts in the state. The Legislature did this
by adopting a law that seems intended to scare away
anyone who wants to run a voter registration drive. Since
registration drives are particularly important for bringing
poor people, minority groups and less educated voters
into the process, the law appears to be designed to keep
such people from voting.

It imposes fines of $250 for every voter registration form
that a group files more than 10 days after it is collected,
and $5,000 for every form that is not submitted — even if
it is because of events beyond anyone's control, like a hurricane.
The Florida League of Women Voters, which is suing to block
the new rules, has decided it cannot afford to keep registering
new voters in the state as it has done for 67 years. If a volunteer
lost just 16 forms in a flood, or handed in a stack of forms
a day late, the group's entire annual budget could be put at risk.

In Washington, a new law prevents people from voting if the
secretary of state fails to match the information on their
registration form with government databases. There are
many reasons that names, Social Security numbers and
other data may not match, including typing mistakes.
The state is supposed to contact people whose data does
not match, but the process is too tilted against voters.

Congress is considering a terrible voter ID requirement as
part of the immigration reform bill. Senator Mitch McConnell,
Republican of Kentucky, introduced an amendment to require
all voters to present a federally mandated photo ID. Even people
who have been voting for years would need to get a new
ID to vote in 2008. Millions of people without drivers' licenses,
including many elderly people and city residents, might fail
to do so, and be ineligible to vote. The amendment has been
blocked so far, but voting-rights advocates worry that
it could reappear.

These three techniques — discouraging registration drives,
purging eligible voters and imposing unreasonable ID requirements
— keep showing up. Colorado recently imposed criminal penalties
on volunteers who slip up in registration drives. Georgia, one
of several states to adopt harsh new voter ID laws, had its law
struck down by a federal court.

Protecting the integrity of voting is important, but many of these
rules seem motivated by a partisan desire to suppress the vote,
and particular kinds of voters, rather than to make sure that
those who are entitled to vote — and only those who are entitled
— do so. The right to vote is fundamental, and Congress and
state legislatures should not pass laws that put an unnecessary
burden on it. If they do, courts should strike them down.

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

7) Justices Set Limits on Public Employees' Speech Rights
By DAVID STOUT
May 30, 2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/30/washington/30cnd-scotus.html?hp&ex=1149048000&en=57d52201086729ae&ei=5094&partner=homepage

WASHINGTON, May 30 — The Supreme Court declared today,
in a ruling affecting millions of government employees, that the
Constitution does not always protect their free-speech rights
for what they say on the job.

In a 5-to-4 decision, the court held that public employees'
free-speech rights are protected when they speak out as citizens
on matters of public concern, but not when they speak out in the
course of their official duties.

Today's ruling, involving a deputy Los Angeles district attorney
who contended that he had been denied a promotion for
challenging the legitimacy of a search warrant, came in a case
that has been closely watched not just by public workers but
by those who have worried that it could discourage internal
whistle-blowers from speaking up about government
misconduct and inefficiency.

"We hold that when public employees make statements pursuant
to their official duties, the employees are not speaking as citizens
for First Amendment purposes, and the Constitution does not
insulate their communications from employer discipline," Justice
Anthony M. Kennedy wrote for the court.

The court's newest justice, Samuel A. Alito Jr., was in the majority
as were Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., Justices Antonin Scalia
and Clarence Thomas.

The ruling noted the enormous variety of factual situations
involving relationships between public employers and their
employees, and it suggested that the particular facts of a case
must be closely examined.

In this case, the Los Angeles deputy prosecutor, Richard Ceballos,
complained to his bosses in early 2000 that after being alerted
by a defense lawyer, he had found "serious misrepresentations"
in an affidavit used to obtain a search warrant.

Discussions with his superiors were heated, and a trial court
rejected challenges to the warrant. In the aftermath, Mr. Ceballos
contended, he was reassigned and denied a promotion. He filed
an employee grievance, which was denied based on a finding
that he had not suffered any retaliation, despite his claim
to the contrary.

Mr. Ceballos took his case to federal district court, which threw
it out after accepting his employer's argument that the actions
Mr. Ceballos complained about were explainable by legitimate
staffing needs. But the United States Court of Appeals for the
Ninth Circuit reversed the lower court, concluding that
Mr. Ceballos's free-speech rights had indeed been violated.

The case, Garcetti v. Ceballos, No. 04-473, was one of a long
line of cases addressing the rights of public employees and
surely not the last. When it was argued before the justices
on Oct. 12, the Bush administration sided with Los Angeles
County in arguing that if the Ninth Circuit were upheld, public
employees would in effect get constitutional protection for
performing their duties "to the dissatisfaction of the employer."

Employees who think they are unfairly treated should rely
on Civil Service laws, Los Angeles County said.

Mr. Ceballos's lawyer argued unsuccessfully that the result
the government lawyers were seeking would cause an
unacceptable chilling of the speech of potential whistle-
blowers. Justice Kennedy was skeptical of that position
at the time. "You're saying that the First Amendment has
a function within the government office," he said. "The First
Amendment isn't about policing the workplace."

In writing the decision that reversed the Ninth Circuit today,
Justice Kennedy noted that the Supreme Court has made it
clear in previous rulings "that public employees do not
surrender all their First Amendment rights by reason of
their employment." On the other hand, he wrote, "When
a citizen enters government service, the citizen by necessity
must accept certain limitations on his or her freedom."

The controlling factor in this case, Justice Kennedy wrote,
was that Mr. Ceballos was acting purely in an official capacity
when he complained internally about the search warrant.
"Ceballos wrote his disposition memo because that is part
of what he was employed to do," Justice Kennedy wrote.
"He did not act as a citizen by writing it."

To accept Mr. Ceballos's argument, the majority concluded,
would be to commit state and federal courts to "a new,
permanent and intrusive role" overseeing communications
among government employees and their superiors.

Dissenting in three separate opinions were Justices John
Paul Stevens, David H. Souter, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and
Stephen G. Breyer.

"The notion that there is a categorical difference between
speaking as a citizen and speaking in the course of one's
employment is quite wrong," Justice Stevens wrote. He said
the majority ruling could have the "perverse" effect of giving
public employees an incentive to speak out publicly, as citizens,
before talking frankly to their superiors.

And Justice Souter asserted that "private and public interests
in addressing official wrongdoing and threats to public health
and safety can outweigh the government's stake in the
efficient implementation of policy, and when they do public
employees who speak on these matters in the course of their
duties should be eligible to claim First Amendment protection."

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

8) REPORT FROM CENTRO OBRERO
[How the employer uses immigration papers, or lack thereof, as a
tool to lower wages, increase hours and speed-up production
in order to increase their rate of profit at the expense of the
health and well being of workers...bw]

The current struggles in our community involve a group of workers at an auto
parts supplier called Hope International. The company is located in Redford
and makes parts for Leer and the auto companies. Several workers were fired
today after the owner was visited by members of the Interfaith Committee for
Worker Justice, which had spoken to several of the workers. The workers
originally visited Latinos Unidos, who asked the Interfaith Committee to
intervene on behalf of the employees of HOPE international. Several of the
workers expressed an interest in joining the Union, but the company claimed
the workers had bad social security numbers and fired them after the visit
from the religious committee.

Issues in the plant are the same issues we are hearing from workers in many
work places: higher production expectation of Mexican workers, overall
discriminatory treatment of workers by managers, in this case who are also
Mexican. Many of the workers have carpal tunnel syndrome and are working
with injuries. Most are wearing braces on their wrists. Many have been fired
for being unable to keep up production levels with injuries.

The Committee visited the plant last Wednesday to ask that the issues raised
by the workers be addressed by management. The management responded by
firing one of its employees on the pretext of having a bad social security
number. Five more were fired today after the Interfaith Committee visited
the plant.

A picket line is planned for Friday morning at the plant, which is located
at 25215 Glendale, Redford, Michigan, 48239. See you there at 7:00 a.m. Be
there or be square; the workers are worried about the company calling
immigration, and if they do, the committees who support the workers will be
meeting to plan the next move.

The Lotus International workers have filed a lawsuit for their backwages and
other unfair labor practices. Centro Obrero and LaSed worked with the group
when they walked off the job after being told that their wages would be
decreased and their work load would increase. As it was, they were getting
paid for forty hours and working 55 per week, according to all the workers
in this plant located in Canton, Michigan. Health and Safety violations are
rampant and many of the workers have sustained injuries associated with
working with chemicals and glass. This company makes plasma tv screens for
SUVs.

It seems that the auto part suppliers have Mexican workers and Mexican
working conditions in the United States, right here in the Motor City. The
struggle is never over; we are fighting the same fight our grandparents
fought to bring decent working conditions and be treated as human beings.
The UAW is working with the HOPE workers; stay tuned. The Interfaith
Committee for Worker Justice and Centro Obrero will assist in their efforts
and the entire community must remain vigilant to protect ourselves from
exploitation and internal vendidos, who surely will have a special place in
hell.

Elena Herrada
Rosendo Delgado por Latinos Unidos

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

9) Responsible Reform of Immigration Laws Must Protect Working
Conditions for all Workers in the U.S.
March 01, 2006
San Diego, CA
http://www.aflcio.org/aboutus/thisistheaflcio/ecouncil/ec02272006e.cfm

Overhaul of our nation’s immigration laws is long overdue. The
current system is a blueprint for exploitation of workers, both
foreign-born and native, and is feeding a multimillion dollar
criminal enterprise at the U.S.-Mexico border.

America deserves an immigration system that protects all
workers within our borders—both native-born and foreign—
and at same time guarantees the safety of our nation without
compromising our fundamental civil rights and civil liberties.

Any viable solution to this crisis must address the reasons why
people are coming to the U.S. Most immigrants come from
countries where the international development process has
failed, and many are from countries where International
Monetary Fund (IMF), World Bank and trade policies have
weakened countries’ economies and labor protections, causing
a devastating impact on all workers. In some developing countries,
IMF policies have caused public-sector workers to lose their jobs
and their union protections, forcing them into competition in the
private sector, where few, if any, jobs are available, driving down
wages and working conditions even further. Trade agreements
such as the North American Free Trade Agreement undermine
the agricultural economies of developing countries, leading
workers to leave the fields and consider moving north. Without
rising living standards abroad for workers and the poor,
the pressure for illegal immigration will continue and escalate.

At the same time that global forces are pushing workers to
our borders, judicial and public policies toward immigrants
have created new so-called pull factors for migration into the
United States, namely, an incentive for employers to recruit
undocumented immigrants for economic exploitation. Too
many employers seek to avoid, evade, and ultimately negate
U.S. labor and employment laws through the recruitment and
importation of undocumented workers. The U.S. Supreme
Court created a powerful new incentive for such exploitation
by its decision in Hoffman Plastic Compounds v. National Labor
Relations Board. In that case, the Court determined that an
undocumented worker is not entitled to back pay – the only
monetary remedy available to workers under the National
Labor Relations Act – when he or she is fired illegally for
trying to organize a union. This has made the cost of
exploiting immigrants insignificant to unscrupulous employers.
The end result is that industries that cannot export jobs –
such as those in construction – are attempting to use flawed
immigration policies to import the labor standards of
developing nations into the United States.

The broken immigration system has allowed employers
to create an underclass of workers, which has effectively
reduced working standards for all workers. Immigrant
workers are over-represented in the highest risk, lowest
paid jobs, but the exploited immigrants do not work in
isolation. U.S.-born workers who work side by side with
immigrants suffer the same exploitation. The U.S. Department
of Labor, for example, determined the poultry industry – which
is nearly half African American and half immigrant – was
100 percent out of compliance with federal wage and hour
laws. The Department of Labor also estimated more than
half of the country’s garment factories violate wage and hour
laws, and more than 75 percent violate health and safety laws.
Of course, workplaces that are dangerous for immigrant
workers are equally dangerous for their U.S.-born
counterparts and co-workers.

Our failed immigration policies also have encouraged
employers to use guestworker programs to lower labor
standards and working conditions for all workers within
our borders. We’ve seen employers turn tens of thousands
of permanent, well-paying jobs in the United States into
temporary jobs through the use of various guestworker
programs. The temporary guestworker jobs come with few
or no benefits, lower wages and often are staffed through
temporary agencies, whose fees come out of workers’ pockets.
The foreign workers recruited to fill these jobs remain legally
tied to the employers that recruited them and are thus naturally
vulnerable to exploitation.

Guestworker programs, such as the L and H-1B visa programs,
operate with little employer accountability and to the detriment
of all professional workers. None of these programs connect
to the realities of current U.S. labor market conditions. In fact,
employers are allowed to turn permanent jobs into temporary
jobs and import workers, despite the unusually high current
rate of unemployment among professional and technical workers.
As a result, working conditions for all professional workers have
suffered: pressures caused by employer exploitation of
professional guestworkers coupled with the increases in
outsourcing continue to have a chilling effect on any real
wage increases for professionals, even those not directly or
immediately impacted by these matters.

Immigrant workers, like all workers, should be full social partners.
We will continue to support effective, credible and enforceable
rights for all workers, regardless of their country of origin
or immigration status. At the same time, we will ensure that
our member mobilization efforts include our immigrant brothers
and sisters, and ultimately place immigration squarely within
a progressive and sustainable economic agenda that benefits
all working families in our nation.

We hereby renew our call for comprehensive and responsible
reform of our immigration laws, which must—at a minimum—
comply with the following standards:

¨ Uniform enforcement of workplace standards must be
a priority. History, economics and common sense dictate that
exploitation of workers will continue as long, as it makes
economic sense to do so, to the detriment of U.S.-born and
foreign-born workers alike. Unfortunately, the lax enforcement
of labor and employment laws has given too many unscrupulous
employers the economic incentive to recruit undocumented
workers, and has penalized those employers who abide by the
law because it has put them at a competitive disadvantage.

The only meaningful way to remove that perverse economic
incentive and to equalize the competitive playing field is to
ensure that all those who gain the benefit of a worker’s labor,
whether that worker is an employee or an independent contractor,
abide by all labor and employment laws. That means that the
immigration reform law must provide real and enforceable
remedies for labor and employment law violations that are
available to all workers, regardless of their immigration status,
and that there must be a mechanism by which all workers can
vindicate their rights without having to face restrictive standing
requirements or meaningless regulatory hurdles;

¨ Reforms must provide a path to permanent residency
for the currently undocumented workers who have paid taxes
and made positive contributions to their communities.
Legalization is an important worker protection. History shows
that legalizing this population benefits all workers: Wages
and working standards of undocumented workers increased
significantly after the legalization program of the 1986
Immigration Reform and Control Act, thereby raising the floor
for all workers. Without a legalization program, the economic
incentive to hire and exploit the undocumented will remain,
to the detriment of U.S. workers who labor in the same
industries as the undocumented, because all workers will
see their working conditions plummet.

¨ We must reverse the trend of allowing employers to
turn permanent, full-time year-round jobs into temporary
jobs through attempts to broaden the size and scope of
guestworker programs. Longstanding U.S. guestworker
policy requires that temporary workers can be used only to
satisfy short-term or seasonal labor needs. The agricultural
guestworker program, for example, the best known of these
programs, is designed to satisfy the seasonal needs of
employers who need to temporarily hire large numbers of
workers during the growing season, which may be as short
as six weeks. Similarly, the H2-B program allows non-
agricultural employers in industries such as landscaping,
hospitality and crabbing, to hire non-U.S. workers on
a temporary basis to fill their seasonal needs.

Guestworker programs are bad public policy and operate
to the detriment of workers, in the both the public and private
sector, and of working families in the U.S. The abuses suffered
by workers in the first such program, the post World-War II
Bracero program, are well documented. The negative effects
of the modern versions of the “guestworker” construct—such
as the H1-B and H2-B programs—are all too evident today.
Workers around the country are witnessing the transformation
of formerly well-paying, permanent jobs into temporary jobs
with little or no benefits, which employers are staffing with
vulnerable foreign workers who have no real enforceable rights
through the guestworker programs. These modern programs
have had a major and substantial detrimental effect on
important sectors of our economy.

The massive expansion of guestworker programs contemplated
by current legislation before the Senate—which would more than
quadruple the number of foreign workers admitted annually
and would allow employers to import workers into the public
and private sector--will not only harm U.S. workers, but also
represents a radical and dark departure from our long-held
vision of a democratic U.S. society. We are not a nation of “guests,”
who, by definition, have only short-term and short-lived interests,
but a nation of people who believe in investing in our communities,
in our future, in the future of our children, and in our democracy.
It defies everything that our nation stands for to legitimize
a system that forces our communities to simply be “hosts”
for “guests” who are only here to lend their labor, and who have
no reason to become invested in that community, and who will
never have a voice in their future within that community.
We are not a nation of guests; we are a nation of citizens.

In our view, there is no good reason why any immigrant who
comes to this country prepared to work, to pay taxes, and to
abide by our laws and rules should be denied what has been
offered to immigrants throughout our country’s history, a path
to legal citizenship. To embrace instead the creation of a permanent
two-tier workforce, with non-U.S. workers relegated to second-class
“guestworker” status, would be repugnant to our traditions and our
ideals and disastrous for the living standards of working families.

We fully support the right of all workers to bargain collectively,
and we fully support and endorse the existing arrangement within
the H2A program that the Farm Labor Organizing Committee (FLOC)
negotiated with the North Carolina Growers Association, which
provides the protections of a collective bargaining agreement
to Mexican H2A workers at the Mt. Olive, N.C., facility.

¨ Long-Term Labor Shortages Should be Filled With Workers
with Full Rights. We recognize that our economy may face real
labor shortages in the coming years, as the baby boomer generation
retires. Instead of relying on a construct that guarantees the
deterioration of working conditions in the U.S., we should focus
on a meaningful solution that guarantees full workplace rights
for all workers, both foreign-born and native, and also permits
employers to hire foreign workers to fill proven labor shortages.
The solution is simple: Congress should revise the permanent
employment-based visas system and devote more resources
to removing processing delays.

Employment-based admissions for permanent visas (commonly
known as “green cards”) are subject to labor certification provisions:
the employer must show that there are not sufficient workers in the
U.S. who are able, willing, qualified and available at the time and
at the place where the foreign worker is to perform the job.
To demonstrate this adequately, the employer must offer the job
at a prevailing wage, and must attest that the employment of the
foreign worker will not adversely affect the wages and working
conditions of similarly employed workers in the U.S. Congress
has arbitrarily set the number of these visas at 140,000 annually.
That approach should be changed so that the number of visas
available responds to actual, demonstrated labor shortages,
which will satisfy employers’ needs for workers, and will prevent
the creation of a secondary class of workers and residents,
because the new foreign workers will have full employment
rights and the promise of a permanent future in our democracy.

· Reform of immigration laws must consider the root causes
of migration, and must take into account the global economic
policies, as well as U.S. foreign policy that are pushing workers
to migrate. Without rising living standards abroad for workers
and the poor, the pressure for illegal immigration will continue.
U.S. foreign policy, as well as trade and globalization policies,
must be grounded upon a coherent national economic strategy,
as described in An Economic Agenda for Working Families,
adopted at the AFL-CIO’s 2005 Convention.

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

10) Exxon Mobil Shareholders Reject Effort to Restrain Executive Pay
DALLAS, May 31 (AP) — Shareholders of the Exxon Mobil
Corporation, whose last chief executive took home $147
million when he retired, overwhelmingly rejected resolutions
to rein in compensation at the company's annual meeting on
Wednesday...Mr. Raymond was paid $49 million in cash and
restricted stock last year, then got a $98 million lump-sum
pension payment.
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
June 1, 2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/01/business/01exxon.html

DALLAS, May 31 (AP) — Shareholders of the Exxon Mobil
Corporation, whose last chief executive took home $147 million
when he retired, overwhelmingly rejected resolutions to rein
in compensation at the company's annual meeting on Wednesday.

But the chairman and chief executive, Rex W. Tillerson, said
some shareholders sent a signal by withholding votes for
directors who approved the pay and pension packages
of the former chief, Lee R. Raymond.

Mr. Raymond was paid $49 million in cash and restricted
stock last year, then got a $98 million lump-sum pension payment.

In comments after the meeting, Mr. Tillerson, who took
over in January after Mr. Raymond retired, said it was up
to Exxon Mobil directors to determine his retirement
package. He has not asked them to limit his compensation,
but "they know how to reach me," he said.

As in the past, Wednesday's meeting attracted environmental
protesters who accuse the company of financing groups
that question the link between global warming and the
burning of hydrocarbons such as oil and coal.

Most of the 13 shareholder resolutions — all opposed by the
board — dealt with corporate governance issues, however,
including three on executive and director compensation.
None of the three got more than 12.9 percent support,
according to the company.

A firm that advises large shareholders recommended
withholding votes for four directors on Exxon Mobil's
compensation committee. The treasurer of North Carolina
had indicated this week that his state's pension fund would
withhold votes from five directors in protest over
Mr. Raymond's compensation.

The four compensation committee directors received 79
to 82 percent of the votes cast, while the other eight directors
were re-elected with percentages in the mid-90's, a spokesman said.

A resolution to require that directors get a majority vote to be
elected passed with 52 percent support. Mr. Tillerson said the
board would consider the issue but made no promises about
the outcome.

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

Another Hunters Point Shipyard cover-up
by Ebony Colbert
http://www.sfbayview.com/053106/shipyardcoverup053106.shtml

Danny Schechter | Media Crimes Sanitize War Crimes in Iraq
Danny Schechter writes, "As events in Iraq continue to slip from bad
to worse, the good news brigade is scrambling for new stories
('anything, give me anything') to shore up what's left of public
support for a bloody war without end."
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/060206A.shtml

Union: Scrapping pacts not needed
By LARRY RINGLER Tribune Chronicle
NEW YORK — Union attorneys spent Friday afternoon in Delphi
Corp.’s bankruptcy hearing building a case that the company
doesn’t need to scrap its labor pacts to cut labor costs because
the unions have agreed to cut jobs.
June 2, 2006
http://www.tribune-chronicle.com/news/articles.asp?articleID=4353

FOCUS | New "Iraq Massacre" Tape Emerges
The BBC has uncovered new video evidence that US forces may
have been responsible for the deliberate killing of 11 innocent
Iraqi civilians. The video appears to challenge the US military's
account of events that took place in the town of Ishaqi in March.
The US said at the time four people died during a military
operation, but Iraqi police claimed that US troops had deliberately
shot the 11 people.
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/060206Z.shtml

Dog Handler Convicted in Abu Ghraib Abuse
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
June 2, 2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/02/us/02verdict.html

Judging Whether a Killer Is Sane Enough to Die
By RALPH BLUMENTHAL and ADAM LIPTAK
June 2, 2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/02/us/02execute.html

As Economy Slows, Mixed Data on Inflation
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
June 2, 2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/02/business/02econ.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

British Police Shoot Man in Counterterrorism Raid
By ALAN COWELL
June 2, 2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/02/world/europe/01cnd-london.html?hp&ex=1149307200&en=e5e1a6eb00a1e50e&ei=5094&partner=homepage

Jobs Report Signals Cooling Economy
By JEREMY W. PETERS
June 2, 2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/02/business/02cnd-jobs.html?hp&ex=1149307200&en=e6846974a241a5f6&ei=5094&partner=homepage

Afghans Call for Trial of U.S. Troops
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/0531-11.htm

Chavez's 'citizen militias' on the march
By Mike Ceaser
In Caracas, Venezuela
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/world/americas/4635187.stm

Highest Court in New York Confronts Gay Marriage
By ANEMONA HARTOCOLLIS
June 1, 2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/01/nyregion/01marriage.html

Black and Hispanic Home Buyers Pay Higher Interest
on Mortgages, Study Finds
By ERIK ECKHOLM
June 1, 2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/01/us/01minorities.html

Bush Urges Congress to Find Compromise on Immigration
By JOHN O'NEIL
June 1, 2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/01/washington/01cnd-bush.html?hp&ex=1149220800&en=8908c9b5448ad46c&ei=5094&partner=homepage

The List: The World's Water Crises
If oil was the resource of the 20th century, then the 21st century belongs
to water. The lack of clean water and basic sanitation already curbs world
economic growth by $556 billion a year, according the World Health
Organization. FP looks at four countries struggling to quench their thirst.
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/story/cms.php?story_id=3473

US probe finds Haditha victims were shot:NYT
Wed May 31, 2006 09:34 AM ET
http://go.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=topNews&storyID=12381467&src=eDialog/GetContent

Well-Intentioned Food Police May Create Havoc With Children's Diets
By HARRIET BROWN
May 30, 2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/30/health/nutrition/30essa.html

Chief Named for Troubled G.M. Unit
By NICK BUNKLEY
May 31, 2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/31/automobiles/31auto.html

Is It Tableware or a Leading Indicator?
By DAVID LEONHARDT
May 31, 2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/31/business/31leonhardt.html

Treasury Nominee Faces a Change in Pay and Control
By ERIC DASH
May 31, 2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/31/business/31pay.html?hp&ex=1149134400&en=10dc956562f947be&ei=5094&partner=homepage

Files Contradict Account of Raid in Iraq
By ERIC SCHMITT and DAVID S. CLOUD
May 31, 2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/31/world/middleeast/31haditha.html?hp&ex=1149134400&en=ba9330564ff54260&ei=5094&partner=homepage

FUTUREOFTHEUNION.COM LINKS:
The Flies Will Lay Their Eggs
http://futureoftheunion.com/?p=2729

Basic Economics
http://futureoftheunion.com/?p=2762

Delphi Workers Prepare Their Delegates
http://futureoftheunion.com/?p=2726

Soldiers Of Solidarity Message Put To Music
http://futureoftheunion.com/?p=2765

The Legacy Of The Soldiers of Solidarity
http://futureoftheunion.com/?p=2747

Jobs Bank Update
http://futureoftheunion.com/?p=2746

A Dictator, Not A Visionary
http://futureoftheunion.com/?p=2740

Workers Will Rule When They Work To Rule
http://futureoftheunion.com/?p=2709

Men Are Born To Labor And The Bird To Fly
http://futureoftheunion.com/?p=2687

Keanu Reeves Slams Police State As Scanner Lights Up Cannes
Media suggest films show world is in sorry state
Paul Joseph Watson/Prison Planet.com | May 30 2006
Keanu Reeves has slammed the modern day police state and surveillance
society, a centerpiece of the upcoming film in which he stars, during
promotion for A Scanner Darkly at the Cannes film festival.
http://www.prisonplanet.com/index.html

Books on Science
Who Should Decide Land Use? U.S. Government Already Does
By CORNELIA DEAN
May 30, 2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/30/science/earth/30book.html

U.S. Is Sending Reserve Troops to Iraq's West
By DAVID S. CLOUD
May 30, 2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/30/world/middleeast/30troops.html

Asbestos - The Deadly Legacy
By John Kelly   
Tuesday, 30 May 2006
http://www.marxist.com/asbestos-deadly-legacy300506.htm

FOCUS | Dahr Jamail: Countless My Lai Massacres in Iraq
Dahr Jamail argues that "just like Abu Ghraib, while the media
spotlight shines squarely on the Haditha massacre, countless
atrocities continue daily, conveniently out of the awareness
of the general public. Torture did not stop simply because the
media finally decided, albeit in horribly belated fashion,
to cover the story, and the daily slaughter of Iraqi civilians
by US forces and US-backed Iraqi "security" forces had not
stopped either.
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/053006Z.shtml

Where's the Petite Department? Going the Way of the Petticoat
"But despite what executives say, overall sales of petite clothing
sizes have grown in the past several years, reaching $10 billion.
So petite women suspect another culprit: high-end department
stores that they say view the petite consumer as older,
unfashionable and undesirable."
By MICHAEL BARBARO
May 28, 2006

The Price of Iraq
New York Times Editorial
May 28, 2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/28/opinion/28sun1.html?hp=&pagewanted=print

Beware: Predators prowling Bayview streets!
It has been brought to my attention by several relatives and family
friends that the streets of Bayview Hunters Point have been invaded
by PREDATORS! What is taking place is that many elderly homeowners,
while out doing minor tasks in front of or near their homes, are being
approached and told, “I’ll buy your house for $25,000! Just sign here.”
http://www.sfbayview.com/052406/beware052406.shtml

FOCUS | Fernando Suarez del Solar: Memorial Day -
What Is this Special Day?
Fernando Suarez del Solar wonders what has happened to Memorial Day:
"In spite of all of the wars that have taken thousands of our soldiers
and millions of innocents, especially children, the world is still at
war, and people everywhere suffer under unjust political systems where
there is no freedom."
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/052806Y.shtml

DU: A Scientific Perspective/ An Interview With LEUREN MORET, Geoscientist
By W. Leon Smith/Nathan Diebenow
May 13, 2005, 07:20
http://www.axisoflogic.com/artman/publish/printer_17578.shtml

Investigation of Seminal Plasma Hypersensitivity Reactions
Authors: Jonathan Bernstein; CINCINNATI UNIV OH
http://www.stormingmedia.us/99/9904/A990473.html

Title: Investigation of Seminal Plasma Hypersensitivity Reactions
Synopsis: This study looked at Gulf War veterans and their sexual
partners who experienced a burning sensation after contact with semen.
http://deploymentlink.osd.mil/deploymed/projectDetail.jsp?projectId=391®ion=0&researchTopic=2&majorDeployment=0&researchSubTopic=5

Is burning semen syndrome a variant form of seminal plasma
hypersensitivity?
Bernstein JA, Perez A, Floyd R, Bernstein IL.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=12517652&dopt=Abstract

With Illegal Immigrants Fighting Wildfires, West Faces a Dilemma
By KIRK JOHNSON
May 28, 2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/28/us/28fire.html?hp&ex=1148788800&en=155ab953dd49f34a&ei=5094&partner=homepage

Chavez One, Bush Zero
by Audrey Sasson; May 22, 2006
ZNet | Venezuela
http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=45&ItemID=10308

Military to Report Marines Killed Iraqi Civilians
By THOM SHANKER, ERIC SCHMITT and RICHARD A. OPPEL Jr.
May 26, 2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/26/world/middleeast/26haditha.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

Arundhati Roy on India, Iraq, U.S. Empire and Dissent
Tuesday, May 23rd, 2006
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=06/05/23/1358250

Gilded Paychecks | Ties That Bind
With Links to Board, Chief Saw His Pay Soar
By JULIE CRESWELL
May 24, 2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/24/business/24board.html

Iraq War Provoking Terror: Amnesty International
"The war on terror and the way it has unfolded is actually premised on
the principle that by eroding human rights you can reinforce security,"
said Amnesty International's Secretary-General Irene Khan. "And that is
why as part of the war on terror we see restrictions being placed on
civil liberties around the world."
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/052306A.shtml

Ford Layoffs Hit
Black Auto Workers Hardest
CHRIS NISAN / Minnesota Spokesman-Recorder
http://www.mindfully.org/Industry/2006/Ford-Black-Layoffs1feb06.htm

Rice's Appearance Draws Protests in Boston
By KATIE ZEZIMA
May 23, 2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/23/us/23boston.html

Nigerian Monkeys Drop Hints on Language Origin
By NICHOLAS WADE
May 23, 2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/23/science/23lang.html

Judge Steps In for Poor Inmates Without Justice
By LESLIE EATON
The public defenders' office, run not by City Hall but by a parish
board, is basically broke. Louisiana, alone among the states, relies
mainly on local court fees — mostly surcharges on traffic tickets —
to finance its public defenders, according to the National Legal Aid
and Defender Association.
It is a financing system that Judge Hunter and Calvin Johnson,
the chief judge of the criminal court in New Orleans, have recently
found to be unconstitutional because it forces poor people to pay
for the system. The Louisiana attorney general's office says it plans
to appeal those decisions.
May 23, 2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/23/us/23court.html

Failed Amnesty Legislation of 1986 Haunts the
Current Immigration Bills in Congress
By RACHEL L. SWARNS
May 23, 2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/23/washington/23amnesty.html

Dahr Jamail | Easily Dispensable: Iraq's Children
Dahr Jamail implores us to understand: "That women and children
suffer the most during times of war is not a new phenomenon. It is
a reality as old as war itself. What Rumsfeld, Rice and other war
criminals of the Cheney administration prefer to call "collateral
damage" translates in English as the inexcusable murder of and
other irreparable harm done to women, children and the elderly
during any military offensive."
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/052206A.shtml

Breaking point: Inside Story of the Guantanamo Uprising
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/0521-01.htm

Americans Don't Like President Bush Personally Much Anymore, Either
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/0521-04.htm

The Dixie Chicks: America Catches Up With Them
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/0521-05.htm

Iraq is Disintegrating as Ethnic Cleansing Takes Hold
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/0520-04.htm

McCain Gets Cantankerous Reception at Commencement
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/0520-05.htm

AMID WAR, TROOPS SEE SAFETY IN REENLISTING
By Faye Fiore
The military offers steady wages, housing and a health plan
-- benefits that many service members find scarce in civilian life.
Los Angeles Times
May 21, 2006
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-enlist21may21,0,3677295.story?coll=la-home-headlines

Gonzales Says Prosecutions of Journalists Are Possible
By ADAM LIPTAK
The government has the legal authority to prosecute journalists
for publishing classified information, Attorney General Alberto
R. Gonzales said yesterday.
May 22, 2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/22/washington/22gonzales.html

Rising Ocean Temperatures Threaten Florida's Coral Reef
By RICK LYMAN
May 22, 2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/22/us/22coral.html

Poisoned Air Killed 3 Miners, Tests Suggest
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 1:19 p.m. ET
May 22, 2006
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-Mine-Explosion.html?hp&ex=1148356800&en=30604d9e34a2fe75&ei=5094&partner=homepage

Supreme Court Backs Police in Emergencies
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 11:55 a.m. ET
May 22, 2006
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-Scotus-Police-Search.html

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

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

People United For a General and Unconditional Amnesty

Barrio Unido Por una Amnistia General e Incondicional

474 Valencia Street

San Francisco, CA 94110

Contact Persons:

Cristina Gutierrez: 415-431-9945

Kati Sanchez: 415-368-2576

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

No matter what the decisions the lawmakers make to "reform" the
immigration laws, we know that they will make some immigrant
workers "legal" and others "illegal."

We will hold a rally June 19, 2006 at 5:00 p.m. at Palou Avenue
and Third Street in San Francisco to demand General and
Unconditional Amnesty for All Immigrants. We hold this rally
in celebration of the date of June 19th, 141 years ago when
it was declared the end of slavery by Black people in this country.

Our Black brothers and sisters continue to be a slave of racism
and injustice just as we immigrants. And the government
continues to put on Death Row the great leaders of the Black
movement such as Mumia Abu-Jamal.

We make a call for unity at this rally in the Bayview so we can
honor June 19th by making a commitment to sow the first
seeds together in order to make a reality the emancipation
of the Black people and the immigrants and to demand the
immediate freedom of the great leader of the Black people,
Mumia Abu-Jamal, innocent on Death Row.

Related:

Senate Passes Comprehensive Immigration Bill
By RACHEL L. SWARNS
May 25, 2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/25/washington/25cnd-immig.html?hp&ex=1148616000&en=510a31f6777e6e54&ei=5094&partner=homepage

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ABOLISHING JROTC in SAN FRANCISCO SCHOOLS
There will be a special meeting in July when
the School Board will vote on this resolution.
The meeting date is to be announced.
School District Office
555 Franklin St
San Francisco
415/241-6427

Report and Open letter to the Board of Education regarding JROTC:

At the first reading of the resolution to rid the schools
of JROTC on the basis of the policy of "Don't ask, don't
tell" that discriminates against gay's in the military, which
was presented to the Board of Education meeting on May 23, the
JROTC teachers (all retired military officers) mobilized students
to speak on behalf of JROTC. Carole Seligman and I spoke to many
students in the lobby before the meeting began. Repeatedly they
expressed that they loved the program. It gives them confidence
in themselves, provides a supportive environment, encourages good
scholarship in school, and encourages comradeship among the members.

So much so, that a young girl had a silver-colored chain with a tiny
silver-colored and diamond studded bullet. I really couldn't believe
it was a bullet so I asked her if it was. She said, "oh! this? Yes,
it's a bullet. You know, it's between me and my friend, you know,
like, 'I'll take a bullet for you!'"

Need I say more about the virtues of JROTC?

Unfortunately, the resolution that follows says nothing of this
aspect of JROTC. Nothing about the war. Nothing about young people
being taught to "take a bullet for each other". Nothing about the
realities of war. Nothing about asking students, gay or not, to
risk their lives and take the lives of Iraqis for this inhuman
and illegal war brought about by an inhuman and illegal
government.

It was announced by gay supporters of JROTC at the meeting
that they expected the military to lift the prohibition on gays
in the military this year. If this is true this will make this
resolution obsolete before it can ever take effect. Are we to cheer
that our gay brothers and sisters will be able to fight in this war?
What is our plan to convince young gay and straight students that they can't
"be all they can be" if they are dead; or legless and armless; or with the
blood of too many dead in their hearts and head; or permanently
brain-damaged; burnt or blinded by exploding eyeballs and deafened by
exploding eardrums? Who will tell them of depleted uranium illness?
Who will tell them that although there is a very high survival rate for
our injured soldiers there is also a very high rate of survival with such
catastrophic injury and illness? Who will tell them that they are more
likely to be homeless after serving than in college? Who will tell
them about the logic of "following orders" and a "chain of command"
Instead of thinking and reasoning and making decisions for themselves
leads to disaster?

If you haven't seen it, I suggest you watch the HBO special,
"Baghdad ER". In fact it should be shown to all of our students
in middle and high school. (It's far too explicit for very young children.)

We and the majority of the voters in San Francisco want
the military out of our schools immediately!

Here are my comments for the meeting. I was cut off midway
through my timed one-minute delivery. The resolution
follows my comments. Please look at it again and see that a
vital antiwar message is missing from it and correct and
amend the resolution immediately to reflect opposition
to the militarization of our schools and the offering up of our
students as cannon fodder for this bloodthirsty and greedy
government and it's military might.

We want a world without war! How can we teach children
that violence is not the answer when the most powerful
and influential adults in the world--our government--
uses it as their ultimate tool to gain wealth and power
for themselves.

You must take a stronger antiwar stand! I don't care how many
antiwar resolutions you have passed. The proof of the pudding
is in the military presence in our schools!

Sincerely,
Bonnie Weinstein

Addressed to the President, Vice President and the
Commissioners of the San Francisco Board of Education:

I commend the board members who are bringing the motion
to rid our schools of JROTC forward. This is in line with the
wishes of the majority of the voters in San Francisco who
voted to get the military out of our schools this past November.
The military’s policy of “don’t ask, don’t tell” is unacceptable.
Our obligation is to educate our children against prejudice
of all kinds—not turn a blind eye—and turn a bigoted military
loose on them. But that is not the only reason we want the
military and JROTC out.

We want our children to engage in physical education, in fact,
to find joy in it; and to study history—to learn how to avoid
the mistakes of the past; to gain satisfaction and experience
joy in learning so they can contribute to human knowledge
themselves as well as help fashion a better world!

We want our children to feel responsible to her or his
community. We want students to gain a sense of
responsibility and pride in a job well done by
contributing to the life and well being of their school,
their home and their community.

We don’t want to teach our children to blindly obey
a chain of command or to glorify war. In fact, it is our
duty to teach our children that blind obedience, violence,
greed, bigotry, prejudice, human inequality, torture, pre-
emptive war, profiting off of war and injustice, inequality
in the application of the law, and poverty in the face of
fantastic wealth is wrong, inhuman and intolerable and
we can do better!

We must rid our schools of the military and JROTC, hire
enough Physical Education teachers immediately, and
re-dedicate our schools to education and human
development—and reject the road to war and militarism.

Just one more thing, I want to correct the notion that the
new school policy regarding military recruiters has resulted
in less military presence in our schools. In fact, it has resulted
in more. Many schools did not invite the military on Career Day
and now they must, and that is a shame, because we want the
military out! We don’t want our children to study war or bigotry
any more! Not for one more second!

Bonnie Weinstein, Bay Area United Against War,
www.bauaw.org, 415-824-8730

The resolution:

Introduction of Replacement Program for JROTC
--Commissioners Mark Sanchez and Dan Kelly

WHEREAS: It is the official policy of the San Francisco Unified School
District to oppose discrimination of any kind against any group
of people; and

WHEREAS: The District’s opposition to discrimination is articulated
in Board Policy 5163, which provides that the San Francisco Unified
School District shall not discriminate on the basis of race, religion,
creed, national origin, age, sex, sexual orientation, or handicapping
condition in the provision of educational programs, services, and
activities, in the admission of students to school programs and
activities; and in the recruitment and employment of personnel; and

WHEREAS: The San Francisco Unified School District deplores the
"Don’t Ask Don’t Tell" policy of the U.S. Department of Defense,
which requires the discharge of any member of the armed forces
if such service member has engaged in "homosexual acts," has
revealed that s/he is a homosexual or bisexual, or the member
has married or attempted to marry a person known to be of the
same biological sex; and

WHEREAS: The District believes that the "Don’t Ask Don’t Tell"
policy is an unjust, indefensible, unintelligent, state-sanctioned
act of homophobia; and

WHEREAS: The San Francisco Unified School District cannot justify
committing any funding to a JROTC program because its connection
to the U.S. Department of Defense suggests that discrimination
against some groups is tolerable.

THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED: That the Board of Education of the
San Francisco Unified School District calls for the phasing –out
of the JROTC program of the United States Department of Defense
on San Francisco Unified School District campuses; and

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED: That the Board of Education instructs
District staff to provide all JROTC units at SFUSD campuses with
one year notice that the programs will be terminated at all SFUSD
campuses after the 2006-2007 school year; and

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED: That the Board of Education calls for the
creation of a special task force to develop alternative, creative,
career-driven programs which provide students with a greater
sense of purpose and respect for self and humankind.

Board has plan to oust ROTC from S.F. schools
Members want to cut program over 'Don't ask, Don't tell'
The students engage in physical training such as running, push-ups
and jumping jacks; and discipline training such as marching,
drill-practice and using a mock chain of command. They also
study military history and perform community service.
- Heather Knight, Chronicle Staff Writer
Tuesday, May 23, 2006
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2006/05/23/MNGIOJ0G7P1.DTL

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

San Francisco Unified School District
Office of Public Engagement and Information
555 Franklin Street, Room 305 ● San Francisco, CA 94102
Tel: 415.241.6565 ● Fax: 415.241.6036 ● www.sfusd.edu
http://portal.sfusd.edu/data/news/pdf/ACF1D3.pdf

Immigration Rally
Afternoon Report

May 1 Update

- The support plan for schools today went smoothly due to the
collaboration of central office departments and preparation over
the last week.

- Having analyzed the substitute requests before and during
the weekend, the district was prepared to provide coverage for
the roughly 750 teachers and staff who were absent today,
Monday, May 1.

- Over the course of the day, principals provided
the central office “Command Center” with updated
student enrollment, substitute and teacher absence
information. Based on this information, central office
staff and substitutes were re-deployed to sites that
needed additional support. At impacted school sites,
teachers and principals worked in collaboration with
central office support staff to provide coverage for
all students.

- Bus transportation lines were covered for all
schools with minimum disruption, though there were some
delays in the city due to the re-routing of traffic.

- 12,349 students were absent today from the school district
(approximately 22%).

- On a typical school day, 5% of students are absent in the district.

- 5311 students were absent from elementary and K-8 schools (20%)

- 2877 students were absent from middle schools (26%)

- 4161 students were absent from high schools (21%)

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

Guantanamo 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.

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

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!
---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*--------

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

2) On Immigration
By Gregg Shotwell, Soldiers of Solidarity
Date: Thurs, May 18 2006 1:10am
From: GreggShotwell@aol.com
mailto:GreggShotwell@aol.com

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

4) 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

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

6) 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

7) 100 Years in the Back Door, Out the Front
By NINA BERNSTEIN
May 21, 2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/21/weekinreview/21bernstein.html

8) These Guns for Hire
By TED KOPPEL
Washington
May 22, 2006
http://select.nytimes.com/2006/05/22/opinion/22koppel.html?hp

9) An Immigration Bottom Line
New York Times Editorial
May 21, 2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/21/opinion/21sun1.html

10) Message from Ricardo Alarcon,
President of the National Assembly
of People's Power of the Republic of Cuba

11) Where is the Global Outcry at This Continuing Cruelty?
Nearly 60 years after most Palestinians were first forced from our
homes, the killings and blockades carry on with impunity
by Ghada Karmi
Published on Monday, May 15, 2006 by the Guardian/UK
http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,1774765,00.html

12) His photo is an icon, his life a shambles
At home and suffering from stress disorder,
ex-Marine has turned against Iraq war
BY DAVID ZUCCHINO
Los Angeles Times
Posted on Mon, May. 22, 2006
http://www.twincities.com/mld/twincities/news/14636241.htm

13) 'Swallowed by pain'
Jeffrey Lucey joined the Reserves to help pay for college;
he wasn't prepared for what happened next
By Mehul Srivastava
Dayton Daily News
http://www.daytondailynews.com/project/content/project/suicide/daily/1011lucey.html

14) 1 in 136 U.S. Residents Behind Bars
U.S. Prisons, Jails Grew by 1,000 Inmates a Week From '04 to '05;
1 in 136 Residents Behind Bars
by Elizabeth White
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/0522-03.htm

15) First Female Conscientious Objector Sentenced
Wednesday, 24 May 2006, 11:02 am
Press Release:
23 MAY 2006 - for immediate release

16) A Sudden Taste for the Law
New York Times Editorial
May 24, 2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/24/opinion/24weds1.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin

17) Senate Advances Sweeping Immigration Bill
By RACHEL L. SWARNS
May 24, 2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/24/washington/24cnd-immig.html?hp&ex=1148529600&en=396eafcbc403e967&ei=5094&partner=homepage

18) Senate Advances Sweeping Immigration Bill
Under the provisions adopted on Tuesday, employers would be
required to enter the Social Security numbers or immigrant
identification numbers of all job applicants, including citizens,
into the computerized system, which would be created by the
Department of Homeland Security. The system would notify
businesses within three days whether the applicant was
authorized to work in the United States.
By RACHEL L. SWARNS
May 24, 2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/24/washington/24cnd-immig.html?hp&ex=1148529600&en=396eafcbc403e967&ei=5094&partner=homepage

19) USA: the Statistics That Shock
[The figures are even more shocking when you take into
consideration inflation and the fact that the rich are now paying
less taxes and the middle class, the working class, and the poor
are now forced to pay more taxes.
FYI: According to "The Inflation Calculator"
www.westegg.com/inflation/infl.cgi
What cost $1.00 in 1973 would cost $4.42 in 2005 and more today!]
By Michael Roberts   
Wednesday, 24 May 2006
http://www.marxist.com/usa-statistics-shock240506.htm

20) Laid Off and Left Out
By BOB HERBERT
May 25, 2006
http://select.nytimes.com/2006/05/25/opinion/25herbert.html?hp

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

1) 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

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

2) On Immigration
By Gregg Shotwell, Soldiers of Solidarity
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

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

3) 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."

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

4) 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."

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

5) 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.

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

6) 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."

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

7) 100 Years in the Back Door, Out the Front
By NINA BERNSTEIN
May 21, 2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/21/weekinreview/21bernstein.html

THE Texas cotton lobbyist tried to reassure Congress that the tens
of thousands of Mexicans who labored in the fields of the Southwest
were not a threat to national security. There "never was a more docile
animal in the world than the Mexican," he told the Senate committee.

Then he offered a way around the political problem the congressmen
faced in extending the program that had let the workers in.

"If you gentlemen have any objections to admitting the Mexicans
by law," he said, "take the river guard away and let us alone, and
we will get them all right."

They did — and that was in 1920. Almost a century later, the
debate over illegal immigration from Mexico often makes it
sound like a recent development that breaks with the tradition
of legal passage to America.

Quite the contrary, say immigration scholars like Aristide R. Zolberg,
who relates the anecdote about the Texas cotton grower in his new
book, "A Nation by Design: Immigration Policy in the Fashioning
of America." A pattern of deliberately leaving the country's "back
door" open to Mexican workers, then moving to expel them and
their families years later, has been a recurrent feature of immigration
policy since the 1890's.

"Things are not the same today, but the basic dynamics do not
change," said Mr. Zolberg, a professor of political science at the
New School. "Wanting immigrants because they're a good source
of cheap labor and human capital on the one hand, and then
posing the identity question: But will they become Americans?
Where is the boundary of American identity going to be?"

Nearly every immigrant group has been caught at that crossroads
for a time, wanted for work but unwelcome as citizens, especially
when the economy slumps. But Mexicans have been summoned
and sent back in cycles for four generations, repeatedly losing
the ground they had gained.

During the Depression, as many as a million Mexicans, and even
Mexican-Americans, were ousted, along with their American-born
children, to spare relief costs or discourage efforts to unionize.
They were welcome again during World War II and cast as heroic
"braceros." But in the 1950's, Mexicans were re-branded
as dangerous, welfare-seeking "wetbacks."

In 1954, President Dwight D. Eisenhower sent Gen. Joseph Swing
to "secure the border" with farm raids and summary deportations
that drove out at least a million people. At the same time, growers
were assured of a new supply of temporary workers through the
"braceros" program, which soon doubled to 400,000 a year.

The pattern grew during the years between the 1882 Chinese
Exclusion Act and the quotas of 1929, as rising legal barriers
drastically narrowed the nation's front door. The goal was to preserve
the country's "Nordic character" against Italians and Eastern European
Jews who had begun arriving in large numbers.

Yet Congress refused to close the back entrance to a growing flow
of Mexicans, even though by the lawmakers' own racial standards,
Mexicans were even more objectionable than the "degraded races"
of Asians and Southern Europeans whom they were increasingly
replacing in fields, factories and railroad work.

A convenient way was found to reconcile the contradiction, said
Camille Guérin-Gonzales, a professor of history at the University
of Wisconsin and the author of "Mexican Workers and American
Dreams." No quotas were necessary to keep Mexicans out because
they were not going to stay. "Not wanting to 'mongrelize the race,'
but needing cheap labor, Americans constructed Mexicans as
'birds of passage,' " she said, using the phrase coined to describe
Italian immigrants. "The proximity of the border made that even
more believable."

The cotton pickers cited by the Texas lobbyist had arrived by way
of a program intended to address World War I labor shortages.
But as commercial agriculture created "factories in the field,"
undocumented entry became the norm. Growers pointed out
that no willing field hand could afford the "head tax" that went
with legal entry. And employers regularly cited informal entry
as a feature that made Mexicans more desirable than cheap
foreign laborers like Filipinos, because they were easier to deport.
As one rancher quoted in Mr. Zolberg's book remarked to a Mexican
hand: "When we want you, we'll call you; when we don't — git."

The full, brutal weight of that formula hit in the Depression.
Roundups of Mexican families in public places, summary deportations
— and well-publicized threats of more to come — sent panic through
Mexican-American communities in 1931. The tactic was called "scare-
heading" by its architect, Charles P. Visel, the director of the Los Angeles
Citizens Committee on the Coordination of Unemployment Relief.
It worked. Even many legal immigrants were panicked into selling
their property cheap and leaving "voluntarily."

It was a time when crops went unharvested for lack of buyers and
white families like those in "The Grapes of Wrath" poured West,
desperate for work. "They gave you a choice: starve or go back to
Mexico," a resident of Indiana Harbor, Ind., recalled later, as Roger
Daniels relates in his book "Guarding the Golden Door." A Santa
Barbara woman said she would never forget seeing trains organized
by the railroad transporting families to the border in boxcars.
The same rail lines had long been maintained by Mexicans who
had settled not only in the Southwest, but in Indiana, Illinois
and eastward.

"I have left the best of my life and strength here, sprinkling with
the sweat of my brow the fields and factories of these gringos,
who only know how to make one sweat and don't even pay attention
to one when they see one is old," said one worker, Juan Berzunzolo,
interviewed in California in the 1920's by a Mexican anthropologist
and quoted by Devra Weber in "Dark Sweat, White Gold: California
Farm Workers, Cotton and the New Deal."

At the other side of the border, Ms. Guérin-Gonzales said, an
11-year-old American-born girl who had been "repatriated" from
California told an interviewer in the 1930's, "I would be in the fifth
grade there, but here, no, because I didn't know how to read and
write Spanish." A boy recounted how a Mexican policeman upbraided
him for speaking English. But by 1943, with the economy ascendant
and employers crying of wartime labor shortages, the cycle began
anew.

Today, the nature of the deal can no longer be disguised, said
Marcelo M. Suárez-Orozco, co-director of Immigration Studies at
New York University. "It's a bad-faith pact," he said. "We can't have
it both ways — an economy that's addicted to immigrant labor, but
that's not ready to pay the cost."

And Mr. Zolberg said the old resort to mass expulsion is less likely,
since the naturalization of millions of Latinos, including those from
the 1986 amnesty, changed the rules of the game. "Mexicans, and
Latinos generally are more in the situation today that Italians and
Jews were in the 20's and 30's," he said. "They began to have some
electoral clout, because there were more people of that national
origin who could stand up."

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

8) These Guns for Hire
By TED KOPPEL
Washington
May 22, 2006
http://select.nytimes.com/2006/05/22/opinion/22koppel.html?hp

THERE is something terribly seductive about the notion of
a mercenary army. Perhaps it is the inevitable response of
a market economy to a host of seemingly intractable public
policy and security problems.

Consider only a partial list of factors that would make a force
of latter-day Hessians seem attractive. Among them are these:

• Growing public disenchantment with the war in Iraq;

• The prospect of an endless campaign against global terrorism;

• An over-extended military backed by an exhausted, even
depleted force of reservists and National Guardsmen;

• The unwillingness or inability of the United Nations or other
multinational organizations to dispatch adequate forces
to deal quickly with hideous, large-scale atrocities (see
Darfur and Congo);

• The expansion of American corporations into more remote,
fractious and potentially hostile settings.

Just as the all-volunteer military relieved the government
of much of the political pressure that had accompanied
the draft, so a rent-a-force, harnessing the privilege of
every putative warrior to hire himself out for more than
he could ever make in the direct service of Uncle Sam,
might relieve us of an array of current political pressures.

In the areas of logistics and support, this proposition is
already more than theoretical. In addition to the roughly
130,000 American troops now serving in Iraq, private
contractors have their own army of approximately 50,000
employees performing functions that used to be the
province of the military. The army used to cook its own
meals, do its own laundry, drive its own trucks. But after
the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Pentagon reduced
American armed forces by some 36 percent, anticipating
a peace dividend that was never fully realized.

So, if there are personnel shortages in the military (and
with units in their second and third rotations into Iraq
and Afghanistan, there are), then what's wrong with having
civilian contractors? Expense is a possible issue; but
a resumption of the draft would be significantly
more controversial.

Moreover, contractors provide the bodyguards (most
of them veterans of the American, British, Australian,
Nepalese or South African military) and, in some cases,
the armored vehicles and even helicopters that have
become so necessary for the conduct of business by
foreign civilians in Iraq. Such protective services are
employed by practically every American news agency
and, indeed, are responsible for the security of the
American ambassador himself.

So, what about the inevitable next step — a defensive
military force paid for directly by the corporations that
would most benefit from its protection? If, for example,
an insurrection in Nigeria threatens that nation's ability
to export oil (and it does), why not have Chevron or
Exxon Mobil underwrite the dispatch of a battalion
or two of mercenaries?

Chris Taylor, the vice president for strategic initiatives
and corporate strategy for Blackwater USA, wanted to be
sure I understood that such a thing could only happen with
the approval of the Nigerian government and at least the
tacit understanding of Washington. But could Blackwater
provide a couple of battalions under those circumstances?
"600 people in a battalion," he answered. "I could source
1,200 people, yes. There are people all over the world who
have honorably served in their military or police organizations.
I can go find honorable, vetted people, recruit them, train
them to the standard we require."

It could have the merit of stabilizing oil prices, thereby
serving the American national interest, without even tapping
into the federal budget. Meanwhile, oil companies could protect
some of their more vulnerable overseas interests without the
need to embroil Congress in the tiresome question of whether
Americans should be militarily engaged in a sovereign third
world nation.

There are limits, of course. None of these security companies
is likely to undertake the full-scale military burden presented
by an Iran or a North Korea. But their horizons are expanding.
Cofer Black, formerly a high-ranking C.I.A. officer and now
a senior executive with Blackwater USA, has publicly said that
his company would be prepared to take on the Darfur account.

At whose expense and to what ultimate end is not altogether
clear. But Blackwater and other leading security companies are
seriously proposing to officials at very high levels of the
government that their private forces could relieve a number
of the burdens now being shouldered (or not) by American
troops. The underlying theory seems to be that where a host
government is unable to protect American business interests
overseas and where the American government may be
reluctant or unable to intervene, there is another option
conveniently available.

The Pentagon, which is anything but enamored of the prospect
of private armies operating outside its chain of command,
is nonetheless struggling to come to terms with what it now
calls "the long war." There is every expectation that the fight
against global terrorism and the most extreme forms of Islamic
fundamentalism will last for many years. This is a war that will
not necessarily require aircraft carriers, strategic bombers,
fighter jets or heavily armored tanks. It will certainly not
enable the United States to exploit its advantages in
nuclear weapons.

It is a war, indeed, that favors the highly mobile and adaptive
fighting skills of the former Special Forces soldiers and other
ex-commandos who have already taken early retirement
from the military in order to serve their country less directly,
if more profitably.

The United States may not be about to subcontract out the
actual fighting in the war on terrorism, but the growing
role of security companies on behalf of a wide range of
corporate interests is a harbinger of things to come. Is
what's good for companies like Exxon Mobil, Freeport-
McMoRan (the mining company that has paid the Indonesian
military to maintain security) or even General Motors
necessarily good for the United States?

The other morning on NBC's "Today" program, Rex Tillerson,
chairman and chief executive of Exxon, was asked by Matt
Lauer if his company would consider lowering profits
to help consumers this summer. Mr. Tillerson had the
good manners not to laugh. "We work for the shareholder,"
he said, adding, "Our job is to go out and make the most
money for ... those people."

What then if the commercial interests of a company or
foreign government hiring one of these security contractors
comes into conflict with the interests of the United States
government? Mr. Taylor of Blackwater doesn't even concede
the possibility. "At the end of the day," he said, "we consider
ourselves responsible to be strategic partners of the U.S.
government." To which he then added, perhaps a little more
convincingly: "If we went against U.S. government interests
we would never get another contract."

It is, however, an evolving relationship that requires far greater
scrutiny. There is, in the final analysis, no direct chain of
command from the government to units of Blackwater or
other security companies that have been hired by private
corporations or foreign governments. Chris Taylor insists:
"We are accountable. We are transparent." That's debatable.
But, he adds: "Given the global war on terror, this is a way that
a lot of these retirees (from the military) can contribute. We want
to have a discussion into how we fit into the total solution set."

By all means. Let the discussion begin.

Ted Koppel is a contributing columnist for The Times and
managing editor of the Discovery Channel.

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

9) An Immigration Bottom Line
New York Times Editorial
May 21, 2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/21/opinion/21sun1.html

This week starts the endgame for immigration reform in the Senate.
Months of debate have come down to this: whether the
comprehensive solution at the core of the Senate bill will survive
the hostile attentions of those who do not want real reform at all.
A brace of amendments has already warped and weakened the bill
— though not fatally, thanks to a bipartisan coalition that has fended
off repeated attempts at sabotage. But there is still a danger that
any legislation will be further compromised or even gutted
to conform with the House's deplorable bill.

A good immigration bill must honor the nation's values and be
sensible enough to work. It must not violate the hopes of deserving
people who want to work toward citizenship. It must not create
a servant class of "guest workers" shackled to their employers
and forbidden to aspire to permanent legal status. It must give
newcomers equal treatment under the law and respect their rights
of due process. It must impose rigorous enforcement of labor
laws, so unscrupulous employers cannot exploit illegal workers.
And it must clear the existing backlogs of millions seeking to
enter the country legally, so that illegal immigrants do not
win an unfair place in line.

'Amnesty' and the Mythical Middle Ground. The Senate is the
only hope for real reform this year because the House has
already chosen its plan. It wants to wall off Mexico, turn 11
million or so illegal immigrants into an Ohio-size nation of
felons, and then pick them off through arrests, deportation
and an atmosphere of focused hostility until they all go home,
abandoning their families and jobs.

That spirit of wishful hunkering has infected the Senate, where
Democrats and moderate Republicans have had to struggle
against the obstinacy of those who join their counterparts
in the House in seeing immigration entirely as a pest-control
problem. President Bush has aligned himself with the thoughtful
reformers, but in a slippery way. "There's some people in our
party who think, you know, deportation will work," Mr. Bush
said on Thursday. "There are people in the other party that
want to have automatic amnesty. As I said in my speech,
I've found a good middle ground."

But nobody favoring the Senate bill wants automatic amnesty.
It imposes a long and difficult path to citizenship. Illegal
immigrants must have a clean record and a job, speak English
and pay a big fine. That is what the president wants, though
he tries not to say it. His mildness has only validated the
efforts of those who cling to the enforcement-only delusion,
and who have tried so hard to strip the Senate bill of any
meaningful paths to citizenship.

Mr. Bush should have joined the debate far earlier and more
assertively, insisting that the "middle ground" lies nowhere
near those who refuse any accommodation and favor mass
deportations.

The Border Fixation. An immigration solution cannot be focused
only on the border. We've tried that. Border enforcement has
swelled in the last 20 years, with no visible effect. Mr. Bush's plan
to send National Guard troops was seen on both sides, rightly,
as a ploy to placate the xenophobes. It would be good to expand
the Border Patrol. But the best help we can give it is to enforce
workplace rules, ease the pressure for visas and restore law
and order in a comprehensive way.

The Enforcement Gap. The value of illegal immigrants to many
employers is their fearful willingness to work for low pay in bad
conditions. People who are secure in their status will stand up
against abuses, leading to better treatment for all. Workplace
enforcement is one tactic. Employers who risk real punishment
will be less likely to flout the rules. But guest worker programs
without the citizenship option are also an invitation to worker
abuse, and a shameful abdication of America's values. Mr. Bush
has taken this path. Congress must not.

Fairness and Workability. The current bill divides the 11 million
to 12 million illegal immigrants into three groups. Those who
arrived less than two years ago would have to go home. Those
who have been here for two to five years would be treated
as guest workers, and would have to leave and re-enter the
country to keep that status. The rest would be able to seek
citizenship.

Will this cumbersome bureaucratic solution work? It depends
on the willingness of the two-to-five-year group to step forward.
For immigration reform to succeed it must lure people out of the
shadows — a goal that may be fatally compromised by the punitive
hoops the bill erects.

Another profound shortcoming of the bill is its harsh criminal-
justice provisions. It greatly expands the types of immigration-
related offenses that constitute "aggravated felonies" and thus
grounds for detention and deportation. People who use false
passports to flee persecution, for example, might be ensnared.
The bill increases penalties and the risk of deportation for minor
infractions, like failing to file a change of address form. It removes
judges' and immigration officers' discretion to weigh individual
circumstances, adding toughness at the cost of fairness and decency.

The Xenophobia Problem. The Senate's debate has laid bare
a hostility to immigrants that is depressing in its spitefulness
and vigor. From Senator James Inhofe's amendment declaring
English the national language to one from Jon Kyl that would have
barred low-skilled guest workers from seeking permanent status
to another from John Ensign that would have denied Social Security
credit for work done before an immigrant is legalized, the debate
has been littered with attempts to stifle, stymie or blow up the
process.

The bipartisan coalition pursuing thoughtfulness over such
simplistic hostility has proved sturdy so far. The senators who
have fashioned the consensus for comprehensive reform must
stick together, or the possibility of a solution this year will die,
along with the hopes of millions.

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

10) Message from Ricardo Alarcon,
President of the National Assembly
of People's Power of the Republic of Cuba

Dear sisters and brothers:

On behalf of the revolutionary Government of Cuba and the Cuban
people I salute the organizers and all participants at the May 20
Hands off Venezuela and Cuba rally.

We appreciate your solidarity in our struggle for independence and
justice in the face or the imperialist aggression that our people
have been resisting, heroically and successfully for over 47 year. In
spite of the economic blockade our people has advanced dramatically
in building a new and better society and cooperating closely with our
brothers and sisters in Venezuela we are helping many others in Latin
America, the Caribbean, Africa and Asia to improve their lives. We
strongly believe that free and universal health care and education, a
decent job and housing are inalienable rights that belong to
everybody including the millions deprived from those rights in the
United States.

We urge all of you to join us in demanding an end to the criminal and
hypocritical policy of the Bush administration that continue to
promote terrorism against the Cuban people as illustrated by their
protection of such cold blood killers like Orlando Bosch and Luis
Posada Carriles and maintain unjustly incarcerated Five Cuban heroes
that were detained almost 8 years ago precisely for their efforts
against those very same terrorist groups that operate with impunity
and with the official protection of the US authorities.

We call upon all of you to join in the international campaign against
US sponsored terrorism from September 12 when the Cuban Five will
have been deprived of their freedom for 8 years to October the 6th
that will mark the 30th anniversary of the destruction of a Cubana
civilian airplane and the assassination of all 73 persons on board.
We should also commemorate next September 21 the 30th anniversary of
the killing in Washington D.C. of Orlando Letelier and Ronnie Moffit.

Orlando Bosch was involved in the plot to murder Letelier and Moffit
as is clearly reflected in recently declassified U.S. official
documents but Bosch has never been questioned by FBI, and is living
in Miami still actively pursuing his criminal endeavors.

Luis Posada Carriles is a fugitive of the Venezuelan justice from
which he escaped with the help of the Reagan-Bush White House twenty
years ago. The U.S. Governmnet knows very well that he and Bosch
masterminded the destruction of our airplane in 1976. The U.S. has an
obligation to extradite Posada to Venezuela to continue his trial on
that heinous crime or has the obligation to prosecute him in the U.S.
for the same crime. There is no legal alternative according to
international conventions against terrorism that were signed and
ratified by the U.S. But Mr. Posada has been for more than a year
under U.S. official protection and so far he has not been estradited
or accused.

The detention of Gerardo, Ramon, Antonio, Fernando and Rene was
determined to be arbitrary and illegal by a unanimous decision of a
five member panel of U.N. human rights experts. Their convictions
were reversed also by a unanimous decision of three judges of the
Atlanta Court of Appeals. Those decisions were announced in May 2005
and August 2005, but the Five Cubans are still in prison subjected to
cruel and unusual treatment with severe violations of their human
rights including the denial of visas to the wives of Gerardo and Rene
that have not been permitted to enter the U.S. to visit them.

The Five Cubans must be liberated immediately. Posada Carriles and
Bosch must be prosecuted and punished as confessed and very well
documented terrorists.

The cynical "war on terrorism" of Bush has to be unmasked, denounced
and defeated.

The aggression against the Iraqi people has to be stopped forthwith.
The exploitation and discrimination against immigrant workers, the
war on poor people, must end.

The threats against Venezuela and the interventionist attempts
against other peoples in latin America have to be condemned and
rejected.

Let's fight together to build bridges of friendship, peace and
cooperation between the peoples of the United States and Latin
America and the Caribbean. Let's struggle untied, shoulder to
shoulder, towards a new and better world, a world of justice and
freedom for all.

Long live the American people. Long live the peoples of Latin America
and the Caribbean. In solidarity let's fight together until victory
forever.

Ricardo Alarcon

La Habana

May 20, 2006

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

11) Where is the Global Outcry at This Continuing Cruelty?
Nearly 60 years after most Palestinians were first forced from our
homes, the killings and blockades carry on with impunity
by Ghada Karmi
Published on Monday, May 15, 2006 by the Guardian/UK
http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,1774765,00.html
 
Israel is 58 years old today. Israelis have already celebrated with
barbecues and parties. And so they should, for they've pulled off
an amazing stunt: the creation of a state for one people on the
land of another - and at their massive expense - without incurring
effective sanction. Some of those not celebrating, the Arab citizens
of Israel, were also there, demonstrating to remind the world that
Israel displaced 750,000 to take their land without compensation.
Millions more Palestinians will demonstrate today in the refugee
camps of Gaza, the West Bank and neighbouring Arab states
against their expulsion by Israel. The world, however, is not
listening, any more than it did in 1948, when most of Palestine's
inhabitants were expelled to make way for Jewish immigrants.
 
My family was among those displaced and, though a child,
I vividly remember the panic and misery of that flight from our
home in Jerusalem on an April morning in 1948, with the scent
of spring in the air. Palestine by then had become a raging
battleground as Jews fought to seize our land in the wake of
the 1947 UN partition resolution. My parents decided to evacuate
us temporarily. "We will return," they insisted, "the world will
not let such injustice happen!" They were wrong: the world let
it happen and we never returned. Little comfort in knowing that
we were among many others, that we did not end up in tents,
that conflicts do such things. Our lives, our history and our
future had been traduced. In those early days, I would wonder
with anguish how the Jewish incomers who took over our house
could sleep at night, seeing our belongings, family photos,
children's toys. Subsequently, Israelis made much of the danger
they faced from five Arab armies in the 1948-49 war, but in
reality their forces were greater than all their opponents'
combined, and the latter ill equipped and poorly trained.
 
Growing up in Britain, I got no sympathy but rather kept being
told about the need to give Jews a state they could feel safe in.
But at whose expense was this generosity? We Palestinians had
no hand in the Holocaust, nor in persecuting Jews. But we were
transformed from a peaceable agrarian people into a nation
of beggars under occupation, refugees, exiles and second-class
citizens of Israel. Worse still, we are now labelled terrorists,
suicide bombers or Islamic extremists. Our crime? We were
in the wrong place at the wrong time. And for that we have
been repeatedly punished, most recently for electing the
"wrong" government, headed by a party the west, not
Palestinians, labels as terrorist.
 
I went to "Palestine" last month to see what 58 years of Israel
had done. It was also springtime, but this was a shadow of the
land I had known. I found a pathetically fragmented society,
clinging to a fading dream of statehood against the odds.
Israel's policies have broken up the Palestinian territories
into ghettoes behind barriers and checkpoints. Gaza, supposedly
liberated, is a big prison where, according to the World Bank,
75% are under the poverty line and a quarter of children are
malnourished. Since January, Israel has kept the cargo crossings
into Gaza closed most of the time. Flour ran out last month,
and now medicines. The UN has warned of a humanitarian
disaster. Now Israel is threatening to cut off fuel because of
outstanding Palestinian debts, normally paid from Palestinian
tax receipts, which Israel has illegally held back since January.
The barrier wall, sealing off whole towns and villages, makes
normal life impossible.
 
The new, democratically elected Palestinian government is
paralysed because of Israeli and western sanctions. International
aid to the Palestinians, $1bn annually, has been stopped; $70m
donated by Arab states is blocked because banks, fearing
international sanctions, refuse to transfer the funds. Money
has run out for 150,000 public workers and their approximately
1 million dependants. I found deserted supermarkets and
shopkeepers in despair. Armed men roam the streets full
of anger at their loss of livelihood. Meanwhile, Israel's assault
on the Palestinians continues. Last week the army killed nine
and wounded 24. It mounted 38 incursions into Palestinian
towns and arrested 61 people, including 11 children.
 
The Quartet powers have agreed a three-month emergency
aid package. Because of the freeze on relations with Hamas,
the aid will bypass the government, though how essential
services can be run without a central administration is hard
to imagine. Arab foreign ministers have warned of a breakdown
in law and order if the Palestinian Authority collapses, but to
no avail. The world's silence in the face of this cruelty is
astonishing. There is no international outcry against a policy
whose transparent objective is to goad the Palestinians into
overthrowing the government they elected in favour of one
more pliant to Israel's designs. Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's
plan is to draw Israel's border "unilaterally", annexing the large
West Bank settlement blocs and keeping Jerusalem and the
Jordan Valley. The roads connecting it to Israel will bisect
Palestinian territory.
 
What remains, 14% at most, together with the Gaza prison,
will form the "Palestinian state". Olmert will be in Washington
soon, no doubt seeking a rubber stamp. The idea is presumably
that the Palestinians - dispersed and powerless - will then
no longer be in Israel's way. Anyone who believes this, as the
west's unthinking support for Israel seems to suggest, knows
nothing about history or the will of peoples to resist injustice.
The Palestinians are no exception.
 
Dr. Ghada Karmi is a research fellow at the Institute of Arab
and Islamic Studies, Exeter University, and a former consultant
to the Palestinian Authority. Email to: g.karmi@exeter.ac.uk
 
Guardian Newspapers Limited 2006

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

12) His photo is an icon, his life a shambles
At home and suffering from stress disorder,
ex-Marine has turned against Iraq war
BY DAVID ZUCCHINO
Los Angeles Times
Posted on Mon, May. 22, 2006
http://www.twincities.com/mld/twincities/news/14636241.htm

JONANCY, Ky. — Growing up in Jonancy Bottom, where coal trucks
grind their gears as they rumble down from the ragged green hills,
Blake Miller always believed there were only two paths for him: the
coal mines or the Marine Corps. He chose the Marines, enlisting
right out of high school.

The Marines sent him to Iraq, and then to Fallujah, where his life
was forever altered. He survived a harrowing all-night firefight in
November 2004, pinned down on a rooftop by insurgents firing
from a nearby house. Filthy and exhausted, he had just lighted
a Marlboro at dawn when an embedded photographer captured
an image that transformed Blake into an icon of the Iraq war.

His detached expression in the photo seemed to signify different
things to different people — valor, despair, hope, futility, fear,
courage, disillusionment. For Blake, the photograph represents
a pivotal moment in his life: an instant when he feared he would
never see another sunrise, and when his psychological foundation
began to fracture.

Blake, whose only brush with celebrity was as a star quarterback
in high school, became known as the Marlboro Man, a label he
detests. That same notoriety has carried over into his post-Iraq
life, where he is an icon of sorts for another consequence of the
war — post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD.

On Nov. 10, precisely one year after the photograph was flashed
around the world, Lance Cpl. James Blake Miller was medically
discharged from the Marine Corps, diagnosed with full-blown
PTSD. Three years after leaving the Kentucky hills for a career
in the Corps, he was back home. He feels adrift and tormented,
dependent on his new bride, his family and his military psychiatrist
to help him make sense of all that has happened to him.

CAN'T SLEEP

He barely sleeps. On most mornings, Blake says, he has no good
reason to get out of bed. Often, his stomach is so upset that he
can't eat. He has nightmares and flashbacks. He admits he's often
grouchy and temperamental. He knows he drinks and smokes
too much.

"He's not the same as before," said Blake's wife, Jessica, who has
known him since grade school. "I'd never seen the anger, the
irritability, the anxiety."

Blake says he feels guilty about taking money — $2,528 in monthly
military disability checks — for doing nothing. Yet he's also frustrated
that two careers made possible by his military training, police officer
or U.S. marshal, are out of reach because law enforcement is reluctant
to hire candidates with PTSD.

So he broods, feeling restless and out of options: "I'm only 21. I'm
able-bodied as hell, yet I'm considered a liability. It's like I had all
these doorways open to me, and suddenly they all closed on me.
It's like my life is over."

At a local restaurant one night last month, Blake became enraged
when he thought a man was staring at Jessica's rear end.

"I just wanted to grab his hair and smash his head against the table,"
he said later. "I was ready to kill him." But he restrained himself, he said.

Jessica, who graduates this spring from Pikeville College with
a psychology degree, has persuaded her husband to undergo
visualization techniques in which she helps him confront his
demons.

"It's understandable that Blake has PTSD, after all he's been through,"
she said. "Ordinary people can't comprehend what it's like to be
constantly shot at and have to kill other human beings. They need
to know what it means to send people like Blake out to fight wars.
You're going to have a lot of people breaking."

Five other members of his platoon of about three dozen have
been diagnosed with PTSD, Blake said. A dozen men from his
unit were killed in action. A Journal of the American Medical
Association study published in March found that more than
one-third of troops who served in Iraq sought help for mental
health problems within a year of returning home.

Sitting in the couple's spacious apartment above a furniture
store outside Pikeville, Ky., Jessica squeezed Blake's hand and
told him: "You've gone through so much, baby, that you just broke."

THE FAMOUS PHOTO

Blake was staring at the sunrise. He was on a rooftop in Fallujah,
sucking on a Marlboro and wondering whether he would live
to see Jessica and his father and brothers again.

Luis Sinco, a Los Angeles Times photographer, was crouched
next to the corporal, taking cover behind a rooftop wall. There
was a break in the all-night firefight after an Abrams tank,
radioed in by Blake, destroyed a house filled with insurgents.

Sinco pressed the shutter.

He did not consider the image particularly special. It was the
last shot he filed that day.

The photo appeared Nov. 10, 2004, and was distributed
worldwide. More than 100 newspapers published it. TV and cable
networks aired feature stories about the Marine's lost, distant look.
Some noted the trickle of blood on his nose — caused not by
enemy fire, but by Blake's rifle sight when it bumped his face.

Blake was unaware that Sinco had photographed him. Two days
later, he recalled, his gunnery sergeant told him: "Miller, your ugly
mug is on the front page of all the newspapers back home,
Marlboro Man."

The effect of the photo didn't fully register until a three-star
general showed up in Fallujah. Blake said the general suggested
moving him out of combat for fear that morale would plummet
if anything happened to the Marines' new media star, but he
refused to leave. Later, President Bush sent him a letter and
a cigar.

When Jessica saw the photo on the front page of the local paper,
she had not heard from Blake in a week.

"I was glad to know he was alive, but I couldn't stop crying," she
said. "The scared look on his face, his eyes — it tore me up."

In early January 2005, as Blake's unit prepared to leave Iraq, what
Marines call a "wizard" — a psychiatrist — gave a required "warrior
transitioning" talk about PTSD and adjusting to home life. Blake
didn't think much about it until he returned to Jonancy in late
January and his nightmares began.

He dreamed about the 40 enemy corpses that he counted after
the tank demolished the house, he said, and that he had been shot.

"He'd jump out of bed and fall to the floor," Jessica said. "I'd have
to hold him to get him to wake up, and then he'd hug me for the
longest time."

'I TEND TO DRINK A LOT'

Sometimes, Blake mutters Arabic phrases he learned in Iraq or
grimaces in his sleep, and Jessica will keep whispering his name
until he wakes up. Some nights, he doesn't sleep at all.

"I tend to drink a lot just to be able to sleep," Blake said. "Nothing
else puts me to sleep."

He decided last summer to see a military psychiatrist at Camp
Lejeune, N.C., where he was based. In August, he was diagnosed
with PTSD. But before he could be put on "non-deployable status,"
his unit was sent to New Orleans to assist with Hurricane Katrina
recovery.

While aboard a ship off the Louisiana coast, Blake was taking
a cigarette break when a petty officer made a whistling sound
like an incoming rocket-propelled grenade. Blake says he
remembers nothing about the incident, but was later told that
he slammed the officer against a bulkhead and attacked him.

By November, Blake was forced to take a medical disability
discharge. "They said they couldn't take the risk of me being
a danger to myself and others," he said.

He fears that he may have another blackout. "It's terrifying
that at any moment I could lose control and not know what
I'm doing," he said. "What if next time it's Jessica?"

In February, while smoking a cigarette and staring out Jessica's
dorm room window, Blake said, he thought he saw a dead Iraqi
man on the grass. Later, he had visions of an Iraqi father and
son fishing — a scene he'd witnessed in Iraq just before
a grenade exploded nearby.

"I can't tell anymore what really happened and what I dreamed,"
he said. "Sometimes I feel like I'm dying."

Blake visits a Veterans Administration psychiatrist in nearby
West Virginia and speaks with him by phone several times
a week. He said his psychiatrist told him that his PTSD has
to be managed; his disability will be re-evaluated next March.

Meanwhile, he has slowly turned against the war. "We've done
some humanitarian aid," Blake said, "but what good have we
actually done, and what has America gained except a lot of
deaths? It burns me up."

Jessica, who sports an "I Love My Marine" sticker on her car,
says she and Blake are behind the troops though they no
longer support the war.

Blake's military service is literally written on his body; his unit's
motto, "Angels of Death," is tattooed on his right forearm.
He had a life-sized cigarette tattooed on his left forearm
last year.

For Hillbilly Days, an annual street festival late last month in
Pikeville (population 6,304), Blake shaved his scruffy beard
and got a military "high and tight" haircut. He agreed to help
at a Marine Corps recruiting booth at the festival. Just putting
on his Marine fatigue pants and boots for the first time since
his discharge brought back more memories that he had
to tamp down.

'I CAN'T STAND TO LOOK AT IT'

He was so worried that the Marlboro Man photo would
dominate the recruiting booth that he begged the recruiters
not to display it. He also persuaded them to remove a large
version of the photo that had hung in the recruiting station
in downtown Pikeville.

"I can't stand to look at it anymore," he said. Even so, he says
the photo has provided him a platform to try to educate others
about PTSD.

Although he has turned against the war, he said, he often wishes
that he was back in the Corps and with his buddies. He still
recommends the Corps to potential recruits, but advises them
that it's a job, not a way of life. He recommends noncombat
positions.

"In order to do your job in combat, you have to lock up your
emotions," he said. "Basically, you're turning people into killers."

On Nov. 10, precisely one year after the photograph was flashed
around the world, Lance Cpl. James Blake Miller was medically
discharged from the Marine Corps, diagnosed with full-blown
post-traumatic stress disorder.

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

13) 'Swallowed by pain'
Jeffrey Lucey joined the Reserves to help pay for college;
he wasn't prepared for what happened next
By Mehul Srivastava
Dayton Daily News
http://www.daytondailynews.com/project/content/project/suicide/daily/1011lucey.html

BELCHERTOWN, Mass. | This is the paraphernalia of Jeffrey Lucey's life.
On one wall of his bedroom: a large, framed photograph of him and
his Marine Reserves unit.

On the opposite wall, a much smaller group photo of his Chestnut
Hill Community Class of 1995 hangs just a little askew.
On his bookshelf, at the top of two neat stacks, are the books Twelve
Steps and Twelve Traditions and Living Sober. Bottles of cologne are
arranged in a small semi-circle on top of his dresser — Abercrombie
and Fitch, Baryshnikov, Nautica, Acqua di Gio, Obsession.

On his bed, his mother has placed a DVD of one of his favorite movies,
The Passion of the Christ, and near his dresser, there are six empty
bottles: two Heinekens, one Mr. Boston Blackberry Flavored Brandy
and the rest are of a beer called EKU-28 with the label, "EKU-28 is
the one whenever something good and strong is needed."

And here, in front of the dust-covered TV, the faint light from the
shuttered windows reveals more of the paraphernalia of Jeffrey
Lucey's life. Brown spots stain the unwashed carpet.
It is the color of dried blood.

"It is our 53rd day of activation and we've been incountry four
weeks to the day." — Jeffrey Lucey's journal

Going to Iraq was never in Lucey's plans. He wanted to be a cop.
He wanted to marry his high-school girlfriend. He wanted what
most want in this town of 2,300 people.

He went to Holyoke Community College, trying to rack up enough
credits for a degree. Too small for football, too slow for track,
Lucey spent most of his time with friends, driving 4-wheelers
on the paths near his house. He got into some trouble, his
mother remembers, but no more than most kids his age.
He wasn't sure he wanted to join the Marine Reserves. But
some of his friends were joining, and there was a chance he
could get some money to pay for college. He talked about
it with his parents. Back then, before Sept. 11, 2001, there
wasn't a war to worry about, so he signed up.

In the next two years, everything changed. The country was
at war, and young men like Lucey were being sent to fight an
enemy halfway across the world. His unit was activated on
Jan. 11, 2003.

Many in America's armed forces are like Lucey: young,
impressionable with a slight wild streak. Inexperienced in
the world and unsure of themselves at home. He was a good
soldier. But something else was going on inside Lucey and
the war would only make it worse.

"I should have realized all our lives were about to change,"
Lucey wrote in his journal.

Lucey's unit was sent to Camp Pendleton, south of Los Angeles,
where they spent the days moving equipment from the motor
pool, getting weapons training and taking hand-to-hand
combat courses — all preparations for their deployment in Iraq.
At night, they partied.

"When each day came to an end, it was like our barracks were
suddenly changed into a college dorm," Lucey wrote. "Alcohol
and drinks flooded the area. You could smell steaks, hot dogs
and burgers cooking outside on our makeshift barbecues.
Everyone enjoying what we knew would be our last hurrah."

In the relatively safe confines of the camp, Lucey saw the first
of his buddies die. He wrote about seeing a Marine killed in
a car crash. Three others were injured. The day after this accident,
some of the Marines from his battalion went down to Tijuana.
"On their way back, their vehicle somehow flipped, paralyzing
one of the Marines from the neck down," Lucey wrote.

After a month in California, Lucey's unit left on a 22-hour flight
to Kuwait, stopping once in Maine and again in Germany.

"Our first stop was in Bangor, which was difficult, knowing my
home, my family and my girl Julie, who I love and cherish more
than anything in the world, was only a couple of hours drive
away," he wrote.

In Kuwait, Lucey was stationed at Camp Shuiba, where he helped
maintain the trucks, humvees and trailers that would be used
in Operation Iraqi Freedom.

It was tough in the desert. The heat. The toilets with water filled
all the way to the top. The boredom. The food that was never
hot enough, the water that was never cool enough. The sandstorms.
The nights spent awake.

"Three days would go by," Lucey wrote, "and your total sleep
would be under 6 hours. This made the days seem like weeks."
On March 18, Marine Reservist Lucey celebrated his 21st birthday.
He was 5,000 miles from Belchertown, his family, his girlfriend
—and although he may not have known it, the war was about
to begin.

The day after his birthday, American forces launched a "decapitation
strike" in hopes of taking out Saddam Hussein. Two days later, the
famous "shock and awe" campaign began with three Tomahawk
cruise missiles from the USS Donald Cooke. In the next two days,
more than 800 missiles were launched on targets across Iraq,
softening up the Iraqi defense for the ground assault.

At Camp Shuiba, Lucey felt the ground shake.
"At 10:30 p.m. a scud landed in our vicinity," Lucey wrote. "We
were just falling asleep when a shock wave rattled through our tent.
The noise was just short of blowing out your ear drums. Everyone's
heart truly skipped a beat and the reality of where we are and what's
truly happening hit home.

"It's now 11:30 and we still have no word of casualties, but from
the power encompassed in that blast the fear of the worst for
many is very real. We are now trying to go to sleep for at least
a couple of hours but anxiety is high and sleep seems close to
impossible."

And then, Lucey added three more lines: "We now just had a gas
alert and it is past midnight. We will not sleep. Nerves are on edge."

"Hazel, who is in the rack beside me, was looking at his 3 month
old baby boy when the scud hit... he picked up the picture off
the floor and gave me a look that seem to say that I hope I will
hold him again."

Sometime around March 21, Lucey's company, the 2nd Platoon,
Section A, 6th Motor Transportation Battallion rolled into Iraq,
slowly inching north toward Nasiriyah.

He wrote infrequently during his six months away from home.
His family took to watching CNN in hopes of catching a glimpse
of him.

Later, sitting on his back porch in Belchertown, Lucey told his
mother and his sister stories about his time in Iraq.

There was the story about the flag.

On a short assignment in Nasiriyah, when he volunteered to go
along with a convoy of Humvees, Lucey saw a dead child on the
side of the road. The boy clutched to his chest an American flag
stained with his blood. Lucey helped drag the body off the street
into an alleyway, and as he left to join his convoy, he kept the
flag for himself.

And then there's the story about the old couple.

Lucey told his mother about his nightmares where faceless old
people would run toward him asking for help, like the old couple
in Nasiriyah he says he watched get shot in the back as they ran
toward the shelter of their home. The nightmare came often,
keeping Lucey up until three or four in the morning, until the
last bottle of EKU-28 beer had run out, and he would finally
fall asleep.

And then there is the story. The story Lucey kept bottled up
inside him until last Christmas, when he finally let it out.
"Don't you understand?" he shouted at his sister, Debra. "Your
brother is a murderer."

That's when Debra Lucey first saw the dog tags. The ones Lucey
said he took off the necks of the two Iraqi soldiers he was forced
to shoot, one in the eye, the other in the back of the neck. The
dog tags were simple, with faint letters scratched into their
cheap metal, Debra remembers thinking. Lucey never took
the dog tags out, and this was the first time he had shown
them to the family.

The Marines have disputed some of these stories. They intially
told local papers in Massachusetts that as a Reservist in the 6th
Motor Transport Battalion, Lucey would most likely never have
come close to Iraqi prisoners. Later, the Marine Corps admitted
that in the confusion of Iraq, it was not only possible, but likely
that Lucey volunteered to help in transporting the prisoners.
A photograph that his parents developed from Lucey's camera
shows a bare-backed Iraqi sitting on the ground in front of
a truck with a black bag over his head. Two soldiers are standing
guard over the Iraqi.

"Uncertainty can drive any man crazy, the uncertainty about what's
going to change in your life upon your arrival home. Will all your
loved ones still be there. Was your significant other loving only
you while you were 8,000 miles away? Will your friends and loved
ones be the same people or will they have evolved into people
you know longer know. Most importantly, will we be the same
when we get back or will we have changed ourselves."

It takes about five minutes to walk from Lucey's house to a maple
tree he used to sit by for hours. The tree has a rope — a long,
ragged one with seven knots on it. As a child, Lucey would swing
out on the rope and jump into the brook that runs past the house.
Earlier this year, as he walked with his mother to the brook, he
took the headphones from his CD player off his head and made
her listen to a song about a soldier returning from war.

"Whatever happened to the young man's heart. Swallowed by pain,
as he slowly fell apart," the song's chorus goes. "And I am staring
down the barrel of a .45. Swimming through the ashes of another
life. No real reason to accept the way things have changed. Staring
down the barrel of a .45."

"I am listening to the words, and I am thinking, 'This is my son,
and he wants me to listen to this,' " Joyce Lucey recalled as she
walked down the path to the tree. "And he goes, 'No no no, I am
not going to do anything. Looking down the barrel of a .45 to
me represents looking down a long dark tunnel.' "

After he returned from Iraq, Lucey's drinking got worse. His private
therapist recommended he seek professional help from the VA.
His nightmares were more frequent, and Lucey had started
hallucinating. He would go to bed with a flashlight because
he felt spiders were crawling all over him.

The Luceys did what they could. They hid the knives in the house.
They secreted away his Marine Corps-issued knives to his sister's
house. They took turns sleeping so they could keep an eye on him.
Drunk, confused and abusive, Lucey was brought by his father and
sister to the VA medical center in Northampton, Mass., on May 28, 2004.
The same night that Lucey was involuntarily admitted, medical
records show that a doctor decided that he was "a clear and
present danger to self and others from PTSD (post-traumatic
stress disorder), depression with psychotic features and suicidal
ideation, acute alcohol intoxication."

For the next four days, Lucey was kept under observation, and
the medical records that his father now pores over night after
night show that the medical center had a pretty good idea of
what he was going through.

"When we left him at the VA, I think it gave us a sense of false
security," said his father, Kevin Lucey. "I felt as if the professionals
had things under control — things were out of my hands now."

On two separate occasions, different health care professionals
answered "yes" to questions about Lucey's suicidal tendencies.
In one chilling note, after checking yes to whether the patient
planned to kill himself, a further note described how Lucey "plan
ed (sic) to OD, hang himself or suffod=cate (sic) himself."

On June 1, the VA medical center discharged Lucey. They
diagnosed him with alcohol intoxication, alcohol dependence
and mood disorder secondary to alcohol intoxication.

"Jeff knew that he was drinking too much," said Dr. Mark Nickerson,
a private therapist that Lucey had been seeing at the same time.
"But it was the trauma that was really eating into him. As
inappropriate a crutch as it (the alcohol) was, it's about all
he really had. To me, it would make sense to try and treat
both the problems together, instead of focusing on the drinking."
Less than four days later, Lucey was back at the VA medical center.
His sister had come home after her college graduation ceremonies
to find him drinking at the house and talking about hanging himself.
She called the VA.

VA medical center rules say that for an involuntary admission
to take place, the patient must be on the premises, or be committed
by his family. Lucey refused to walk into the building, and VA staff
spoke to him outside. There wasn't much the staff could do: Records
state that the patient "showed no grounds to seek a commitment or
placement under protective custody by the VA police." The Luceys
had to bring him home.

Off and on, Lucey would ask for help when he was sober. Twice,
he asked his father if he could curl up in his lap. Even though he
thought his son's request odd, Kevin Lucey thought of those times
as progress. Just one week before Father's Day, he sat for a half-
hour in the family room, his 23-year-old son in his lap, and told
himself "we were crossing some kind of hurdle."

"It's funny how alcohol affects people and makes things more
interesting in a way."

Jeffrey Lucey's father came home from work June 22 to find the
TV on, his son's Iraqi dog tags on the bed and the cellar door open.
He walked the 10 steps down to the cellar, and saw a small semi-
circle of picture frames on the ground — photographs of Lucey
and his Marine unit flanked by pictures of his girlfriend and his
family. The glass in one of the frames was broken, and his mother
later found the shards on the floor of her son's room next to the
blood stains.

Kevin Lucey took another step and saw his son's feet hanging
two inches above the ground. He doesn't remember if he screamed
— he wanted to act quickly. He lifted his 165-pound son, took
the noose off his neck, and made a small pillow out of the rug
on the floor.

"He was in my lap again," said Kevin. "He looked so peaceful,
and I just held him, and tried to warm him up."

Lucey probably stood on a crumpled white cardboard box to get
his neck inside the noose. Had he wanted to save himself, all he
had to do was stretch his toes the two inches to the ground, take
the noose off his neck, go back up the cellar stairs into his room
and wait for his father to come home.
Instead, he left a note.
"Dear Dad, Don't look. Just call the cops."
Contact Mehul Srivastava at 225-2432.

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14) 1 in 136 U.S. Residents Behind Bars
U.S. Prisons, Jails Grew by 1,000 Inmates a Week From '04 to '05;
1 in 136 Residents Behind Bars
by Elizabeth White
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/0522-03.htm

WASHINGTON - Prisons and jails added more than 1,000 inmates
each week for a year, putting almost 2.2 million people, or one
in every 136 U.S. residents, behind bars by last summer.

The total on June 30, 2005, was 56,428 more than at the same
time in 2004, the government reported Sunday. That 2.6 percent
increase from mid-2004 to mid-2005 translates into a weekly
rise of 1,085 inmates.

Of particular note was the gain of 33,539 inmates in jails, the
largest increase since 1997, researcher Allen J. Beck said. That
was a 4.7 percent growth rate, compared with a 1.6 percent
increase in people held in state and federal prisons.

Prisons accounted for about two-thirds of all inmates, or
1.4 million, while the other third, nearly 750,000, were in
local jails, according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics.

Beck, the bureau's chief of corrections statistics, said the
increase in the number of people in the 3,365 local jails is
due partly to their changing role. Jails often hold inmates
for state or federal systems, as well as people who have
yet to begin serving a sentence.

"The jail population is increasingly unconvicted," Beck said.
"Judges are perhaps more reluctant to release people pretrial."

The report by the Justice Department agency found that
62 percent of people in jails have not been convicted,
meaning many of them are awaiting trial.

Overall, 738 people were locked up for every 100,000
residents, compared with a rate of 725 at mid-2004. The
states with the highest rates were Louisiana and Georgia,
with more than 1 percent of their populations in prison
or jail. Rounding out the top five were Texas, Mississippi
and Oklahoma.

The states with the lowest rates were Maine, Minnesota,
Rhode Island, Vermont and New Hampshire.

Men were 10 times to 11 times more likely than women
to be in prison or jail, but the number of women behind
bars was growing at a faster rate, said Paige M. Harrison,
the report's other author.

The racial makeup of inmates changed little in recent years,
Beck said. In the 25-29 age group, an estimated 11.9 percent
of black men were in prison or jails, compared with 3.9 percent
of Hispanic males and 1.7 percent of white males.

Marc Mauer, executive director of The Sentencing Project,
which supports alternatives to prison, said the incarceration
rates for blacks were troubling.

"It's not a sign of a healthy community when we've come to
use incarceration at such rates," he said.

Mauer also criticized sentencing guidelines, which he said
remove judges' discretion, and said arrests for drug and parole
violations swell prisons.

"If we want to see the prison population reduced, we need
a much more comprehensive approach to sentencing
and drug policy," he said.

Copyright 2006 The Associated Press

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15) First Female Conscientious Objector Sentenced
Wednesday, 24 May 2006, 11:02 am
Press Release:
23 MAY 2006 - for immediate release

First Female Conscientious Objector Sentenced for Refusing Deployment
to Afghanistan

FT. BENNING, GA – Army National Guard Specialist Katherine Jashinski
received a bad conduct discharge today and was sentenced to 120 days
confinement after pleading guilty to the charge of "refusal to obey a
legal order." She was acquitted of the more serious charge of "missing
movement by design." With 53 days already served (on Fort Benning),
and 20 days off for good behavior, Ms. Jashinski has 47 days of
confinement remaining.

On November 17, 2005, Jashinski made a public statement of
conscientious objection on the eve of her scheduled deployment to
Afghanistan. Eighteen months after filing, the Army denied her
application for a discharge. She was then court-martialed for refusing
to train with weapons.

Jashinski's superiors testified that they believed in the sincerity of
her CO claim, and the Judge noted that he was convinced of the same.

Aidan Delgado and Camilo Mejía, members of Iraq Veterans Against the
War, attended Ms. Jashinski's trial today to support her. They
described
the atmosphere of the courtroom as initially tense, but said that
Jashinski's powerful heartfelt testimony changed the tone of the room.

"Iraq Veterans Against the War supports the right of every soldier to
follow their conscience," said Delgado. "As the first woman GI to
publicly take a stand against this war and to declare herself a CO,
Katherine's actions are very significant. She is a fine example of a
young person standing up for her beliefs."

Ms. Jashinski is feeling triumphant and happy to have resolution.
After completing her sentence she will return to school at the
University of Texas at Austin and continue her work with the newly
founded Austin GI Rights Hotline.

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16) A Sudden Taste for the Law
New York Times Editorial
May 24, 2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/24/opinion/24weds1.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin

It's hard to say which was more bizarre about Attorney General
Alberto Gonzales's threat to prosecute The Times for revealing
President Bush's domestic spying program: his claim that
a century-old espionage law could be used to muzzle the press
or his assertion that the administration cares about enforcing
laws the way Congress intended.

Mr. Gonzales said on Sunday that a careful reading of some
statutes "would seem to indicate" that it was possible to
prosecute journalists for publishing classified material. He
called it "a policy judgment by Congress in passing that kind
of legislation," which the executive is obliged to obey.

Mr. Gonzales seemed to be talking about a law that dates
to World War I and bans, in some circumstances, the
unauthorized possession and publication of information
related to national defense. It has long been understood
that this overly broad and little used law applies to
government officials who swear to protect such secrets,
and not to journalists.

But in any case, Mr. Gonzales and Mr. Bush have not
shown the slightest interest in upholding constitutional
principles or following legislative guidelines that they
do not find ideologically or politically expedient.

Mr. Gonzales served as White House counsel and as
attorney general during the period Mr. Bush concocted
more than 750 statements indicating that the president
would not obey laws he didn't like, or honor the recorded
intent of those who passed them. Among the most
outrageous was Mr. Bush's statement that he did not
consider himself bound by a ban on torturing prisoners.
Mr. Gonzales was part of the team that came up with
the rationalization for torture, as well as for the
warrantless eavesdropping on Americans' e-mail
and phone calls.

If Mr. Gonzales has developed a respect for legislative
intent or a commitment to law enforcement, he could
start by using his department's power to enforce the
Voting Rights Act to protect Americans, rather than
challenging minority voting rights and endorsing such
obviously discriminatory practices as the gerrymandering
in Texas or the Georgia voter ID program. He could
enforce workplace safety laws, like those so tragically
uninforced at the nation's coal mines, instead
of protecting polluters and gun traffickers.

He could uphold the Geneva Conventions and the U.N.
Convention Against Torture, instead of coming up with
cynical justifications for violating them. He could repudiate
the disgraceful fiction known as "unlawful enemy combatant,"
which the administration cooked up after 9/11 to deny legal
rights to certain prisoners.

And he could suggest that the administration follow Congress's
clear and specific intent for the 1978 Foreign Intelligence
Surveillance Act: outlawing wiretaps of Americans without warrants.

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18) Senate Advances Sweeping Immigration Bill
Under the provisions adopted on Tuesday, employers would be
required to enter the Social Security numbers or immigrant
identification numbers of all job applicants, including citizens,
into the computerized system, which would be created by the
Department of Homeland Security. The system would notify
businesses within three days whether the applicant was
authorized to work in the United States.Those job applicants
determined to be illegal would have to be fired.
By RACHEL L. SWARNS
May 24, 2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/24/washington/24cnd-immig.html?hp&ex=1148529600&en=396eafcbc403e967&ei=5094&partner=homepage

WASHINGTON, May 24 — The Senate voted on Tuesday to require
employers to use a vast new employment verification system that
would allow businesses to distinguish between legal and illegal
workers.

The chances of the bill's passage increased sharply today, as
the Senate voted 73 to 25 to limit debate and the number of
amendments that can be offered. The cloture vote makes
it likely that final action on the bill, which would provide
at path to citizenship for illegal immigrants who have been
in the country for over five years, will take place.

However, the Senate's approach would have to be reconciled
with a bill passed last December by the House of Representatives
that focuses strictly on enforcement and would consider illegal
immigrants to be felons. Many conservative members of both
houses have said any provision allowing illegal immigrants
to gain citizenship is an amnesty that will only encourage
more undocumented immigration.

Under the provisions adopted on Tuesday, employers would be
required to enter the Social Security numbers or immigrant
identification numbers of all job applicants, including citizens,
into the computerized system, which would be created by the
Department of Homeland Security. The system would notify
businesses within three days whether the applicant was
authorized to work in the United States.

Those job applicants determined to be illegal would have
to be fired. The measure, approved 58 to 40, is included
in a bill that would legalize the vast majority of the nation's
illegal immigrants, which is expected to pass the Senate
later this week.

The new requirements would result in a broad operational
shift for employers who have relied almost entirely on
a paper system — the collection of identity documents
— to determine the legal status of their workers. The
measure is considered a linchpin of the current immigration
legislation because it is designed to deter illegal immigration
by making it extremely difficult for undocumented
immigrants to find work.

Without such a provision, senators say, American businesses
would remain a powerful magnet for millions of illegal immigrants.
The legislation calls for creating documents that would be
resistant to counterfeiting for legal immigrants and stiff fines
for violations by employers. It requires the verification system
to be operational and in use by all businesses within
18 months once Congress appropriates the money for it.

"This is probably the single most important thing we can
do in terms of reducing the inflow of undocumented workers,"
Senator Barack Obama, Democrat of Illinois, said of the measure,
which was pushed ahead by Senator Charles E. Grassley,
Republican of Iowa.

Mr. Grassley hailed the measure as an effort "to balance the
needs of workers, employers and immigration enforcement."

But some administration officials, employers and other
lawmakers raised sharp questions about the amendment,
which was developed in consultation with the American
Civil Liberties Union.

Officials at the United States Chamber of Commerce applauded
the plan, but expressed doubts that homeland security officials
could speedily create such a system.

"This is a massive undertaking on the part of the federal
government," said Randy Johnson, vice president at the
chamber. "Our conversations with the administration have
indicated that 18 months is too short."

Officials at the Department of Homeland Security sent
e-mail messages to senators saying they had concerns
about the system's "workability and implementation."

White House officials declined to comment, but
participants in negotiations on the amendment said
officials were concerned with a provision that would
require the federal government to reimburse workers
who were fired because of a mistake involving the system.

Senator John Cornyn, Republican of Texas, said homeland
security officials feared the system would allow many illegal
workers to continue working when a definitive finding
of legal status could not be made.

The vote in favor of employment verification came as the
Senate rejected several amendments intended to help
refugees and illegal immigrants affected by the legislation.

Lawmakers defeated a measure, sponsored by Senator
Dianne Feinstein, Democrat of California, that would have
legalized all illegal immigrants, regardless of how long they
have lived here. They also voted down an amendment to
toughen workplace and safety standards and another to
help refugees whose resettlement here has been delayed
because their indirect support for armed rebels opposed
to their repressive governments has put them in technical
violation of American antiterrorism laws.

Critics say the legislation would increase the burdens on
asylum seekers, eliminate federal review of deportation
orders and leave millions of illegal immigrants in the
shadows. Human rights groups are particularly concerned
about a measure that would allow asylum seekers to be
deported even while their claims were under review by
federal courts.

"The impact on asylum seekers would be devastating
and potentially irreversible," said Eleanor Acer, director
of the asylum program at Human Rights First, an advocacy
group. "You would essentially be deporting refugees back
to their countries of persecution."

Difficult negotiations lie ahead between the Senate and House,
where many Republicans strongly oppose legalization
of illegal immigrants.

Hoping to narrow the gap between Senate and House
Republicans on this issue, the leader of the House conservative
caucus announced a bill that would allow the illegal immigrants
to participate in a guest worker plan, but would not grant them
permanent residency or citizenship.

The measure, sponsored by Representative Mike Pence, Republican
of Indiana, would require the nation's estimated 11 million illegal
immigrants to leave the country to apply for a slot in the program,
which would be administered by private employment agencies
licensed by the American government.

House Republicans expressed lukewarm support for the bill, which
was promptly attacked by conservative critics of guest worker
programs. But the bill was praised by White House officials.

Under the employment verification provision, job applicants
deemed illegal would have 10 days to challenge that determination
with the Department of Homeland Security. If homeland security
officials failed to confirm that determination within 30 days,
the applicant would be considered legal to work.

John Holusha contributed reporting from New York for this article.

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19) USA: the Statistics That Shock
[The figures are even more shocking when you take into
consideration inflation and the fact that the rich are now paying
less taxes and the middle class, the working class, and the poor
are now forced to pay more taxes.
FYI: According to "The Inflation Calculator"
www.westegg.com/inflation/infl.cgi
What cost $1.00 in 1973 would cost $4.42 in 2005 and more today!]
By Michael Roberts   
Wednesday, 24 May 2006
http://www.marxist.com/usa-statistics-shock240506.htm

I was so shocked by the statistics and studies that have been recently
released on the incomes and wealth of the ordinary Americans that
I had to tell you about them.

I'm not talking about the slave labour wages that new immigrants
in America get for working "illegally' to clean, tidy and maintain the
homes of the super-rich in their 'gated communities' across the
nicest parts of the real estate; or the below poverty wages that
the likes of the mega supermarket chain of Wal-Mart pays its
checkout and warehouse staff. Have you seen the recent film
documentary, Wal-Mart, the high cost of low price? There isn't
one aspect that this film doesn't show Wal-Mart as vicious and
oppressive in: employee welfare, customer welfare, the
environment, even racism and sexism.

No, I'm not talking about the poorest sections of the community
but the average household where there are one or two 'good'
jobs and apparently good lifestyle. I'm talking about middle
America, the so-called middle class in white-collar professional
and service sector jobs.

The median wage is that wage or salary which is the most
common. It is not the average salary. That is the wage that
divided all the incomes of the super rich by those of the poor.
That average is not what most people in the US earn. The
median income is. And according to the latest statistical
survey of Americans, in a period since 1998 when the US
economy has expanded by 25%, the median wage, that
earned by middle fifth of Americans, has fallen by 3.8%
and in fact, since 1973 has stagnated.

At the beginning of May, the US economy was in its fifth
year of economic growth, stock markets were nearly back
to the levels last seen in the great hi-tech boom of 2000
and profit margins were at record levels after five consecutive
quarters of double-digit growth.

But the 'prosperity' has not 'trickled down to the ranks of
middle America, let alone the industrial working-class and
poor and dispossessed. At the same time, stagnating incomes
for middle America have been accompanied by soaring inequality.
Again, according to the new study, since 1973 annual income
growth for the top 1% of Americans was 3.4% and for the
top 0.1% it was 5.2% each year. But for the 90% below them,
it grew just 0.3% a year since 1973! So much for the American
dream!

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20) Laid Off and Left Out
By BOB HERBERT
May 25, 2006
http://select.nytimes.com/2006/05/25/opinion/25herbert.html?hp

You don't hear much from the American worker anymore.
Like battered soldiers at the end of a lost war, ordinary
workers seem resigned to their diminished status.

The grim terms imposed on them include wage stagnation,
the widespread confiscation of benefits (including pensions
they once believed were guaranteed), and a permanent state
of employment insecurity.

For an unnecessarily large number of Americans, the workplace
has become a hub of anxiety and fear, an essential but
capricious environment in which you might be shown the
door at any moment.

In his new book, "The Disposable American: Layoffs and
Their Consequences," Louis Uchitelle tells us that since 1984,
when the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics started monitoring
"worker displacement," at least 30 million full-time workers
have been "permanently separated from their jobs and their
paychecks against their wishes."

Mr. Uchitelle writes on economic issues for The Times. In his
book, he traces the evolution of that increasingly endangered
species, the secure job, and the effect that the current culture
of corporate layoffs is having on ordinary men and women.

He said he was surprised, as he did the reporting for the book,
by the extensive emotional fallout that accompanies layoffs.
"There's a lot of mental health damage," he said. "The act of
being laid off is such a blow to the self-esteem. Layoffs are
a national phenomenon, a societal problem — but the laid-off
workers blame themselves."

In addition to being financially strapped, laid-off workers and
their families are often emotionally strapped as well. Common
problems include depression, domestic strife and divorce.

Mr. Uchitelle's thesis is that corporate layoffs have been carried
much too far, that they have gone beyond a legitimate and
necessary response to a changing economy.

"What started as a necessary response to the intrusion of foreign
manufacturers into the American marketplace got out of hand,"
he writes. "By the late 1990's, getting rid of workers had become
normal practice, ingrained behavior, just as job security had
been 25 years earlier."

In many cases, a thousand workers were fired when 500 might
have been sufficient, or 10,000 were let go when 5,000 would
have been enough. We pay a price for these excesses. The losses
that accrue to companies and communities when many years
of improving skills and valuable experience are casually and
unnecessarily tossed on a scrap heap are incalculable.

"The majority of the people who are laid off," said Mr. Uchitelle,
"end up in jobs that pay significantly less than they earned before,
or they drop out altogether."

At the heart of the layoff phenomenon is the myth, endlessly
repeated by corporate leaders and politicians of both parties,
that workers who are thrown out of their jobs can save themselves,
can latch onto spiffy new jobs by becoming better educated
and acquiring new skills.

"Education and training create the jobs, according to this way
of thinking," writes Mr. Uchitelle. "Or, put another way, a job
materializes for every trained or educated worker, a job
commensurate with his or her skills, for which he or she
is appropriately paid."

That is just not so, and the corporate and political elite need
to stop feeding that bogus line to the public.

There is no doubt that the better-educated and better-trained
get better jobs. But the reality is that there are not enough
good jobs currently available to meet the demand of college
-educated and well-trained workers in the United States,
which is why so many are working in jobs for which they
are overqualified.

A chapter in "The Disposable American" details the plight of
exquisitely trained airline mechanics who found themselves
laid off from jobs that had paid up to $31 an hour. Mr. Uchitelle
writes: "Not enough jobs exist at $31 an hour — or at $16 an
hour, for that matter — to meet the demand for them. Jobs
just don't materialize at cost-conscious companies to absorb
all the qualified people who want them."

The most provocative question raised by Mr. Uchitelle is whether
the private sector is capable of generating enough good jobs
at good pay to meet the demand of everyone who is qualified
wants to work.

If it cannot (and so far it has not), then what? If education and
training are not the building blocks to solid employment,
what is? These are public policy questions of the highest
importance, and so far they are being ignored

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LINKS ONLY
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Chavez One, Bush Zero
by Audrey Sasson; May 22, 2006
ZNet | Venezuela
http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=45&ItemID=10308

Military to Report Marines Killed Iraqi Civilians
By THOM SHANKER, ERIC SCHMITT and RICHARD A. OPPEL Jr.
May 26, 2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/26/world/middleeast/26haditha.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

Arundhati Roy on India, Iraq, U.S. Empire and Dissent
Tuesday, May 23rd, 2006
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=06/05/23/1358250

Gilded Paychecks | Ties That Bind
With Links to Board, Chief Saw His Pay Soar
By JULIE CRESWELL
May 24, 2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/24/business/24board.html

Iraq War Provoking Terror: Amnesty International
"The war on terror and the way it has unfolded is actually premised on
the principle that by eroding human rights you can reinforce security,"
said Amnesty International's Secretary-General Irene Khan. "And that is
why as part of the war on terror we see restrictions being placed on
civil liberties around the world."
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/052306A.shtml

Ford Layoffs Hit
Black Auto Workers Hardest
CHRIS NISAN / Minnesota Spokesman-Recorder
http://www.mindfully.org/Industry/2006/Ford-Black-Layoffs1feb06.htm

Rice's Appearance Draws Protests in Boston
By KATIE ZEZIMA
May 23, 2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/23/us/23boston.html

Nigerian Monkeys Drop Hints on Language Origin
By NICHOLAS WADE
May 23, 2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/23/science/23lang.html

Judge Steps In for Poor Inmates Without Justice
By LESLIE EATON
The public defenders' office, run not by City Hall but by a parish
board, is basically broke. Louisiana, alone among the states, relies
mainly on local court fees — mostly surcharges on traffic tickets —
to finance its public defenders, according to the National Legal Aid
and Defender Association.
It is a financing system that Judge Hunter and Calvin Johnson,
the chief judge of the criminal court in New Orleans, have recently
found to be unconstitutional because it forces poor people to pay
for the system. The Louisiana attorney general's office says it plans
to appeal those decisions.
May 23, 2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/23/us/23court.html

Failed Amnesty Legislation of 1986 Haunts the
Current Immigration Bills in Congress
By RACHEL L. SWARNS
May 23, 2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/23/washington/23amnesty.html

Dahr Jamail | Easily Dispensable: Iraq's Children
Dahr Jamail implores us to understand: "That women and children
suffer the most during times of war is not a new phenomenon. It is
a reality as old as war itself. What Rumsfeld, Rice and other war
criminals of the Cheney administration prefer to call "collateral
damage" translates in English as the inexcusable murder of and
other irreparable harm done to women, children and the elderly
during any military offensive."
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/052206A.shtml

Breaking point: Inside Story of the Guantanamo Uprising
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/0521-01.htm

Americans Don't Like President Bush Personally Much Anymore, Either
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/0521-04.htm

The Dixie Chicks: America Catches Up With Them
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/0521-05.htm

Iraq is Disintegrating as Ethnic Cleansing Takes Hold
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/0520-04.htm

McCain Gets Cantankerous Reception at Commencement
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/0520-05.htm

AMID WAR, TROOPS SEE SAFETY IN REENLISTING
By Faye Fiore
The military offers steady wages, housing and a health plan
-- benefits that many service members find scarce in civilian life.
Los Angeles Times
May 21, 2006
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-enlist21may21,0,3677295.story?coll=la-home-headlines

Gonzales Says Prosecutions of Journalists Are Possible
By ADAM LIPTAK
The government has the legal authority to prosecute journalists
for publishing classified information, Attorney General Alberto
R. Gonzales said yesterday.
May 22, 2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/22/washington/22gonzales.html

Rising Ocean Temperatures Threaten Florida's Coral Reef
By RICK LYMAN
May 22, 2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/22/us/22coral.html

Poisoned Air Killed 3 Miners, Tests Suggest
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 1:19 p.m. ET
May 22, 2006
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-Mine-Explosion.html?hp&ex=1148356800&en=30604d9e34a2fe75&ei=5094&partner=homepage

Supreme Court Backs Police in Emergencies
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 11:55 a.m. ET
May 22, 2006
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-Scotus-Police-Search.html

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