Mn-prog-events Mailing List: Progressive Calendar 07.22.05

[David Shove (shove001]

             P R O G R E S S I V E   C A L E N D A R      07.22.05

1. RadWomen/film        7.22 6pm

2. Mpls Green Party     7.23 12noon

3. Sensible vigil       7.24 12noon
4. Cuban Revolution     7.24 3pm
5. KFAI/Indian          7.24 4pm

6. Islam/global context 7.25 9am
7. KFAI/Al McFarlane    7.25 11am
8. Court/stop Roberts   7.25 7pm
9. Augustana AI         7.25 7pm
10. Union organizing    7.25 7:30pm

11. Chris Floyd      - Judge Dread: John Roberts and enemy combatants
12. Cockrurn/StClair - Business as usual with Judge Roberts
13. Bill Christison  - First stop Syria; next stop Iran: Bush's itinerary
14. Dave Lindorff    - Get back to where we once belonged
15. Davey D          - More censorship from Clear Channel
16. Lewis Carroll    - Jabberwocky!  (poem)

--------1 of 16--------

From: Lydia Howell <lhowell [at] visi.com>
Subject: RadWomen/film 7.22 6pm

Friday, July 22 is the Speak Out
Sisters! organizational shopping night at our FAVORITE bookstore - AMAZON!
corner of 48th & Chicago Ave.
6-9pm

Amazon is donating 10% of their proceeds that night to our Radical Women's
Economic Justice project...
at 7pm we will be showing the film
WHO'S COUNTING? Marilyn Waring on Sex, Lies and Global Economics!

Samantha Smart
speakoutsisters [at] earthlink.net <mailto:speakoutsisters [at] earthlink.net>


--------2 of 16--------

From: David Strand <mncivil [at] yahoo.com>
Subject: Mpls Green Party 7.23 12noon

FYI- There is time set aside at this weekends meeting to consider any
additional candidate endorsements and David Bicking will be seeking
endorsement of the Green Party in the city council race in Ward 9. David
has already recieved some other endorsements including the Progressive
Minnesota endorsement.

Following is the location and time of the meeting.  For more info visit
http://5cd.mngreens.org/ Children, as always, are welcome. Call Stephen at
612-747-2854 with any questions

Next General Member Meeting

Saturday, July 23
12noon-3pm
Matthews Park 2318 28th Ave S Minneapolis, MN 55406
Meeting on the hill near the corner of 27th Avenue South and 27th Street
East
Rainout location: Walker Library, Hennepin & Lagoon Aves, Mpls

Agenda:
12:00 Potluck Picnic Lunch
1:00 Introduction, Cmte Reports, Steering Cmte Nominations
1:35 Living Wage Ratification
1:40 8th Ward (Mpls) City Council Endorsement Process
2:00 Break
2:10 Time set aside for possible additional endorsement
2:30 Steering Committee Election
3:00 Meeting Evaluation/Announcements/Adjournment


--------3 of 16--------

From: skarx001 <skarx001 [at] umn.edu>
Subject: Sensible vigil 7.24 12noon

The sensible people for peace hold weekly peace vigils at the intersection
of Snelling and Summit in St. Paul,  Sunday between noon and 1pm. (This is
across from the Mac campus.)  We provide signs protesting current gov.
foreign and domestic policy.  We would appreciate others joining our
vigil/protest.


--------4 of 16--------

To: David Shove <shove001 [at] tc.umn.edu>
Subject: Cuban Revolution 7.24 3pm

Celebrate the anniversary of the Cuban Revolution
July 26 Celebration at Victor's 1959 Café
Sunday July 24, 3-6pm

$5.00/food (pork sandwiches/Cuban tamales) $3.00/beer
Corner of Grand & 38th Street,  Minneapolis
Music by Vivian Pintado

On 26 July 1953, 160 young militants attacked the Moncada barracks in
Santiago. It marked the beginning of a revolution that would transform
Cuba's political, economic and social system.

For more information on the Celebration call:  Victor's 1959 Café at
612.827.8948

For more information on the MN Cuba Committee:
http://groups.msn.com/minnesotacubacommittee


--------5 of 16--------

From: Chris Spotted Eagle <chris [at] spottedeagle.org>
Subject: KFAI/Indian 7.24 4pm

KFAI's Indian Uprising for July 24th

MINORITY STUDENTS NATIONWIDE ARE CAUGHT IN "SCHOOL-TO-PRISON" PIPELINE
says, American Civil Liberties Union, June 23, 2005 press release.  In a
complaint filed today with the U.S. Department of Education on behalf of
14 Native American families, the American Civil Liberties Union and the
Attorney General of the Rosebud Sioux Tribe charge that the public school
district in Winner, South Dakota discriminates against Native American
children in its disciplinary practices and denies these students their
right to equal educational opportunities.  A copy of the complaint is
online at
http://www.aclu.org/RacialEquality/RacialEquality.cfm?ID=18563=138

TEEN INDIAN SUICIDE URGENT ISSUE, CONGRESS TOLD, Reuters, Washington, June
15, 2005.  The American Indian teenagers died one by one, all in order, as
they had agreed in their suicide pact.  Seventeen teens have killed
themselves in recent months in Cheyenne River, and the deaths were typical
of teen suicides among American Indians, experts told a Congressional
hearing on Wednesday, as they asked for funding for programs to target the
problem.  Senate Hearings Before the Committee on Indian Affairs:
Oversight Hearing on the Status of Indian Health Care, April 13,
2005:http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/useftp.cgi?IPaddress=162.140.64.21&filen
ame=20611.wais&directory=/diskb/wais/data/109

RED LAKE SHOOTINGS: JUVENILE FACING FEDERAL SYSTEM by Pam Louwagie,
Minneapolis Star Tribune, July 18, 2005.  Because he is accused of
conspiring to murder on Red Lake, an Indian reservation with an unusual
sovereign status, teenager Louis Jourdain is facing a criminal justice
system that most kids in his situation wouldn't.  Instead of heading to
the well-worn halls of the state's juvenile system, Jourdain is facing the
federal system, which is less accustomed to handling teenage defendants.
Jourdain was charged in federal court at 16 years old after the March 21
school shootings in which Jeff Weise shot and killed 10 people, including
himself. http://www.startribune.com/stories/462/5511416.html

JUSTICE ATTORNEYS FAILED by Bill McAllister, Independent Writer,
Washington, July 20, 2005.  A senior Interior Department official whose
testimony on computer security was crucial to a 2003 ruling in a lawsuit
over the government¹s mismanagement of Indian Trust accounts has
acknowledged that Department of Justice attorneys failed to accurately
relay his views on computer security to an appeals court.  In testimony in
U.S. District Court yesterday, James Cason, a deputy associate Interior
secretary, said he would have placed qualifications on what Justice told
the appeals court about Interior¹s computer security problems. To view the
latest information concerning this case, go to Cobell v. Norton
www.indiantrust.com

* * * *
Indian Uprising is a one-half hour Public & Cultural Affairs radio program
for, by, and about Indigenous people & all their relations, broadcast each
Sunday at 4:00 p.m. over KFAI 90.3 FM Minneapolis and 106.7 FM St. Paul.
Current programs are archived online after broadcast at www.kfai.org, for
two weeks.  Click Program Archives and scroll to Indian Uprising.

o  E-mail Chris Spotted Eagle at radio [at] spottedeagle.org
o  KFAI voice message: 612-341-3144 Ext. 818
o  Regular mail: KFAI Fresh Air Radio, Box 61, 1808 Riverside Avenue,
Minneapolis MN 55454


--------6 of 16--------

From: humanrts [at] umn.edu
Subject: Islam/global context 7.25 9am

July 25 - Islam in Global Context.  Time: 9-4pm.  Cost:  $125 or 2
credits, includes instruction, breakfast, some lunches and teaching
resources.

As the fastest growing faith in the world, Islam is a religion whose
historical, cultural, geographical, and political sweep is vast. From
Morocco to Indonesia, Islam is comprised of over 1.2 billion people,
spread over 50 countries and five contents, with over 30 languages and 25
ethnicities. Yet not since the days of the Crusades has a religion created
as much misunderstanding in the world as that of Islam. The goal of this
course is to achieve an understanding of the Islamic world by studying how
Muslims see themselves in the world they live in, and how the world views
them.

In order to accomplish this, we will examine the 1) historical development
of Islam 2) Islam in the comparative context 3) Islam and global conflicts
4) Islam and global media and 5) Islam, art and architecture. This course
is designed for teachers with a general interest in the Islamic world in
its global context, the cultural and historical aspects of Islam, or in
the life, practices and beliefs of Muslims.

Location: University of Minnesota
http://igs.cla.umn.edu/outreach/outreach.htm


--------7 of 16--------

From: Lydia Howell <lhowell [at] visi.com>
Subject: KFAI/Al McFarlane 7.25 11am

Conversaions with Al McFarlane (publisher of Insight News, an
African-American weekly newspaper): broadcasts every Monday @ 11am on KFAI
Radio, 90.3fm Mpls 106.7 fm St Paul all shows archived for 2 weeks after
broadcast www/kfai.org

July 25th - Diversity in the Workplace: Supplier Diversity
		10th Ward Candidate Screening

Remember to listen every Saturday for the re-broadcast of "Conversations
with Al" between 9-11am on KMOJ 89.9FM "The People's Station".

Lauretta T. Dawolo Assistant to Publisher Insight News Group McFarlane
Media Interests, Inc. Office: (612)588-1313 Cell: (763)232-7560 Email:
lauretta [at] insightnews.com ldawolo [at] yahoo.com


--------8 of 16--------

From: Ty <tymoore77 [at] yahoo.com>
Subject: Court/stop Roberts 7.25 7pm

URGENT:  Emergency Meeting to Mobilize Against the Right-Wing Takeover of
the Supreme Court!

Monday July 25, 7pm
Mapps Coffeeshop
1810 Riverside Ave (off Cedar)

Everyone welcome to help plan local actions. Bring ideas, proposals, and
energy.

Bush is moving to radically extend the right-wing domination of the
Supreme Court. The nomination of John Roberts to fill the seat vacated by
Sandra Day O'Conner has opened the door for right wing attacks that
threaten the rights of women, workers, the GLBT community, and people of
color.  We need to urgently organize a campaign to show that Roberts'
reactionary ideas are not shared by the majority of Americans.

What's Wrong With Roberts?

While the mainstream media and politicians from Joe Lieberman to Arlen
Spector are singing Roberts's praises, in reality, he represents a step
backwards, and will uphold the interests of the religious right and big
business. Here are a few highlights of John Roberts's legal career:

Roberts has argued that "we continue to believe that Roe was wrongly
decided and should be overruled. The Court's conclusion in Roe that there
is a fundamental right to an abortion... finds no support in the text,
structure, or history of the Constitution."

He has argued in favor of Operation Rescue, a conservative fringe group
that attempts to blockade and block access to abortion clinics.

He is a member of the ultra-right-wing Federalist Society along with
Supreme Court Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas, former U.S.
Attorney General John Ashcroft and Sen. Orrin Hatch.

He was part of the panel that upheld the tortures in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba,
arguing that international law and the Geneva conventions don't apply.

Last year he upheald the arrest of a 12 year old girl for eating a french
fry at a Washington subway station.

He spent 30 years in private practice defending large corporations, the
Financial Times, a mouthpiece of international big business describes him
as "brilliant" and cause for "cheer".

Clearly, John Roberts will be no friend to the majority of workers, women,
and other oppressed groups.

What Can We Do About It?

John Roberts represents a real danger to our interests. The rights that
we've won over the years are already being eroded by Washington
politicians. A shift in the balance of the Supreme Court will only
strengthen the religous right and big business. We need to move beyond the
methods of lobbying and letter writing. Abortion rights, civil liberties
and all the other gains we enjoy today were won through mass struggle and
radical demands. We should use the methods of these past movements to
defend our rights today. 

That is why Socialist Alternative and other activists are calling a
planning meeting to discuss what steps we should take to try and stop
Bush's right-wing take-over of the Court, and to help build a movement
that can defend the legal rights we've won throughout the years.

The proposal on the table is to discuss an emergency protest in front of
Norm Coleman's office next weekend, to let Minnesota Senators know we
don't approve of Bush's nomination. But hopefully others will be able to
attend and bring their own brilliant plans as well, so that we can
collectively decide the best plan for emergency action.

Join local activists this Monday, July 25 at 7pm at Mapps Coffeehouse to
help block Bush's nomination and say no to Roberts.

For more information call 612-760-1980 or email
mn [at] socialistalternative.org


--------9 of 16--------

From: Gabe Ormsby <gabeo [at] bitstream.net>
Subject: Augustana AI 7.25 7pm

Augustana Homes Seniors Group of Amnesty International meets on Monday,
July 25th, from 7:00 to 8:00 p.m. in the party room of the 1020 Building,
1020 E 17th Street, Minneapolis. For more information contact Ardes
Johnson at 612/378-1166 or johns779 [at] tc.umn.edu.


--------10 of 16--------

From: david riehle <djrie [at] visi.com>
Subject: Union organizing 7.25 7:30pm

ST PAUL LABOR SPEAKERS CLUB
7:30pm Monday, July 25
St Paul Labor Center
411 William Mahoney St. (aka Main St.)

RECLAIMING OUR RIGHTS IN THE AMERICAN WORKPLACE
A New Look at Union Organizing---

Speaker: Charles Morris
Charles Morris is author of the recently published "The Blue Eagle at
Work-Reclaiming Democratic Rights in the American Workplace." Morris is a
renowned labor scholar and preeminent authority on the National Labor
Relations Act. He argues that long-ignored provisions in the Act allow
workers to break through the NLRB-imposed stalemate on union organizing
and engage in collective bargaining on a minority union members-only
basis.


--------11 of 16--------

Judge Dread
John Roberts and Enemy Combatants
By CHRIS FLOYD
CounterPunch
July 20, 2005

The United States long ago ceased to be anything like a living, thriving
republic. But it retained the legal form of a republic, and that counted
for something: as long as the legal form still existed, even as a gutted
shell, there was hope it might be filled again one day with substance.

But now the very legal structures of the Republic are being dismantled.
The principle of arbitrary rule by an autocratic leader is being openly
established, through a series of unchallenged executive orders, perverse
Justice Department rulings and court decisions by sycophantic judges who
defer to power - not law - in their determinations. What we are witnessing
is the creation of a "Commander-in-Chief State," where the form and
pressure of law no longer apply to the president and his designated
agents. The rights of individuals are no longer inalienable, nor are their
persons inviolable; all depends on the good will of the Commander, the
military autocrat.

George W. Bush has granted himself the power to declare anyone on earth -
including any American citizen - an "enemy combatant," for any reason he
sees fit. He can render them up to torture, he can imprison them for life,
he can even have them killed, all without charges, with no burden of
proof, no standards of evidence, no legislative oversight, no appeal, no
judicial process whatsoever except those that he himself deigns to
construct, with whatever limitations he cares to impose. Nor can he ever
be prosecuted for any order he issues, however criminal; in the new
American system laid out by Bush's legal minions, the Commander is
sacrosanct, beyond the reach of any law or constitution.

This is not hyperbole. It is simply the reality of the United States
today. The principle of unrestricted presidential power is now being
codified into law and incorporated into the institutional structures of
the state, as Deep Blade Journal reports in an excellent compendium of
recent outrages against liberty.

For example, on July 15, a panel of federal appellate court judges upheld
Bush's sovereign right to dispose of "enemy combatants" any way he
pleases, the Washington Post reports. In a chilling decision, the judges
ruled that the Commander's arbitrarily designated "enemies" are
non-persons: neither the Geneva Conventions nor American military and
domestic law apply to such garbage. Bush is now free to subject anyone he
likes to the "military tribunal" system he has concocted - a brutal sham
that some top retired military officials have denounced as a "kangaroo
court" that will be used by tyrants around the world to "hide their
oppression under U.S. precedent."

One of the kowtowing jurists on the appeals panel was none other than John
G. Roberts. Four days after he affirmed Bush's autocratic powers, Roberts
was duly awarded with a nomination to the Supreme Court. Now he will be
sitting in final judgment on this case - and any other challenges to
Bush's peremptory commands. This is what is known, in the tyrant trade, as
"a safe pair of hands."

The ruling by Roberts and his fellow Republican jurists ignores the fact
that the Geneva Conventions - which lay down strict guidelines for the
handling of any person detained by military forces, regardless of the
captive's status - have been incorporated into the U.S. legal code, as
Deep Blade points out. They cannot be abrogated by presidential fiat. And
anyone who commits a "grave breach" of the Conventions - by facilitating
the killing, torture or inhuman treatment of detainees (e.g., stripping
them of all legal status and subjecting them to rigged tribunals) - is
subject to the death penalty under American law.

This is why the Bush Faction labored so mightily to advance the absurd
fiction that the Geneva Conventions are somehow voluntary - while
simultaneously promulgating the sinister Fuhrerprinzip of unlimited
presidential authority. The fiction was a temporary sop to the crumbling
legal form of the Republic, a cynical perversion of existing law to keep
justice at bay until the Fuhrerprinzip could be firmly established as the
new foundation of the state.

It doesn't matter anymore if the president's orders to suspend the
Conventions, construct a worldwide gulag, torture captives, spy on
Americans, fabricate intelligence and wage aggressive war are illegal
under the "quaint" strictures of the old dispensation; the courts, packed
with Bushist cadres, are now affirming the new order, the "critical
authority" of the Commander, beyond law and morality, on the higher plane
of what Bush calls "the path of action."

This phrase - with its remarkable Mussolinian echoes - was incorporated
into the official "National Security Strategy of the United States,"
promulgated by Bush in September 2002. That document in turn was drawn
largely from a manifesto issued in September 2000 by a Bush Faction group
whose members included Dick Cheney, Don Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz and Jeb
Bush. Their plan, often detailed here, envisioned the transformation of
America into a militarized state: planting "military footprints"
throughout Central Asia and the Middle East, invading Iraq (even if Saddam
Hussein was already gone), expanding the nuclear arsenal, massively
increasing the defense budget - and predicating all these "revolutionary"
changes on the hopes for "a new Pearl Harbor" that would "catalyze" the
lazy American public into supporting the militarist agenda.

This agenda is designed, the group said, to establish "full spectrum
dominance" over geopolitical affairs, assuring control of world energy
resources and precluding the rise of "any potential global rival" that
might threaten the unchecked wealth and privilege of the American elite.
The rule of law could only be a hindrance to such a scheme; hence its
replacement by the Fuhrerprinzip and the "path of action."

There has been virtually no institutional resistance to this open coup
d'etat. It's now clear that the American Establishment - and a significant
portion of the American people - have given up on the democratic
experiment. They no longer wish to govern themselves; they want to be
ruled, by "strong leaders" who will "do whatever it takes" to protect them
from harm and keep them in clover. They have sold their golden birthright
of American liberty for a mess of coward's pottage.

Chris Floyd is a columnist for The Moscow Times and regular contributor to
CounterPunch. "Empire Burlesque," his blog of political news and comment,
can be found at www.empireburlesquenow.blogspot.


--------12 of 16--------

Straight Corporate with Pepto-Bismol Chaser
Business as Usual with Judge Roberts
By ALEXANDER COCKBURN
and JEFFREY ST. CLAIR
CounterPunch
July 20

Unless they discover John Roberts dropped acid at Harvard or had been
funneling insider stock tips to his wife, it looks as though he's a
shoo-in for confirmation as a member of the US Supreme court. In his
last job in the private sector, as a partner at Hogan & Hartson, an
elite DC law firm, his gross income in 2003 was $1,044,399.54, so his
gamble in accepting a seat on the federal appeals court on the DC
circuit has certainly paid off. Already he's being talked up as maybe
the next chief justice, replacing William Rehnquist, the justice he
formerly clerked for.

Both the liberals and the Christian right had amassed colossal war
chests of around $20 million, expecting a convulsive confirmation
hearing stretching far into the fall. They'll be hard put to spend the
money, since Roberts's footprints have purposively indistinct almost
since he left the cradle.

His highest profile legal opinion came when he was Solicitor General
Ken Starr's deputy back in Bush Sr's term. Roberts wrote a government
brief arguing Roe v Wade had been wrongly decided and should be
overruled. Always prudent, he later published a law review article in
1994, with a footnote that said: "In the interest of full disclosure,
the author would like to point out that as Deputy Solicitor General
for a portion of the 1992-93 Term, he was involved in many of the
cases discussed below. In the interest of even fuller disclosure, he
would also like to point out that his views as a commentator on those
cases do not necessarily reflect his views as an advocate for his
former client, the United States."

Hearings for Sandra Day O'Connor's replacement were scheduled to be
the big late-summer spectacular, with blood in the water from the
outset. The cable companies were licking their lips at a surge in
revenues and journalists pumped for days of high- voltage action. Karl
Rove was no doubt hoping that a savage confirmation battle would drive
Plame-gate off the front pages. So there's an unmistakable sense of
anti-climax. The Weekly Standard crowd, to judge by executive editor
Fred Barnes' column, reckons it's an okay nomination but that Bush
could have done better, with some zealot like the madman J. Michael
Luttig from the Fourth Circuit or Edith Jones from the Fifth Circuit,
who has said straight out she want to see Roe v Wade overturned.

There's similar, muted disappointment from Sandra Day O'Connor and, no
doubt, from the First Lady, both of whom had said they wanted to see a
woman replace O'Connor( presumptively one who would not overturn Roe v
Wade.)

The libertarians rooted for Michael McConnell, now on the federal
appeals bench on the Tenth circuit. But McConnell doomed himself in
2001, when he wrote a law review article disagreeing with the US
Supreme Court ruling on the Florida challenge, not something that the
Bush White House is likely to forget. Roberts, then a partner at Hogan
& Hartson, was providing crucial legal and strategic advice to Jeb
Bush on how to run the recount.

What is one to make of Roberts? He's a Fifties-era Midwesterner, son
of a Bethlehem steel executive, churchy and prudish. Already at
Harvard he was gorging himself on chocolate chip ice-cream and gulping
down bottles of Pepto-Bismol while quoting Samuel Johnson. This was in
'73 and '74 when Pepto-Bismol was not the elixir of preference and Dr
Johnson not your average law school student's bedside reading. He's
fifty but he seems a lot older, and although people are reckoning that
he could be still on the bench in 2035 those bottled-up Midwesterners
have a tendency to swerve prematurely into the graveyard.

The prime lobby that should feel gratified by his nomination is of
course Big Business, the protection of whose interests has been
Roberts chief concern throughout his career, and the protection of
whose interests has always been the prime concern of the US Supreme
Court. Listen to the assessment of Boalt law professor and
torture-defender, John Yoo: "Roberts is the type of person that
business conservatives and judicial-restraint conservatives will like,
but the social conservatives may not like. What the social
conservatives want is someone who will overturn Roe v Wade and change
the court's direction on privacy. But he represents the Washington
establishment. These Washington establishment people are not
revolutionaries, and they're not out to change constitutional law."

Already some seasoned court watchers are saying that Roberts should
not be teamed up with the court's two right-wing ultras, Scalia and
Thomas, but with the corporate-oriented, pro-big government "center",
Kennedy and Breyer. Remember that in the court's last two terrible
decisions, on medical marijuana and eminent domain, Kennedy and Breyer
were part of the majority that ruled against the former and in favor
of business developers and the local governments that serve their
interests.

Roberts' record may be opaque when it comes to Roe v Wade but on
corporate issues it's as clear as daylight. When he was deputy
solicitor general he ran the government's case when the Supreme Court
issued what was probably the most devastating ruling on environmental
issues in the last generation. This was the Lujan v National Wildlife
Federation decision in 1990. It tightly restricted the doctrine of
"standing" which gives environmentalists the right to challenge
destructive practices on federal lands.

It would be hard for Roberts to argue that he was just doing his job
as a government lawyer. Returning to private practice from the
Solicitor General's office, he was swiftly picked as counsel by the
National Mining Association, which had noted his victory in the Lujan
decision. On behalf of the coal companies Roberts wrote a legal brief
arguing that local citizens in West Virginia had no right to bring
lawsuits challenging the most destructive form of mining ever devised,
mountain-top removal. Later, going through confirmation to the Appeals
Court, Roberts was asked what had been his most significant cases in
private practice. In his response he proudly highlighted his work for
the coal companies.

Then, only months after his appointment to the federal Appeals Court
bench Roberts once again tried to promote corporate destruction in the
Rancho Viejo v Norton case, where the federal Fish and Wildlife
Service had made a ruling in favor of the endangered arroyo toad and
against a California developer. The DC circuit court ruled 2-1 in
favor of the toad, with Roberts as the minority vote. He had argued,
vainly, that there was no federal interest because the toad "for
reasons of its own, lives its entire life in California."

In harmony with his pro-corporate tilt, Roberts's wife, Jane Sullivan
Roberts, is a very big-time corporate lawyer, specializing in the
global communications sector. She works in a Democratic law firm, but
we can safely assume this does not betoken acrimony over the Roberts'
morning ingestion of eggs and bacon, grits, hash browns, eased down by
gulps of Pepto Bismol. They both serve the same corporate masters.


--------13 of 16--------

First Stop Syria; Next Stop Iran
Bush's Itinerary
By BILL CHRISTISON
former CIA analyst
CounterPunch
July 19, 2005

If he were a thinking person, George W. Bush might today be increasingly
concerned that any positive legacy he had ever hoped for was slipping into
oblivion. Many observers have long understood that Bush's first target for
solidifying U.S. global domination has been the Middle East rather than
East Asia or any other area. By now it should be evident even to him that
U.S. imperial dreams are already disintegrating into the dust of Iraq.

But Bush by nature is disinclined to think any problem through with care,
and glories instead in his chosen image of macho, frontier-American
decisiveness -- a "decisiveness" that unfortunately looks much like common
stubbornness because it is not buttressed by a rigorously curious or
honest intellect. This self-chosen image rather than facts determines
Bush's policies when it comes to war and peace, and he still clings to the
goal of "transforming" unfriendly nations of the Middle East into
neocolonial territories of the U.S. Specifically, despite the continuing
drain of Iraq on U.S. resources, he has given no sign of moderating his
desire for quick regime change in both Iran and Syria.

The point that should be made here is not new, but it deserves constant
reemphasis: Bush now believes the most important objective of his foreign
policy, to be accomplished well before his time as president comes to an
end, is to oust the regimes of both Iran and Syria, using as much violence
as he finds necessary.

Bush almost certainly accepts that U.S. domination of these two countries
(in addition to Iraq) can be either direct or indirect through puppet
governments, but he wants that domination to be as permanent as anything
can ever be in history. Once that is accomplished, the rest of the Middle
East, including those wretchedly inconvenient Palestinians, should accept
defeat and fall into line with Washington's policies. If he tips over all
these dominoes, Bush believes, he can leave the White House with a solid
legacy. He, his party, and his successor as Republican president would
also, in this imagined future, acquire greater, more lasting support from
those sectors of the U.S. electorate to which he caters -- the
military-industrial complex, the Jewish-American vote, and fundamentalist
Christians, who would see such changes in the Middle East as welcome
victories in the global clash that they expect between Christianity and
Islam. The Democrats, either seeking support from the same groups or not
standing up to them effectively, would become more irrelevant than ever.

The question we should be asking about this scenario is not whether it can
be successful. It can be, or at least appear to be, for some unpredictable
length of time that will end only when a majority of the U.S. electorate
comes to oppose the scenario. The overwhelming military strength of the
U.S., combined with the lesser (but also overwhelming in the Middle
Eastern context) military strength of Israel, really does make at least an
apparent, temporary victory for the U.S. seem inevitable if the two
nations are willing to use their strength. Over the longer run, of course,
the resulting Middle East "empire" will doubtless collapse of its own
weight as perpetual insurgencies, heavier casualties, reduced benefits to
average people here at home, and expanding complexities in U.S. relations
with other areas combine finally to drain electoral support. But that is
definitely long run.

The real question, therefore, is whether those in the U.S. who already
oppose Bush's imperial policy can mobilize enough political opposition
fast enough to prevent the administration, while it remains in office,
from carrying out the scenario outlined above. Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld et
al. are betting that we cannot.

Let's look for a moment at the latest evidence of Bush's long-lasting
support for his scenario. In his nationally broadcast speech at the FBI
Academy on July 11, 2005, Bush said, near the conclusion of his talk:

"The success of democracy in Iraq is sending forth the news from Damascus
to Teheran that freedom can be the future . . . .

"There will be tough fighting ahead; there will be difficult moments along
the path to victory. . . . The only way the terrorists can win is if we
lose our nerve. This isn't going to happen on my watch. America and its
allies will continue to act decisively, and the cause of freedom will
prevail."

More than a year and a half earlier, on November 6, 2003, Bush spoke to
the National Endowment for Democracy in Washington, D.C. At that time, he
said:

"Iraqi democracy will succeed -- and that success will send forth the
news, from Damascus to Teheran, that freedom can be the future . . . .

"Therefore, the United States has adopted a new policy, a forward strategy
of freedom in the Middle East. . . . This strategy requires the same
persistence and energy and idealism we have shown before. . . . The
advance of freedom is the calling of our time; it is the calling of our
country."

Maybe the speechwriter was tired and could think of no new words, but Bush
certainly wanted to threaten Damascus and Teheran with a fate similar to
Baghdad's, and to re-issue the identical threat some twenty months later.
Bush's glorification of the decisive makes it unwise to assume that the
threat is idle, or that much time will pass before he, or Ariel Sharon,
tries to make the threat reality.

It would be an error to assume that the U.S. is too tied down in Iraq, or
that Israel is too heavily engaged with its Gaza disengagement ploy, for
either to move against Iran or Syria right now. Both nations' air or naval
forces are lightly engaged at present, and their leaders might assume that
they would not, initially at least, need heavy ground forces for Iran or
Syria. In both cases, the leaders also pride themselves on taking risks
and surprising alleged enemies, so that's another factor suggesting that
we not be optimistic about avoiding the likelihood of new, major
hostilities in the Middle East for the near future. In addition, political
controversies in both the U.S. and Israel might even encourage either
government to see the present time as propitious for a military
distraction in Iran or Syria. The distraction might appear to be useful in
papering over embarrassing political situations and generating more
support for Bush and Sharon.

Time is running out for those of us who do not want more U.S. wars, or
more killings, more maimings, more empire-building, more occupations, more
global injustice, more flouting of human rights, more fake democracy, more
wealth for a few, more poverty for many, more weapons and profits for
weapons-makers, more lies from the media, more ignorance among consumers
of the media. And finally, time is also running out for those of us who do
not want more power concentrated in an "establishment" whose organization
few of us can even describe, although it has made servants of almost all
of us.

In short, the black, red, and blue button a friend gave us a while back
has it right. It says, "The REVOLUTION begins now."

Let's make it peaceful, but let's make it happen.

Bill Christison was a senior official of the CIA. He served as a National
Intelligence Officer and as Director of the CIA's Office of Regional and
Political Analysis. He is a contributor to Imperial Crusades,
CounterPunch's new history of the wars on Iraq and Afghanistan. He can be
reached at: christison [at] counterpunch.org.


--------14 of 16--------

A Decent Living, Living Decently
Get Back to Where We Once Belonged
By DAVE LINDORFF
CounterPunch
July 19, 2005

Being of a contrarian nature, I'm going to tread a bit off the beaten path
and tackle the scare tactics that are being pushed by both politician and
the ever-rapacious Wall Street regarding Baby Boomers and retirement.

The claim is that Social Security is not going to be there for us future
geezers, and that we, like the proverbial grasshopper, have squandered our
resources enjoying life and will now have to pay for it with a miserable
old age of poverty and struggle--or at least with 10 harsh years of
intense enforced saving.

First of all, let's put to rest the premises.

Whatever the Liar-in Chief is saying on the stump, Social Security will be
there for those who will start hitting retirement age in 2011, and it will
be there for all those who follow them. The reason is simple: We Boomers
are so numerous and so versed in the politics of protest (even if it has
been a while) that we will make benefits be whatever we think the need to
be when it's our turn to collect. It may well be that in the end this will
wind up costing the next generation--our kids, I might point out--a bit
more in taxes. But who among them is likely to begrudge their elders a
decent retirement? And who among them would want to be responsible for us
financially all on their own? (As often as younger people have been quoted
complaining about the amount of their SS taxes, have you ever heard anyone
complain about their parents' Social Security check being too large?)

Second, most of us didn't "squander" our earnings. Most of us, in fact,
have been living through a period of speed-up and payroll squeeze the
likes of which has not been seen since the Great Depression. When I was a
child in the 1950s, one parent (usually the father) was typically able to
earn a decent living for a middle-class family. By the late 1970s, when
most of us Boomers were starting our families, thanks to the Federal
Reserve and corporate-dominated government policies that gutted protection
for labor organizing (and to a somnolent, complicit and pro-war trade
union movement more concerned with preserving leaders' perks than with
organizing and fighting for genuine progressive politics), inflation was
allowed to outstrip wage gains. By the 1980s, it took two working parents
just to make ends meet in most middle-class families.

Since then, things have only gotten worse, with most middle and
working-class families now sinking deeply into debt just to finance the
basics.

The good news is that all this need not mean the poorhouse for the '60s
generation. Nor do we have to start scrimping on ourselves and our nearly
grown kids to stave off disaster, as all the bank and brokerage ads keep
warning as they try to hustle us for our money.

All we need to do is go back to thinking collectively, the way we used to
do so easily back in the day.

Remember those collective housing arrangements, those ad-hoc "communes,"
those free-wheeling living arrangements we used to enjoy when we were
younger, before we bought into the American Fantasy of the house, yard,
two-cars and personal swing set?

It's time to reject the atomization of society that has been pushed on us
by Madison Avenue, and to get back to those happier, more communal days.

Forget nursing homes! We need communes! By pooling our resources--our
meager savings, our vehicles, our Social Security checks, and our
diminished but surely complementary abilities and skills--we can live well
on far less than what the slick money managers at Citibank or American
Express claim we will need.

By returning to collective thinking, rejoining food coops, planting
gardens in community plots, sharing cars and rides, etc., etc., we might
also reconnect with our political past, when we stood shoulder to shoulder
against the American war machine, against racism, against sexism, and for
a better, more progressive, more humane world.

As a generation, we may have lost our way, but it's reversible. If we
return to what we once had, if we pick up where we left off, we might even
start to turn this rapidly decaying, anti-human, and increasingly fearful,
selfish, intolerant and undemocratic nation around, and make it a livable
place for our kids and our grandchildren.

Dave Lindorff is the author of Killing Time: an Investigation into the
Death Row Case of Mumia Abu-Jamal. His new book of CounterPunch columns
titled "This Can't be Happening!" is published by Common Courage Press.
Information about both books and other work by Lindorff can be found at
www.thiscantbehappening.net.

He can be reached at: dlindorff [at] yahoo.com


--------15 of 16--------

More Censorship from Clear Channel
"Don't F--k Around with Tha Police"
By DAVEY D
CounterPunch
July 19, 2005

Last week two St Louis deejays from radio station KATZ (100.3 FM), were
suspended after local police deemed their on air remarks inappropriate and
called for a boycott of the Clear Channel owned station known as 'The
Beat'. For some this may seem like an unusual story, but in fact there's a
long history of police being able to use their influence and sometimes the
law to silence those who wish to speak out against them especially within
Hip Hop.

The most glaring example is what happened to NWA after they released the
song 'F--K Tha Police'. The popularity of the song resulted in numerous
police departments all over the country stepping to concert venue owners
and insisting that contracts be drawn up prohibiting the group from
performing the song. In one infamous scenario in Detroit, the group tried
to do the song and were bum-rushed by 20 undercover cops.

The story leading up to the bank robbery conspiracy conviction of the late
Mac Dre is also glaring. About 15 years ago, scores of young Black men in
Mac Dre's Vallejo neighborhood called the Crest were being rounded up and
questioned after a series of bank robberies. The police accused a loosely
knit group who resided in Dre's neighborhood called the Romper Room Crew.
Dre responded by releasing a song called 'Punk Police' which smashed on
VPD for their faulty moves. He gave props to the Romper Room cats and
called out an overzealous police sergeant by name. The rest they say is
history.

A few weeks after the song was released Dre found himself being monitored
by both VPD and the FBI. When he made a road trip to Fresno, California, a
passenger he was rolling with, told police that him and Dre had planned to
rob a bank-a charge Dre had vehemently denied to his recent death. That
accusation coupled with the lyrics in Dre's song helped get him convicted
for conspiracy to rob a bank. He served 5 years.

Two weeks after Dre's conviction he called into Bay Area radio station
KMEL from prison to discuss his situation. He let listeners know he was
set up by a police informant. The following day law enforcement showed up
at the station in mass and held a closed door meeting with station
managers and basically put the fear of God in them. The result was we were
not to diss the police on air or take anymore phone calls from prisoners
especially Mac Dre.

Dre's scenario was the start of the whole Hip Hop Police thing which made
headlines a couple of years ago. Here in the Bay Area police over the
years used their influence to determine what acts could and could not
appear at certain concerts or even the type of music one could play at a
night club. Those who decided to oppose any police department
recommendations or ordinances would find their entertainment permits
pulled by these various police agencies and over the top policing of their
venue with patrons and even artists being harassed. For years KMEL would
have to consult with local police to see if it was ok to have certain rap
acts perform at their Summer Jam concert. The people who were most
penalized were local rap acts who the police had erroneously determined
had gang affiliations (meaning they lived in neighborhoods the police
considered dangerous).

For those who think this is far fetched look at the type of steps that
have been taken by police unions around the country that have called for
the boycott of entertainers who have called for a new trial for political
prisoner Mumia Abu Jamal who is now on death row in Pennsylvania accused
of killing a police officer.

Over the years we've heard stories of popular Hip Hop radio deejays and
radio stations either being warned or stepped to by the police with the
goal of making sure heated rhetoric was toned down and particular songs
not played on air...

Folks in Los Angeles may recount a colorful incident that took place with
comedian Steve Harvey when he was doing morning drive on KKBT. There was
an incident a few years back when an up and coming actor was attending a
Halloween Party. He was dressed as a cop and was outside the house looking
inside the window when LAPD officers rolled up on him and shot him under
the pretense that they thought he was gonna shoot them with his fake gun.
Party goers were horrified and angry as was Steve Harvey who promptly got
on the air the next morning and blasted the police a new one for their
mistake.

The next day after then LA Police Chief Bernard Parks got at Harvey, he
went on the air the very next day and apologized for his outburst and said
it wasn't his job to be a police critic and basically toned down any
anti-police rhetoric all the way up to the time he left-which was earlier
this year.

Another case which falls in the same vein was the overwhelming silence
that took place after the Amadu Diallo trial where the cops accused of
shooting him were released. If you recall, popular radio station Hot 97
which has made a career promoting beefs, avoided that beef like the plague
and never opened up their phone lines or even acknowledged the verdict or
sentiments felt by many of its Black and Brown listeners to what was one
of the NYC's most watched trials. Go figure that...

Adding insult to injury was stations like Hot 97 and other all over the
country hardly playing the anti-police Brutality collab song put together
by Mos Def and Talib Kweli called 'Hip Hop for Respect'. I want everyone
to peep out this article that outlines the group's initial response and
plans of action after the Diallo acquittals and ask yourself the following
questions:

1-Why did my favorite radio station for Hip Hop and R&B not show their
efforts any love?

2-Why were they not nominated for an NAACP image award for their tireless
efforts that year?

Here's the link to the article...
http://www.daveyd.com/FullArticles

Also peep out this other article about the turbulent relationship between
Hip Hop and the police.

http://www.daveyd.com/FullArticles%5CarticleP9.asp

As you read the article below, keep in mind that while these two deejays
got suspended after threats of a police boycott, you still have stations
where the N word and other racial and sexist epithets are used day and day
out. You also have the recent case where a Clear Channel station in San
Francisco hired a racist producer who penned a parody song for Emmis' Hot
97 where he made fun of Tsunami victims by calling them 'Chinks' and
'Gooks'.

So Clear Channel will suspend two jocks for making inappropriate remarks
about the police the week of a funeral for a slain officer, yet that same
company will go out and hire a known racist who made fun of 220 thousand
innocent victims to a horrible tragedy. So where do we draw the line as to
what's appropriate and what isn't?

So the message is clear, our tax dollars which support the public airwaves
LICENSED to the Clear Channels of the world can be used to support over
the top racist behavior, but those same tax dollars will not tolerate
anything said against the police who by the way we pay with our tax
dollars Something to think about...

Davey D is a hip hop historian, deejay and community organizer. Visit his
excellent website at: http://www.daveyd.com/


--------16 of 16--------

 Jabberwocky!
 Lewis Carroll

 'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
 Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
 All mimsy were the borogoves,
 And the mome raths outgrabe.

 "Beware the Jabberock, my son!
 The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!
 Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun
 The frumious Bandersnatch!"

 He took his vorpal blade in hand;
 Long time the manxome foe he sought-
 So rested he by the Tumtum tree,
 And stood a while in thought

 And, as in uffish thought he stood,
 The jabberwock, with eyes of flame,
 Came whiffling through the tulgey wood,
 And burbled as it came!

 One, two! One, two! And through and through
 The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!
 He left it dead, and with its head
 He went galumphing back.

 "And hast thou slain the Jabberwock?
 Come to my arms, my beamish boy!
 O frabjous day! Callooh, Callay!"
 He chortled in his joy.

 'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
 Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
 All mimsy were the borogroves,
 And the mome raths outgrabe.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

   - David Shove             shove001 [at] tc.umn.edu
   rhymes with clove         Progressive Calendar
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