Mn-prog-events Mailing List: Progressive Calendar 09.01.05

[David Shove (shove001]

            P R O G R E S S I V E   C A L E N D A R     09.01.05

1. UofM multiculture     9.01 9:30am
2. Dickinson/seniors     9.01 10am
3. Cambodia/KFAI         9.01 11am
4. Eagan peace vigil     9.01 4:30pm
5. Small is beautiful    9.01 5pm
6. Cam/PM endorsing      9.01 5:30pm
7. StP mayor candidates  9.01 7pm
8. Common thread         9.01 7pm Northfield
9. Black resistence poet 9.01 7pm
10. Dickinson/forum      9.01 7pm
11. Aaron Neumann/art    9.01 7:30pm

12. Counter recruitment  9.02 11am
13. No ffunch            9.02
14. Dickinson/KDWA       9.02 3pm
15. Palestine vigil      9.02 4:15pm
16. Assassins/Wellstone  9.02 8:30pm

17. African heritage day 9.03 8am
18. StPaul Green Party   9.03 12noon
19. Cindy Sheehan/Mpls   9.03 time TBA

20. Sensible vigil       9.04 12noon
21. Gaza strip/film      9.04 6:30pm
22. Jazz/World Cahoots   9.04 8pm

23. Labor Day doing      9.05 12noon

24. PC Roberts - How New Orleans was lost: a casualty of the Iraq war
25. Cockburn/StClair - New Orleans after Katrina
26. Ron Jacobs - Maelstroms near and far: high water everywhere
27. John Walsh - Evil? yes; spineless? no: the Democrats and the war
28. Roger Morris - The war for the future: it's up to us, NOW
29. ed         - Kings of things (poem)

--------1 of 29--------

From: Lydia Howell <lhowell [at] visi.com>
Subject: UofM multiculture 9.01 9:30am

U to host Multicultural Kick-off Days

Thursday and Friday, Sept. 1 and 2
Coffman Union, 300 Washington Ave. SE. Minneapolis
Incoming students and their parents

Contacts:  Patrick Troup, OMAA, (612) 624-5253
Bob San, University News Service, (612) 624-4082

*MINNEAPOLIS / ST. PAUL-- About 230 incoming students of color at the
University of Minnesota and their parents will attend Multicultural
Kick-off Days Thursday and Friday, Sept. 1 and 2, at Coffman Union, 300
Washington Ave. SE, Minneapolis.

The event is organized by the U of M Office of Multicultural and Academic
Affairs (OMAA) to welcome the new students and their parents and celebrate
the diversity of the university. Thursday from 9:30 am. to 5 p.m.,
sessions in Coffman Union's Great Hall will give parents and students the
inside scoop on scholarship, financial aids, work study, research and
volunteer programs. The students and parents will also be introduced to
the various ethnic units on campus such as the student cultural centers
and the academic support services offered under the Office of
Multicultural and Academic Affairs. Students can also participate in game
show and meet Goldy Gopher.

On Friday, representatives from the university's financial aids office and
study abroad programs will make presentations.

"Multicultural Kickoff Day provides our new students an opportunity to
meet students, faculty and staff from diverse backgrounds," said OMAA
interim vice president Geoff Maruyama. "It will help first-year students
make a successful transition to college by building community and
identifying academic and cultural support on campus."

Bob San University News Service University Relations Phone: (612) 624-4082
Fax: (612) 626-9388 (UMNnews: Read it and reap http://www.umn.edu/umnnews)


--------2 of 29--------

From: David Shove <shove001 [at] tc.umn.edu>
Subject: Dickinson/seniors 9.01 10am

Thursday September 1

Elizabeth Dickinson campaign
Meet & Greet with Arbor Pointe Seniors
10-11am
635 Maryland Avenue West (at Dale Street), St. Paul


--------3 of 29--------

From: lynette <lynette [at] prettyhorses.net>
Subject: Cambodia/KFAI 9.01 11am

This week on Write on Radio, our guests include celebrated poet U Sam Oeur
and Ken McCullough, who have collaborated on U Sam Oeurıs memoir ³Crossing
Three Wildernesses.² Itıs a haunting depiction of pre-war Cambodia, from
Oeurıs years growing up in a farming family, to his years as a government
official, to the takeover of Pol Potıs Khmer Rouge.  Having been educated
in the United States and a proponent of democracy, Oeur was forced to
feign illiteracy in order to survive the killing fields and their
aftermath.

Also this week, we welcome to the studio another memoirist, Elizabeth
Andrew, author of ³Swinging on the Garden Gate.² Sheıll be talking about
two works, "Writing the Sacred Journey" and "On the Threshold."

Write on Radio airs 11-noon Thursdays on KFAI, 90.3 f.m. in Minneapolis,
106.7 in St. Paul, and on the web at www.kfai.org.


--------4 of 29--------

From: Greg and Sue Skog <skograce [at] mtn.org>
Subject: Eagan peace vigil 9.01 4:30pm

CANDLELIGHT PEACE VIGIL EVERY THURSDAY from 4:30-5:30pm on the Northwest
corner of Pilot Knob Road and Yankee Doodle Road in Eagan. We have signs
and candles. Say "NO to war!" The weekly vigil is sponsored by: Friends
south of the river speaking out against war.


--------5 of 29--------

From: Jesse Mortenson <jmortenson [at] Macalester.edu>
Subject: Small is beautiful 9.01 5pm

9.01 5pm
Cahoots coffeehouse
Selby 1/2 block east of Snelling in StPaul

Limit bigboxes, chain stores, TIF, corporate welfare, billboards; promote
small business and co-ops, local production & self-sufficiency.


--------6 of 29--------

From: Cam Gordon <CamGordon333 [at] msn.com>
Subject: Cam/PM endorsing 9.01 5:30pm

A huge thanks to everyone who is helping with our organizing for the
Progressive Minnesota endorsement. Hereis some more information.

You must be a member as of Thursday August 25th to vote at the meeting.

To join you can call 651.641-6199 or visit www.progressivemn.org

Here are the specifics about the meeting.

Thursday, September 1st
5:30 - 8:30  pm

St. Joan of Arc Church - Hospitality Room - Basement
4537 3rd Ave. So.  (One block east of I - 35W just north of the 46th St.
Exit.)

They/we will be considering endorsements for Minneapolis Ward 2, 3, and 11
as well as for St. Louis Park Ward 1.  As a member you can participate in
all these decisions if you like.

I have been told that if you get there by 7 you can participate in the
Ward 2 decision. You must be there to hear form both candidates and
participate in the follow up discussion. We are also trying to help Aaron
Nuemann who is the Green Party endorsed candidate running in ward 3, so if
you can get there earlier that would be great. Getting there by 6 should
be enough time.

It takes a 60% majority to win endorsement and there can be up to three
ballots. All voting is open (not secret) and "no endorsement" is a choice
on each ballot. There will likely be undecided members there as well as
people supporting my opponent. There will be time (limited) for members to
ask questions of the candidates and also time for discussion among members
before the decision is made. One of the things I will be trying to do ---
and you can help me with --- is helping undecided voters make the
"correct"  decision so feel free to inform them about why you think they
should support my endorsement.

The membership decision that night is subject to review and final approval
by the Board.

A light dinner will be provided.

Call or email me if you have any questions about any of this.

You can also call Progressive Minnesota at 651 641-6199 to RSVP or if you
have questions etc.

Thanks again for being such wonderful supporters.

Cam 612 296-0579


[ED - The way this works now is competing candidates urge as many of their
followers as possible to join PM at $36 per year. This means lots of new
memberships and $36s for PM. Chris Coleman, almost as un-progressive as
Randy Kelly, by these tactics got himself endorsed by PM, over progressive
Elizabeth Dickinson.]


--------7 of 29--------

From: "Krista Menzel (Merriam Park Neighbors for Peace)" <web [at] mppeace.org>
Subject: StP mayor candidates 9.01 7pm

Saint Paul voters will have the opportunity to learn more about this
year's mayoral candidates and to submit their own questions at a forum on
September 1, at 7pm at the Bethel Christian Fellowship, 1466 Portland
Avenue, in St. Paul.

The forum is being held now to help give voters the information they need
to make an informed choice at St. Paul's primary election on September 13.

All participating candidates will be asked to make a short statement about
their campaigns and their vision for St. Paul.  Audience members will also
be able to submit their questions for the candidates.

A number of community councils in the area are collaborating to sponsor
the forum, including: Merriam Park, Macalester-Groveland,
Snelling-Hamline, Hamline-Midway, Lexington-Hamline and St. Anthony Park.
The community councils are non-profit, non-partisan groups and are part of
St. Paul's district council system. For more information about the forum,
please contact Theresa Heiland at 651-645-6887.

CONTACT: Theresa Heiland 651-645-6887 mpcc [at] merriam-park.org


--------8 of 29--------

From: Janet & Bill McGrath <mcgrath1 [at] rconnect.com>
Subject: Common thread 9.01 7pm Northfield

This is the first of a series of talks that will happen in many locations
throughout the Second Congressional District that includes Burnsville,
Eagan, Apple Valley, Inver Grove and points south, down to Faribault, Red
Wing, etc.

Activist Bill McGrath believes that a common thread runs through tax cuts,
outsourcing of jobs, prescription drugs, health insurance, Social
Security, pensions, the new laws on bankruptcy and class action suits, and
recent developments within labor unions

Join us at 7pm Thursday, Sept 1, at the office of Northfield People for
Peace and Goodwill, 313 1/2 Division Street, Northfield. This same
presentation will be repeated at 7pm Thursday Sept 8, at the same
location. More information: (507) 645-7660.


--------9 of 29--------

From: Lydia Howell <lhowell [at] visi.com>
Subject: Black resistence poet 9.01 7pm

Please come out and support this night, read a poem and see the amazing
Blythe Anderson! -- ellen marie hinchcliffe

Minnesota Spoken Word Association Presents People's Open Mic
September 1
Mapps Cafe
1810 Riverside Ave S, Minneapolis
on the West Bank at Cedar and Riverside
7-9:30pm  Free

Featured Reader Blythe Anderson and then it's your turn! Share poetry or
spoken word. This lively supportive Mic is open to all.

Blythe Anderson is a black man, poet and mechanic. His work is complex,
lyrical and deals with the unwritten histories that inform true
resistance.  Not to be missed.


--------10 of 29--------

From: ed
Subject: Dickinson/forum 9.01 7pm

Thursday September 1

Community Council Mayoral Candidate Forum
7-9pm
Bethel Christian Fellowship, 1466 Portland Avenue, St. Paul

All St. Paul mayoral candidates have been invited to participate in this
forum. The community councils are non-profit, non-partisan groups and are
part of St. Paul's district council system. Saint Paul voters will have
the opportunity to learn more about this year's mayoral candidates and to
submit their own questions so they can make an informed choice at St.
Paul's primary election on September 13. All participating candidates will
be asked to make a short statement about their campaigns and their vision
for St. Paul. Audience members will also be able to submit their questions
for the candidates. This forum will be moderated by Glen McCluskey of the
Merriam Park Community Council.

Sponsored by Merriam Park, Macalester-Groveland, Snelling-Hamline,
Hamline-Midway, Lexington-Hamline, and St. Anthony Park. For more
information about the forum, please contact Theresa Heiland at (651)
645-6887.

Vote in the Primary on September 13!
Regardless of party, the top two vote-getters in the non-partisan primary
on September 13 will advance to the November general election. Remember to
cast your vote - and remind your St. Paul friends and neighbors to cast
their votes - for Elizabeth Dickinson for Mayor of St. Paul!


--------11 of 29-------

From: Aaron Neumann <aaron [at] voteneumann.org>
Subject: Aaron Neumann/art 9.01 7:30pm

Art Auction @ Creative Electric! (silent and live)
1st Thursday
Dozens of local Artists
One campaign for peace, justice and equality in Minneapolis.
Join Neighbors for Neumann!

THIS THURSDAY (9/1), 7:30pm @ Creative Electric Studios
2201 NE 2nd Street
ph: 612-706-7879
http://voteneumann.org/events.php?action=fullnews&id=24

Please join myself and others at a relatively young gallery in NE Mpls,
Creative Electric Studios (they were featured recently in the New York
Times and voted by City Pages as Best Art Gallery in the Twin Cities,
2005), for an evening of art, music, and local politics.

Artists:
Kendall Bohn (oils)
Mary Bowmen-Cline (teeny-tiny art)
Julian Davis (photography)
Noelle DeHarpporte (wearable art)
Joe Giannetti (mixed media)
Layla Giannetti (photography)
Rosa Kittsteiner (ceramics, pastel, and oils)
Gustavo Lira (oils and acrylics)
Aldo Moroni (ceramics)
Mark Mustful (ceramics)
Aaron Neumann (cave paintings)
Tom Taylor (sketching)
Bradley Royce (clay urns)
Paul Taylor (mixed media)
Terrance (peace missiles)
...and more!

Musicians:
DJ Bumpy Screw (Jungle Vibe Collective)
Gabe Barnett (folk hero)

Local Politics:
Strengthen the Arts and enriching cultural life in Minneapolis

 * What is the Minneapolis Arts Commission (MAC)?
 * Who is on the MAC and how does one get appointed?
 * Why is there no NE representation on the 17-member MAC?
 * When is the City of Minneapolis Plan for Art and Culture to be enacted?
 * Where do Art in Public Places go?
 * How can artists connect with city projects and how is the Neighbors for
Neumann! campaign going to advocate for artists at City Hall?

....plus more about the campaign in general and my personal agenda to
protect "buskers" (street musicians)

Aaron Neumann Candidate for Minneapolis City Council Ward 3 (Green)
Northside * Northeast * Southeast 612.788.1284 www.VoteNeumann.org

"Bridging our Diverse Communities with Common Sense Vision for the 21st
Century"  Effective Government * Healthy Environment * Safe Neighborhoods
* Arts Advocacy


--------12 of 29--------

From: sarah standefer <scsrn [at] yahoo.com>
Subject: Counter recruitment 9.02 11am

"Our Children Are Not Cannon Fodder"
CounterRecruitment Demonstration
Fridays   11-12 noon
Recruitment Office in Stadium Village at the U of M.
1/2 block east of Oak St on Washington Ave.
for info call Barbara Mishler 612-871-7871


--------13 of 29--------

From: ed
Subject: No ffunch 9.02

Cancelled for Labor Day weekend. Back in October.


--------14 of 29--------

From: ed
Subject: Dickinson/KDWA 3pm

Friday September 2
Radio Interview on KDWA
3-4pm
Julie Goldstein will interview Elizabeth Dickinson on KDWA Radio (1460 AM).


--------15 of 29--------


From: peace 2u <tkanous [at] hotmail.com>
Subject: Palestine vigil 9.02 4:15pm

Every Friday
Vigil to End the Occupation of Palestine
4:15-5:15pm
Summit & Snelling, St. Paul

There are now millions of Palestinians who are refugees due to Israel's
refusal to recognize their right under international law to return to
their own homes since 1948.


--------16 of 29--------

From: leslie reindl <alteravista [at] earthlink.net>
Subject: Assassination/Wellstone 9.02 8:30pm

9/2 8:30 pm St. Paul cable channel 15:  "American Assassination:  The
Strange Death of Senator Paul Wellstone."  Produced by John Bussjaeger and
Dave Greer, edited by John Bussjaeger.  Edited to fit one hour by Altera
Vista (video starts with reading of poem "The Republic of Conscience".
This 49-minute program (without the additions that bring it up to 1 hour) is
available from Altera Vista, at e-mail address given here.


--------17 of 29--------

From: Lydia Howell <lhowell [at] visi.com>
Subject: African heritage day 9.03 8am

The Midtown Public Market partners with the Powderhorn/Phillips Cultural
Wellness Center for the African Heritage Day September 3rd.  The event
runs from 8am to 1pm and will feature dance, art, storytelling, and food,
in addition to the fresh produce and art already showcased at the Market.

The Midtown Public Market is a cooperative project of seven Minneapolis
neighborhoodsBancroft, Corcoran, East Phillips, Longfellow, Powderhorn,
Seward, and Standish\u8209 -Ericssonwith the mission to increase the
economic and social vitality, livability and sustainability of the Midtown
area of South Minneapolis.  Founded in 2003, the Market is located at 22nd
Avenue and East Lake Street, just off the Lake Street/Midtown Station of
the Hiawatha Light Rail Line.

Larissa Anderson Volunteer Media Coordinator Midtown Public Market
612-581-4443

Shannon Gibney Managing Editor Minnesota Spokesman-Recorder 3744 4th Ave.
S. Minneapolis, MN 55409 (612) 827-4021 (phone) (612) 827-0577 (fax)


--------18 of 29--------

From: Elizabeth Dickinson <eadickinson [at] mindspring.com>
Subject: StPaul Green Party  9.03 12noon

All people interested in finding out more about the Green Party of St. Paul
are invited to:

Our monthly meeting
First Saturday of every month
Mississippi Market, 2nd floor
Corner of Selby/Dale in St. Paul
noon until 2 pm
<http://www.gpsp.org>


--------19 of 29--------

From: Lydia Howell <lhowell [at] visi.com>
Subject: Cindy Sheehan/Mpls 9.03 time TBA

Cindy Sheehan and other Camp Casey people are coming to Minneapolis THIS
Saturday, Sept 3 as part of their national tour moving towards the
anti-war protest in DC end of the month. As of now,where & what time are
NOT known but local activists are working on that.

Keep checking the Women Against MIlitrary Madness website:
www.worldwidewamm.org or call their office (612)827-5364


--------20 of 29--------

From: skarx001 <skarx001 [at] umn.edu>
Subject: Sensible vigil 9.04 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.


--------21 of 29-------

From: Charles Underwood <charleyunderwood [at] hotmail.com>
Subject: Gaza strip/film 9.04 6:30pm

Sunday, 9/4, 6:30 pm, 2001 film "Gaza Strip," the Palestinians in their own
words about Israeli occupation, during the second Intifada, Twin Cities
Friends Meeting, 1725 Grand, St. Paul.


--------22 of 29--------

From: David Shove <shove001 [at] tc.umn.edu>
Subject: Jazz/World Cahoots 9.04 8pm

I know people are on the edges of their respective seats, wondering, Just
what does Dave do every Sunday evening? Might I be lucky enough to be
permitted to join him and any others who are in on the secret? Must I pass
an initiation? Will I be the same after the gathering, or will I be
transported to a higher realm?

I and the other inititiates gather at Cahoots coffeehouse. We arm
ourselves with jazz and world music CDs, which we play on a convenient
boombox for each other's oohs and aahs.

For a limited time - this Sunday - you can join us without the standard
hilarious initiation.

8-10:30pm
Cahoots coffeehouse
Selby 1/2 block east of Snelling in StPaul


--------23 of 29--------

From: stpaulunions.org <larkinl [at] mtn.org>
Subject: Labor Day doing 9.05 12noon

Labor Day Extravaganza Monday September 5 at Harriet Island along the
Mississippi River near downtown St Paul.

Join us from Noon until 5pm for a day filled with music, food and fun!

Starting today, listen to 950 AM Air America Minnesota about the event
and check out our schedule for the day at St Paul Trades and Labor
Assemblys website at stpaulunions.org


--------24 of 29--------

Another Terrible Casualty of the Iraq War
How New Orleans was Lost
By PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS
CounterPunch
September 1

Chalk up the city of New Orleans as a cost of Bush's Iraq war.

There were not enough helicopters to repair the breeched levees and rescue
people trapped by rising water. Nor are there enough Louisiana National
Guards available to help with rescue efforts and to patrol against
looting.

The situation is the same in Mississippi.

The National Guard and helicopters are off on a fools mission in Iraq.

The National Guard is in Iraq because fanatical neoconsevatives in the
Bush administration were determined to invade the Middle East and because
the incompetent Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld refused to listen to the
generals, who told him there were not enough regular troops available to
do the job.

After the invasion, the arrogant Rumsfeld found out that the generals were
right. The National Guard was called up to fill in the gaping gaps.

Now the Guardsmen, trapped in the Iraqi quagmire, are watching on TV the
families they left behind trapped by rising waters and wondering if the
floating bodies are family members. None know where their dislocated
families are, but, shades of Fallujah, they do see their destroyed homes.

The mayor of New Orleans was counting on helicopters to put in place
massive sandbags to repair the levee. However, someone called the few
helicopters away to rescue people from rooftops. The rising water
overwhelmed the massive pumping stations, and New Orleans disappeared
under deep water.

What a terrible casualty of the Iraqi war--one of our oldest and most
beautiful cities, a famous city, a historic city.

Distracted by its phony war on terrorism, the US government had made no
preparations in the event Hurricane Katarina brought catastrophe to New
Orleans. No contingency plan existed. Only now after the disaster are FEMA
and the Corp of Engineers trying to assemble the material and equipment to
save New Orleans from the fate of Atlantis.

Even worse, articles in the New Orleans Times-Picayune and public
statements by emergency management chiefs in New Orleans make it clear
that the Bush administration slashed the funding for the Corp of
Engineers' projects to strengthen and raise the New Orleans levees and
diverted the money to the Iraq war.

Walter Maestri, emergency management chief for Jefferson Parish, told the
New Orleans Times-Picayune (June 8, 2004): "It appears that the money has
been moved in the president's budget to handle homeland security and the
war in Iraq, and I suppose that's the price we pay. Nobody locally is
happy that the levees can't be finished, and we are doing everything we
can to make the case that this is a security issue for us."

Why can't the US government focus on America's needs and leave other
countries alone? Why are American troops in Iraq instead of protecting our
own borders from a mass invasion by illegal immigrants? Why are American
helicopters blowing up Iraqi homes instead of saving American homes in New
Orleans?

How can the Bush administration be so incompetent as to expose Americans
at home to dire risks by exhausting American resources in foolish foreign
adventures? What kind of "homeland security" is this?

All Bush has achieved by invading Iraq is to kill and wound thousands of
people while destroying America's reputation. The only beneficiaries are
oil companies capitalizing on a good excuse to jack up the price of
gasoline and Osama bin Laden's recruitment.

What we have is a Republican war for oil company profits while New Orleans
sinks beneath the waters.

[ED - So when are we going to remove these slimy usurping bloodsuckers?
Troops out now! Bush out now! Not tomorrow - NOW!]

Paul Craig Roberts has held a number of academic appointments and has
contributed to numerous scholarly publications. He served as Assistant
Secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan administration. His graduate
economics education was at the University of Virginia, the University of
California at Berkeley, and Oxford University. He is coauthor of The
Tyranny of Good Intentions. He can be reached at:
paulcraigroberts [at] yahoo.com


--------25 of 29---------

Cockburn / St. Clair
New Orleans After Katrina
August 31, 2005
CounterPunch

Tuesday night, as water rose to 20 feet through most of New Orleans, CNN
relayed an advisory that food in refrigerators would last only four hours,
would have to be thrown out. The next news item from CNN was an indignant
bellow about "looters" of 7/11s and a Walmart. Making no attempt to
conceal the racist flavor of the coverage, the press openly describes
white survivors as "getting food from a flooded store," while blacks
engaged in the same struggle for survival are smeared as "looters."

The reverence for property is now the underlying theme of many newscasts,
with defense of The Gap being almost the first order of duty for the
forces of law and order. But the citizens looking for clothes to wear and
food to eat are made of tougher fiber and are more desperate than the
polite demonstrators who guarded The Gap and kindred chains in Seattle in
1999. The police in New Orleans are only patrolling in large armed groups.
One spoke of "meeting some resistance," as if the desperate citizens of
New Orleans were Iraqi insurgents.

Also on Tuesday night the newscasts were reporting that in a city whose
desperate state is akin the Dacca in Bangladesh a few years ago, there
were precisely seven Coast Guard helicopters in operation. Where are the
National Guard helicopters? Presumably strafing Iraqi citizens on the
roads outside Baghdad and Fallujah.

As the war's unpopularity soars, there will be millions asking, Why is the
National Guard in Iraq, instead of helping the afflicted along the Gulf in
the first crucial hours, before New Orleans, Biloxi, and Mobile turn into
toxic toilet bowls with thousands marooned on the tops of houses.

As thousands of trapped residents face the real prospect of perishing for
lack of a way out of the flooding city, Bush's first response was to open
the spigots of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve at the request of oil
companies and to order the EPA to eliminate Clean Air standards at power
plants and oil referiners across the nation, supposedly to increase fuel
supplies--a goal long sought by his cronies at the big oil companies.

In his skittish Rose Garden press conference, Bush told the imperiled
people of the Gulf Coast not to worry, the Corps of Engineers was on the
way to begin the reconstruction of the Southland. But these are the same
cadre of engineers, who after three years of work, have yet to get water
and electrical power running in Baghdad for more than three hours a day.

It didn't have to be this bad. The entire city of New Orleans need not
have been lost. Hundreds of people need not have perished. Yet, it now
seems clear that the Bush administration sacrificed New Orleans to pursue
its mad war on Iraq.

As the New Orleans Times-Picayune has reported in a devastating series of
articles over the last two years, city and state officials and the Corps
of Enginners had repeatedly requested funding to strengthen the levees
along Lake Pontchartrain that breeched in the wake of the flood. But the
Bush administration rebuffed the requests repeatedly, reprograming the
funding from levee enhancement to Homeland Security and the war on Iraq.

This year the Bush administration slashed funding for the New Orleans
Corps of Engineers by $71.2 million, a stunning 44.2 percent reduction
from its 2001 levels. A Corps report noted at the time that
"major hurricane and flood protection projects will not be awarded to
local engineering firms. . . . Also, a study to determine ways to
protect the region from a Category 5 hurricane has been shelved for
now."

Work on the 17th Street levee, which breached on Monday night, came to a
halt earlier this summer for the lack of $2 million.

"It appears that the money has been moved in the president's budget to
handle homeland security and the war in Iraq, and I suppose that's the
price we pay," Walter Maestri, emergency management chief for Jefferson
Parish, Louisiana told the Times-Picayune in June of last year. "Nobody
locally is happy that the levees can't be finished, and we are doing
everything we can to make the case that this is a security issue for us."

These are damning revelation that should fuel calls from both parties for
Bush's resignation or impeachment.

The greatest concern for poor people in these days has come from President
Hugo Chavez of Venezuela, who - fresh from a chat with Fidel Castro, has
announced that Venezuela will be offering America's poor discounted gas
through its Citgo chain. He's says his price will knock out the predatory
pricing at every American pump. Citgo should issue to purchasers of each
tankful of gas vouchers for free medical consultations via the internet
with the Cuban doctors in Venezuela.

No politician in America has raised the issue of predatory pricing as
gasoline soars above $3. The last time there was any critical talk about
the oil companies was thirty years ago.

Maybe the terrible disaster along the Gulf coast will awaken people to the
unjust ways in which our society works. That's often the effect of natural
disasters, as with the Mexican earthquake, where the laggardly efforts of
the police prompted ordinary citizens to take matters into their own
hands.


--------26 of 29--------

Maelstroms Near and Far
High Water Everywhere
By RON JACOBS
CounterPunch
August 30, 2005

I'm sitting in my house in Asheville, NC, watching the storm clouds
gather. It's the very beginning of the eastern edge of Hurricane Katrina
that I'm looking at. The sky is completely gray, but the rain is still not
visible. The forecasters predict three to four inches of rain over the
next day or so. Bob Dylan's song for Charley Patton-High Water..--just
came on the radio, appropriately. In the delta lands of the Mississippi
River, nature is taking its revenge on one of the country's most toxic
regions. Oil prices will go up. Of course, it doesn't take a hurricane (or
a war) for that to happen. Those things just provide an easy rationale for
the corporate shills who occasionally explain the rapacity of energy
costs. I wonder if we'll see an oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico before
this is all over.

The fact that I am a few hundred miles to the east of the eye of the storm
provides me with a luxury that those in Katrina's center don't have. Not
only can I sit at my computer and muse about its effects, I can take my
time making whatever preparations I might need to make just so I don't
have to go out in the pouring rain. Things look a lot different from here
than they do to an evacuee heading out of the area on US 10.

Much of the world has been watching the storm raging in Iraq for years.
Like me and Katrina, they have the luxury of being far from that storm's
center. Consequently, things look a lot different. For those who agree
with the war as much as Bush and Blair claim to, there is no hurricane.
Indeed, there is not even a storm, just a bit of an occasional mist
falling in certain areas. Nothing that an emergency poncho that looks like
a constitution can't cure. For others in the world who see the situation a
bit different, there is a storm, but certainly not a hurricane. In fact,
the death and destruction in those countries is what the local weatherman
might call a serious thunderstorm. You know, one where you should have a
flashlight handy and keep the pets and children inside. Oh yeh, stay away
from open fields and trees just in case the lightning gets bad. For these
folks, they just want the people in the storm-hit areas to relax and let
the US military come in and make everything better, just like they did
after Hurricane Andrew back in 1992. Don't worry, they say to the victims
of Desert Storm/Operation Iraqi Freedom, the military will be accompanied
by a number of private agencies interested in making money from your
misery. That's what makes the American way so wonderful. Everything can be
bought and sold.

Then there's the naysayers like me. Ain't no glass half full in my mind.
That Desert Storm was as bad as Hurricane Andrew, but this Iraqi Freedom
thing is the real thing. It's a serious hurricane complete with shock and
awe and everything else that real wars include. You might be able to take
away a peoples' home. You might even be able to destroy their town and
their fields. But you can't strip away their sense of being and give them
an umbrella when the storm is ravaging around them - killing their
children and their spouse. No you can't give them an umbrella when they're
standing in the wake of the flood, even if you call that umbrella a
constitution.  Not even if you give them one you call an election. Once
the storm has done its damage, umbrellas don't work. Neither do the
military's guns that they brought in to keep order. Like the poet says:
"When you got nothing, you got nothing to lose." It seems to me that there
are a lot of Iraqis who would agree. Especially those who don't live in
those fine houses in the Green Zone. (By the way, is it called green
because that's the color of the US dollar?)

It's not my intention with this analogy to imply that, like a hurricane,
there is little we can do but get out of the way, because that is
ceratinly not the case. In the never-ending wave of destruction and misery
that Iraq has become synonymous with, the cause is not some unseen fury
called nature or god. It is the policies of an empire so full of itself
that it behaves as if it were god. Like any god, those who run the empire
are determined to get their way. It is up to those of us who understand
this to insure that they don't. Only then will the Iraqi maelstrom
subside.

Ron Jacobs is author of The Way the Wind Blew: a history of the Weather
Underground, which is just republished by Verso. Jacobs' essay on Big Bill
Broonzy is featured in CounterPunch's new collection on music, art and
sex, Serpents in the Garden. He can be reached at: ron05401 [at] yahoo.com


--------27 of 29--------

Evil? Yes; Spineless? No
The Democrats and the War
By JOHN WALSH
CounterPunch
August 31, 2005

Standard fare in the mainstream media as well as in both Left and
Libertarian blogs, web sites and magazines, is that the Democrats are
spineless. But this view simply does not fit the facts, and it is
dangerous to boot, because it leads us to underestimate one of our most
sinister and cynical pro-war adversaries, the Democratic Party
establishment. For, if left to their own devices, the Dems will do what
Kucinich warned of and substitute a Democratic for a Republican version of
the war on Iraq.

The conventional wisdom is that the Dems are afraid to stand up to Bush's
war, because they fear the accusation of being "soft on terrorism" or
downright treasonous. And, we are told by the liberal punditocracy, this
sort of charge will prevent our poor Dems from winning elections and
ending the war which, deep down, they really oppose. So what's a poor Dem
to do? Obviously call for "staying the course." This analysis is ever so
convenient for the Dems. It gets the likes of Kerry, H. Clinton, Dean,
Biden, Cleland and the rest, marvelously off the hook, bringing them the
support of the anti-war forces. These are good men and women, we are told,
just trying to win elections in the face of the ignorance of the benighted
masses so as to bring us peace! Thus are hawks transmogrifed into doves,
even as they cry out for more bloodshed, more troops and more death and
destruction.

This whole whacko analysis cannot stand up to reality. First, the country,
by a significant majority according to the polls, is against the war and
long has been - even before the last presidential election. Now 60% want
some or all troops withdrawn at once. The least popular option, the one
favored by leading Democrats, is to send more troops, an option that draws
the support of less than 10%, with 57%, saying they would be "upset" at
such a move. Why would anyone wanting to win an election champion a view
which hardly anyone favors and is even less popular than Bush's? Second,
take as an example a senator like California's Diane Feinstein who is not
planning to run for president and comes from a solidly anti-war state, so
an anti-war position is no danger for her. And yet she calls for "staying
the course."

No, the idea of the spineless but virtuous Democrat does not hold up. The
real reason has to be that the Dems do not give a damn about the
electorate. The Dem establishment must in fact favor the war. And the
reason is not hard to find. They play to the same real but hidden
constituencies as the Republicans - the oil tycoons, AIPAC, the barons of
the military industrial complex and those who make their fortunes from
empire, ranging from the banks to Bechtel. This is their class and if one
of the pols dares play traitor to his class, he or she will soon be an
outcast. Ask Ted Kennedy. When Kennedy called for immediate withdrawal
from Iraq last January, he was virtually denounced by the rest of the Dem
leadership. And although the media is afflicted with many and mortal
problems, do not tell me that the media makes it impossible for the Dems
to take a strong anti-war position. When Kennedy did so, it was all over
the media from the front pages of the dailies to the Sunday morning TV
talk shows.

The Dems know full well there is an enormous anti-war constituency out
there. If they used their considerable resources to organize it and give
voice to it, then it would quickly prevail. A sorry example is Cindy
Sheehan's effort. Not a single major Democrat has shown up at Camp Casey.
They are blowing off Sheehan just like Bush.

In fact far from being cowardly, the Dems are showing considerable spine
in standing up to the anti-war constituency that routinely does the leg
work and contributes the dollars to elect them. Here their courage and
resolve befit heroes of Homeric proportions. In the face of powerful
anti-war sentiment from their loyalists, the Dems resolutely call for
"staying the course" in the war for which they voted. Now there is spine.
There is fortitude, both testicular and ovarian.

But the Dems have now been exposed and about the last excuse they have for
"staying the course" is to "help" the Iraqis. Of course they uttered no
such sentiment when Clinton was imposing sanctions that resulted in the
deaths of tens of thousands of Iraqi kids, a price Madeline Albright
famously said was worth it to pressure Saddam Hussein. So the Dems either
cry crocodile tears over the fate of the Iraqis, or avoid all mention of
the war or else, like Russ Feingold, call for endless discussions of "exit
strategies." I prefer the sentiment splashed across the cover of the
paleocon American Conservative which proclaimed: "We do not need an exit
strategy. We need an exit."

So next time you hear that the problem with the Dems is their
spinelessness, do not believe a word of it. They are quite courageous in
facing down their voting base to peddle death and destruction. To view
them otherwise is to underestimate a potent, treacherous and insidious
adversary of the anti-war movement.

John Walsh can be reached at jvwalshmd [at] gmail.com.


--------28 of 29--------

It's Up to Us to Stop the Dying and the Lying
The War for the Future
By ROGER MORRIS
Former NSC Staffer
CounterPunch
August 30, 2005

 Over the dying summer. I have known
 No truce with Time nor Time's accomplice, Death.
       --Wilfrid Scawen Blunt

What a surreal moment-this faded end-of-summer 2005.

We are locked in an evil lost war of staggering costs. Some flail at the
atrocity in a cause that seems equally lost. Most play on in the ebbing
season's sun, oblivious to reckonings.

In Washington rules the worst regime in memory. Yet it falls to a fiercely
bereaved 48-year-old mother, camping beside a dusty ditch in Texas, to
embody the conscience of the culture, at least until the media move on.

The regime in its outrage struts essentially unopposed in our supposed
democracy. Protest rises powerless. The oblivious go uninformed, unled.

Ignorant of the issues, cravenly afraid of risking privilege for
principle, hostage to corrupt advisors and a corrupted calculus of
national interest, Democrats not only mistake the public mood and fail the
minimal duty of opposition, but join the folly. From Hillary Clinton to
Barack Obama, Capitol Hill barons to camp-following bloggers, they stand
bravely for more fodder more efficiently fed to the calamity, huddling
earnestly to the right of the most egregious right-wing aggression in our
history. Add to the Iraqi disaster the defining debacle of our second
intellectually and morally derelict party.

Even if Democrats poll to find courage convenient, as some surely will, it
will do us little good. Like the odd rebel Republicans (Senator Hagel &
Co., who exhibit, ironically, what conservatives always said about
enlisting more integrity than the other side of the aisle), they will find
this Presidency peculiarly, frighteningly immune to advice and consent.

There is quixotic talk about George W. Bush reprising Lyndon Johnson or
Richard Nixon, variously undone by intra-party revolt, demonstrations,
defection of the Establishment, scandal. I was in the White House when the
"Wise Men" of postwar American foreign policy told LBJ that Wall Street as
well as Main Street had deserted the Vietnam War. I was there later as
Nixon sullenly, anxiously watched a million protesters engulf Pennsylvania
Avenue. I saw those politicians, however grudgingly, however slowly,
respond to reality.

We must be clear. Bush is no Johnson or Nixon. This president is not
simply the least competent ever thrown up. He is also the most
pathological. Every shred of evidence of the man and his rule, every
witness, leak, and gesture reek of it. Freshman psychology students and
amateur therapists smell it instantly. To quote a distinguished analyst
who'll remain anonymous for the sake of his Republican patients:

George W. is a narcissistic personality. He is self referent. He sees
things only from his point of view - and by extension sees and represents
the America that reflects it. He is able to create a seamless ball into
which nothing else can penetrate. As with other narcissistic
personalities, he lives his entitlement and grandiosity - in his case even
seeing himself as fulfilling God's wishes on earth. He does not need to
check any other reality. He knows that what feels right to him is right
for everyone. The rules do not apply to him (college, the reserves,
etc) - only to those who need rules to do what is right. Unlike Senator
Frist, I tend not to diagnose in absentia, but with George W., all of us
could go on and on.

On and on is how the pathology will be manifest in the torment of Iraq. It
hardly matters how vested Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rice, the Generals,
corporations, media claque, complicit Democrats. Bush is enough. The
cowardice and blindness, craftiness and stupidity of the war policy, and
of the whole myth-encrusted and corrupt mentality around it, will persist
so long as Bush and all who used and accepted him remain in office.

Despite the seeming death of politics, we have never known a crisis and
opportunity more political. The moment cries out for politics fought as
never before.

Not for more wailing at how venally awful it all is, marveling at how the
reactionaries did it, as if Churchill's British spent the autumn of 1940
shaking their heads and endlessly writing one another about how it
happened Nazis were at the gate. There is no time for that. The poet is
right. For this generation of progressives, time's accomplice is
death - senseless, generations-haunting death in Iraq, and all the other
deaths of body and spirit inflicted by America's misrule at home and
abroad. What to do is plain.

Fight now. Fight everywhere. Take the battle first and foremost to where
power lives.

Progressives must contest all 435 House seats and all 33 Senate seats up
in 2006, along with every governor, legislator and local official not
unequivocally against the war and more, everywhere a Republican or a
compromised Democrat presumes to govern.

Never mind Beltway braying that it's not practical and a waste, the myth
of non-competitive races reinforcing the one-party system. The point is to
stop playing by the old rules. Like the RAF in 1940, we must take on even
the impossible. In the underlying volatility of the American electorate,
every challenge is a threat, every spark a potential burn clear.
Politicians know this. No Democrat will face a primary challenge on the
war, no Republican will face it in the general, without risk. No
progressive will run without gain. No lesson will be lost.

The campaign everywhere is simple. Stop the dying. Stop the lying. In Iraq
and beyond. About foreign policy, energy, jobs, and so much, much more.

To carry that message progressives have never been stronger, never so
mobilized, conscious, savvy. If they are serious about spending their
money to save the century, the new progressive donors will add to the
strength by funding genuinely new policy thinking and answers to arm
candidates. From dealing at last with the scandal of our health care
system to conducting at last a civilized foreign policy. From finding the
tipping point in lifting the root oppression of campaign money to adopting
non lethal alternatives to guzzling away as if there's no energy or
environmental crisis, as if a global warming-unleashed hurricane were not
now pounding away to ravage 25% of the nation's oil supply off Louisiana,
with more disasters like it to follow.

None of this will happen in old ways and institutions under yesterday's
men. We will never have a chance to stop the dying and lying until we stop
the irrelevant and self-indulgent, the jockeying and empty debating.
Winning means unity, and unifying means ready sacrifice of credit,
precedence, postage-stamp domains of power and prestige we substitute for
serious politics. It is an ancient adage. We cannot lead without humility,
govern a nation without governing ourselves.

Most important, our fatal attraction, we must go unseduced by the
Democrats, who have made seduction and abandonment of progressives a
lucrative career.

We can, of course, stand by wringing as the Democrats nominate Hillary
Clinton and the Republicans Giuliani, McCain or some more transparent
throw-back. We can easily go on blogging and bandaging in this half-mad
twilight.

Or we can act as the free people our soldiers in the deadly sun of
Mesopotamia, however deluded, misused or misled, think they are defending.
We can take up the fight for them and more, street to street, door to
door, with $20 bills or $20 million. We can turn weakness into strength,
retreat into advance, defeat into victory.

We lost the invasion of Iraq and the election of 2004, not our souls. We
lost battles. The war for the future - America's and the world's - is only
beginning. But there can be no more waiting to fight. No truce with time
nor its accomplice.

Roger Morris, an award-winning historian and investigative journalist who
served on the National Security Council Staff under Presidents Johnson and
Nixon, has just completed Shadows of the Eagle, a history of American
policy and covert interventions in the Middle East and South Asia, to be
published early next year by Alfred Knopf. Morris is the author of
Partners in Power: the Clintons and Their America and with Sally Denton
The Money and the Power: the Making of Las Vegas. He serves as a Senior
Fellow of the Green Institute, where this column appears originally, along
with his previous and ongoing work on American politics, on the
Institute's world affairs web site, www.eGP360.net.

He may be reached at RPMBook [at] Gmail.com.


--------29 of 29--------

 Fat kings of things strut
 on eyes ears throats; they love us
 bruised blind deaf mute prone.

 The kings of things eat
 human flesh off living bones
 salted by the screams.

 The kings of things fear
 the day we rise and laugh them
 out of existence.


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