Mn-prog-events Mailing List: Progressive Calendar 09.07.05

[David Shove (shove001]

            P R O G R E S S I V E   C A L E N D A R      09.07.05

1. Mpls candidates     9.07 7:30am
2. Mpls mayor marathon 9.07 11am
3. Azia/Katrina bene   9.07 11am
4. Tackling torture    9.07 3pm
5. Peace vigil/Maus    9.07 4:30pm
6. Park board sale?    9.07 6pm
7. Roberts/court       9.07 7pm
8. Cuba/Fidel film     9.07 7pm
9. Being/Braun         9.07 7pm
10. Mpls candidates    9.07 7pm
11. Katrina concert    9.07 7:30pm
12. Haiti/PBS          9.07 9pm

13. Bradshaw/Slonsky - Trapped in New Orleans
14. Dupre/Quigley    - Thank God, there's no one to bomb in retaliation
15. LaBotz           - Rat race or human race?
16. Taylor           - Katrina lifts the white sheets of American racism
17. Mike Whitney     - Why Rehnquist shouldn't be buried on American soil
18. ed               - For what he has done (poem)

--------1 of 18--------

From: Todd Graham <tgraham [at] mindless.com>
Subject: Mpls candidates 9.07 7:30am

Minneapolis Elections Candidate Open House

Wednesday, September 7
7:30-9am
The Nicollet Island Pavilion
40 Power St., Minneapolis 55414

This fall, more than 100 candidates are running for office in Minneapolis,
including Mayor, City Council, Park Board, Library Board, and the Board of
Estimate and Taxation. This is your opportunity to meet the candidates
face-to-face, ask questions and learn about their visions for Minneapolis.

Candidates will be seated at tables by Ward or Board, making it easy to
locate candidates running in your area. This is an open house, so you are
free to come and go as you please.

Complimentary continental breakfast will be provided. This event is free
and open to the public, with plenty of free parking available.

To RSVP, go to www.minneapolischamber.org, or call 612.370.9100.

Hosted by:
City of Lakes Chamber of Commerce
- An affiliate of the Minneapolis Regional Chamber
Minneapolis DownTown Council
East Downtown Council
The League of Women Voters of Minneapolis


--------2 of x--------

From: david <david [at] thetouchstone.net>
Subject: Mpls mayor marathon 9.07 11am

Mayoral Marathon
September 7, 11am-1pm

The MCTC Student Senate is sponsoring a Q & A brown bag lunch
<http://www.minneapolis.edu/files_pdf/upcomingEvents/mayoralMarathon.pdf>
with some of the candidates for the Minneapolis Mayoral Race. Confirmed
candidates attending include Farheen Hakeem (GREEN), Peter McLaughlin
(DFL), and Mayor RT Rybak (DFL). This event will be held on the second
floor of the Helland Center.

We Have Also Confirmed Marcus Harcus Mark Koscielsk Tim Nolan


---------3 of 18---------

From: Gina Sederstrom <screamingina [at] hotmail.com>
Subject: Azia/Katrina bene 9.07 11am

I work as a manager at Azia restaurant and Caterpillar Lounge.  We are
donating 100% of our proceeds next Wed and Thurs (Sept 7 & 8) to the Red
Cross for the victims of the hurricane.  We have a lot of staff with
family member down in Lousiana and Mississippi and we want to help them
out as much as possible.  Most of our staff is also donating their wages
and tips from those days as well.

Azia Restaurant and the Caterpillar Lounge are hosting a 2-day benefit for
the victims of hurricane Katrina. They will be donating 100% of their
proceeds for Wednesday, the 7th, and Thursday, the 8th, to the Red Cross.

The restaurant will be open from 11am-2am both day and there will be DJ's
from 8pm-2am both days.

They are located on 2550 Nicollet Av S, kitty-corner from the Black
Forest, and their phone is 612-813-1200.


--------4 of 18--------

From: Charles Underwood <charleyunderwood [at] hotmail.com>
Subject: Tackling torture 9.07 3pm

Wednesday, 9/7 (and every Wednesday), 3 to 4 pm, meeting of anti-torture
group Tackling Torture at the Top, St. Martin's Table, 2001, Riverside,
Minneapolis.  lynne [at] usfamily.net


--------5 of 18--------

From: wamm <wamm [at] mtn.org>
Subject: Peace vigil/Maus 9.07 4:30pm

Books Not Bombs: Peace Vigil and Memorial

Wednesday September 7, 4:30-5:30pm. Lake Street/Marshal Avenue Bridge
spanning the Mississippi River between Minneapolis and St. Paul.

As children and young people return to school in September, there will be
a peace vigil to remember the children and John Maus, a dedicated
peacemaker and teacher. John traveled to Iraq in the summer of 2001 in
order to challenge the sanctions against Iraq, which were resulting in the
death of thousands of Iraqi children each month - John died of cancer one
year ago. Sponsored by Twin Cities Peace Campaign-Focus on Iraq and WAMM.


--------6 of 18--------

From: ken bradley <myleshorton [at] yahoo.com>
Subject: Park board sale? 9.07 6pm

The Minneapolis Parks and Recreation Board (MPRB) is considering selling a
Mississippi River bluff, Bluff Street Park - also known as Gasworks Bluff,
to high-rise condominium developers.

This is the bluff on the west bank of the river, on the bend in the river
between downtown and the university, between the 35W bridge and the
railroad pedestrian bridge, approximately 8 acres.

How can you show your support for Bluff Street Park?
Attend a presentation to the MPRB by the WBCC Bluff Street park task force!

Wednesday September 7, 6pm, during the Park Board meeting open forum

MPRB administrative offices, 2117 West River Rd, board room suite 255
(just north of Broadway Pizza)

Why: We need your support! There is strength in numbers! Please come to
this meeting to show the MPRB that the will of the community will be heard
in this matter.

The neighborhood association for Cedar/Riverside, the West Bank community
coalition, has a task force that has been working for over a year to
create a plan to preserve this precious open space. The U of M
Metropolitan Design Center has created a design for the park based on
results of a stake holder survey they conducted at the WBCC annual meeting
in October, 2004. The virtually unanimous neighborhood consensus is to
preserve this bluff as a natural, native habitat for wildlife, with paths
for walking, biking, etc.

What is, after all, the mission of the Park Board?

Questions? 612-332-4706 Ken Bradley

---
From: Dastj02 [at] aol.com

Gas Works Bluff is on the agenda and a citizen's group will present their
plan for a park on that site to the Park Board Commissioners. Once again,
citizens across the city will band together to observe process.  And also
to support the good work of the River Bluff citizen's group.

All eyes should be on Commissioner Bob Fine, head of the Park Board
Planning Committee and a key player in the majority faction.  There's the
threat of inappropriate and bad development near the river, and lake shore
areas of Minneapolis.  I'm concerned that our shoreland landscape will
change for the worse, if we don't pay attention to city and park board
land use.

The Park Board and City Elections are important.  Who's in bed with whom
and who's waiting in the wings?

We need to keep vigilant eyes on the business at each park board and city
meeting to make sure we have shoreland, and green space for the future.
And by the way, I do believe in more density, but it is where we put it,
that make a difference. --Katie Simon-Dastych


--------7 of 18--------

From: Kristen Boback <kristenkboback [at] hotmail.com>
Subject: Roberts/court 9.07 7pm

MN NOW will hold a conversation about the Roberts' recent Supreme Court
nomination, and how his potential appointment will affect our lives for
decades to come. This is part of our ongoing "Don't fear the F-word"
discussion series.

Don't Fear the F-Word
MN NOW Discussion Series
Come discuss the nomination and potential appointment of John Roberts to the
Supreme Court, and how this nomination will affect our future!

September 7, 7pm
Manhattan Loft, 802 Washington Av SE.


---------8 of 18---------

From: Charles Underwood <charleyunderwood [at] hotmail.com>
Subject: Cuba/Fidel film 9.07 7pm

Wednesday, 9/7, 7pm, Cuba film and discussion group "Looking for Fidel:
Oliver Stone Goes Back to Cuba," at home of Joan Malerich, FFI:
justnad [at] comcast.net or 651-4081.


---------9 of 18--------


From: Jeffrey Alan Haas <jeffhaas [at] mr.net>
Subject: Being/Braun 9.07 7pm

I strongly recommend this presentation by Daniel Braun.  I have worked
with Daniel as a Life Coach and he is excellent and one of the most
intelligent men I have ever met.  He has a strong passion to help others
on their journey through their lives.

From: "Andy Mickel" <andym [at] pperr.net>

Daniel's commitment and intention behind his work continues to be highly
focused.  I recommmend it. Cost is $5, unless you're a Men's Center
member. - Andy

>From the Men's Center website

The Elements of BEING
Presenter: Daniel Farris Braun
Wed Sep 7, 7-9pm
Where: at The Men's Center, 3249 Hennepin Ave, Suite 55
Open To Men and Women

Have you read self-help books on how to live better? One will suggest 7
principles and another 11. So be it. As a seeker Mr. Braun intuited and
discovered that there is but 1 principle by which to live. As an educator
and popularizer Mr. Braun sought the language to reduce all the verbiage
to one formula. Know and practice this one-principle and everything else
falls in place. Come to a two-hour discussion for an intro to a simpler
way of BEING. A complementary copy of Mr. Braun's newest manual "The
Elements of BEING will be given to those attending. Please, bring your
friends, male, female, and whatever.

Greatly affected by his committed involvement in the ecology movement of
the 1960's, Mr. Braun was compelled to live an alternative life style, one
of contemplation, meditation, and artistry. In trying to understand how
humans could be so destructive to the biologies of life, he has passed the
last 40 years on an amazing spiritual journey. In his boldness he says,
"Here I am!" as an indicator of his arrival.


--------10 of 18--------

From: scott marshall <scottethan [at] mac.com>
Subject: Mpls candidate fair 9.07 7pm

A reminder that Getting to the Bottom of the Ballot (GetBoB) is hosting
our first (of two) candidate fairs Wednesday September 7 from 7-9pm at
DelaSalle High School.

Come enjoy a cold, frosty...ummmm...root beer float with the candidates
and chat them up about whatever's on your mind.  Candidates will have
tables, information, and lots of talk time.  GetBoB will provide the
space, cheat sheets (just in case you're not sure what to ask the
candidates for, say, the Board of Estimate and Taxation or the Library
Board), and of course the root beer floats.

Bring your neighbor; bring your kids; bring your curiosity.  Come one,
come all for THE pre-primary party of Election 2005.


--------11 of 18--------

From: David Strand <mncivil [at] yahoo.com>
Subject: Katrina concert 9.07 7:30pm

Today a busload of hurricane survivors arrived here in the twin cities
that will be being housed by local volunteers throughout the twin cities
area organized by the Minnesota Coalition to Aid Hurricane Katrina
Survivors.  A fundraiser for the hurricane survivors and to get more
relief to hurricane survivors in Louisiana will be held this Wednesday.

http://www.mncahs.org/
MN Coalition to Aid Hurricane Katrina Survivors
And Mission From Minnesota
Concert for Hope
For Hurricane Katrina Survivors
Wednesday,September 7
7:30pm
Plaza Verde 1516 E Lake Street (Next to Heart of the Beast Theater),
Minneapolis

Minimum Donation: $20 or $10 plus an item needed by hurricane survivors:
sturdy shoes and clothes, new socks or underwear, diapers, formula,
bedding, school supplies, hygiene supplies.

Funds raised will be used for fuel and other expenses to bring desperately
needed supplies to Louisiana evacuees. Donations are tax-deductible.


--------12 of 18--------

From: Lydia Howell <lhowell [at] visi.com>
Subject: Haiti/PBS 9.07 9pm

Wed Sept 7 @ 9 on TPT channel 17
Sun Sept 11 @ 11pm on TPT Channel 2

WIDE ANGLE hosted by Bill Moyers looks at HAITI preparing for another
election ...even as their first and only democratically-elected President
Arisitide remains overthrown and in exile.


--------13 of 18--------

First By the Floods, Then By Martial Law
Trapped in New Orleans
By LARRY BRADSHAW
and LORRIE BETH SLONSKY
CounterPunch
September 6, 2005

Two days after Hurricane Katrina struck New Orleans, the Walgreens store
at the corner of Royal and Iberville Streets in the city's historic French
Quarter remained locked. The dairy display case was clearly visible
through the widows. It was now 48 hours without electricity, running
water, plumbing, and the milk, yogurt, and cheeses were beginning to spoil
in the 90-degree heat.

The owners and managers had locked up the food, water, pampers and
prescriptions, and fled the city. Outside Walgreens' windows, residents
and tourists grew increasingly thirsty and hungry. The much-promised
federal, state and local aid never materialized, and the windows at
Walgreens gave way to the looters.

There was an alternative. The cops could have broken one small window and
distributed the nuts, fruit juices and bottled water in an organized and
systematic manner. But they did not. Instead, they spent hours playing cat
and mouse, temporarily chasing away the looters.

We were finally airlifted out of New Orleans two days ago and arrived home
on Saturday. We have yet to see any of the TV coverage or look at a
newspaper. We are willing to guess that there were no video images or
front-page pictures of European or affluent white tourists looting the
Walgreens in the French Quarter.

We also suspect the media will have been inundated with "hero" images of
the National Guard, the troops and police struggling to help the "victims"
of the hurricane. What you will not see, but what we witnessed, were the
real heroes and sheroes of the hurricane relief effort: the working class
of New Orleans.

The maintenance workers who used a forklift to carry the sick and
disabled. The engineers who rigged, nurtured and kept the generators
running. The electricians who improvised thick extension cords stretching
over blocks to share the little electricity we had in order to free cars
stuck on rooftop parking lots. Nurses who took over for mechanical
ventilators and spent many hours on end manually forcing air into the
lungs of unconscious patients to keep them alive. Doormen who rescued
folks stuck in elevators. Refinery workers who broke into boat yards,
"stealing" boats to rescue their neighbors clinging to their roofs in
flood waters. Mechanics who helped hotwire any car that could be found to
ferry people out of the city. And the food service workers who scoured the
commercial kitchens, improvising communal meals for hundreds of those
stranded.

Most of these workers had lost their homes and had not heard from members
of their families. Yet they stayed and provided the only infrastructure
for the 20 percent of New Orleans that was not under water.

* * *

ON DAY Two, there were approximately 500 of us left in the hotels in the
French Quarter. We were a mix of foreign tourists, conference attendees
like ourselves and locals who had checked into hotels for safety and
shelter from Katrina.

Some of us had cell phone contact with family and friends outside of New
Orleans. We were repeatedly told that all sorts of resources, including
the National Guard and scores of buses, were pouring into the city. The
buses and the other resources must have been invisible, because none of us
had seen them.

We decided we had to save ourselves. So we pooled our money and came up
with $25,000 to have ten buses come and take us out of the city. Those who
didn't have the requisite $45 each were subsidized by those who did have
extra money.

We waited for 48 hours for the buses, spending the last 12 hours standing
outside, sharing the limited water, food and clothes we had. We created a
priority boarding area for the sick, elderly and newborn babies. We waited
late into the night for the "imminent" arrival of the buses. The buses
never arrived. We later learned that the minute they arrived at the city
limits, they were commandeered by the military.

By Day Four, our hotels had run out of fuel and water. Sanitation was
dangerously bad. As the desperation and despair increased, street crime as
well as water levels began to rise. The hotels turned us out and locked
their doors, telling us that "officials" had told us to report to the
convention center to wait for more buses. As we entered the center of the
city, we finally encountered the National Guard.

The guard members told us we wouldn't be allowed into the Superdome, as
the city's primary shelter had descended into a humanitarian and health
hellhole. They further told us that the city's only other shelter - the
convention center - was also descending into chaos and squalor, and that
the police weren't allowing anyone else in.

Quite naturally, we asked, "If we can't go to the only two shelters in the
city, what was our alternative?" The guards told us that this was our
problem - and no, they didn't have extra water to give to us. This would
be the start of our numerous encounters with callous and hostile "law
enforcement."

* * *

WE WALKED to the police command center at Harrah's on Canal Street and
were told the same thing - that we were on our own, and no, they didn't
have water to give us. We now numbered several hundred.

We held a mass meeting to decide a course of action. We agreed to camp
outside the police command post. We would be plainly visible to the media
and constitute a highly visible embarrassment to city officials. The
police told us that we couldn't stay. Regardless, we began to settle in
and set up camp.

In short order, the police commander came across the street to address our
group. He told us he had a solution: we should walk to the Pontchartrain
Expressway and cross the greater New Orleans Bridge to the south side of
the Mississippi, where the police had buses lined up to take us out of the
city.

The crowd cheered and began to move. We called everyone back and explained
to the commander that there had been lots of misinformation, so was he
sure that there were buses waiting for us. The commander turned to the
crowd and stated emphatically, "I swear to you that the buses are there."

We organized ourselves, and the 200 of us set off for the bridge with
great excitement and hope. As we marched past the convention center, many
locals saw our determined and optimistic group, and asked where we were
headed. We told them about the great news.

Families immediately grabbed their few belongings, and quickly, our
numbers doubled and then doubled again. Babies in strollers now joined us,
as did people using crutches, elderly clasping walkers and other people in
wheelchairs. We marched the two to three miles to the freeway and up the
steep incline to the bridge. It now began to pour down rain, but it didn't
dampen our enthusiasm.

As we approached the bridge, armed sheriffs formed a line across the foot
of the bridge. Before we were close enough to speak, they began firing
their weapons over our heads. This sent the crowd fleeing in various
directions.

As the crowd scattered and dissipated, a few of us inched forward and
managed to engage some of the sheriffs in conversation. We told them of
our conversation with the police commander and the commander's assurances.
The sheriffs informed us that there were no buses waiting. The commander
had lied to us to get us to move.

We questioned why we couldn't cross the bridge anyway, especially as there
was little traffic on the six-lane highway. They responded that the West
Bank was not going to become New Orleans, and there would be no Superdomes
in their city. These were code words for: if you are poor and Black, you
are not crossing the Mississippi River, and you are not getting out of New
Orleans.

* * *

OUR SMALL group retreated back down Highway 90 to seek shelter from the
rain under an overpass. We debated our options and, in the end, decided to
build an encampment in the middle of the Ponchartrain Expressway - on the
center divide, between the O'Keefe and Tchoupitoulas exits. We reasoned
that we would be visible to everyone, we would have some security being on
an elevated freeway, and we could wait and watch for the arrival of the
yet-to-be-seen buses.

All day long, we saw other families, individuals and groups make the same
trip up the incline in an attempt to cross the bridge, only to be turned
away - some chased away with gunfire, others simply told no, others
verbally berated and humiliated. Thousands of New Orleaners were prevented
and prohibited from self-evacuating the city on foot.

Meanwhile, the only two city shelters sank further into squalor and
disrepair. The only way across the bridge was by vehicle. We saw workers
stealing trucks, buses, moving vans, semi-trucks and any car that could be
hotwired. All were packed with people trying to escape the misery that New
Orleans had become.

Our little encampment began to blossom. Someone stole a water delivery
truck and brought it up to us. Let's hear it for looting! A mile or so
down the freeway, an Army truck lost a couple of pallets of C-rations on a
tight turn. We ferried the food back to our camp in shopping carts.

Now - secure with these two necessities, food and water - cooperation,
community and creativity flowered. We organized a clean-up and hung
garbage bags from the rebar poles. We made beds from wood pallets and
cardboard. We designated a storm drain as the bathroom, and the kids built
an elaborate enclosure for privacy out of plastic, broken umbrellas and
other scraps. We even organized a food-recycling system where individuals
could swap out parts of C-rations (applesauce for babies and candies for
kids!).

This was something we saw repeatedly in the aftermath of Katrina. When
individuals had to fight to find food or water, it meant looking out for
yourself. You had to do whatever it took to find water for your kids or
food for your parents. But when these basic needs were met, people began
to look out for each other, working together and constructing a community.

If the relief organizations had saturated the city with food and water in
the first two or three days, the desperation, frustration and ugliness
would not have set in.

Flush with the necessities, we offered food and water to passing families
and individuals. Many decided to stay and join us. Our encampment grew to
80 or 90 people.

>From a woman with a battery-powered radio, we learned that the media was
talking about us. Up in full view on the freeway, every relief and news
organizations saw us on their way into the city. Officials were being
asked what they were going to do about all those families living up on the
freeway. The officials responded that they were going to take care of us.
Some of us got a sinking feeling. "Taking care of us" had an ominous tone
to it.

Unfortunately, our sinking feeling (along with the sinking city) was
accurate. Just as dusk set in, a sheriff showed up, jumped out of his
patrol vehicle, aimed his gun at our faces and screamed, "Get off the
fucking freeway." A helicopter arrived and used the wind from its blades
to blow away our flimsy structures. As we retreated, the sheriff loaded up
his truck with our food and water.

Once again, at gunpoint, we were forced off the freeway. All the law
enforcement agencies appeared threatened when we congregated into groups
of 20 or more. In every congregation of "victims," they saw "mob" or
"riot." We felt safety in numbers. Our "we must stay together" attitude
was impossible because the agencies would force us into small atomized
groups.

In the pandemonium of having our camp raided and destroyed, we scattered
once again. Reduced to a small group of eight people, in the dark, we
sought refuge in an abandoned school bus, under the freeway on Cilo
Street. We were hiding from possible criminal elements, but equally and
definitely, we were hiding from the police and sheriffs with their martial
law, curfew and shoot-to-kill policies.

The next day, our group of eight walked most of the day, made contact with
the New Orleans Fire Department and were eventually airlifted out by an
urban search-and-rescue team.

We were dropped off near the airport and managed to catch a ride with the
National Guard. The two young guardsmen apologized for the limited
response of the Louisiana guards. They explained that a large section of
their unit was in Iraq and that meant they were shorthanded and were
unable to complete all the tasks they were assigned.

* * *

WE ARRIVED at the airport on the day a massive airlift had begun. The
airport had become another Superdome. We eight were caught in a press of
humanity as flights were delayed for several hours while George Bush
landed briefly at the airport for a photo op. After being evacuated on a
Coast Guard cargo plane, we arrived in San Antonio, Texas.

There, the humiliation and dehumanization of the official relief effort
continued. We were placed on buses and driven to a large field where we
were forced to sit for hours and hours. Some of the buses didn't have air
conditioners. In the dark, hundreds of us were forced to share two filthy
overflowing porta-potties. Those who managed to make it out with any
possessions (often a few belongings in tattered plastic bags) were
subjected to two different dog-sniffing searches.

Most of us had not eaten all day because our C-rations had been
confiscated at the airport - because the rations set off the metal
detectors. Yet no food had been provided to the men, women, children,
elderly and disabled, as we sat for hours waiting to be "medically
screened" to make sure we weren't carrying any communicable diseases.

This official treatment was in sharp contrast to the warm, heartfelt
reception given to us by ordinary Texans. We saw one airline worker give
her shoes to someone who was barefoot. Strangers on the street offered us
money and toiletries with words of welcome.

Throughout, the official relief effort was callous, inept and racist.
There was more suffering than need be. Lives were lost that did not need
to be lost.

LARRY BRADSHAW and LORRIE BETH SLONSKY are emergency medical services
(EMS) workers from San Francisco and contributors to Socialist Worker.
They were attending an EMS conference in New Orleans when Hurricane
Katrina struck. They spent most of the next week trapped by the
flooding - and the martial law cordon around the city.


--------14 of 18--------

Thank God, There's No One to Bomb in Retaliation
There's a Shelter Coming Near You
By DEBBIE DUPRE and BILL QUIGLEY
CounterPunch
September 6, 2005

Thanks to the many people who have reached out to us - it has been so
satisfying.

There have been many incredible acts of generosity and courage. We saw
them everywhere. We were picked up at the hospital by two 25-year-old guys
who put a little motor on a rowboat and ferried people to safety. We got
on a truck with people who had gone back to find their mentally disabled
brother. Families have come to look for family members in the shelters.

Now that we are out of New Orleans, we are so disappointed with the
disproportionate attention paid to looters and to a few hundred people who
were acting criminally. Nobody in Louisiana thinks that people are looters
if they broke into stores for diapers or food. People stealing TVs or
shooting others made up a fraction of a percent of the people in New
Orleans, but looting seems to have attracted attention in the media out of
all proportion.

The distorted emphasis on criminal behavior has stigmatized the people who
are now in shelters. Events this week exposed racial, economic, and
geographic segregation in our society that includes inequality in planning
and resources. People need to stick up for the folks in the shelters. I
guarantee there's a shelter coming to a city near you. There are not
enough places here for all these people. The New Orleans community is like
a glass paperweight that was smashed by a fifty pound iron mallet. Poor
people from New Orleans are going to be everywhere. People need to help
them, not fear them. Our question should not be, "Why was there looting,"
but "How are your families?" and "How can we help?"

There are a million stories of inspiration, love, hope, affection and
community from New Orleans. The focus should be on the 99-1/2 percent of
people who were brave and patient and who managed to help others.

We are glad that so many people are reaching out to the very poor people
of New Orleans. Many people are not even a paycheck away from poverty. We
know schoolteachers whose entire life savings was invested in their home,
which is now underwater. They have $200 in their pockets, and they're
living in a shelter along with their extended family, hoping to get food
stamps. Many people have much less. All of them have no idea what will
happen to the lives and work and homes they left behind.

The 100,000 or so people who were left behind in New Orleans are a
reflection of the people who are left behind in our country and in the
world. We need to turn this disaster into an opportunity for the nation to
reevaluate our priorities and invest in construction, both here and in the
rest of the world. Thank God there is no one to bomb in retaliation.
Instead of wasting our resources on destruction, we should rededicate our
people, resources and creativity to addressing the fundamental problems
that were exposed when the superficial covering of New Orleans was ripped
away, leaving us struggling for survival as people do in so many other
countries.

We love you, and we appreciate the support that has come in to us in so
many ways.

Debbie Dupre Quigley is an oncology nurse. She and her husband Bill
Quigley, who is a law professor at Loyola University New Orleans, spent
four nights and five days in a hospital in New Orleans before they were
evacuated. They can be reached at duprestars [at] yahoo.com.


--------15 of 18--------

Rat Race or Human Race?
State Failure and Human Solidarity
By DAN LA BOTZ
CounterPunch
September 6, 2005

While the United States government failed in New Orleans, people acted to
save themselves and each other. Once again, as so often in American
history, ordinary people provided us with an example and an alternative to
our existing system. Once again black people's solidarity provided a model
for us all.

Government failed utterly. Homeland Security secured nothing. FEMA-the
Federal Emergency Management Administration-managed nothing. The
President, finally tearing himself away from his vacation, first dawdled
and then dithered while people died. Only after almost a week of tragedy,
suffering and shame did government being to respond.

But the people of New Orleans, poor African American people mostly, didn't
fail. They gave us a model to live by. They helped each other. Ordinary
men and women carried children and the elderly to high ground, built camps
in the driest, most secure place, formed bands to forage for food and dry
clothing. The strong helped the weak, as all helped each other. They also
spoke out in righteous anger to the television cameras telling the world
that the government had, after long neglecting them, now deserted them.
They demanded to be treated with the dignity they deserved.

Not all were steadfast it's true. Some behaved like our society taught
them to behave: competed for resources, beggared their neighbors, hoarded
their wealth. But most, the vast majority, stood together. The rejected
competition and embraced cooperation and collective action.

                        Suffering and Solidarity

Doctors and nurses worked around the clock in exhaustion giving each other
I.V.s to overcome dehydration. Firemen fought fires in a city with all too
much water, but no water pressure. Public employees risked their lives
fishing folks from the water, picking survivors off the roofs, ferrying
the stranded to land. But mostly it was ordinary people, civilians, the
common folk at the bottom of our social heap who helped each other, and
set us an example of how society might work.

Their suffering has moved some, their strength should move us all. On a
corner near my house - hundreds of miles up river from New Orleans -
firemen on the corner hold out their boots collecting money to help.
Around the country middle class people, working people and the poor have
reached into their pockets and put money in the boot. Trucks loaded with
food and clothing are rolling, convoys are heading South, volunteers are
flying in, doctors are on the way-and not because of government, but
because of human cooperation. Because of solidarity.

                     Rat Race or Human Race

What do we learn from this experience? For at least the last 25 years we
have been told by government, media, the business departments of the
universities, and conservative churches that the only social value is
competition, that the only mechanism is the market, that the only role for
society is to stand aside and let the rat race go on. We have been told
that the only motives are selfish motives, the only interests are ego
interests. We were told it was all a rat race: business, politics, foreign
affairs. We have been told to believe that the biggest, fattest rat will
be the winner of the race where in the end rat eats rat.

New Orleans has now shown us the alternative to the rat race that is the
human race. We have seen that selfish interests give way to common
concerns, that ego interests give way to collective action. Not
selfishness but altruism and heroism have been common. The human race, if
it is really human - we have learned through this experience if we did not
know it before - lives not by competition but by cooperation, lives not by
the survival of the fittest, but by making the society function so that
all are fit to survive.

The poor black people of New Orleans, portrayed on FOX and CNN as pathetic
beasts or savage animals, stood forth as human beings with all the
strength and self-respect that makes us proud to be part of the race, the
human race. The conservative media interpreted the crisis in New Orleans
as rat race America at its worst. Those who were left behind were said to
have stayed behind. Foraging for food became looting. The righteous anger
and rebellion of the human spirit was portrayed as the dark mob on the
verge of riot. But no rightward spin could spin away the spirit of
solidarity seen in New Orleans, no report could cover up the face of
people who were poor and courageous in mutual support.

Finally the guard and the army arrived, under orders to establish order,
to evacuate the city, to rescue the remaining people stranded in the
sunken city. While the government gave the order, guardsmen and soldiers
acted as much out of heartfelt sympathy as military duty. Here government,
the military, did not what it usually does, but what it might do in a good
society, one that created a structure to facilitate human sympathy and
solidarity. Government as it might be, not as it is.

New Orleans's poor black people in their solidarity in this crisis have
shown us an alternative to the White House, to the Hill, to Wall Street,
to Madison Avenue. They have shown us that within our society, among its
working people and its poor lives another potential society with other
ideals.

What this crisis has made clear is that we need to get rid of the rat race
to let the human race thrive. We need new values, a new society, a new
government. New Orleans, flooded, burned and destroyed stands as a
monument to the failure of our government. The poor black people of New
Orleans, thirsty, hungry, tired, frustrated and angry, but helping each
other to take another step forward, show us the way.

Now, we need to organize ourselves, as they did, we need to go forward
too. We need a movement with a radical vision built not on working within
failed system, but creating a new one. We'll help rebuild New Orleans, but
let's also rebuild our country not on the basis of competition, but on the
principle of solidarity.

Dan La Botz edits Mexican Labor News and Analysis, and is the author of
several books on labor in Mexico, Indonesia, and the United States. He can
be reached at: DanLaBotz [at] cs.com


--------16 of 18--------

Did Katrina Blow Off the White Sheets of American Racism?
Our Birminghan
By KEEANGA-YAMAHTTA TAYLOR
CounterPunch
September 6, 2005

Maybe this will be our generation's Birmingham.

The pictures that streamed out of Birmingham, Alabama, in 1963 showed
young Black boys and girls attacked by German Shepherds and drenched with
the powerful spray of fire hoses.

Those pictures exposed to the world the hypocrisy that rests at the heart
of America. Those pictures exposed the intense racism that rests at the
heart of this country.

Those pictures exposed the utter lack of credibility of the U.S. in its
bloody intervention in Southeast Asia.

But those pictures also inspired and radicalized a generation of young
African Americans and young progressive whites that enough was enough and
that it was time to break the back of Jim Crow.

For African Americans in the North, where there was no legal segregation,
the pictures from Birmingham confirmed a humiliating second-class
citizenship.

The same can be said of the awful pictures streaming out of New Orleans
and the rest of the Gulf Coast towns that were obliterated by Hurricane
Katrina.

Like Birmingham 42 years ago, today's pictures of impoverished Black
Americans wading through chest high sludge; being corralled into the Super
Dome or the New Orleans Convention Center like cattle; portrayed in the
American media as looters, armed thugs, murders and rapists; sitting atop
their asphalt roofs in 100 degree swamp heat waiting to be rescued or
waiting to die are all sharp reminders that for all of the rhetoric and
crap the U.S. spews about democracy, freedom and opportunity, 140 years
after the Civil War ended and 40 years after the Voting Rights Act of 1965
was passed racism and class inequality remain the pillars upon which this
twisted country is built upon.

The rumors coming from the mayor of New Orleans and other officials is
that maybe 10,000 people have died as a result of Hurricane Katrina and
her aftermath.

10,000 people. Mostly Black and mostly poor.

This is not a disaster but a crime. And the sad reality is that this
nightmare and this crime is only at its beginning. There is an idiocy and
a contemptuousness directed towards the poor and Blacks that pervade the
political duopoly in this country. The moronic idea, for example, that you
can "house" 20,000 in an old baseball stadium makes you shake your head.
In an area outside of Dallas, Texas, dozens of displaced evacuees were
taken to what was planned as a minimum-security prison but has now been
turned into temporary housing.

This in the richest country in the history of the world.

The formal shredding of the social safety net - brought to us by former
President Bill Clinton in 1996 - means that the half a million or so folks
from Gulf Coast region have just been kicked off the ledge with nothing to
break the fall.

There is no more welfare and food stamps are increasingly becoming out of
reach in this country.

There is no decent, affordable housing in this country.

There is no universal healthcare in this country.

Given the scale of the crisis, the government will be forced to provide
many of these things - temporarily. But temporary is not a solution.
Without steady and living wages this untenable situation will quickly
become an impossible situation. Black unemployment in the U.S. is at
almost 11 percent. In some cities like Chicago and New York unemployment
for Black men has reached the 50 percent threshold. Where will these jobs
come from?  Secretary of Labor Elaine Chao said on MSNBC that 10,000
temporary jobs will be created.

500,000 people displaced. 10,000 temp jobs.

When the state is forced to spend some money on the welfare of some people
it will inevitably raise questions as to why this government can't always
use its tax dollars to take care of the people who live here instead of
wasting money on imperial projects and corporate bailouts

It should.

42 years ago when the pictures from Birmingham surfaced, American
officials were shamed and embarrassed as the pictures of American racism
and brutality made the front pages of papers around the world. The emperor
had no clothes.

Today, the pictures and stories from the survivors of this disaster should
finally lay to rest any notion that the war in Iraq is anything but the
racist, imperial conquest it is. From New Orleans to Fallujah, the lives
of poor, colored people have no value, no worth to the wealthy white men
who run this country.

During the last campaign for the presidency of the U.S., it wasn't until
the third debate when moderator Bob Scheiffer finally asked Bush and Kerry
a question about race. The question was whether or not affirmative action
was outdated. Neither the question nor their answers were as important as
the way in which the duopoly and the craven media avoid issues of race and
class as if they were a plague.

The crime of New Orleans has put both of those issues back on the front
pages of every newspaper across the country. The Black political
establishment has even been shook beyond its usual irrelevance and
complacency. These are all positive developments.

But if this is truly to be the Birmingham of our generation, it is not
enough to point out the litany of racial injustices that shape and define
American society. We have to organize and we have to fight back against
these injustices. We may even need to organize and fight for a new civil
rights movement.

October 15, 2005, marks the ten-year anniversary of the Million Man March.
When Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan organized that march in 1995
he told the women to stay home and Black men to beg forgiveness for a
lifetime of sin. Next month on that same date, Minister Louis Farrakhan
and the Rev. Al Sharpton will re-convene the Millions More Movement march
in Washington D.C. This time around Farrakhan has thrown down the welcome
mat to "Christians, Muslims, Hebrews, Jews, agnostics, nationalists,
socialists, men, women and youth" to "com[e] together in agreement that
the time is now for us to articulate our demands, and to accept our
responsibility to change the condition and reality of our lives." The
demands of this march include ending the war and the prison industrial
complex. It would be a shock if the organizers of the march did not now
include demands around the conditions of the New Orleans and Gulf Coast
evacuees. These are demands worth fighting for.

There are problems with the march. Initially, Black gays and lesbians were
to be more involved in the organizing of the march but unfortunately there
has been some homophobic gay baiting. If there has ever been a time for
solidarity it is now and that's what the organizers need to understand.
Nonetheless, the march has now taken on increased significance and
importance given the developments in the Gulf region.

The ongoing crisis, as a result of the hurricane, has only begun to bring
the issues afflicting working class and poor African Americans to the
table. We will need a broad, multi-racial and independent movement to
actually be able to do something about them.

Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor, based in Chicago, is author of Civil Rights and
Civil Wrongs: Racism in America Today for the International Socialist
Review. She can be contacted at keeanga'2001 [at] yahoo


--------17 of 18--------

Why Rehnquist Shouldn't be Buried on American Soil
The Death of a Partisan Chief Justice
By MIKE WHITNEY
CounterPunch
September 6, 2005

"He was a man of character and dedication. His departure represents a
great loss for the court and for our country."  --George W. Bush on
hearing of the death of Supreme Court Justice William Rehnquist

Let's not wring out the tears for William Rehnquist. The man was the worst
chief justice to ever serve on the Supreme Court; a complete failure who
disgraced his office and the people he was supposed to serve. Never in the
200 year history of the nation has the high court sustained more damage
under the stewardship of one man.

Rehnquist's partisan handiwork rigged the 2000 election and set the
country in a downward spiral to ruin. He cobbled together the coalition of
rogue-jurists who stripped the Florida Supreme Court of their
constitutionally-guaranteed right to decide the outcome of state elections
and overturned the fundamental principle of democratic government; the
right to have one's vote counted.

Rehnquist invoked the 14th amendment; the "equal protection" clause to
elevate his friend George W. Bush to president. Prior to that, the
amendment had never even been used in cases other than racial
discrimination. Legal scholars and attorneys alike scoffed at the shaky
reasoning that held the case together. It was a complete travesty that
both Republicans and Democrats disdained. Rehnquist abandoned every
principle of judicial impartiality to shoehorn a derelict-Texan into the
Oval Office and to uphold his standing as a charter member of the ruling
class.

Look at the results.

Look what happens when the will of the people is brazenly ignored to
execute an elite agenda.

Iraq, the Cheney Energy papers, 9-11, Enron, Valerie Plame, Abu Ghraib,
Falluja, Guantanamo; the long litany of Bush-crimes should be inscribed on
Rehnquist's headstone next to the number of casualties produced by his
partisan blunder.

Rehnquist was an ardent class-warrior from his earliest days on the court.
He strongly opposed gay rights, abortion, gun control and affirmative
action, but was a staunch proponent of the death penalty. This tells us
that his sense of justice was shaped by his belief in punishment, not
mercy. Although Rehnquist would zealously defend the right of the state to
exterminate its own citizens, he vacillated on even most basic rights of
the individual.

In case after case, the Rehnquist Court bowed to the authority of the
president; allowing Bush to detain foreign nationals without formally
charging them with a crime and permitting the incarceration of "enemy
combatants" indefinitely at Guantanamo Bay subject to a review by
hand-picked military tribunals.

Rehnquist has repeatedly dodged the Jose Padilla case to allow the
president the tyrannical power of imprisoning an American citizen without
honoring habeas corpus, due process, or the presumption of innocence. His
evasion has upended the fundamental principle of "inalienable rights", the
cornerstone of the Constitution, and condemned an innocent man to 3 and
half years in solitary confinement.

Padilla has never been charged with a crime. It is a disgrace that should
enrage every American.

Justice John Paul Stevens' summarized the feelings of most Americans who
reject the idea that citizens can be stripped of their rights according to
presidential edict. He said, the results of the Padilla case pose "a
unique and unprecedented threat to the freedom of every American
citizen... At stake is nothing less than the essence of a free society...
For if this Nation is to remain true to the ideals symbolized by its flag,
it must not wield the tools of tyrants even to resist an assault by the
forces of tyranny."

Rehnquist had every opportunity to watch Bush's dismal war on terror. He
knew that the "forces of tyranny" had been greatly exaggerated to carry
out a global-militaristic strategy. Never the less, he consistently chose
to bolster the powers of the executive rather than defend the basic rights
of the citizen.

Rehnquist fancied himself a "strict constructionist"; a judge who simply
applied the constitution according to its literal meaning. As it turns
out, he was entirely unwilling to defend any part of the Bill of Rights
(excluding the revered 2nd amendment) and significantly eroded the
institution he was supposed to preserve.

Forget the state ceremonies for the deceased Chief Justice. Just put a
crease in the soil at Potter's field and kick a few leaves over the
hardening carcass.

If it was up to me, Rehnquist would never be buried on American soil. The
man betrayed his country and his name should be struck from the history
books.

He did nothing to shore up civil liberties or to preserve the
constitution. His tenure at the high court merely paved the way for the
Imperial Presidency and the further savaging of the rule of law.

Let Bush and his ilk sing Rehnquist's praises. What difference does it
make? The man was a miserable American and a dead-loss as a chief justice.

Mike Whitney lives in Washington state. He can be reached at:
fergiewhitney [at] msn.com


--------18 of 18--------

 For what he has done,
 fly Bush to his Number One
 White House on the sun.

 He'll burn with a hard
 gem-like flame, yesiree pard,
 butt and brains of lard.

 The Sun will spit him
 out - Enough of your grim whim!
 Damn! He makes me dim!


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