Mn-prog-events Mailing List: Progressive Calendar 09.08.05

[David Shove (shove001]

             P R O G R E S S I V E   C A L E N D A R     09.08.05

1. Dickinson/Lyngblomsten 9.08 12noon
2. NWA strike             9.08 12noon
3. Eagan peace vigil      9.08 4:30pm
4. Small is beautiful     9.08 5pm
5. Green Party 3CD        9.08 7pm
6. LibrarySmart           9.08 7pm
7. How rich grab your $$  9.08 7pm Northfield
8. Valley Peacemakers     9.08 7pm
9. StP candidate forum    9.08 7pm
10. Roseville candidates  9.08 7pm
11. Mpls ward8 candidates 9.08 7pm

12. Elizabeth Dickinson  - Public safety
13. Lawrence Winans      - Negligent genocide
14. Charmaine Neville    - How we survived the flood
15. Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz - John Wayne and New Orleans Indians
16. Chris Floyd          - No direction home
17. Jason Leopold        - Bush legacy: a few posper; thousands perish
18. Ramsey Clark         - Hurricane Katrina, another impeachable crime
19. Richard Broderick    - Gacela of the New Orleans flood (poem)
20. ed                   - Bush & Cheney (prose poem)

---------1 of 20---------

From: ed
Subject: Dickinson/Lyngblomsten 9.08 12noon

Thursday September 8
Elizabeth Dickinson for mayor campaign
Meet & Greet with Lyngblomsten Seniors
Noon.-1pm
Lyngblomsten Community Center, 1298 Pascal Street North, St. Paul


--------2 of 20--------

From: Solidarity Committee <nwasolidaritymsp [at] hotmail.com>
Subject: NWA strike 9.08 12noon

THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 8, 12 NOON.

WE HAVE CHANGED FAA OFFICE LOCATIONS, DUE TO NEW INFORMATION ABOUT THE
LOCATION OF THE FAA SAFETY-RELATED OFFICES.  NEW LOCATION IS:

6020 28th Ave., Room 201, Minneapolis, Minnesota 55450

Demonstration will be outside of the building

This location is just off of the intersection of 28th Avenue south and the
Crosstown Highway 62, just at the edge of South Minneapolis.  If you are
on the Crosstown, exit at 28th Avenue, and head South (away from downtown
minneapolis, toward the airport).  The building is 6020 28th Avenue, on
28th Avenue just south of the Crosstown - Highway 62.

If you are coming from 35W, just merge onto the Crosstown - 62 East,
proceed to 28th Avenue, and make a right at the end of the exit ramp.

More directions are available at www.mapquest.com.


--------3 of 20---------

From: Greg and Sue Skog <skograce [at] mtn.org>
Subject: Eagan peace vigil 9.08 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.


--------4 of 20--------

From: Jesse Mortenson <jmortenson [at] Macalester.edu>
Subject: Small is beautiful 9.08 5pm

12.02 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.


--------5 of 20--------

From: Julie Risser <julie.risser [at] visi.com>
Subject: Green Party 3CD 9.08 7pm

Good to see there is interest in green candidates in the suburbs.  I
would love to have SUBURBAN candidates alongside all of our metro
candidates next year.  Jim Ramstand is the current Representative for the
3rd Congressional District - I feel we really should run somebody against
him.

The 3rd Congressional District Greens are holding its next Quarterly
Meeting on September 8 at 7pm in the Ethel Berry Room of the Southdale
Library 7001 York Avenue South

Come learn more and share your ideas about issues you believe the 3rd
Congressional District Greens should address.

For more information contact Rob Axtmann 763-561-1671


--------6 of 20--------

From: Samantha Smart <smartlibraries2005 [at] earthlink.net>
Subject: LibrarySmart 9.08 7pm

Friends, neighbors, sisters and comrades!

Please join Samantha Smart and friends at a
Get Out The Vote Party and Fundraiser
SMART campaign for Minneapolis Library Board
Thursday September 8
MOTHER EARTH GARDENS
42nd Ave South & East 38th Street,across from the Riverview Coffee Shop &
Wine Bar and the Riverview Theater!

7-9pm

Enjoy refreshments and a cozy fire in the presence of a wild urban garden
paradise, tarot and rune readings, henna, chair massages, a silent
auction, music, riveting information on the September 13 Primary Library
Board race and more! Help turn out voters and funds to put Samantha Smart
on the November ballot!

Samantha Smart speakoutsisters [at] earthlink.net
smartlibraries2005 [at] earthlink.net Smart libraries are OPEN libraries!


--------7 of 20--------

From: Janet & Bill McGrath <mcgrath1 [at] rconnect.com>
Subject: How rich grab your $$  9.08 7pm Northfield

Behind the wars and cultural wedge issues, the economic security ("money")
of the middle class is being transferred rapidly to approximately 145,000
households, each of which has an average annual income of $3.2 million.

Activist Bill McGrath believes that's the common thread running through
tax cuts, outsourcing of jobs, and recent legislation regarding
prescription drugs, health insurance, Social Security, pensions,
bankruptcy, class action lawsuits and labor unions.

Join us at 7pm Thursday Sept 8, in the PPG office at 313 1/2 Division
Street, Northfield. There will be a one-hour presentation by Bill,
followed by discussion that will focus on possible solutions.

Bill, who has lived 27 years in Northfield, is a former newspaper reporter
who for 18 years has owned a small business publishing & selling car
repair manuals.


--------8 of 20--------

From: earthmannow [at] comcast.net
Subject: Valley Peacemakers 9.08 7pm

St Croix Valley Peacemakers
Thursday evening
September 8 at 7pm
Ascension Episcopal Church in Stillwater. 214 north 3rd St.  3rd building
north of the postoffice

 The meeting is an important one because:
 1) we will hear from school board candidates regarding their views of
military presence in public schools, the inclusion of peace studies in the
curriculum and other peace related issues;
 2)  Veterans for peace will send a representative to be with us and share
what they have been working on.
 There will be time for questions and dialogue. Hear about
 The on going "Bring them home now" bus tour from Crawford Texas.
 counter recruitment efforts    etc,,,.
 3) Plans need to be made regarding upcoming vigils;
 4) Speakers and activities for future meetings need to be decided upon.

One hundred and three peaceful people were at the Stillwater candle light
vigil in support of Cindy Newman and we can do even better. Speakers have
To: Twin Lakes Group <amyihlan [at] comcast.net>
been identified who can provide an understanding of the roots of terrorism
and how to prevent it without violence. The when is now, the who is us.
Mary and Wayne

for more information call 651 430 9111 scot


--------9 of 20--------

From: Joelle <joelleltegwen [at] yahoo.com>
Subject: StP candidate forum 9.08 7pm

Plan to attend a candidate forum! You can meet the candidates, ask your
questions and consider your choices in two important city elections: St.
Paul Mayor and School Board.

Thursday, September 8, 7pm
Our Lady of Guadalupe, 401 Concord Av on St Paul's West Side

Transportation, childcare and translation available upon request: contact
Athena at 651-235-2645 or adkinsdesk [at] msn.com

This event is a collaborative effort including WS100, Got Voice? Got
Power!, Our Lady of Guadalupe Church, and the Minnesota Council of
Nonprofits. For more information, please contact WSCO at 651-293-1708.


--------10 of 20--------

From: Amy Ihlan <amyihlan [at] comcast.net>
Subject: Roseville candidates 9.08 7pm

The Roseville Citizen's League is sponsoring a City Council Candidate
Forum on Thursday, September 8, from 7:00 to 9:30 p.m. in the Rose Room
at the Skating Center.  Written questions will be collected from the
audience between 6:45 and 7:30.

This is a great chance to find out where the candidates stand on Twin
Lakes and other important issues.


--------11 of 20--------

From: terry [at] terrysnewward.com
Subject: Mpls ward 8 candidates 9.08 7pm
8th ward candidate Fora?

We will have a candidate forum at Field Regina Northrup Neighborhood
Group:  Sept 8th 7-9pm at McRae Park


--------12 of 20----------

From: Christopher Childs <worldgarden [at] igc.org>
Subject: Dickinson on public safety issues

ELIZABETH DICKINSON'S STATEMENT ON PUBLIC SAFETY     9/7/2005

[Green Party mayoral candidate Elizabeth Dickinson today visited the
Margaret Recreation Center on St. Paul's East Side; with the center's
rundown former playground as a backdrop, she offered the following.]

I'm issuing this statement at the Margaret rec center, a place that has
been without a playground for some time, although it is in an area of
the East Side that urgently needs a safe place for kids and parents to
spend quality time.

As Police Chief Harrington recognized in a recent editorial, and has been
backed up by my conversations with scores of citizens, including current
and retired police officers - although they might not use this phrase -
there needs to be a more holistic approach to crime.  Crime is an endpoint
and there are places of intervention - places where we can slow down and
stop crime in its tracks, if we only know where to look and we put the
money and time resources in those places.

But to do this, we need not just a unified strategy but a shared
commitment to addressing the factors that create crime.  St. Paul has seen
an increase in serious crime of over 6% for the first half of this year.
Do we need to put more officers on the street?  Of course.  But we _can
not solve_ the problem only through those means - that's like trying to
cure heart disease by building more cemeteries.

80% of those incarcerated in our prison system witnessed domestic violence
as children, and become perpetrators or victims of domestic violence.
Many of those incarcerated are simultaneously guilty of drug related
and/or gang related activity.  And the single largest category of calls to
the St. Paul police are domestic violence calls.  We can not put a police
officer in every home.  What can a mayor do?

First, let's look at domestic violence.  As a mayor I will support the
reauthorization of the federal Violence Against Women Act which is about
to expire.  This act is a template to support policies which reinforce
that domestic violence is a crime and should be treated as such.

Second, to address other crimes including domestic violence, gangs and
drug activity I will work with community councils to expand block clubs
into every area of the city and work with the police department to ensure
a regular presence of police officers at the block clubs.

Police need neighborhood block clubs to be the eyes and ears of the police
- to notify them of any suspicious activity - whether it's graffiti which
may indicate increased gang activity, or unusual comings or goings at odd
hours of the night which may indicate drug or gang activity, or screaming
from a nearby home which may indicate domestic violence.

Block clubs also need the police.  Block clubs need to develop ongoing
relationships with specific police officers so they know specifically who
they can call.  As a society, we encourage zero tolerance of crime through
informal and formal community education - when neighbors know not only
that they have the right to report suspicious activity when it relates to
people they may not know, but they have a duty to report domestic violence
even if it occurs with people they do know.  Domestic violence is not a
private family matter.  Domestic violence affects all of society and must
be recognized as a crime.  And since many women withdraw charges against
their batterers, we must offer the support of independent witnesses in
court to ensure that warranted charges stick.

As mayor I will aggressively look for continuing funding to expand on the
$389,000 recently received from the U.S. Department of Justice to combat
domestic violence so when it runs out in two years, we will have
replacement funds to continue fighting domestic violence. I will support
the safety and accountability audit to enhance communication among all
stakeholders, including battered women's shelters, city and county
attorneys, probation, judges, healthworkers and the women themselves. We
must increase protection orders, since battering tends to be a pattern and
not an individual event.  We must educate teachers, students, mentors, and
parks and recreation centers to recognize symptoms of battering, since
40-60% of men who batter women also batter children, and over 25% of
domestic homicide victims are children.

And as noted in the Minnesota Advocates for Human Rights report, special
attention needs to be paid to immigrant women, not because they are more
likely to be battered than other groups, but because they have particular
language and cultural barriers to accessing services likely to protect
them.  We must hire more trustworthy, bilingual interpreters at shelters
and emergency rooms so immigrant women know there is a law against beating
and laws to prevent your children being taken away or to prevent landlords
from evicting domestic violence victims.

Third, I will work with the community councils and recreation centers to
get more VISTA and Americorps workers and volunteers into rec centers and
libraries to start innovative programming.  Vista and Americorps workers
are an effective, lower cost way to help overworked staff in our rec
centers.  Additionally, besides traditional programming of sports and
recreational activities, we need to develop programs to teach non-violent
communication skills to parents and leaders in the community to encourage
awareness that there are alternatives.

Fourth, I will work with the SPPD gang unit to help them establish ongoing
relationships with schools and rec centers to combat the formation of
gangs.  The community - especially kids - need to see police outside of
traditional roles so they don't only perceive the police as the people who
take people they know away from the community. I strongly support the
establishment of police athletic and activities leagues so kids see
alternatives to joining gangs and see police as trusted members of the
community.

Finally, there is no substitute for full funding of parks and recreation
centers and libraries.  Randy Kelly's budget only increases the budget for
parks and rec centers by 2.2%, which is the equivalent of flat funding,
accounting for inflation.  At a coffee shop one woman told me that as a
child her main source of emotional support had been her local rec center,
but due to declining hours, the same opportunity was not open to her son.
Rec centers should not be closed on weekends - they should be open late on
Friday and Saturday nights so kids have a place to go that is not a street
corner.  As I have mentioned in previous speeches, we need to ask for more
financial support from our corporations like Xcel, whether it's through
Community Benefit Agreements or through increased franchise fees to
support the parks and recreation centers or through direct donations to
parks and rec centers.  But finally, we must ask ourselves:

Do we understand that investments in keeping women and kids safe pays
dividends of reduced crime, down both now, and in the future - so today's
kids don't become victims or perpetrators of domestic violence, gangs and
drugs?  Do we understand that public investments in parks and rec centers
and replacing playgrounds like the one here at the Margaret rec center
give kids and parents not just a place to enjoy themselves - although that
is incredibly important in this stressful world - but they also may be a
lifeline - the one place a kid or parent may go to that encourages a sense
of self-esteem, a sense that they are valued by the community simply
because the community has given them a safe place to express their energy?

In the end, if we do care, do we care _enough_ to pay higher taxes now? Or
do we prefer to pay a higher price down the line?

Elizabeth Dickinson for Mayor ~ 384 Hall Avenue ~ Saint Paul, MN ~ 55107
(651) 312-0616 www.elizabethdickinson.org


--------13 of 20--------

Lawrence Winans
Negligent Genocide

The leading Busheviks and their media shills warn us that this is no time
for politics.

I think it is.

When the leadership of the country is so corrupt and so inept as to cause
by its own negligence the deaths of hundreds, and perhaps thousands, of
our fellow citizens it is time to exercise political judgment.

The intentional killing of a human being is the crime of homicide.

The intentional failure to act resulting in the death of a human being is
the crime of negligent homicide.

The intentional killing of a class or group of humans is the crime against
humanity of genocide.

Recognizing the foregoing, I submit that the intentional failure to act
resulting in the deaths of a class or group is "negligent genocide".

George Bush and the gang that sustains him should be tried before the
International Criminal Court for war crimes against the people of Iraq AND
for the negligent genocide of our fellow Americans.

I believe that the evidence is there:

 ITEM: Bush knew or should have known that New Orleans and the gulf coast
was not adequately prepared for a killer storm. The Army Corps of
Engineers and FEMA, before the purge, advised him of these facts.

 ITEM: Bush substantially reduced funding essential to shore up the levees
in order to fund tax cuts and an adventure overseas contrary to the pleas
of local officials and FEMA staff.

 ITEM: Bush fired Army Corps of Engineers and FEMA professionals who
refused to tow the party line and, in the case of FEMA, replaced them with
political hacks without expertise in disaster management.

 ITEM: When anyone with a TV or radio tuned to the news could have
forecast the inevitability of the hurricane hit, Bush stayed on the ranch,
in blissful ignorance.

 ITEM: After being informed of the devastation, Bush went golfing.

 ITEM: Relief efforts were intentionally delayed so as to arrive
simultaneously with the Bush visit so as to promote the appearance that
Bush was providing "salvation".

 ITEM: Bush downgraded FEMA and reduced its disaster preparedness in order
to allocate its resources to anti-terrorism.

If lying about infidelity constitutes a "high crime" under the
Constitution suitable for impeachment then certainly this manifest failure
to act resulting in negligent genocide is impeachable.

Bush should be impeached and then transfered to the jurisdiction of the
International Criminal Court for trial on charges of war crimes, crimes
against humanity and negligent genocide.

Lawrence Winans
Burnsville CD2


--------14 of 20--------

Women were Being Raped, Babies were Being Killed, Alligators were Eating
People, But Where the Hell was the National Guard?
How We Survived the Flood
By CHARMAINE NEVILLE
CounterPunch
September 7, 2005

This is a transcription of an interview Charmaine Neville, of New
Orleans's legendary Neville family, gave to local media outlets on Monday,
September 5.

I was in my house when everything first started. When the hurricane came,
it blew all the left side of my house off, and the water was coming in my
house in torrents.

I had my neighbor, an elderly man, and myself, in the house with our dogs
and cats, and we were trying to stay out of the water. But the water was
coming in too fast. So we ended up having to leave the house.

We left the house and we went up on the roof of a school. I took a crowbar
and I burst the door on the roof of the school to help people on the roof.

Later on we found a flat boat, and we went around the neighborhood in a
flat boat getting people out of their houses and bringing them to the
school.

We found all the food that we could and we cooked and we fed people. But
then, things started getting really bad.

By the second day, the people that were there, that we were feeding and
everything, we had no more food and no water. We had nothing, and other
people were coming in our neighborhood. We were watching the helicopters
going across the bridge and airlift other people out, but they would hover
over us and tell us "Hi!" and that would be all. They wouldn't drop us any
food or any water, or nothing.

Alligators were eating people. They had all kinds of stuff in the water.
They had babies floating in the water.

We had to walk over hundreds of bodies of dead people. People that we
tried to save from the hospices, from the hospitals and from the old-folks
homes. I tried to get the police to help us, but I realized they were in
the same straits we were. We rescued a lot of police officers in the flat
boat from the 5th district police station. The guy who was in the boat, he
rescued a lot of them and brought them to different places so they could
be saved.

We understood that the police couldn't help us, but we couldn't understand
why the National Guard and them couldn't help us, because we kept seeing
them but they never would stop and help us.

Finally it got to be too much, I just took all of the people that I could.
I had two old women in wheelchairs with no legs, that I rowed them from
down there in that nightmare to the French Quarters, and I went back and
got more people.

There were groups of us, there were about 24 of us, and we kept going back
and forth and rescuing whoever we could get and bringing them to the
French Quarter because we heard that there were phones in the French
Quarter, and that there wasn't any water. And they were right, there were
phones, but we couldn't get through to anyone.

I found some police officers. I told them that a lot of us women had been
raped down there by guys, not from the neighborhood where we were, they
were helping us to save people. But other men, and they came and they
started raping women and they started killing, and I don't know who these
people were. I'm not gonna tell you I know, because I don't.

But what I want people to understand is that, if we hadn't been left down
there like the animals that they were treating us like, all of those
things wouldn't have happened. People are trying to say that we stayed in
that city because we wanted to be rioting and we wanted to do this and, we
didn't have resources to get out, we had no way to leave.

When they gave the evacuation order, if we could've left, we would have
left.

There are still thousands and thousands of people trapped in their homes
in the downtown area. When we finally did get into the 9th ward, and not
just in my neighborhood, but in other neighborhoods in the 9th ward, there
were a lot of people still trapped down there... old people, young people,
babies, pregnant women. I mean, nobody's helping them.

And I want people to realize that we did not stay in the city so we could
steal and loot and commit crimes. A lot of those young men lost their
minds because the helicopters would fly over us and they wouldn't stop. We
would make SOS on the flashlights, we'd do everything, and it really did
come to a point, where these young men were so frustrated that they did
start shooting. They weren't trying to hit the helicopters, they figured
maybe they weren't seeing. Maybe if they hear this gunfire they will stop
then. But that didn't help us. Nothing like that helped us.

Finally, I got to Canal St. with all of my people I had saved from back
there.

I don't want them arresting nobody else. I broke the window in an RTA bus.
I never learned how to drive a bus in my life. I got in that bus. I loaded
all of those people in wheelchairs and in everything else into that bus,
and we drove and we drove and we drove and millions of people was trying
to get me to help them to get on the bus, too.

Charmaine Neville is a member of the third generation of New Orleans's
legendary Neville musical family. She fronts the Charmaine Neville Band.


--------15 of 20--------

Why Do They Hate You?
John Wayne and New Orleans Indians
By ROXANNE DUNBAR-ORTIZ
CounterPunch
September 7, 2005

"The Cavalry is coming!" announced a reporter on the Fox News Channel when
finally National Guardsmen trooped into downtown New Orleans on the fourth
day of apocalypse. I said to myself, "There they go again, racist Fox
News."

I switched channels and found reporters and government officials repeating
the same phrase, "The Cavalry has arrived." I should not have been
surprised; during the preceding two days, they had been referring to the
scene in brown water-lodge New Orleans, not as genocide as I saw it,
rather "the wild west."

Racism on top of racism, revealing the scaffolding of United States'
history, its intact structure bared, all the glitter and trappings washed
away.

New Orleans became "Indian Country," the military term for enemy
territory. "This place is going to look like Little Somalia," Brigadier
General Gary Jones, commander of the Louisiana National Guard's Joint Task
Force told Army Times, for an article published September 2, 2005. "We're
going to go out and take this city back. This will be a combat operation
to get this city under control." The Army Times report could have been
about Baghdad in stating: "While some fight the insurgency in the city,
others carry on with rescue and evacuation operations."

For days I have been thinking of Sitting Bull's observation that the
United States knows how to make everything, but doesn't know how to
distribute it. He was being generous in attributing the lack of equitable
distribution of goods to benign ignorance rather than to design. But, he
knew better. Once in Chicago while performing with Buffalo Bill Cody's
Wild West, Sitting Bull spoke through his translator to the huge crowd of
ragged white men, women, and barefoot children: "I know why your
government hates me. I am their enemy. But why do they hate you?" The U.S.
Cavalry, the 7th to be exact, Custer's old regiment, massacred Sitting
Bull's unarmed, starving people in December 1890 at Wounded Knee, a few
days after Sitting Bull himself had been shot and killed by the federal
Indian police.

The cavalry sent into the wild west of New Orleans had orders to pen in
the starving black population that had been abandoned in order to protect
property. It is not a sad or shameful day for the United States; it is a
typical day in the United States for the poor, magnified.

How ironic that the Superdome became a house of horrors for the
dispossessed for five grueling days. Most of the African Americans who
were herded into the Superdome came from the infamous New Orleans projects
and are descendents of those evicted from their neat little homes in the
working class district that was seized and bulldozed to build, with public
funds, the Superdome. Their cemetery was also destroyed. Construction
began in August 1971 and was completed four years later.

I moved to New Orleans in December 1969 and lived there for more than two
years, leaving unwillingly after being arrested and escorted to Texas,
told never to return. I was then, as now, a social justice activist. (This
story is told in my Outlaw Woman: A Memoir of the War Years, 19601975) In
New Orleans and the surrounding area, the group I was a part of did
unionizing, women's liberation and antiwar organizing, and community work.
The big local issue at the time was opposition to the proposed Superdome
and to the "urban renewal" that would make it possible, removing tens of
thousands of working class residents and transforming them into welfare
recipients, a process taking place during the 1960s in nearly every city
in the United States, as well as in copycat apartheid South Africa, where
Cape Town's mixed working class District 6 was similarly destroyed.

Working with the community against the Superdome in organizing
demonstrations, petitions, and boycotts, I learned about past hurricanes
and floods when gates were opened to flood the poor (black) neighborhoods
in order to spare the wealthy and white uptown. I learned to hate the
fun-seeking tourists in the French Quarter who never bothered to notice
the sixty percent of the poor of the city. And, once it was built, I
harbored an abiding hatred for the Superdome.

I returned to New Orleans in the spring of 1979 to give a paper at the
annual meeting of the Organization of American Historians, which was held
at the Hyatt Hotel that is attached to the Superdome, the first time I had
seen it. I reluctantly stayed in the hotel and never went outside while
there, because I was well aware the surrounding area was a no-man's land
where police did not dare to go, a low level insurgency operating from the
day the doors had opened four years earlier.

I kept warning others that they should not go out, even in taxis, because
they would be in danger returning. I tried to explain why, to no avail.
Sure enough, a young historian from Maine was shot and killed by a sniper
in front of the Hyatt after returning from fun in the French Quarter.
After that, the historians stayed inside until ready to go to the airport
in buses.

Now, New Orleans will be rebuilt as one big "urban renewal" project,
destroying the remaining working class homes and apartments, a sort of
Disneyland for tourists and the wealthy. It's been going in that direction
for forty years, as have other cities like Manhattan and San Francisco.
But, it may not be that easy with that insurgency which, hopefully, will
not capitulate.

Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz is a longtime activist, university professor, and
writer. In addition to numerous scholarly books and articles she has
published two historical memoirs, Red Dirt: Growing Up Okie (Verso, 1997),
and Outlaw Woman: A Memoir of the War Years, 19601975 (City Lights, 2002).
"Red Christmas" is excerpted from her forthcoming book, Blood on the
Border: A Memoir of the Contra War, South End Press, October 2005. She can
be reached at: rdunbaro [at] pacbell.net


--------16 of 20--------

Winds, Yes; Of Change? Not Likely
No Direction Home
By CHRIS FLOYD
CounterPunch
September 7, 2005

 "How does it feel
 To be on your own
 With no direction home."
   -Bob Dylan, "Like a Rolling Stone"

Let's be clear about one thing. Nothing that has happened in the past week
- the mass destruction in the Mississippi Delta, the obliteration of the
city of New Orleans, the murderous abandonment of thousands of people to
death, chaos and disease - will change the Bush Administration or American
politics at all. Not one whit. The Bush Administration will not reverse
its brutal policies; its Congressional rubber-stamps will not revolt
against the White House; the national Democrats will not suddenly grow a
spine. There will be no real change, and the bitter corrosion of
injustice, indifference and inhumanity that is consuming American society
will go on as before.

One proof of this can be found in the first polls coming out after the
disaster, which show that a full 46 percent of the American people approve
of Bush's handling of the relief effort. It seems inconceivable that any
sentient being could witness the agonizing results of the Bush team's
dithering, dilatory response - an agony played out in the full glare of
non-stop media coverage - and not come away with a sense of towering anger
at this criminal incompetence. But it's obvious that nearly half the
American people have now left the "reality-based community" altogether;
they see only what they want to see, a world bathed in the hazy, golden
nimbus of the Leader. The fact - the undeniable truth - that behind this
carefully-concocted mirage lies nothing more than a steaming pile of
rancid, rotting offal means nothing to these true believers. The Lie is
better, the Lie is more comforting, the Lie lets them keep feeding on the
suffering of others without guilt or shame.

This painful split between obvious reality and popular perception is
nothing new, of course. Today we look at old footage of Adolf Hitler and
wonder how on earth such a pathetic and ludicrous creature could ever have
commanded the adoration and obedience of tens of millions of people. Yet
he did. As Eliot said, "Human kind cannot bear very much reality."

The fact that a few conservative commentators and politicians are making
mild criticisms of Bush means nothing. There has been much trumpeting of
the remarks by David Brooks of the New York Times that Bush's manifest
failures in the Delta - coming after the debacle of the Iraq occupation,
the torture revelations, etc. - could be a "watershed" moment when the
nation loses faith in its institutions, a situation Brooks likened to the
1970s. But even in making these comments on one hand, Brooks was taking
them back with the other, saying clearly that he might "get over" his
disappointment with Bush soon enough. Think of it: Brooks has watched
people literally dying before his very eyes after being abandoned to their
fate for days by Bush's criminal negligence - and he thinks he can "get
over" that at some point, and give his full-throated approval to the
Leader once again.

This is the general mind-set (if you want to dignify the inch-deep
shallowness of Brooks' intellect with the word "mind") of all the
conservative critics: gosh, Bush really dropped the ball on this one! He'd
better turn the PR thing around, or he might lose some of the "political
capital" he needs to "advance his second-term agenda." That's it. That's
as far as it goes.

After all, they fully support the "agenda" - more war, more tax cuts for
the rich, more impunity for big corporations, more welfare for the oil
barons, the coal barons, the nuke barons, more coddling of elite
investors, more state power for Christian extremists, more media
consolidation, more graft, more kickbacks, more easy money for greasy
palms. And now that Karl Rove has finally figured out his response -
employing brazen lies to smear state and local officials - you will very
quickly see the conservative critics, especially in Congress, fall into
lockstep with the porcine counsellor's program.

By the time Congress holds hearings into the disaster, they'll be singing
love songs to the Leader; the hearings themselves will doubtless turn into
a pageant of heroic tableaux - glittering stories of the heroic federal
effort to rescue the perishing, all of it driven by the calm and steady
hand of the Commander-in-chief. Oh, there might be a scapegoat or two for
the Congressmen to pummel with puff-cheeked righteous rage for the
cameras. But anyone hoping for a fearless, presidency-shaking probe will
be disappointed.

Just as the media have always overhyped Bush's popularity, they are now
overhyping the "political crisis" he is supposedly facing. There is no
political crisis whatsoever, if by "political crisis" you mean something
that will cause Bush to alter his policies. The war in Iraq will go on.
The war against the poor will go on. The slow destruction of middle-class
security and stability will go on. The long and ferocious rightwing
campaign against the very idea of a "common good" will go on, unabated -
perhaps even strengthened as it faces a backlash from the half of the
American public that actually accepts the reality of what they saw in New
Orleans and all along the ravaged Gulf Coast.

This is what you must understand: Bush and his faction do not care if they
have "the consent of the governed" or not. They are not interested in
governing at all, in responding to the needs and desires and will of the
people. They are only interested in ruling, in using the power of the
state to force their radical agenda of elitist aggrandizement and
ideological crankery on the nation, and on the world.

They have a large, hard core of true believers who will countenance - even
applaud - any crime, any corruption, any incompetence of the Leader and
his minions. With this base, and with all of the branches of government
already in their hands, the Faction need only procure the reluctant
support of just a small percentage of the rest of the population - through
fearmongering, through smears and lies, and, as we saw in 2000 and 2004,
through the manipulation of election results via politically connected
voting-machine corporations and politically partisan election officials.

None of this will change because of what happened in New Orleans. If these
people could be touched by suffering and injustice, by death and
destruction, by corruption and incompetence, then they would not be where
they are today. If there was a viable opposition in the American
Establishment to Bush's policies, it would have stood up long ago. Like
the people left behind in New Orleans, we're all on our own - "with no
direction home."

How does it feel?

Chris Floyd is a columnist for The Moscow Times and regular contributor to
CounterPunch. A new, upgraded version of his blog, "Empire Burlesque," can
be found at www.chris-floyd.com.


--------17 of 20--------

The Rich and the Dead
Bush Legacy: a Few Prosper; Thousands Perish
By JASON LEOPOLD
CounterPunch
September 7, 2005

Chalk another one up for the Bush administration. That'll be President
Bush's long lasting legacy when we look back on the first few years of the
21st Century. Thousands of people killed on U.S. soil because the
president failed to protect them.

There won't be any admission of guilt, no one to take responsibility, no
one fired for screwing up, just lies and spin, and mudslinging.

You may be familiar with some of that already.

"I don't think anyone anticipated the breach of the levees," President
Bush told Diane Sawyer in an interview last week in response to questions
about the reason federal authorities took two days to aid the victims of
Hurricane Katrina.

That's a page right out of Condoleeza Rice's playbook.

No one "could have predicted that they [al-Qaeda] would try to use a
hijacked airplane as a missile," Rice told the commission investigating
the 9/11 terrorist attacks in 2003.

Wrong and wrong. Or rather, liar, liar.

There were warnings, memos, emails, phone calls, newspaper reports,
meetings, threats, and cries for help. They were just ignored by the
president and his administration.

Still, there are those who refuse to believe that President Bush and his
closest advisers have spent their entire term in office lying to the
American public about everything from the Iraq war to social security to
the environment to Medicaid and so on.

It's all documented; the lies. In black and white, in intelligence memos,
emails, news reports, transcripts. Even with a mountain of evidence
stacked against them, the Bush administration behaves like sociopaths.

Perhaps the apocalyptic images of the devastation wrought by Hurricane
Katrina will shake these people into reality. The mainstream media has
showed a little bit of spine and has asked federal officials some tough
questions about the reasons they failed to do their jobs in the aftermath
of the hurricane.

Prior to grilling a former official of the Federal Emergency Management
Agency (FEMA), Anderson Cooper, a CNN talking head, cautioned viewers
Sunday that the cable network was going to show gruesome images of corpses
scattered amid the wreckage of New Orleans.

"We don't want to gloss this over," Cooper said as the reason CNN was
being brutally honest in its reporting.

It would have been nice if those same reporters had a set of balls and
asked the same tough questions before the war started in Iraq and showed
its viewers the same carnage that littered the streets of Baghdad. There's
no doubt its worse over there. But for now we'll take what we can get.

Jason Leopold is the author of the explosive memoir, News Junkie, to be
released in the spring of 2006 by Process/Feral House Books. Visit
Leopold's website at www.jasonleopold.com for updates.


--------18 of 20--------

From: "ImpeachBush.org" <ImpeachBush [at] VoteToImpeach.org>
VoteToImpeach.org

A MESSAGE FROM RAMSEY CLARK:
Hurricane Katrina, another impeachable crime

The stunning human tragedy of Katrina makes the impeachment of President
Bush more urgent. His priority is not poor people, but militarism to
exploit the poor at home and abroad.

President Bush sent National Guard units to Iraq from Alabama, Louisiana
and Mississippi in a criminal war of aggression and military occupation.
They were thus unavailable to provide emergency services in their own
states, or protect their own families. He refused to return them from Iraq
to save and serve their own people, instead only authorizing the return of
some Air National Guard personnel to protect and repair equipment at an
Air Force Base. The forces and the resources that they command should be
used to meet people's needs, not for violence.

His tax cuts for the rich, huge increases in military spending and
deliberate slashes in social programs, including those funds specifically
requested for flood control and to strengthen dikes in New Orleans and the
surrounding areas, and his complete failure to even consider emergency
transportation for the known poor in the path of a level-5 hurricane,
followed by days of failure to send federal emergency relief personnel to
seek and save the many thousands whose lives were known to be threatened,
who were pleading for help on television and who faced death, was criminal
negligence at best, and a failure to faithfully perform his duties as
President.

George W. Bush will never recognize the rights or human dignity of the
immense and growing population of Americans - overwhelmingly African
American and other minorities and elderly - living in Third World
conditions here at home. They were the principal victims of Katrina, as
they are of his failure to assure equal protection of the laws to all.
Their plight and peril will worsen while President Bush remains President.

The only act that can stop President Bush from continuing his criminal war
of aggression against Iraq and his arrogant criminal acts and threats
against Cuba, Haiti, Iran, Korea, Syria, Venezuela and any country in his
path is impeachment. Impeachment is an act already two years past due. The
cost of delay is staggering: two thousand U.S. military deaths, ten
thousand and more wounded, many thousands more disabled, more than 100,000
Iraqi deaths, several hundred thousand injured, nearly $200,000,000 in
federal funds, and even greater damage to Iraq in shattered lives and
smashed cities and infrastructure. The cost of delay, already staggering,
is greater every day.

While proclaiming freedom his credo, George W. Bush has done more to
destroy freedom and the human dignity which it nourishes than all other
Presidents in our history. Who would have dreamed of Abu Ghraib, scores of
prisoners murdered, assassinations and summary executions, Guantanamo,
thousands imprisoned in the U.S. without Constitutional protections, or
sent to be tortured in client states with impunity, all for a President
and those acting for him? What prior President has proclaimed himself
above the law, coerced more than 100 countries into bilateral treaties
promising never to surrender a U.S. citizen to the International Criminal
Court?

The world watches and wonders why, if the American people are free, they
fail to resist the criminal violence of their President.

The only act that can redeem the United States in the hearts and minds of
those still capable of forgiving and believing our government can change
its violent ways is the impeachment of George W. Bush and the responsible
officials of his administration before it is too late.

The time to begin a final drive for impeachment is now. Together, we are
not helpless. Power is in the people united for peace. Perseverance
through the midterm Congressional elections in November 2006 can force
incumbent members of the House of Representatives to impeach President
Bush or face defeat. Failing that, it can restore integrity and honor to
the President's oath to "preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of
the United States."

The Constitution, written with the abuses of King George III painfully in
mind, is unequivocal in the action required for criminal conduct of civil
officers of the United States:

"The President, Vice President and all civil Officers of the United
States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction
of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors." Article II,
Section 4.

The Nuremberg Judgment proclaimed war of aggression "the Supreme
international crime." World War II was comprised of wars of aggression.
President Bush boasted assassination and summary executions in his 2003
State of the Union message.

We need your help. Vote to Impeach. Persuade others to vote to impeach
now.

The impeachment campaign will be achieving its largest ever street
visibility by organizing a huge contingent on September 24th, at what will
be the largest peace demonstration in Washington D.C. since the war of
aggression against Iraq began in March 2003. The demonstration will call
loud and clear for impeachment, withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq and
Afghanistan, and full reparations to the victims of U.S. violence.

We are organizing buses from many cities on September 24th. Ticket prices
are being kept low so that everyone who wants to come can attend. Printing
banners, signs, posters add to the expenses. We are also preparing to
publish another round of full page ads in the New York Times and other
newspapers so that the message of impeachment resonates not only on
September 24, but in the critical weeks and months ahead.

We need money now to help promote and transport people who want peace to
Washington on September 24, for the next round of newspaper ads, and for
the acceleration and continuation of the impeachment drive into the
Congressional elections next year. Please take a moment to make a much
needed donation: http://www.pephost.org/site/R?i=cBCPYbLe9S3N7x5jnfzFXw..

Sincerely, Ramsey Clark


--------19 of 20--------

(Gacelas are a Spanish equivalent of ghazals by way of the Moors. In the
Spanish tradition, they are usually elegiac and talk about cities. Lorca
wrote a book of them.)

 Richard Broderick
 GACELA OF THE NEW ORLEANS FLOOD

 Charon, lift the coin
 from the eyelids of the poor
 floating past on their backs,
 unable to afford
 even your meager fare.
 Loot their plundered lives
 one last time
 before letting them
 cross over the ruined levee.
 Test the metal with your teeth.
 Make sure it's pure --
 Gold of sweltering hours spent
 waiting in lines that never end.
 Silver of fallen arches
 and swollen veins.
 Nickel of the beat cop's glare.
 Weighted down in life, their bodies
 are light enough now
 to float upon the toxic water,
 this River Styx drained
 from a poisoned continent,
 while we, plying the bottom
 in our boats, watch them
 drift by overhead
 like clouds at dusk,
 like clouds finally glowing
 against a pitch-black sky.

        e-mail: richb [at] lakecast.com


--------20 of 20--------

 Bush & Cheney

 There they float, side by side, in the big porcelain bowl.

 High up there is a large chrome handle.

 Bon voyage!


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

   - David Shove             shove001 [at] tc.umn.edu
   rhymes with clove         Progressive Calendar
                     over 2225 subscribers as of 12.19.02
              please send all messages in plain text no attachments