Mn-prog-events Mailing List: Progressive Calendar 09.10.05

[David Shove (shove001]

            P R O G R E S S I V E   C A L E N D A R      09.10.05

1. Smith/Gaza report   9.10 9:30am
2. NWA strike          9.10 10am
3. Start seeing Haiti  9.10 10am
4. Schell book gab     9.10 10am StCloud
5. Mizna arts classes  9.10 10am
6. Do no military      9.10 10:30am
7. Selby Av Jazzfest   9.10 12noon
8. King's Fair/Cam     9.10 12noon
9. FNVW/Steger/950AM   9.10 1am
10. Cam Gordon party   9.10 6pm
11. Library voter info 9.10 3pm
12. Barbara Ehrenreich 9.10 7pm
13. Coreopsis poetry   9.10 7pm

14. Work/peace/picnic  9.11 12noon
15. DC bus fundraiser  9.11 12noon
16. Sensible vigil     9.11 12noon
17. 9/11 poetry talk   9.11 2pm
18. TradJazz/Katrina $ 9.11 3:30pm
19. CUAPB picnic       9.11 4pm
20. KFAI/No Indian     9.11 4pm
21. Palestine          9.11 4pm

22. Dave Lindorff  - The big blowback: Katrina's silver lining
23. Steven Sherman - The American left and the Battle of New Orleans
24. Robert Jensen  - The heart of whiteness: race stories
25. Elaine Cassel  - Judge Roberts: on the far right of a far right party
26. ed             - The Bush ruling class (poem)

--------1 of 26--------

From: Florence Steichen <Steichenfm [at] usfamily.net>
Subject: Smith/Gaza report 9.10 9:30am

MIDDLE EAST PEACE NOW presents
David Smith: Report from Gaza:  Occupation, Withdrawal and the Future

Fr. David Smith, Prof. of Peace and Justice Studies at the University of
St. Thomas, spent July with a Michigan Peace Team in Gaza, Ramallah,
Bethlehem and Hebron.

His photos show images of destruction and recovery.  The peace team
visited with common people and leaders, walked through the rubble of
demolitions, celebrated Mass where Rachel Corrie was killed and attempted
to intercede at sealed checkpoints.  They conducted workshops for young
leaders and clowned, juggled and fiddled for the children.  They urged
active nonviolent responses and encouraged Gazans to dream and plan for a
self-reliant future.

Saturday September 10
10am (9:30 coffee)

Univ of StThomas, Rm 126, John Roach Center, corner of Summit and
Cleveland, next to greenhouse.  Free parking Lot H, Cretin & Summit and
other commuter lots.

For information call:  (651) 696-1642


--------2 of 26--------

From: Solidarity Committee <nwasolidaritymsp [at] hotmail.com>
Subject: NWA strike 9.10 10am

The leadership of AMFA Local 33 asked the Solidarity Committee to postpone
Friday's (9.09) demonstration in order to build for a larger event that
will connect to other solidarity events around the country.  They in no
way want to discourage our activism, but rather want to utilize our time
and efforts in the best possible way to move the strike effort forward.
As we are an organization supporting the needs of these striking workers,
we must first and foremost take direction from their organization.

Please attend Saturday Morning's Solidarity Committee meeting to help plan
the following events:

 1. The action to replace the Friday demonstration
 2. Secondary actions, such as the Guthrie Theater demonstration
 3. A labor movement fundraiser for the strikers

We will also have updates on t-shirt/sign/button sales and distribution,
as well as additional opportunities to communicate with a growing
solidarity network across the country.  Meeting information is as follows:

Saturday September 10, 10am

AMFA office: 8101 34th Avenue South.  Exit I-494 at 34th Avenue.  Proceed
South (away from the airport).  Turn Left at Appletree.  Turn right into
first parking lot, and follow the signs to enter the building.
Metrotransit riders take the 55-Light Rail line to "Bloomington Central."
Exit the station, and walk East until you hit 34th Avenue.  Turn left,
walk one block, and the building will be on your right.


--------3 of 26---------

From: humanrts [at] umn.edu
Subject: Start seeing Haiti 9.10 10am

September 10 - Saturday Morning Coffee Hour: Start Seeing Haiti.
10-11:30 a.m..  Cost: $4 ($3 for members).

April Knutson and Laura Flynn, members of Minnesota's Haiti Justice
Committee, will discuss their recent travel to Haiti, current political
and economic realities there, and ways people can get involved in the
Start Seeing Haiti campaign.

Location: Resource Center of the Americas, 3019 Minnehaha Ave., Minneapolis


--------4 of 26---------

From: humanrts [at] umn.edu
Subject: Schell book gab 9.10 10am StCloud

September 10 - Book Discussion: "Unconquerable World".
10am

Discussion of Johnathan Schell s book Unconquerable World - Alternatives
to War Committee

FFI: Marly Keller - marlyask [at] charter.net
Location: St. Cloud Public Library,, 405 St. Germain St. West St. Cloud


--------5 of 26--------

From: mizna-announce <mizna-announce [at] mizna.org>
Subject: Mizna arts classes 9.10 10am

Class spotlight:  Needlepoint: A piece of heritage
Instructor:  Fawzia Reda
Max Class Size: 12
Teenagers - Adult
September 10 - October 15
Saturdays 10am-12pm

Students will be introduced to a variety of beautiful embroidery ideas,
inspired by designs and colors that are based in Arabian, Persian, Berber,
Indian, and Anadalusian traditions. A special project will celebrate
Palestinian cross-stitch and its centuries-old enduring tradition.

To see a more detailed class description, instructor bio. and/or register
online: http://www.mizna.org/classes/index.html

ABOUT CLASSES:
Community members can learn many new skills and be exposed to aspects of
Arab culture in a friendly community setting. These classes are taught by
experienced members of the local community and are extremely affordable.
People can register online by going to Mizna's website at
http://www.mizna.org or by sending a check to our address. Complete course
information and bios of instructor s is available on our website as well.

Other classes include: Arabic Language, Watercolor from Photographs, Media
Image.

Mizna 2205 California Street NE #109A Minneapolis, Minnesota 55418
612-788-6920 Mizna [at] Mizna.org www.mizna.org

Mizna is a forum for Arab art that values diversity in the Arab community.

Visit our website to learn more:  http://www.mizna.org or email us at
Mizna [at] Mizna.org


--------6 of 26--------

From: wamm <wamm [at] mtn.org>
Subject: Do no military 9.10 10:30am

Coalition for Alternatives to Military Service (CAMS) Meeting Saturday,
September 10, 10:30am. Twin Cities Friends Meeting House, 1725 Grand
Avenue, St. Paul.

A coalition of organizations: Veterans for Peace, Religious Society of
Friends, Every Church a Peace Church, other faith-based organizations,
WAMM, parents, grandparents, educators, students, anyone concerned.
Discuss ways to counter militarism in schools and find alternatives to
military service. FFI: Call the WAMM office 612-827-5364.


--------7 of 26--------

From: Renee Jenson <faarjenson [at] qwest.net>
Subject: Selby Av jazzfest 9.10 12noon

Come down tomorrow and see me at the Selby Avenue Jazzfest from Noon-8.
We're going to be having lots of fun at this neighborhood celebration.
And you can get a look at some of the economic development that is
happening on Selby and I'm sure talk to lots of polticians.  The Selby
Area CDC had the following info about the Jazzfest on their website:

Come out and join in the fun of the
4th Annual Selby Avenue JazzFest
September 10
Noon til 8pm
Selby and Milton

Kick off with a march from Victoria to Selby with the Dick and Jane Brass
Band, bring your hat and join in the fun

Ramsey Jr. High Youth Jazz
Double Stop Guitar Trio
Walker West Jazz Ensemble with elite students
The Great Brodini (Magician)
Alicia Wiley Jazz Band
Jazz Heritage Showcase
Patty Lacy-Aiken and Contemporary Gospel Jazz Ensemble and Tribute to
Luther Vandross

Enjoy along with the great jazz
*Pony Rides
*Soulful Fair Food
*Artists
*Christmas Gifts
*Family Fun Zone

--
From: ed
Saturday September 10
Elizabeth Dickinson at
Selby Avenue Jazzfest
12noon-8pm


--------8 of 26--------

From: David Strand <mncivil [at] yahoo.com>
Subject: King's Fair/Cam 9.10 12noon

Cam Gordon and other GP Mpls Citywide candidates will also be at this
event.

King's Fair:  History of this event: (Seward Neighborhood)
http://profile.tripark.org/articles/articles.php?id=219

Saturday September 10
12noon-5pm (core hours of festival)
Matthews Recreation Center / Park 2318 - 28th Avenue South


--------9 of 26--------

From: Sheila Sullivan <aiisullivan [at] yahoo.com>
Subject: FNVW/Steger/950AM 9.10 1am

Tune in to Air America 950AM from 1-2pm this Saturday to hear Phil Steger
talk about the peace work of FNVW! (Friends for a Non-Violent World)

Jonathan Schell will also be calling into the show from his office at The
Nation Institute in New York City. He'll talk about his work as the peace
and disarmament columnist for The Nation Magazine and give a preview of
his presentation and discussion for FNVW "Will Peace Win? The Will of the
People and the End of War," September 17th at 8pm at the Fitzgerald
Theater.

Check out the radio program to raise the profile of FNVW and to get a
preview of the peace event of season!


--------10 of 26--------

From: "Krueger, Rodney" <rodney.krueger [at] frontiercorp.com>
Subject: Library voter info 9.10 3pm

A reminder that the Minneapolis Public Library is teaming up with the
League of Women Voters of Minneapolis and Kids Voting Minneapolis to
prepare voters for the September 13th Primary and November 8 General
Election.

Volunteers will be staffing information tables to answers questions about
the city election and logistics of how, when and where to vote.

The Voter Information Expo is from Noon - 3pm Saturday, September 10 at
the following libraries:

Interim Central library, 250 Marquette Ave
Pierre Bottineau, 55 Broadway Ave. NE
Northeast Library, 2200 Central Ave. NE
Walker Library, 2880 Hennepin Ave. S.
Washburn Library, 5244 Lyndale Ave. S.
Webber Park Library, 4310 Webber Parkway

Where to Vote:  http://www.lwvmpls.org/wherevote.htm or call City of
Minneapolis Elections: 673-2070


--------11 of 26--------

From: David Luce <luce [at] usfamily.net>
Subject: Cam Gordon party 9.10 6pm

We will host a houseparty to benefit the Ward 2 City Council campaign of
Cam Gordon at our home on Saturday, September 10 from 6-8 pm.

426 29th Ave. North, Minneapolis.  Questions call: 612.529.3950.
--David & Meg Luce


--------12 of 26--------

From: Lydia Howell <lhowell [at] visi.com>
Subject: Barbara Ehrenreich  9.10 7pm

Barbara Ehrenreich, columnist for The progressive and author of "NICKLED &
DIMED: Getting By in America", BLOOD RITES (on war and militarism) and
HEARTS OF MEN (cultural changes in defnition of masculinity from the 1950s
through the 1980s)and others will be on CSPAN2 BookTV (TC cable 19/20 See
local listing)

She will be talking about her new book looking at changes in the
American middle-class.
Sat Sept 10, 7pm
Sun Sept 11, 5pm and 8pm


--------13 of 26--------

From: Coreopsis Poetry Collective <coreopsispoetry [at] yahoo.com>
Subject: Coreopsis poetry 9.10 7pm

Coreopsis Poetry Collective
in conjunction with
Black Dog Café
308 Prince Street
St. Paul, MN 55101
(651) 228-9274

An Evening of Poetry
Saturday, September 10
7pm

Featuring:
Melanie Figg
Steve Healey
Yuko Taniguchi

Short open mic to follow
Inaugural Reading Chapbooks for sale
Donations graciously welcomed
Please Patronize Black Dog Café

Coreopsis Poetry Collective
We exist to cultivate a community of diverse local artists and poets which
integrates all art forms centered around poetry.

Erin Lynn Marsh
Barbara Tarrant

Email questions to: CoreopsisPoetry [at] yahoo.com


--------14 of 26--------

From: Sue Ann <mart1408 [at] umn.edu>
Subject: Work/peace/picnic 9.11 12noon

NONVIOLENT PEACEFORCE invites you to JOIN THE GLOBAL MOVEMENT
and participate in the 4th Annual Work a Day for Peace!!!
Sunday September 11, 2005

Starting at Noon - Food served from 12-2:00

At Central Park in Roseville, MN Lions Shelter and Foundation Shelter
2545-2495 N. Victoria Street / Roseville, MN 55113 Lexington Avenue South
on County road C

Clowns, face painting, playground, and games.
Bring your baseball mitt, badminton rackets, volleyball shoes, and soccer ball
and join the fun - there's something for everyone!!

Free for Work a Day Contributors who donate one day's wages for peace!
Work a Day Donations from $5 to $500!
Suggested $5 donation requested at the Park

For more information call the Nonviolent Peaceforce at 612-871-0005

Your support of WORK A DAY FOR PEACE enables NP field team members to
reduce violence in Sri Lanka by:
 * Facilitating the release and return of child soldiers to their
families.
 * Contributing, as election observers, to the most peaceful Sri Lankan
elections in many years.
 * Limiting civilian casualties during a battle between two Tamil Tiger
factions.
 * Ensuring equitable distribution of tsunami relief.
 * Providing safety and passage to high-risk civilians. Here's how you can
participate in WORK A DAY FOR PEACE 2005:
 * Donate one day's wages to Nonviolent Peaceforce.
 * Share the opportunity to WORK A DAY FOR PEACE with family, friends,
co-workers, and community groups.
 * Gather on September 11, 2005 to celebrate and strengthen the growing
global movement toward nonviolent means of conflict resolution! While we
now associate Sept 11 with the 2001 attacks on the U.S., we encourage you
to instead commemorate the September 11, 1906 birth of Satayagraha, or the
"Soul Force" nonviolent movement led by Mahatma Gandhi to resist ethnic
oppression in South Africa.  Had the world not forgotten the message of
the earlier 9/11 the later 9/11 might not have occurred at all. Here's
what you'll be supporting by Working a Day for Peace!
 * The momentum grows for a worldwide alternative to violence!
 * The second wave of professional peacekeepers arrived in the field this
month and will bring our Field Team Staff to 25 in four locations
throughout Sri Lanka.
 * NP played a key role in the Global Partnership for the Prevention of
Armed Conflict (GPPAC) conference, a international conference at the
United Nations headquarters in New York that focused on the role of civil
society in the prevention of armed conflict.
 * Our work continues to grow.  In late August our International
Governance Council will review several expansion proposals including
Uganda and southern Sudan, Mindanao in the Philippines, Colombia,
Burma/Myanmar, and Israel and Palestine - it won't be long until another
NP team is on the ground helping communities develop alternatives to
violence!

Nonviolent Peaceforce is a nonpartisan unarmed peacekeeping force composed
of trained civilians from around the world.  In partnership with local
groups, professional Nonviolent Peaceforce members apply proven nonviolent
strategies to protect human rights, deter violence, and help create space
for local peacemakers to carry out their work.

For more information visit: www.nonviolentpeaceforce.org    612-871-0005
What to say YES to when you say NO to war!


--------15 of 26--------

From: tracymolm <tracy0581 [at] redconcepts.net>
Subject: DC bus fundraiser 9.11 12noon

Support The Bus!  Bus Fundraiser
Sunday 9/11 12noon-3pm at Mayday Books (301 Cedar Ave, Minneapolis)

Help support the AWC bus going to Washington D.C. Sept. 24, and also join
us for the protest by being on our banner.  We have made a specific banner
for Minnesotans who are against the war to sign.  Donations requested to
sign the banner and join us in writing and spirit!

Bus Trip to Anti-War Protest in Washington D.C.
The weekend of Sept 24.
Mark your calendars to join the AWC on a bus trip to Washington D.C. to
join with activists and progressive people around the country to say NO to
the war and occupation of Iraq! Bus tickets $125 - details coming soon. To
sign up for the bus, e-mail Tracy at bus [at] antiwarcommittee.org.  You can
visit our website to make a donation.

For more info, call us at 612.379.3899
Check out our website at http://www.antiwarcommittee.org


--------16 of 26--------

From: skarx001 <skarx001 [at] umn.edu>
Subject: Sensible vigil 9.11 12noon

The sensible people for peace hold weekly peace vigils at the intersection
of Snelling and Summit in StPaul, Sunday between 12noon and 1pm. (This is
across from the Mac campus.) We provide signs protesting current gov.
foreign and domestic policy. We would appreciate others joining our
vigil/protest.


--------17 of 26--------

From: PrairiePoet58 [at] aol.com
From: Samantha Smart <speakoutsisters [at] earthlink.net>
Subject: 9/11 poetry talk 9.11 2pm

Sisters! Comrades!
Please come to the first in the next Speak Out Sisters!
Whistle Stop Coffee Shop Series and hear/share the brilliance of poet
Leigh Herrick

Bringing R-Evolution to Poetry:  Roque Dalton et al  for the 9-11 World.
Mapp's Coffee House, 1810 Riverside Ave
Sunday September 11 2-4pm

Leigh Herrick:

"Yevgeny Yevtushenko wrote, 'The truth is replaced by silence and the
silence is a lie.'

I have for many years clung to such lines of poetry that bear painful
witness not only to Yevtushenko's post-Stalin Russia, but also to much of
the silence of an American poetry that may complain yet not transform, may
criticize but not provide what Adrienne Rich calls 'the process whereby
language and consciousness can dialectically change each other,' a process
she suggests would bring us 'toward a poetry of ourselves and others
living under the conditions of twenty-first century absolutism, making us
discernible in a time when the human concrete is continually being erased
by state and religious violence and by disingenuous jargon serving state
power.'

This process would be the phenomenon Guy Debord has said continues to
escape theorists of revolution: That 'every revolution has been born in
poetry, has first of all been made with the force of poetry.' Every
history of social change and resistance has had a poetry ready to serve
and able to describe it.  One need only read the lamentations of
En-hédu-ana to see this ancient practice of transcribing personal
resistance and political dissent."  - Leigh Herrick

I am very sorry about the poor souls suffering from Hurricane Katrina.
I'm also noticing her personification is that of "fury" and "wrath."  I
wasn't paying close enough attention to recall the personification of the
male-named hurricanes.  In light of Minneapolis Green Party Mayoral
Candidate Farheen Hakeem's being cornered recently with the question "Are
you an angry woman?" I can only think to myself "Oh jeeeez, here we go
again...."

What?  Angry about injustice and oppression?  Angry about poverty and lack
of housing?  Angry about environmental degradation?  Angry even about the
irony that certain advantages allow such time and money for some to
purchase gasoline and drive to the next antiwar rally?  (Ouch.  Now
there's a real sticky one.)  By the way, has anyone asked: Is St. Paul
Green Party Mayoral Candidate Elizabeth Dickinson angry?

This year I'm not driving or bussing to DC.  I'm going to stay right here,
conserve my gasoline, and continue to work on a poetry that I can only
hope will somehow help serve the conscious evolution of humanity.  A
hurricane angry?  No.  But a woman (some want to know)?  A woman angry?
Well, yes.

 Angry like Wangaari Matthai who was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
 Angry like Shirin Ibadi who was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
 Angry like Helen Caldicott who was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize
(now we all know she's really angry).
 Angry like Shirin Neshat and Frida and willful as well.
 Willful as Sonia Sanchez and Adrienne Rich, Marge Piercy and Michel
deGuy, willful as Yehuda Amichai and Saadi Youssef, Gwendolyn Brooks and
Sappho, Yevgeney Yevtushenko, June Jordan, Wen-siang, Aime Cesaire, Suji
Kwock Kim and Ernesto Cardinal.
 Willful enough to position oneself as an obstacle to those who do not
want such poetry and goings-on to occupy the thoughts of the occupiers or
the occupied by offering reasons why change is necessary and must come.
Those who know do better.  Those who know understand it is exactly for
reasons of humanity that a change must really be made to come.
 I will hope to give a decent talk.  -Leigh Herrick


--------18 of 26--------

From: Lydia Howell <lhowell [at] visi.com>
Subject: TradJazz/Katrina $ 9.11 3:30pm

Will Shapira (sha-PIE-rah), the original voice of Leigh Kamman's Jazz
Calendar, sends this tidbit along.

From: <WShapira [at] aol.com>

My wife, Leslie Carole Johnson, editor/ The Mississippi Rag: The Voice of
Traditional Jazz and Ragtime/ www.mississippirag.com received an email
from veteran Twin Cities traditional jazz musician Jim Torok this
afternoon, announcing a benefit concert for Sept. 11, 3:30-9:30pm, Wesley
Methodist Church, Marquette and Grant, downtown Minneapolis "to raise
funds to support jazz musicians in New Orleans and the Minneapolis Relief
Fund which will support rebuilding of the cities affected by Hurricane
Katrina." Attendees will be asked to contribute.  Minneapolis mayor R.T.
Rybak will speak.

Bands donating their services include Minnesota Dixie, The Bill Evans New
Orleans Jazz Band, The Jumpin' Jehosaphats, The Mouldy Figs and the Pigs
Eye Jass Band.

"New Orleans was the birthplace of jazz and all jazz musicians feel a loss
at the destruction of this wonderful city which gave us the roots of our
music today," Torok said. "We ask jazz lovers throughout the Twin Cities
to show their support of the event."

Those publications which already have gone to press are asked to put this
information on their websites ASAP. Please feel free to share this
information with other media who are not listed above, with friends,
family, associates et al.

For further information please contact Jim Torok torok001 [at] umn.edu.


--------19 of 26--------

From: Michelle Gross <mgresist [at] minn.net>
Subject: CUAPB picnic 9.11 4pm

Survivor/Family Picnic and Social Event
Sunday September 11
4pm
Powderhorn Park, 3400 15th Ave S, Minneapolis

We're hosting one of our semiannual social events for people affected by
police brutality.  This is a wonderful opportunity for folks to get
together in a relaxed, safe environment to enjoy some food and fun, swap
stories, and build relationships that will lead to people supporting each
other in their quest for justice.  612-874-7867.


--------20 of 26--------

From: Chris Spotted Eagle <chris [at] spottedeagle.org>
Subject: No Indian 9.11 4pm

KFAI's Indian Uprising for Sept 11

Indian Uprising for Sept. 11th is preempted, i.e., no program.  There
will be instead a special program for Ethiopian New Years from noon to
6pm.


--------21 of 26-------

From: humanrts [at] umn.edu
Subject: Palestine 9.11 4pm

September 11 - Workshop: Palestinian/Israeli Crisis (2nd).  4pm

Rabbi Lynn Gottlieb, one of the first ten women to become a rabbi in
Jewish history, a congregational rabbi for 32 years, and devoted to
interfaith peacemaking and working towards a just and compassionate
outcome for Israel and Palestine, will speak and conduct a workshop.  On
Sunday, Lynn will present the Shomer Shalom workshop exploring the
spiritual and religious frameworks for waging peace in Jewish life and how
they apply to our time.

FFI Ilano Favero liana [at] tcinternet.net
Location: Mayim Rabim Congregation 4401 York Ave S, Minneapolis


--------22 of 26--------

The Big Blowback
Katrina's Silver Lining
By DAVE LINDORFF
CounterPunch
September 9 / 11, 2005

If there is any silver lining to the smoke-laced cloud that is hanging
over the toxic cesspool and mass graveyard that used to be New Orleans, it
is the just deserts that are coming to the millions of people who put the
Bush Administration and the lunatic right in power in Washington.

Sure, the poor are getting clobbered in New Orleans and across the breadth
of the Gulf coast, and sure, we are all in for it now, progressives and
political Neanderthals alike, as the economy stumbles and oil prices soar,
but I still take keen satisfaction in watching as the gullible idiots who
voted for a movement that promised them little token tax cuts and smaller
government have to face the consequences of their selfish actions.

In a few short months, Bush's years of neglect of conservation, combined
with his callous disregard for the security of New Orleans, will cost
Americans more in heating and gasoline bills than all the tax breaks they
have received and hoped to receive over the full eight years of the Bush
presidency. The destruction of the port of New Orleans will end up sending
food prices on an inflationary spiral even as the economy is likely to
slip into recession. Perhaps most deliciously of all, the inflation in
energy and food prices that will result from New Orleans' decimation,
combined with the massive increase in the government budget deficit its
rebuilding will entail, ensures that the Federal Reserve will have to
continue raising interest rates, thus popping the housing bubble that has
so enriched homeowning, mostly Republican, voters. (The biggest inflation
in housing has occurred in wealthy Republican Sunbelt regions of Florida
and California, and in the high-end, mostly Republican neighborhoods of
major cities like Boston, New York and San Francisco.)

All of this was predictable. You couldn't have known that it would be New
Orleans that would be the keystone whose removal would crumble the
right-wing edifice. It could have been the War in Iraq, which promises to
get worse and worse. It could have been the long-predicted Big One in
California, or the still looming Bird Flu epidemic. In the end it was a
moderately big hurricane and a dead city that did the trick. But the
groundwork for disaster was laid over the last few decades by a mass of
middle-class people who somehow believed (with a fervor akin to that of
fundamentalists who believe the earth is flat and was formed in seven
days) that it would be a great idea to put into federal office people
whose fundamental ideological view is that government doesn't work, does
everything (except making war and convicting and executing the right
people) badly, and should be made as small and weak as possible.

Yet with such governmental nihilists in power, how could the outcome in
New Orleans have been other than an epic disaster? Would these people have
hired teachers for their schools who didn't believe kids could learn?
Would they have gone to doctors when they were sick, who professed a
belief that medicine was a joke? Would they have hired a contractor to
build their home who said that engineering and architecture were for
sissies?

The Bush/Republican approach to disaster relief is to stay on vacation
(Bush and Cheney), go shopping (Secretary of State Condi Rice), let the
locals handle it (FEMA Director Michael Brown), stay in Washington and
insist everything is fine (Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff),
and then to call on people to make contributions to the Salvation Army and
Rev. Pat Robertson's "charity" slush fund. Republicans gutted the Federal
Emergency Management Agency, slashed funding to states and local
governments for basic police and fire services, shipped off existing first
responder personnel (who generally join National Guard units because it
makes sense, and because they pick up some extra cash) to Iraq, where they
were never meant to be. Then they appointed a dim-witted political hack to
head it all up, and they put him under a Homeland Security secretary whose
prior management experience was ordering around a couple of court clerks
and a court stenographer, and who has displayed his grasp of the current
crisis facing his department by declaring that Louisiana is a city. (If
America were Japan, the streets of downtown Washington today would be
slippery with the gore of legions of leaders and department heads, from
the president on down, committing ritual harikiri. Sadly, our leaders
don't do such things; they just blame subordinates or others.)

One has to hope that this debacle - the unprecedented loss of an important
American city and the slaughter of 10,000 or more innocent people through
incompetence and malicious neglect - and the ensuing financial pain it
will inflict on the whole American public, including the me-first lot that
put the whole conservative rat pack in Washington, will lead to a rebirth
of rational self-interest and perhaps even of a social conscience in the
American body politic.

Seeing fellow Americans going through the hell they have been enduring in
New Orleans has to make some of the less cold-hearted of Republican and
swing voters realize the evil that their own chosen leaders have wrought.
Meanwhile, self-interest is likely to make even the empathy-challenged see
the wrong-headedness of handing government over to those who deny its
importance, or who simply use government as a tool for enriching
themselves and their cronies.

Am I right? The polls showing Bush and the Republican congress now sinking
below 34% in public support say yes.

And the real financial pain of New Orleans' destruction has not yet begun
to bite.


--------23 of 26--------

What is to be Done?
The American Left and the Battle of New Orleans
By STEVEN SHERMAN
CounterPunch
September 9 / 11, 2005

About ten years ago, Michael Moore complained that while US leftists raced
to Nicaragua to pick coffee, they did not come to his hometown of Flint
Michigan when it was being destroyed by plant closures. There was some
truth to this. The Central America solidarity movement, which consumed
quite a bit of the energy of the predominantly white progressive movement
in the eighties, was far better organized and dynamic than any parallel
movement against plant closures (and other effects of Reaganism)
domestically. But Moore's statement has always struck me as unfair.
Revolutionary movements in Nicaragua and El Salvador, under constant
attack from US-backed terrorists, called on North Americans to directly
assist them. It was to the credit of people who went to those countries
that they responded to this call. Where was the similar leadership in
Flint? Even in Roger and Me, Moore's poignant documentary about that city,
he provides little evidence that community or union leadership was able to
articulate a strategy to fight back, let alone incorporate activists
unfamiliar with the city.

Now a new situation with some parallels presents itself. While most of the
predominantly white peace movement has been energetically preparing for an
anti-war march on September 24, a massive natural' disaster has unfolded
in New Orleans and the Gulf Region. The horrible spectacle of tens of
thousands of people, mostly poor, mostly African American, left behind to
wither and die as they waited and waited for a rescue response has
powerfully thrust the issue of racism back onto the American political
radar. Once again, a predominantly white movement, mostly focused foreign
policy issues, is challenged to respond to a domestic crisis involving
people who don't look much like those who come to our meetings and
demonstrations. To put it bluntly, are we, like the neoconservatives
around George Bush, more comfortable with struggles far from the shores of
the US than with overcoming differences locally in order to remake and
rebuild the American nation?

The initial response of the peace movement has been encouraging. People
are constantly repeating that the National Guard, which could have helped,
was bogged down in the quagmire in Iraq. People are also talking about the
way money to rebuild the levee in New Orleans was instead diverted to
Iraq. Locally (the Piedmont of North Carolina), activists are frantically
raising funds to deliver three busloads of goods to New Orleans, and to
return with three busloads of evacuees to our region. I'm confident
similar efforts are underway in many places. Still, this initial response,
while laudable, is only the tip of the iceberg.

It is not a simple question of funds, or the competency of George W. Bush.
It is also worth noting the alarming way order has been restored in New
Orleans. The New York Times, for example, yesterday had on their website a
picture of a makeshift prison for looters as an appropriate illustration
of the return of order. Democracy Now has reported that many National
Guard seemed more intent on restoring order' than engaging in rescue
missions.

Reports are also trickling in that refugee camps parallel prison-like
conditions. As in Iraq, liberation seems to mean more policing and
incarceration. The US, having liberated' Iraq, is now intent on
reorganizing it according to priorities such as neoliberal draining of
capital to the US and the construction of permanent military bases. Iraqis
who stand in the way of these plans are regarded as dangerous insurgents'.
Now that New Orleans has been rescued', what priorities will be embedded
in its rebuilding? Who will be regarded as dangerous obstacles to
democracy?

These comparisons are intended to highlight the contours of the political
struggles soon to come up around New Orleans. These questions are,
concretely, a part of the same set of questions inspired by the occupation
of Iraq. In order to sustain an unsustainable lifestyle and power
position, the dominant groups in the US must reorganize spaces all over
the country and the world. Necessarily this involves producing chaos,
pushing a lot of people around, and locking up many others.

This struggle, however, differs from the crisis in Flint in the 80s
because community leadership exists on the ground, and now in the
diaspora. A list of grassroots groups involved in hurricane relief, some
based in New Orleans, others based elsewhere, can be found at
http://www.sparkplugfoundation.org/katrinarelief.html. Perhaps the most
strategic group is Community Labor United, which is calling for grassroots
oversight of the relief process. Their statement reads, in part, "The
people of New Orleans will not go quietly into the night, scattering
across this country to become homeless in countless other cities while
federal relief funds are funneled into rebuilding casinos, hotels,
chemical plants and the wealthy white districts of New Orleans like the
French Quarter and the Garden District. We will not stand idly by while
this disaster is used as an opportunity to replace our homes with newly
built mansions and condos in a gentrified New Orleans. Describing
themselves, they say "Community Labor United (CLU), a coalition of the
progressive organizations throughout New Orleans, has brought community
members together for eight years to discuss socio-economic issues. We have
been communicating with people from The Quality Education as a Civil Right
Campaign, the Algebra Project, the Young People's Project and the
Louisiana Research Institute for Community Empowerment.

Anyone who has followed grassroots mobilizations over the last decade
cannot be surprised at the existence of Community Labor United. Similar
coalitions of labor unions, church groups, non-profits, and other activist
organizations have been forming all over the country. Several
characteristics are striking. First, these groups tend to combine the
politics of class, environmentalism, and race, moving beyond the old
hand-wringing about what is the truly most profound oppression (the
validity of this sort of analysis has been amply born out in New Orleans
over the last week, when an environmental calamity hit a poor community of
color). Secondly, while some key activists in these coalitions may be
members of various socialist groupings, they are not typically dominated
by them. Nor are they typically a mobilizing tool of the Democratic Party.
They have much more autonomy than groups that grew out of efforts to
create a Marxist Leninist party or came together to campaign for African
American mayors in the seventies and eighties. Furthermore, national
coordination among them is relatively weak. Thus they are well positioned
to make pragmatic decisions about local situations, and whether there are
politicians or other establishment forces that they can make provisional
alliances with.

Finally, less happily, there is a considerable gulf between these
coalitions, which are often predominantly people of color, and the
predominantly white progressive movement. This gulf does not have its
roots in political analysis (both groups broadly agree that American
capitalism is responsible for wars abroad, racism and environmental
degradation at home, etc) so much as in priorities and social composition
of groups. The predominantly white groups often seem most energized about
foreign policy issues; the community-labor coalitions often focus on
things like living wage campaigns or education or housing issues. To the
degree that people tend to hang out with those they are most comfortable
with, there is a good deal of self-selection and homogenization. Although
virtually all of the predominantly white peace groups I've participated in
have had angst-ridden sessions lamenting the lack of diversity among our
membership, I've never seen this situation dramatically change.

What I'd like to suggest is that the imminent battle over the future of
New Orleans presents both unprecedented challenges and opportunities for
these two groupings - community-labor organizations rooted in communities
of color, and the predominantly white peace groups - to come together and
shape public debate in the US. Challenges, because struggle will have to
be organized in an impoverished diaspora. Make no mistake that the
powerful would like to make a bunch of important decisions before New
Orleans' citizens have time to regroup and put forth their own proposals.
Opportunities, because the question of the future of New Orleans puts on
the table with particular starkness questions about the future of urban
space and community in general in the US. The failings of our current
political economic system to meet people's needs have been starkly laid
bare. While there are dozens of worthy struggles nationwide that one could
support, much like prioritizing ending the occupation of Iraq, it is
incumbent to strike where the defenses of empire are weakest. Furthermore,
those of us beyond New Orleans have a crucial role to play in amplifying
the local voices and strengthening their hand.

There have already been some positive developments. Houston indymedia has
begun to set up a radio station for the Diaspora. The liberals at True
Majority have solicited donations for Community Labor United, a far more
potent response than Moveon's petition to George Bush asking him to stop
blaming the victims (why not at least ask the Democratic leadership to
come up with a really strong aid/anti-poverty package, as Michael Lerner
has demanded?). Locally, people are talking about demanding that Durham
bring some rundown houses up to code to facilitate the housing of
evacuees, thus facilitating better living conditions for evacuees and
general improvement in the city.

On September 24th, when tens of thousands will be protesting the war in
DC, Jobs with Justice (the largest national formation of community-labor
groups) will be holding its annual meeting in St. Louis. Although this
scheduling conflict was unintentional, it is redolent of the way the peace
movement and the community labor movement are on separate tracks, despite
parallel analysis. The looming battle of New Orleans gives us an
unprecedented opportunity to bring these two tracks of the American left
closer together. Natural disasters are often the spark for fresh forms of
organizing. After all, it was the response to the failure of earthquake
relief in Nicaragua that triggered the inexorable march to revolution in
that country seven years later.

Steven Sherman is a sociologist who lives in Chapel Hill North Carolina.
He can be reached at threehegemons [at] hotmail.com


--------24 of 26--------

The Heart of Whiteness
Race Stories
By ROBERT JENSEN
CounterPunch
September 9, 2006

We use terms to label ourselves and others. We struggle over what the
terms mean and how they should be applied. But we also define ourselves by
the stories we tell. There are two different stories I could tell about
myself. Which is true?


Story #1

I was born in a small city in North Dakota, to parents in the lower
middle-class who eventually scratched their way to a comfortable
middle-class life through hard work. I never went hungry and always had a
roof over my head, but I was expected to work, and I did. >From the time I
started shoveling snow as a kid, to part-time and summer jobs, through my
professional career, I worked hard. From the time I was old enough to hold
a steady job, I have held one. I was a conscientious student who studied
hard and took school seriously. I went to college and did fairly well,
taking a year off in the middle to work full-time. After graduation I
worked as a journalist, in non-glamorous jobs for modest wages, working
hard to learn a craft. I went on to get a master's degree and returned to
work before eventually pursuing a doctorate so I could teach at the
university level. I got a job at a major university and worked hard to get
tenure. I'm still there today, still working hard.


Story #2

I was born in a small city in North Dakota, to white parents in the lower
middle-class who eventually scratched their way to a comfortable
middle-class life through hard work. The city I grew up in was almost all
white. It was white because the indigenous population that once lived
there was either exterminated or pushed onto reservations. It was
extremely cold in the winter there, which was okay, people would joke,
because it "kept the riff-raff out." It was understood that riff-raff
meant people who weren't willing to work hard, or non-white people. The
assumption was there was considerable overlap in the two groups.

I was educated in a well-funded and virtually all-white school system,
where I was taught a variety of skills, including how to take standardized
tests written by and for white people. In those schools my accomplishments
were applauded and could be seen as part of a long line of accomplishments
of people who looked like me. I mostly studied the history of people who
look like me. Indigenous people were mostly a footnote.

I worked in part-time and summer jobs for which I was hired by other white
people. One of those jobs was in a warehouse owned by a white man with
whom my father did business. In that warehouse, we sometimes hired day
labor to help us unload trucks. One of the adult men we hired was Indian.
His name was Dave. We called him "Indian Dave." I, along with other white
teenage boys working there, called him Indian Dave. We didn't give it a
second thought.

I went to college in mostly white institutions. I had mostly white
professors. I graduated and got jobs. In every job I have ever had, I was
interviewed by a white person. Every boss I have ever had (until my
current supervisor, who was hired three years ago) has been white. I was
hired for my current teaching position at the predominantly white
University of Texas, which had a white president, in a college headed by a
white dean, and in a department with a white chairman that at the time had
one non-white tenured professor.

I have made many mistakes in my life. But to the best of my knowledge,
when I have screwed up in my school or work life, no one has ever
suggested that my failures were in any way connected to my being white.

True stories

Both of those stories are true. The question is, can we recognize the
truth in both of them? Can we accept that many white people have worked
hard to accomplish things, and that those people's accomplishments were
made possible in part because they were white in a white-supremacist
society? Like almost everyone, I have overcome certain hardships in my
life. I have worked hard to get where I am, and I work hard to stay there.
But to feel good about myself and my work, I do not have to believe that
"merit" alone, as defined by white people in a white-supremacist country,
got me here. I can acknowledge that in addition to all that hard work, I
got a significant boost from white privilege, which continues to protect
me every day of my life from certain hardships.

At one time in my life, I would not have been able to say that, because I
needed to believe that my success in life was due solely to my individual
talent and effort. I saw myself as the heroic American, the rugged
individualist. I was so deeply seduced by the culture's mythology that I
couldn't see the fear that was binding me to those myths, the fear that
maybe I didn't really deserve my success, that maybe luck and privilege
had more to do with it than brains and hard work. I was afraid I wasn't
heroic or rugged, that I wasn't special.

I let go of some of that fear when I realized that, indeed, I wasn't
special, but that I was still me. What I do well, I still can take pride
in, even when I know that the rules under which I work are stacked in my
benefit. Until we let go of the fiction that people have complete control
over their fate - that we can will ourselves to be anything we choose -
then we should expect to live with that fear. Yes, we should all dream big
and pursue our dreams and not let anyone or anything stop us. But we all
are the product both of what we will ourselves to be and what the society
in which we live encourages and allows us to be. We should struggle
against the constraints that people and institutions sometimes put on us,
but those constraints are real, they are often racialized, and they have
real effects on people.

This essay is excerpted from The Heart of Whiteness: Confronting Race,
Racism and White Privilege, City Lights Books.

Robert Jensen is a professor of journalism at the University of Texas at
Austin. He can be reached at rjensen [at] uts.cc.utexas.edu .



--------25 of 26--------

On the Far Right of a Far Right Party
The Brief on Judge Roberts
By ELAINE CASSEL
CounterPunch
September 9, 2006

I have to admit that I was fooled by the Cleaver family images displayed
by the Roberts family that sultry July night. Not a bad guy, I thought.
Doesn't look like a Scalia. Doesn't talk like a Scalia. Maybe President
Bush won't make good on his nuclear-type promises to put a Thomas or
Scalia on the high court. Maybe Roberts will be a guy with a nice
demeanor, a bright man and one who is - as judges should be - fair and
open-minded.

No such luck. While others were sleeping, I was up reading memoranda and
briefs from days when Roberts was a political operative disguised as a
lawyer working in the Reagan administration. It did not take long for the
nice-guy image to fade. In its place is a judge in the mold of Scalia more
than Thomas, one who is mightily impressed with himself and his intellect
and one who does not care a flip for everyday Americans.

When he and his fellow "conservatives" talk about not "legislating from
the bench," what they mean is that the 14th Amendment that guarantees
constitutional rights to all Americans, regardless of what state they live
in, should, in effect, be abolished. The Bush line on "legislating from
the bench" means that the courts should not protect the people from
governments who interfere with those rights so inimical to American values
- freedom of religion, press, speech, freedom from unreasonable searches
and seizures, and due process and reproductive rights.

Roe v. Wade was third in a line of cases that struck state laws against
contraception. If you think that Roe v. Wade won't be reversed in the next
few years with Roberts in the majority, you are living in a dream world.
Roberts writes contemptuously about Roe v. Wade and the right of women to
have any say over their own bodies. Any state laws that prohibit
end-of-life decision making by competent adults would also be in jeopardy.

Legislating from the bench was what led the court to reject separate but
equal education. After all, Brown v. Board of Education was about as
activist a decision as one could imagine, overturning a prior decision,
Plessy v. Ferguson. States would be, in the Roberts scheme, free to return
to segregated education. This may not apply for black people - perhaps we
have advanced enough that black and white children can learn together -
but were Texas, for instance, to want to segregate Hispanic children from
"white" children, Roberts would think that would be just fine.

Roberts would add one more vote to legislating from the bench as the court
seeks to roll back the laws that protect the environment. Roberts'
judicial decisions, memoranda and arguments as a private attorney come
down on the side of big business and against the environment. Roberts
would like to strip Congress and the federal agencies of the power to make
our air and water safe. Leave it to the states, he would argue, and let
the big businesses make their deals with state legislatures.

Roberts would like to overturn federal laws and regulations that bring a
modicum of justice to everyday citizens. Like the Voting Rights Act.
Roberts came out strongly against portions of it as a lawyer working in
the Reagan White House. He argued that blacks did not have to have "real"
voting rights - the government just had to make people think that they had
some rights.

Those who claim not to know what Roberts thinks have not done their
homework. Roberts is at the far-right of a far-right party, the party that
thinks it has the corner on being right. Roberts may be right for the
powerful and the wealthy, but he is not right for ordinary Americans,
those of us who pay his salary.

We need a people's Supreme Court. Like George Bush, Roberts was born into
privilege. In his world view, the privileged and the powerful own the
playground and the marbles. The rest of us may as well go home and do as
we're told.

Elaine Cassel practices law in Virginia and the District of Columbia,
teaches law and psychology, and follows the Bush regime's dismantling of
the Constitution at Civil Liberties Watch. Her new book The War on Civil
Liberties: How Bush and Ashcroft Have Dismantled the Bill of Rights, is
published by Lawrence Hill. She can be reached at: ecassel1 [at] cox.net


--------26 of 26-------

 The Bush ruling class
 hides the fact it is bourgeois
 A through bourgeosie.


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   - David Shove             shove001 [at] tc.umn.edu
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