Mn-prog-events Mailing List: Progressive Calendar 09.14.05

[David Shove (shove001]

            P R O G R E S S I V E   C A L E N D A R     09.14.09

1. Anti-torture        9.14 3pm
2. Young/music/Katrina 9.14 5pm
3. US-UN/dismantle UN? 9.14 6pm
4. Peace letters       9.14 6:30pm
5. Mayday book club    9.14 7pm
6. No Anoka stadium    9.14 7pm
7. Loft/Katrina        9.14 7:30pm
8. Emerging Venezuela  9.14 7:30pm
9. AI StPaul           9.14 7:30pm
10. Hmong women        9.14 7:30pm
11. Anti-war film      9.14 9pm

12. Christopher Childs - Dickinson Campaign closing press release
13. Billy Sothern      - How the other half lived
14. Mickey Z           - Eugene V Debs and the legacy of dissent
15. Jeff Chapman       - The WSJ's war against the minimum wage job
16. Jordan Flaherty    - Back inside New Orleans
17. Bill McKibbon      - Katrina havoc reflects the new America
18. WB Yeats           - The second coming

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

From: Charles Underwood <charleyunderwood [at] hotmail.com>
Subject: Anti-torture 9.14 3pm

Wednesday, 9/14 (and every Wednesday), 3 to 4 pm, meeting of anti-torture
group Tackling Torture at the Top, St. Martin's Table, 2001, Riverside,
Minneapolis.  lynne [at] usfamily.net


--------2 of 18--------

From: "Grant, Danielle S" <Danielle.Grant [at] ci.minneapolis.mn.us>
Subject: Young/music/Katrina 9.14 5pm

MN Music For Hurricane Relief Benefit
Wednesday 9/14/05
First Avenue Mainroom

Young people in Minneapolis are getting involved in the relief efforts for
the hurricane victims. Ever wonder how young people feel about a major
issue that happens to America? Just ask us. We care, we hurt, and we feel
for the victims. Yo! The Movement (hosts of the Twin Cities Hip-Hop
Festival and the Where My Girls At? Conference) is raising money for
families that are arriving in Minnesota.

Wednesday September 14, 5-9pm
Music begins at 5:30pm
First Avenue Mainroom
701 1st Ave N., Minneapolis
All Ages, $6 required donation, additional donations accepted.
 
Featuring:
Belles of Skin City (MMA Best New Band)
Big Quarters
Brother and Sister (Ice Rod's Band)
DJ Snuggles (Beatbox Champ/ State Fair Champ)
Doomtree (Sims, Dessa, Mictlan)
Green (Jazz Band)
Guardians of Balance
Soulistic
T-Hud (MN Timberwolves)
The C.O.R.E.
Unknown Prophets
Voices Merging

Hosted by Sentwali and Sam Soulprano of KMOJ   Sponsored by YO! The
Movement (www.yothemovement.org), Radio K, Dunation.com, We Win Institute,
the Minneapolis Youth Coordinating Board, La Raza Student Cultural Center,
and others. The proceeds from this event will go directly to 3 different
families.

**The First 20 people in the door will receive a Twin Cities Celebration
of Hip-Hop Compilation CD.

Yo! The Movement is a non-profit organization that is Youth Run, Youth Led.
The programs under Yo! are as follows:  
 -What's Up? Youth information hotline 612-399-9999 
 -Express Yo Self (EYS project) This project plans and promotes activities
for youth and young adults based around music, art, and performance. 
 -Metro Youth Council (MYC) A group of young leaders ages 14-19 that want
to be involved in their communities and schools.

Danielle Grant Director of Policy & Communications Minneapolis Youth
Coordinating Board (612) 673-2131

Tammie Thornton What's Up Program Coordinator 612.399.9999 ext. 16


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

From: United Nations Association of MN <info [at] unamn.org>
Subject: US-UN/dismantle UN? 9.14 6pm

You are invited to the 2005 People Speak Community Forum, September 14,
6-9pm at the Hennepin Avenue Methodist Church.

Topic: Building a Safer World: Defining the U.S.-U.N. Relationship for the
21st Century. Honoring the memory of former Governor Elmer L. Andersen,
champion of the US commitment to the UN.

A distinguished panel will engage citizens in a discussion on Poverty,
Hunger and Health. This program explores how the US and UN can improve the
lives of citizens around the world and realize the promise of the United
Nations Millennium Development Goals.

Speakers:

Rudy Boschwitz-  Minnesota Senator and Head of the US Delegation to the UN
Human Rights Commission.

Ahmed I. Samatar- James Wallace Professor and Dean of International
Studies at Macalester College.

Gillian Martin Sorensen- Senior Advisor at UN Foundation and former
Assistant Secretary-General for External Relations to UN Secretary-General
Kofi Annan

Lori Sturdevant- Star Tribune Editorial Writer and Columnist, who will
serve as the program moderator.

Wednesday, September 14, 2005; 6:00-7:00 pm- Register, Eat & Network

7:10pm - Tribute for Governor Elmer L. Andersen; 7:30 -9:00 pm- Speakers
and Q & A

Hennepin Avenue United Methodist Church (HAUMC), 511 Groveland Avenue,
Minneapolis, MN 55403

This event is free and open to the public.

For further information contact:
Bharat Parekh, 651-646 8977, parek003 [at] umn.edu

--
From: MJShahidiusa [at] aol.com

IT IS VERY IMPORTANT. Powerful individuals and groups want to dismantle
the UN. IT IS SERIOUS. And, most of those people have nothing to the
replace the UN with. They have no proposals for a system or organization
at international level to work toward peace-building, set up standards for
travel, commerce, transportation, education and environmental protection.
No suggestion for a representative world body to provide and coordinate
desperately needed aid and development services to all corners of this
planet. And, some in the US want to destroy the UN so that the US will
dominate the globe and its people even more. DO MOT WAIT. JOIN THE DEBATE:

For questions call Dr. Bharat Parekh at 651-646-8977 or M. Jay Shahidi at
612-328-1913.


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


From: Alice Kloker <kloker [at] augsburg.edu>
Subject: Peace letters 9.14 6:30pm

MN FOR Letter Writing

Want a way to influence the powers that be and talk about important issues
with others who believe in peace, justice and nonviolence?  Then come to
the Minnesota Fellowship of Reconciliation's (MN FOR) monthly letter
writing gathering, where we will choose an issue on which to advocate
policies of nonviolence in letters to elected representatives in a tone of
empathy and connection.

Food and fellowship starts at 6:30, letter writing starts at 7:00.  This
month we will meet at Don Christensen's house at 1953 Sargent Avenue, St.
Paul.

-- Alice Kloker Program Associate International Travel Seminars Center for
Global Education at Augsburg College 2211 Riverside Avenue, Campus Box 307
Minneapolis, MN 55454 Telephone: 612.330.1385 or 800.299.8889 Email:
kloker [at] augsburg.edu Web: www.centerforglobaleducation.org


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


From: Lydia Howell <lhowell [at] visi.com>
Subject: Mayday book club 9.14 7pm

Announcing a book club at Mayday Books

Mayday Books is starting a progressive book club!  Readers in our group
will select one political book to read for the following month, which we
will then discuss informally at the bookstore. We were thinking that a
good focus would be on political nonfiction, historical or geopolitical
fiction, fiction by writers from marginalized groups, and poetry.

Our first book discussion event will be September 14, 7pm, at Mayday
Bookstore (301 Cedar Avenue, Minneapolis, Minnesota 55454 --- see our
website at www.maydaybookstore.org under Directions for a map).

We will be reading David Korten's When Corporations Rule the World, which
will be available for purchase at Mayday Books. Call the store at
612-333-4719 for information on the book or inquiries on how many copies
we have in stock.


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

From: Ron Holch <rrholch [at] attg.net>
Subject: No Anoka stadium 9.14 7pm

Taxpayers Against an Anoka County Vikings Stadium
Wednesday September 14, 7pm

Centennial High School
Red Building - Room 104
4704 North Road
Circle Pines, MN

The red building is on the east end of the high school complex, and is set
back furthest from North Road.  The largest parking lots are near this
building.

A second 2005 LEGISLATIVE SPECIAL SESSION is still being considered.  A
bill for a Vikings Stadium Authority may see action this fall.  If you
haven't already done so please write your representatives and tell them we
do not need to waste more money to decide on stadium giveaways to
Billionaires.  Write your local paper too.

AGENDA ITEMS INCLUDE:
Questioning the Anoka Co. website claims
Fund Raising Ideas
Legislative update
Website
Petition Promotion
No Stadium Tax Coalition Update

Any Questions, comments contact me at:  rrholch [at] attg.net
<mailto:rrholch [at] attg.net>


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

From: Paulette Warren <PWarren [at] loft.org>
Subject: Loft/Katrina 9.14 7:30pm

From the Headwaters to the Delta:
A Literary Benefit for those Affected by Hurricane Katrina

Wednesday, September 14
7:30pm
The Loft Literary Center at Open Book, 1011 Washington Av S Mpls

In order to raise funds for those displaced by Hurricane Katrina, The Loft
Literary Center will host a benefit honoring the literary history of the
Delta region and New Orleans. The program will feature:

* Readings and theatrical performances by celebrated local authors,
artists, and community leaders including Patricia Hampl, Angela Shannon,
Rohan Preston, Louis Alemayehu, Carolyn Holbrook, Sonja Parks, Anna Meek,
Ray Gonzalez, Rene Sanchez, Joyce Sutphen, Ed Bok Lee, Sally Wingert, and
many others.

* Live music by Dan Chiounard, and the music of New Orleans spun by Brian
Engel-Fuentes, Soul and Funk DJ.

* Emceed by legendary jazz commentator Leigh Kamman, host of MPR's The
Jazz Image.

Attendees will be invited and encouraged to contribute stories and words
of welcome to books that will then be forwarded to families from
devastated areas arriving in Minneapolis.  All monetary proceeds from the
event will go to benefit Habitat for Humanity. Donations of gently-used
children's literature will be collected for Project Book Share.

The event is pay-what-you can with a suggested donation of $25.

Founded in 1975, The Loft is the nation's largest independent literary
center.  The mission of the Loft is to foster a writing community, the
artistic development of individual writers and an audience for literature.


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

From: Lydia Howell <lhowell [at] visi.com>
Subject: Emerging Venezuela 9.14 7:30pm

Jesus "Chucho" Garcia
Wednesday
September 14
7:30 pm
Blegen Hall Auditorium #5
West Bank, U of MN

In conjunction with a report back from World Youth Festival participants
(Caracas, Venezuela) Chucho Garcia, the founder of the AfroVenezuelan
Network, is an activist for human rights, economic justice, and against
racism. He is the founder of the Network of AfroVenezuelan organizations,
as well as the AfroLatinAmerican Strategic Alliance that functions in all
of the countries of South American and the Spanish speaking Caribbean. He
is the editor of the magazine Africamerica and general coordinator of the
Afroamerica Foundation.

Questions and Comments, email: saft_e [at] yahoo.com <mailto:saft_e [at] yahoo.com>

Emerging Venezuela: What's Really Going On

As Venezuela moves forward as an emerging leader of Latin America, USA
foreign policy continues to challenge the Chavez presidency. Join us as we
go beyond Chavez and discuss with Garcia the role of the Venezuelan people
in leading this process of change. Garcia will explore the role of Afro-
Venezuelans in the changing political landscape, and how all minorities
are finding their place, voice and struggle within that terrain. Garcia
will also help us to understand diplomatic relations with Cuba, a growing
key partner in the struggle to build the self determination of the Latin
American Global South.


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

From: Gabe Ormsby <gabeo [at] bitstream.net>
Subject: AI StPaul 9.14 7:30pm

There are several local Amnesty International groups in the Twin Cities
area. All of them are welcoming and would love to see interested people
get involved -- find the one that best fits your schedule or location:

AIUSA Group 640 (Saint Paul) meets Wednesday, September 14, at 7:30pm.
Mad Hatter Teahouse, 943 West 7th Street, Saint Paul.
http://www.aistpaul.org


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

From: Tim Erickson <tim [at] politalk.org>
Subject: Hmong women 9.14 7:30pm

The League of Women Voters St. Paul
Member Meetup

Hmong Women's Conference Topics and Issues
Wednesday September 14, 7:30-9 pm
Hmong Community Issues Highlighted at September 14 Member Meet-up

In advance of the Hmong Women's Conference this September, the League of
Women Voters of Saint Paul (LWVSP) is pleased to begin its Fall 2005
series of monthly Member Meet-ups with a program focused on Hmong
community issues on Wednesday, September 14, at 7:30pm.  (League Members -
Please note TIME CHANGE.)  The program will feature Hmong advocates Bo
Thao and Krystal Vujongyia.  There is no charge, and all members of the
public are invited to attend.

Topic: "Hmong Women's Conference Topics and Issues"

* Featuring: Bo Thao, Hmong National Development Inc.,
   and Krystal Vujongyia, Minnesota Housing and Finance Agency
* Date and Time: Wednesday, September 14, 2005, 7:30-9 pm
* Location: MISSISSIPPI MARKET, 622 Selby Avenue, at
   Dale Street, in the upstairs Community Room.
   There is a deli in the Market where a light dinner can be
   purchased and brought upstairs.  Please park in the overflow
   lot, across Hague Avenue.

LWVSP Member Meetups are monthly, informal get-togethers designed to
explore vital civic issues and provide an opportunity for citizens to
learn about the League in an informal environment.  All Member Meetups are
free and open to both League members and the general public.

To RSVP for the Meet-up or for more information, please contact Amy
Mino at <mailto:amy [at] minofamily.net>amy [at] minofamily.net or
651-430-2701. For more information on the League of Women Voters St.
Paul, please visit:  <http://www.lwvsp.org/>www.lwvsp.org .

CONTACT: Amy Mino, League of Women Voters St. Paul 651-292-3285 (day),
651-430-2701 (eve)


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

From: Lydia Howell <lhowell [at] visi.com>
Subject: Anti-war film 9.14 9pm

Search and Rescue - Anderson Platoon
Wednesday, September 14 at 9pm
BRYANT LAKE BOWL
Director: Pierre Schoendorffer

Come out and join us for our second installment of S&R at the Bryant Lake
Bowl. This time drink your sorrows away as we watch the Best foreign
documentary Academy Award winner from 1966; The Anderson Platoon. Here's
the details:

The Anderson Platoon was an integrated combat unit in Vietnam led by a
handsome black West Pointer, Lt. Joseph B. Anderson. French producer
Pierre Schoendorffer and his cameraman spent six weeks filming the men of
the platoon as they ate, slept, fought and died. The camera is constantly
present on the faces, the tension, the frustration, anger, hopelessness
and pathos of war. Schoendorffer takes no sides politically but at the
outset he "is on the side of the soldier." It is understandable. He fought
at Dien Bien Phu and was a prisoner for four months afterwards. The
Anderson Platoon is not so much about the Vietnam War as it is a direct
confrontation with the quality of war -- any war.


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

From: Christopher Childs <worldgarden [at] igc.org>
Subject: Dickinson Campaign closing press release

For Immediate Release                                        September
14, 2005

DICKINSON CONGRATULATES MAYORAL RIVALS, THANKS SUPPORTERS

St. Paul -- In late-night phone conversations Tuesday with Chris Coleman
and Randy Kelly, Green Party mayoral candidate Elizabeth Dickinson
congratulated both for advancing to the November general election.
Coleman garnered 52% of the primary vote and Kelly 27%; Dickinson finished
with a total of 4,905 votes, or just shy of 20%.

While she is willing to talk further with the two remaining mayoral
candidates, Dickinson has said she does not foresee publicly endorsing
either.  The Green Party of St. Paul -- of which she was a co-chair prior
to entering the mayoral race -- has a policy of not endorsing candidates
from other parties.

Dickinson expressed gratitude in an impromptu address to supporters at a
post-poll-closing party last night, and also emailed a note to those
active in her all-volunteer campaign this morning, offering her "deep,
heartfelt thanks" and calling their work "a tremendous effort, and deeply
inspiring" both to herself and to voters.  The campaign was carried out
over less than three months, and on a total budget of $20,000 -- as
compared to total funding for Kelly of some $850,000, and Coleman's
approximate total of over $200,000.  Kelly's fundraising has been ongoing
throughout his term as incumbent, and Coleman's campaign began early this
year.

In her email message Dickinson quoted a friend who called her effort "'the
labor of love' campaign."  She said she intends to write a personal note
to everyone who has been actively involved on her behalf.  In a separate
message to volunteers, Dickinson Campaign Manager Mary Petrie said the
campaign "had advantages shared by no other: the power of principle and of
the people."

Both Dickinson and Minneapolis Green Party mayoral candidate Farheen
Hakeem -- who earned nearly 14% of the vote there -- have been invited to
appear Friday on Twin Cities Public Television's Almanac to discuss their
strong showing, and its implications for the future of politics in and
beyond the metro area.

CONTACT:

Elizabeth Dickinson,  (651) 235-1208 (cell)
Mary Petrie, Campaign Manager, (651) 226-3527 (cell)
Christopher Childs, Campaign Communications,  (651) 312-1216

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


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

The Need for a Progressive Vision in the Face of Horror
How the Other Half Lived
By BILLY SOTHERN
CounterPunch
September 13, 2005

In 1911, the Triangle Shirt Factory in New York City, where I grew up,
exploded in flames trapping scores of young, immigrant, women workers
inside. As the fire burned, many women jumped to their deaths, unable to
bear the slow death of heat and smoke. Newspaper reporters wrote about the
sound they made as they fell, with their dresses billowing, before hitting
the ground. In all, 146 women died.

The nation and the world were horrified at the barbarism of industry and
began to focus on the rights of workers. For a moment, the world was able
to see beyond the fact that the victims were female immigrants, and
acknowledged the need for basic human standards for workers. This was a
moment in history where, horrified by the excesses of the unrestrained
capitalism and the disregard for the basic humanity of our citizens, this
country was forced to change and adopt standards that progressives had
vainly pressed for years. I imagine that then, as now, conservatives
countered with market-based solutions and crude cost-benefit economic
analyses but the tide had turned and people knew better, knew that these
were paper tigers erected to obscure the reality that this suffering was
real and avoidable. The tragedy at the factory has come to be understood
as the beginning of the New Deal, the program that fundamentally change
the relationship between government and its citizens in this country.
(http://newdeal.feri.org/library/d_4m.htm)

Today, it appears that as many as 10,000 citizens of my adoptive hometown
of New Orleans may be dead from the effects of Hurricane Katrina. Katrina
was an enormous and dangerous storm but this is not why people died. Those
who stayed in New Orleans were, for the most part, the poor; people who
could not escape, people whose lives were constant struggle before anyone
in New York had even heard of the New Orleans levee system or the
Seventeenth Street Canal. While the rest of the country might have been
ignorant of these Americans before the storm, they were there, they were
poor, and they were desperate. The storm did not turn New Orleans into a
third world city; it revealed it as one.

Poverty is a fact of life in New Orleans in a way that I never witnessed
in New York or other cities outside the Deep South. The first time I drove
past the projects in New Orleans, with their boarded up windows and
knocked in doors, I assumed that they were abandoned, that people couldn't
possibly live there. Then I saw a mailman making deliveries through the
overgrown alleys between the old, brick buildings.

I have worked in these projects, visiting the families of my clients,
seeing their lives, and realizing that I was the first positive contact
they had with a government-funded entity, the public defense non-profit
for which I worked. I was representing their son on death row or facing
the death penalty. Having disregarded the needs of these families for
generations, the government finally sent someone out to them once it had
resolved to kill their son. Too bad that there are no constitutional
rights to education, housing, or medical care. Maybe someone would have
shown up before the worst had happened.

Unmistakably, the poor citizens of New Orleans must feel similarly in the
glare of all of this attention from the rest of the country. After
everyone has been pulled from the water, dead or alive, the city will ask
in unison, "Where the hell were you before I was drowning?"
Progressives must answer this question for a country that, though
reluctant, is probably more able to accept reality today than ever. We
must say that America didn't answer because it didn't care. Both political
parties, one who had abandoned the south and the other which took it for
granted, didn't care about you until you were dying in a pool of raw
sewage.

And this is a confession. A confession of guilt.

This is the confession that Jacob Riis was able to compel when he exposed
the reality of the lives of immigrants in New York's slums. This is the
confession that Walker Evans, James Agee, Dorothea Lange, and other Great
Depression artists were able to exact.

This is the confession that progressives must force if we are ever to be
taken seriously in this country. We must remind the country that its
discussion of poverty has focused on the mythic "welfare queen," "personal
responsibility," and "faith-based" solutions. It must have been that
welfare queen who couldn't afford the gas to get out of town, who couldn't
take personal responsibility for her own food, water, and personal safety
when she was being sexually assaulted in a Superdome bathroom, whose real
problem is a moral crisis that would have been resolved if she prayed a
little bit harder to the right God?

The citizens of this country never intended to vote into office people who
would have allowed such barbarism to happen and, ultimately, they will
hold both parties accountable if officeholders are not permitted to shirk
responsibility through claims that this was an unforeseeable act of
nature. First, The act of nature wasn't unforeseeable to the New York
Times or the Times Picayune who have been writing about the likely effect
of such a storm for years. (Nothing's Easy for New Orleans Flood Control,
Jon Nordheimer, The New York Times, April 30, 2002, Section F, Science
Desk, Pg. 1.; The Big One; a Major Hurricane Could Decimate the Region,
but Flooding from Even a Moderate Storm Could Kill Thousands. It's Just a
Matter of Time, John McQuaid and Mark Schleifstein, Times-Picayune (New
Orleans, LA), June 24, 2002, Pg. A1.) The loss of life wasn't unavoidable
but was instead the result of a political ideology that holds that the
government that governs least, governs best, and that citizens should be
left to deal with their own affairs from housing to education, health care
to evacuation.

Progressives have long had a different view of the role that government
should play in people's lives giving people the tools to meaningfully
participate in democracy and pursue a better life for themselves and their
families.

As his final word in How the Other Half Lives, Jacob Riis quoted
scripture: "Think ye that building shall endure which shelters the noble
and crushes the poor?" Throughout our history, we have seen these
buildings but, in this moment, progressives must lead, in our noble
tradition, and rebuild New Orleans, and the rest of this country where
people struggle invisibly, on a bold and visionary model. This is the best
that anyone can ever hope from tragedy. If we do not act, we never will,
and the worst will have happened, that all these people will have died in
vain, and will again.

Billy Sothern is an anti-death penalty lawyer and writer from New Orleans.
He can be reached at: billys [at] thejusticecenter.org


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

"No War has Ever Been Declared by the People"
Eugene V. Debs and the Legacy of Dissent
By MICKEY Z.
CounterPunch
September 14, 2005

Eighty-seven years ago-on September 14, 1918- Eugene V. Debs (1855-1926)
was sentenced to ten years in prison for opposing U.S. entry into World
War I.

Debs was one of the most prominent labor organizers and political
activists of his time. He was also nominated as the Socialist Party's
candidate for president five times. His voting tallies over his first four
campaigns effectively illustrate the remarkable growth of the party during
that volatile time period:

1900: 94,768
1904: 402,400
1908: 402,820
1912: 897,011

America's entrance into World War I, however, provoked a tightening of
civil liberties, culminating with the passage of the Espionage and
Sedition Act in June 1917. This totalitarian salvo read in part: "Whoever,
when the United States is at war, shall willfully cause or attempt to
cause insubordination, disloyalty, mutiny, or refusal of duty in the
military or naval forces of the United States, shall be punished by a fine
of not more than $10,000 or imprisonment of not more than 20 years, or
both."

One year after the Espionage and Sedition Act was voted into law, Debs was
in Canton, Ohio for a Socialist Party convention. He was arrested for
making a speech deemed "anti-war" by the Canton district attorney. In that
speech, Debs declared, "They have always taught and trained you to believe
it to be your patriotic duty to go to war and to have yourselves
slaughtered at their command. But in all the history of the world you, the
people, have never had a voice in declaring war, and strange as it
certainly appears, no war by any nation in any age has ever been declared
by the people.

"Do not worry over the charge of treason to your masters, but be concerned
about the treason that involves yourselves," he concluded. "Be true to
yourself and you cannot be a traitor to any good cause on earth."

These words lead to a 10-year prison sentence and the stripping of his
U.S. citizenship. At his sentencing, Debs famously told the judge:

"Your honor, years ago, I recognized my kinship with all living beings,
and I made up my mind that I was not one bit better than the meanest on
earth. I said then, and I say now, that while there is a lower class, I am
in it; while there is a criminal element, I am of it; while there is a
soul in prison, I am not free."

While serving his sentence in the federal penitentiary, Debs was nominated
for the fifth time, campaigned from his jail cell, and remarkably garnered
917,799 votes. (By comparison, Leonard Peltier collected 25,101 while
running for president from his prison cell in 2004.)

President Woodrow Wilson ignored all pleas to release Debs from prison.
But, after serving 2 years and 8 months behind bars, President G. Harding
commuted his sentence on Christmas Day 1921.

The Espionage and Sedition Act is still on the books today.

(In solidarity with Rosemarie Jackowski, a veteran, a grandmother, and a
proud dissident who is facing prison time for her role in a 2003 anti-war
protest in Vermont.)

Excerpted from "50 American Revolutions You're Not Supposed to Know:
Reclaiming American Patriotism" (Disinformation Books) by Mickey Z. For
more info, please visit: http://www.mickeyz.net.



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

The Wall Street Journal's Flawed War Against the Minimum Wage
Job Slayers or Fact Slayers?
By JEFF CHAPMAN
CounterPunch
September 14, 2005

A recent Wall Street Journal lead editorial ("Job Slayers," August 27,
2005) retreads the worn and discredited argument that raising the state or
federal minimum wage significantly decreases job opportunities for
low-wage workers. In making this argument, however, the editorial board
seems determined to slay the facts; the editorial contains a number of
statements that are misleading or false.

It ascribes a significant part of the problem of high teenage unemployment
rates to high state minimum wages (or "maximum folly" according to the
editorial). This claim disintegrates, however, under even the most cursory
examination. Here's why. Teenage unemployment rose from 13.1% to 17%
between 2000 and 2004. According to the Journal's argument, the increases
in teen unemployment should have been higher in states with higher minimum
wages than in those with low minimum wages. What actually happened was the
reverse: Teenage unemployment rose 3.4% in the high minimum wage states,
compared to 4.2% in the others.

Beyond that specific claim, the Journal's background "evidence" does not
withstand examination either. For one thing, the editorial would have us
believe that raising the minimum wage is an idea being drummed up by a few
misguided liberal policymakers and advocates. The truth is, it would be
difficult to think of a policy that is more widely supported by the
public. Earlier this year, the nonpartisan Pew Research Center showed that
Americans overwhelmingly support increasing the minimum wage: 82% said it
was an important priority and only 6% opposed an increase. Further
evidence can be found in Florida and Nevada, both "red" states where in
2004, voters opted for increasing their states' minimum wages in far
greater numbers than they did for President Bush.

Nor do economists view the issue with the monolithic disapproval that the
Journal presents. Last fall, 562 economists signed a letter agreeing that
"the minimum wage has been an important part of our nation's economy for
65 years." Further, they agreed that "as with a federal increase, modest
increases in state minimum wages in the range of $1.00 to $2.00 can
significantly improve the lives of low-income workers and their families,
without the adverse effects that critics have claimed." The signers
included four Nobel Laureates, three of whom have served as presidents of
the American Economic Association, the mainstream, economists'
professional association.

Especially egregious, though, is the Journal's presentation of a group of
studies analyzing the 1992 increase in the New Jersey minimum wage. It
dismisses the well-regarded work of David Card and Alan Krueger analyzing
the impact on the fast food restaurants by pointing out that telephone
surveys were used to collect the data. According to the Journal, "When
other researchers went back and resampled these establishments, they found
widespread errors in the data." The work of these other researchers (David
Neumark and William Wascher) is presented in the editorial as evidence of
the job-loss claims. But the Journal pointedly ignores some very important
facts about this research. Most significantly, the Neumark and Wascher
data were collected using a mix of informal personal contacts by an
anti-minimum wage restaurant industry lobbyist's in-house "think-tank" and
a letter from the researchers that tipped-off the restaurants that the
purpose of the research was to undermine the Card and Krueger research
(Neumark and Wascher 2000, p. 1,395). The quality of the data collected
under these circumstances is suspect.

Moreover, when Card and Krueger redid their study using unassailable
government data, they found the same result - thus confirming both the
reliability of their earlier sample, and, more importantly, their findings
- that the New Jersey minimum wage increase had no effect on total
employment in that state. Neumark and Wascher acknowledge the findings of
this second Card and Krueger study and conclude that using a combination
of it and their own study, they could only decisively state that "New
Jersey's minimum wage increase did not raise fast-food employment in that
state" (Neumark and Wascher 2000, p. 1,391), hardly the indictment of
minimum wages that the Journal would lead the reader to believe.

The Wall Street Journal's editorial board will, no doubt, continue to
recycle their old arguments that minimum wages are "job killers." However,
the body of evidence and public opinion makes that position increasingly
untenable. And for good reason: minimum wages are a key part of a broad
public policy agenda that seeks to support the efforts of working families
to make ends meet.

Jeff Chapman is an economist at the Economic Policy Institute in
Washington, D.C.


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

Time for a Truth & Justice Commission
Back Inside New Orleans
By JORDAN FLAHERTY
CounterPunch
September 14, 2005

What actually happened in New Orleans these past two weeks? We need to
sort through the rumors and distortions. Perhaps we need our version of
South Africa's Truth And Reconciliation Commission. Some way to sort
through the many narratives and find a truth, and to find justice.

I spent yesterday inside the city of New Orleans, speaking to a few of the
last holdouts in the 9th ward/ bywater neighborhood. Their stories paint a
very different picture from what we've heard in the media. Instead of
stories of gangs of criminals and police and soldiers keeping order, there
were stories of collective action, everyone looking out for each other,
communal responses.

The first few nights there was a large, free community barbecue at a
neighborhood bar called The Country Club. People brought food and cooked
and cooked and drank and went swimming (yes, there's a pool in the bar).

Emily Harris and Richie Kay, from Desire Street, traveled out on their
boat and brought supplies and gave rides. They have been doing this almost
every day since the hurricane struck. They estimate that they have rescued
at least a hundred people. Emily doesn't want to leave. She is a carpenter
and builder, and says, "I want to stay and rebuild. I love New Orleans"

Emily describes a community working together in the first days after the
hurricane. She also describes a scene of abandonment and disappointment.
"A lot of people came to the high ground at St. Claude Avenue. They really
thought someone would come and rescue them, and they waited all day for
something - a boat, a helicopter, anything. There were helicopters in the
sky, but none coming down"

So people started walking as a mass uptown to Canal Street. Along the way,
youths would break into grocery stores, take the food and distribute it
evenly among houses in the community.

"Then they reached Canal Street, and saw that there was still no one that
wanted to rescue them. That's when people broke into the stores on Canal
Street"

I asked Okra, in his house off of Piety Street, what the biggest problem
has been. He said, "It's been the police - they've lost the last
restraints on their behavior they had, and gotten a license to go wild.
They can do anything they want. I saw one cop beat a guy so hard that he
almost took his ear off. And this was someone just trying to walk home"

Walking through the streets, I witnessed hundreds of soldiers patrolling
the streets. Everyone I spoke to said that soldiers were coming to their
house at least once a day, trying to convince them to leave, bringing
stories of disease and quarantine and violence. I didn't see or speak to
any soldiers involved in any clean up or rebuilding.

There are surely reasons to leave - I would not be living in the city at
this point. I'm too attached to electricity and phone lines. But I can
attest that those holdouts I spoke to are doing fine. They have enough
food and water and have been very careful to avoid exposing themselves to
the many health risks in the city.

I saw more city busses rolling through poor areas of town than I ever saw
pre-hurricane. Unfortunately, these buses were filled with patrols of
soldiers. What if the massive effort placed into patrolling this city and
chasing everyone out were placed into beginning the rebuilding process?

Some neighborhoods are underwater still, and the water has turned into a
sticky sludge of sewage and death that turns the stomach and breaks my
heart. However, some neighborhoods are barely damaged at all, and if a
large-scale effort were put into bringing back electricity and clearing
the streets of debris, people could begin to move back in now.

Certainly some people do not want to move back, but many of us do. We want
to rebuild our city that we love. The People's Hurricane Fund - a
grassroots, community based group made up of New Orleans community
organizers and allies from around the US - has already made one of their
first demands a "right of return for the displaced of New Orleans.

In the last week, I've traveled between Houston, Baton Rouge, Covington,
Jackson and New Orleans and spoken to many of my former friends and
neighbors. We feel shell shocked. It used to be we would see each other in
a coffee shop or a bar or on the street and talk and find out what we're
doing. Those of us who were working for social justice felt a community.
We could share stories, combine efforts, and we never felt alone. Now
we're alone and dispersed and we miss our homes and our communities and we
still don't know where so many of our loved ones even are.

It may be months before we start to get a clear picture of what happened
in New Orleans. As people are dispersed around the US reconstructing that
story becomes even harder than reconstructing the city. Certain sites,
like the Convention Center and Superdome, have become legendary, but
despite the thousands of people who were there, it still is hard to find
out exactly what did happen.

According to a report that's been circulated, Denise Young, one of those
trapped in the convention center told family members, "yes, there were
young men with guns there, but they organized the crowd. They went to
Canal Street and looted,' and brought back food and water for the old
people and the babies, because nobody had eaten in days. When the police
rolled down windows and yelled out the buses are coming,' the young men
with guns organized the crowd in order: old people in front, women and
children next, men in the back,just so that when the buses came, there
would be priorities of who got out first" But the buses never came. "Lots
of people being dropped off, nobody being picked up. Cops passing by,
speeding off. We thought we were being left to die"

Larry Bradshaw and Lorrie Beth Slonsky, paramedics from Service Employees
International Union Local 790 reported on their experience downtown, after
leaving a hotel they were staying at for a convention. "We walked to the
police command center at Harrah's on Canal Street and were told ...that we
were on our own, and no they did not have water to give us. We now
numbered several hundred. We held a mass meeting to decide a course of
action. We agreed to camp outside the police command post. We would be
plainly visible to the media and would constitute a highly visible
embarrassment to the City officials. The police told us that we could not
stay. Regardless, we began to settle in and set up camp. In short order,
the police commander came across the street to address our group. He told
us he had a solution: we should walk to the Pontchartrain Expressway and
cross the greater New Orleans Bridge where the police had buses lined up
to take us out of the City...

"We organized ourselves and the 200 of us set off for the bridge with
great excitement and hope. ...As we approached the bridge, armed Gretna
sheriffs formed a line across the foot of the bridge. Before we were close
enough to speak, they began firing their weapons over our heads. This sent
the crowd fleeing in various directions...

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

"All day long, we saw other families, individuals and groups make the same
trip up the incline in an attempt to cross the bridge, only to be turned
away. Some chased away with gunfire, others simply told no, others to be
verbally berated and humiliated. Thousands of New Orleanians were
prevented and prohibited from self-evacuating the City on foot. Meanwhile,
the only two City shelters sank further into squalor and disrepair. The
only way across the bridge was by vehicle. We saw workers stealing trucks,
buses, moving vans, semi-trucks and any car that could be hot wired. All
were packed with people trying to escape the misery New Orleans had
become"

Media reports of armed gangs focused on black youth, but New Orleans
community activist, Black Panther, and former Green Party candidate for
City Council Malik Rahim reported from the West Bank of New Orleans,
"There are gangs of white vigilantes near here riding around in pickup
trucks, all of them armed" I also heard similar reports from two of my
neighbors - a white gay couple - who i visited on Esplanade Avenue.

The reconstruction of New Orleans starts now. We need to reconstruct the
truth, we need to reconstruct families, who are still separated, we need
to reconstruct the lives and community of the people of New Orleans, and,
finally, we need to reconstruct the city.

Since I moved to New Orleans, I've been inspired and educated by the
grassroots community organizing that is an integral part of the life of
the city. It is this community infrastructure that is needed to step
forward and fight for restructuring with justice.

In 1970, when hundreds of New Orleans police came to kick the Black
Panthers out of the Desire Housing Projects, the entire community stood
between the police and the Panthers, and the police were forced to
retreat.

The grassroots infrastructure of New Orleans is the infrastructure of
secondlines and Black Mardi Gras: true community support. The Social Aid
and Pleasure Clubs organize New Orleans' legendary secondline parades -
roving street parties that happen almost every weekend. These societies
were formed to provide insurance to the Black community because Black
people could not buy insurance legally, and to this day the "social aid is
as important as the pleasure.

The only way that New Orleans will be reconstructed as even a shadow of
its former self is if the people of New Orleans have direct control over
that reconstruction. But, our community dislocation is only increasing.
Every day, we are spread out further. People leave Houston for Oregon and
Chicago. We are losing contact with each other, losing our community that
has nurtured us.

Already, the usual forces of corporate restructuring are lining up.
Halliburton's Kellogg Brown & Root subsidiary has begun work on a $500
million US Navy contract for emergency repairs at Gulf Coast naval and
marine facilities damaged by Hurricane Katrina. Blackwell Security - the
folks that brought you Abu Ghraib - are patrolling the streets of our
city.

The Wall Street Journal reported that the rich white elite is already
planning their vision of New Orleans' reconstruction, from the super-rich
gated compounds of Audubon Place Uptown, where they have set up a heliport
and brought in a heavily-armed Israeli security company. "The new city
must be something very different, one of these city leaders was quoted as
saying, "with better services and fewer poor people. Those who want to see
this city rebuilt want to see it done in a completely different way:
demographically, geographically and politically"

While the world's attention is focused on New Orleans, in a time when its
clear to most of the world that the federal government's greed and
heartlessness has caused this tragedy, we have an opportunity to make a
case for a people's restructuring, rather than a Halliburton
restructuring.

The people of New Orleans have the will. Today, I met up with Andrea
Garland, a community activist with Get Your Act On who is planning a bold
direct action; she and several of her friends are moving back in to their
homes. They have generators and supplies, and they invite anyone who is
willing to fight for New Orleans to move back in with them. Malik Rahim,
in New Orleans' West Bank, is refusing to leave and is inviting others to
join him. Community organizer Shana Sassoon, exiled in Houston, is
planning a community mapping project to map out where our diaspora is
being sent, to aid in our coming back together. Abram Himmelstein and
Rachel Breulin of The Neighborhood Story Project are beginning the long
task of documenting oral histories of our exile.

Please join us in this fight. This is not just about New Orleans. This is
about community and collaboration versus corporate profiteering. The
struggle for New Orleans lives on.

Jordan Flaherty is a union organizer and an editor of Left Turn Magazine
(www.leftturn.org). He is not planning on moving out of New Orleans. He
can be reached at: anticapitalist [at] hotmail.com


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

Published on Wednesday, September 14, 2005 by the Long Island, NY
Newsday
Katrina Havoc Reflects the New America
by Bill McKibben

If the images of skyscrapers collapsed in heaps of ash were the end of one
story - the United States safe on its isolated continent from the turmoil
of the world - then the picture of the sodden Superdome with its peeling
roof marks the beginning of the next story. It is the one that will
dominate our politics in the coming decades of this century: America
befuddled about how to cope with a planet suddenly turned unstable and
unpredictable.

Over and over in the last few weeks, people have said that the scenes from
the convention center, the highway overpasses and the other suddenly
infamous Crescent City venues didn't "look like America," that they seemed
instead to be straight from the Third World. That was almost literally
accurate, for poor, black New Orleans (whose life had never previously
been of any interest to the larger public) is not so different from other
poor and black parts of the world. Its infant mortality and life
expectancy rates, its educational achievement statistics mirror scores of
African and Latin American enclaves.

But it was accurate in another way, too, one full of portent for the
future.

A decade ago, environmental researcher Norman Myers began trying to add up
the number of people at risk of losing their homes from global warming. He
looked at all the obvious places - coastal China, India, Bangladesh, the
tiny island states of the Pacific and Indian oceans, the Nile delta,
Mozambique, on and on - and predicted that by 2050 it was entirely
possible that 150 million people could be "environmental refugees," forced
from their homes by rising waters. That's more than the number of
political refugees sent scurrying by the bloody century we've just
endured.

Try to imagine, that is, the chaos that attends busing 15,000 people from
one football stadium to another in the richest nation on Earth, and then
multiply it by four orders of magnitude and re-situate your thoughts in
the poorest nations on Earth.

And then try to imagine doing it over and over again - probably without
the buses.

Because so far, even as blogs and Web sites all over the Internet fill
with accusations about the scandalous lack of planning that led to the
collapse of the levees in New Orleans, almost no one is addressing the
much larger problems: the scandalous lack of planning that has kept us
from even beginning to address climate change, and the sad fact that
global warming means the future will be full of just this kind of horror.

Consider one problem for just a minute. No single hurricane is "the
result" of global warming. But a month before Katrina hit, MIT hurricane
specialist Kerry Emmanuel published a landmark paper in the British
science magazine Nature showing that tropical storms are lasting half
again as long, and spinning winds 50 percent more powerful, than just a
few decades before. The only plausible cause: the ever-warmer tropical
seas on which these storms thrive.

Katrina, a Category 1 storm when it crossed Florida, roared to full life
in the abnormally hot water of the Gulf of Mexico. It then punched its way
into Louisiana and Mississippi - the latter a state now led by Gov. Haley
Barbour, who in an earlier incarnation served as a GOP power broker and
energy lobbyist who helped persuade President George W. Bush to renege on
his promise to treat carbon dioxide as a pollutant.

So far the United States has done exactly nothing even to try to slow the
progress of climate change: We're emitting far more carbon than we were in
1988, when scientists issued their first prescient global-warming
warnings.

Our rulers have insisted by both word and deed that the laws of physics
and chemistry do not apply to us. That delusion will now start to vanish.
Katrina marks Year One of our new calendar, the start of an age in which
the physical world has flipped from sure and secure to volatile and
unhinged. New Orleans doesn't look like the America we've lived in. But it
very much resembles the planet we will inhabit the rest of our lives.

Bill McKibben is the author of many books on the environment, including
The End of Nature.

 2005 Newsday Inc.


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

 The Second Coming -- W. B. Yeats

 Turning and turning in the widening gyre
 The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
 Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
 Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
 The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
 The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
 The best lack all convictions, while the worst
 Are full of passionate intensity.

 Surely some revelation is at hand;
 Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
 The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
 When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
 Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert
 A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
 A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
 Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
 Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
 The darkness drops again; but now I know
 That twenty centuries of stony sleep
 Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
 And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
 Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?


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