Mn-prog-events Mailing List: Progressive Calendar 10.04.05

[David Shove (shove001]

             P R O G R E S S I V E   C A L E N D A R     10.04.05

1. Call for Cam      10.04 6pm
2. Cuban 5/CTV       10.04 8pm

3. Lobotomy/pizza    10.05 12:05pm
4. Anti-torture      10.05 3pm
5. MnSOAWatch        10.05 6pm
6. NWA strike        10.05 7pm
7. NWA bene concert  10.05 8pm
8. Eat for Katrina   10.05
9. Nonviolence class 10.05 deadline

10. Green tech tour - register
11. Mexico/peace - register/deadline

12. Cindy Sheehan   - War-hawk RPs & anti-war DPs: what's the difference?
13. Jeffrey StClair - The cancer agents of the FBI: the great green scare
14. Bill Van Auken  - Bennett, genocide, a spreading stench of fascism
15. W H Auden       - O what is that sound (poem)

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From: Tom Taylor <tom [at] organicconsumers.org>
Subject: Call for Cam 10.04 6pm

Callers are needed to help push Green Party Cam Gordon
(http://www.camgordon.org/) through the general election to his 2nd ward
seat on the Minneapolis City Council.

We are calling Tuesday and Thursday evenings at Northern Sun, 2916 E. Lake
Street, from 6 to 9 in the evening.

Calling is going great but we need more folks to ring up as many voters as
we can, ID them and get the word out about Cam.  This is going to be a
close race and your time and effort will really pay off.

You can call me if you want to set up a calling shift ~ come in the back
door. If you cannot call the whole shift don't let that stop you from
getting involved. Give me a ring or just show up,
--Tom Taylor 612-788-4252


--------2 of 15--------

From: Joan Malerich <justnad [at] comcast.net>
Subject: Cuban 5/CTV 10.04 8pm

RE:  Cuban Five and Posada Cases on Cable TV, AlteraVista

Leslie Reindl announces that the presentation at William Mitchell Law
School by Prof. Gary Prevost and Prof. Peter Erlinder will be played on MN
Cable TV--MTN and SPNN.

Tuesday, October 4 on MTN Channel 16 at 8 PM
Thursday, October 13  on SPNN (St. Paul) Channel 15, 8:30 PM

Prof. Peter Erlinder wrote a Brief Amicus Curiae of the National Lawyers
Guild.  Though many briefs were submitted, Dr. Erlinder's brief was most
directly related to the venue decision of the 11th Circuit Court of
Appeals that reversed the trial decision against the Cuban Five.  During
their trial, the Cuban Five asked many times for a change of venue
(location) from Miami, home of the Cuban-American Exile terrorists.
Thought it was obvious Miami was the one place that the chance for a fair
trial was zero, they were not granted the change of venue.  The Appellate
Court determined the Five should have a new trial in a different venue.
This is the first time in US legal history that a Federal Appellate Court
has reversed a trial court on the issue of venue.  The Cuban Five are
Cuban heroes who are political prisoners in the U.S.  Their crime was
trying nonviolently to stop terrorism against the Cuban people.  They are
NOT "spies," as they did not seek or get any information affecting the
national security of the U.S. nor of the U.S. military.  They were
arrested September of 1998, held for 33 months without bail and held in
isolation for 17 months.  Three (Gerardo, Ramon, Antonio) were given life
sentences, the other two (Rene and Fernando) 15 and 19 years.  Two have
not been allowed to see their wives for over five years, due to the US
refusing them visas.  Rene's seven year-old daughter has not seen her
father for five years.

Prof. Gary Prevost has taught Latin American studies for 30 years and is
an expert on Cuban history and Cuban-United States political relations.
Prevost explains the case of Cuba exile terrorist Luis Posada Carriles,
who, among other terrorist acts, conspired in the planting of a bomb on a
Cuban Airliner in 1976 that killed 73 innocent people.  After escaping
from a Venezuelan prison, Posada worked with Ollie North in the
Iran-Contra Affair, planned the 1997 bombings of tourist sites in Havana,
attempted to assassinate Fidel Castro in 2000.  His life is one of
terrorism.  Last spring, Posada slipped into the US and asked for asylum.
Venezuela legally requested extradition of Posada.  Last week, the El Paso
judge ruled against the extradition to Venezuela.  This is just one more
Cuban exile terrorist that the U.S. is harboring.


--------3 of 15--------

From: humanrts [at] umn.edu
Subject: Lobotomy/pizza 10.05 12:05pm

Program in Human Rights and Medicine Lecture:

Monster or Maverick? Walter Freeman, Lobotomy and the Rights of
Psychosurgery Patients
Jack El-Hai
Wednesday, October 5
12:15pm (pizza provided, 12:05pm)
2-620 Moos Tower UofM Mpls

Sponsored by: Program in Human Rights and Medicine, Program in the History
of Medicine, Department of Psychiatry, University of Minnesota Bookstore
(The Lobotomist, 2005, will be available)

One of the most difficult areas in medicine, past and present, is the
treatment of mental illness. Complexity and controversy lie at the nexus
of probabilistic diagnostic categories, social context, patient liberty
rights, informed consent, and the scientific justification of treatment
practices under conditions of uncertainty. Arguably the most controversial
psychiatric procedure in the 20th Century was lobotomy; its most prominent
advocate in the U.S., Walter Freeman, M.D.

The Program in Human Rights and Medicine, the Program in the History of
Medicine, and Department of Psychiatry invite you to a noon-hour lecture
by Jack El-Hai on Wednesday, October 5, on the historical context,
stature, ethics and patients of the American pioneer and advocate of
lobotomy, drawing on El Hai's recent critically acclaimed book, The
Lobotomist (John Wiley & Sons, 2005). What issues does this history
illuminate regarding medical treatments of last resort and the rights of
suffering and stigmatized patients? What are the cautionary lessons for
current or proposed practices?

Jack El-Hai is a graduate of Carleton College, recipient of the June Roth
Memorial Award for Medical Journalism, a McKnight Fellow, and current
President of the American Society of Journalists and Authors. (The
Lobotomist will be available at the lecture courtesy of the University of
Minnesota Bookstore.)

Moos Tower is located on the East Bank Campus with an entrance on the
south side of Washington Avenue between Harvard Street SE and Church
Street SE with parking across the street in the Washington Avenue Ramp.

We look forward to your presence at noon on Wednesday, October 5.

Kirk C. Allison, Ph.D. Associate Director Program in Human Rights and
Medicine University of Minnesota Mayo Mail Code 164 420 Delaware Street SE
Minneapolis, MN 55455 Tel. 612-626-6559 Fax 612-626-3908 E-mail:
phrm [at] umn.edu http://www.umn.edu/phrm


--------4 of 15--------

From: Charles Underwood <charleyunderwood [at] HOTMAIL.COM>
Subject: Anti-torture 10.05 3pm

Wednesday, 10/5 (and every Wednesday), 3 to 4 pm, meeting of anti-torture
group Tackling Torture at the Top, St. Martin's Table, 2001, Riverside,
Minneapolis.  lynne [at] usfamily.net


--------5 of 15--------=

From: mnsoaw [at] circlevision.org
Subject: MnSOAWatch 10.05 6pm

Our next MnSOAWatch monthly meeting is scheduled for this Wednesday
October 5th at 6 pm at Holy Trinity Lutheran Church, 2730 East 31st in
Minneapolis. Enter using the east doors, we are upstairs. Please join us
for our busy time of the year, preparing for the Annual November SOAW
Vigil and Action in Columbus, Georgia.

We would like to let you know of two GET THE WORD OUT presentations:

Monday October 10 at 7pm in the St. Joseph room at St Mary of the Lake,
4690 Bald Eagle Ave in White Bear Lake

Thursday October 13 at 7pm Cannon Valley Friends Meeting 333 1/2 Division
St (above Jenkins Jewelers) Northfield, MN

Our GET THE WORD OUT multi-media presentation is geared to those who are
new to this issue. The program includes images, portions of a video, real
prisoners of conscience, witnesses from delegations to Central and South
American countries and legislative efforts. We hope to educate about what
the SOA/WHINSEC is and encourage people to participate in the campaign to
get it closed. Let your friends know who are curious and would like to
learn more,

We have two more dates pending- we will email the times as they become
solidified.

Seats are still available on the Veterans for Peace, Chapter 27 bus for
the SOAW vigil in Georgia. Leaving the Twin Cities Friday morning November
18 and then leaving Columbus on Sunday evening. Call Jim at 612.722.1112
to reserve your spot.


--------6 of 15--------

From: Lydia Howell <lhowell [at] visi.com>
Subject: NWA strike 10.05 7pm

>From Erin Stojan:

Many of you have asked about opportunities to help striking NWA Mechanics.
As you probably know, NWA has recently declared bankruptcy.  As I
understand it, pensions of NWA workers, as well as the jobs of AMFA
workers, are on the line.  Northwest Mechanics need our support now.

Folks can learn more at http://www.amfa33.org .

WEDNESDAYS, 7-9 pm
The Steelworkers Associate Member Program
(www.fightback05.com )
is walking the picket lines in solidarity with workers.  Anyone is welcome
to join them.  Be sure to dress warmly.  If the AMFA ends the strike, we
will not be out on the picket line.

Do NOT go directly to picket lines.  Instead, for security the mechanics
are asking folks to go to the strike headquarters and check in with a
strike captain to be driven to picket sites.

DIRECTIONS:
Simply head out to AMFA Strike Headquarters, which is on the I-494
frontage road next to the AmeriSuites (7800 International Drive,
Bloomington) parking lot. Exit I-494 at 34th Avenue South.

Proceed South on 34th Avenue.  Turn Right on American Boulevard, and then
turn right onto the hotel frontage road (the first right that is not a pay
parking lot). The strike headquarters will be very obvious on your left.

Check in with the strike captains, and they will bring you to the
available picket area.  DO NOT just report to a picket site, as security
procedures require that you check in with AMFA first.  AMFA will provide
all transportation to picket sites.

WHAT ELSE YOU CAN DO:

--The picket line is going 24 hours a day.  As I understand it, folks are
welcome to join picketing workers at any time if the Wed 7-9p time slot
doesn't work out.  Just remember to report in at the strike headquarters
first.

--AMFA is feeding workers who are on the picket line at all times of the
day; donations are greatly appreciated at the AMFA strike headquarters.
The list of requested supplies that I saw included:
 --water
 --propane tanks
 --hot dogs/buns (variations greatly appreciated)
 --disposable cups, napkins, cutlery, plates
 --food donations (looked like just about anything is welcome)

I don't recall if this was on the list, but I'm betting pre-ground coffee
would be a good bet too.

--I'm sure that letters to the editor and to US Representatives and
Senators would be helpful too. I'm contacting AMFA for more info about
specific talking points, and will let yall know what I hear.

Thanks for all that yall do.  When I was out at the picket line last
night, I received many warm handshakes and thanks for being out there from
AMFA workers.  Community support is greatly needed and appreciated right
now.  Hope to see you on the picket line, and thanks to those of you who
are already there!


--------7 of 15--------

>From nwasolidaritymsp [at] hotmail.com Tue Oct  4 13:52:24 2005
Subject: NWA bene concert 10.05 8pm

UNITED WE BARGAIN, DIVIDED WE BEG!  CONCERT
An evening of music with Anne Feeney and Evan Greer

WHERE: AMFA STRIKE HEADQUARTERS; Parking lot of the AmeriSuites on the I-494
frontage road just West of the intersection of I-494 and 34th Avenue South.
Exit I-494 at 34th Avenue South.  Proceed to the South.  Turn Right at 80th
Street.  Turn Right on International Drive.  Strike Headquarters is two
blocks up on the Left.

Wednesday, October 5th, 8pm
Visit www.annefeeney.com, of www.evangreer.com for more information about
the performers.


--------8 of 15--------

From: Barbara Lickness <blickness [at] yahoo.com>
Subject: Eat for Katrina 10.05

Friends and fans of Tammy Wong...and the Rainbow Chinese Restaurant.
People who haven't gotten around to mailing a check to a Hurricane Katrina
Relief Fund.

Here is quite possibly the best reason you will ever have to enjoy a
fantastic meal at Tammy's restaurant - Rainbow Chinese at 2739 Nicollet
ave. in Minneapolis. As usual, Tammy's generosity is unmatched.

Wednesday October 5th is DINE FOR AMERICA day to benefit the Red Cross
hurricane Katrina relief efforts. Restaurants around the country are
donating a portion of their profits to help the Red Cross while they
provide critical support for the people who need it most.

Rainbow Chinese Restaurant is donating 50% of our profits for that whole
day, lunch and dinner.

Please come for lunch or dinner on Wednesday and also invite all your
friends. I am hoping for a huge crowd and sending as much as we can to the
Red Cross.

Tammy Wong, Rainbow Chinese Restaurant & Bar 2739 Nicollet Av. S.,
Minneapolis 612-870-7084
www.dineforamerica.org


--------9 of 15--------

From: Michael Bischoff <michael [at] clarityfacilitation.com>
Subject: Nonviolence class 10.05 deadline

An upcoming Compleat Scholar class at the U of M:
>From Ghandi to Serbia: Passion and Power in Nonviolent Revolutions

Examine how nonviolence movements are changing. Today's strategies for
nonviolent revolution differ from the example set by Gandhi. Lectures and
discussions compare Gandhi's leadership to the decentralized people's
movements in recent nonviolent revolutions. The class will think through
possible futures for leadership in nonviolent movements.

Instructor: Michael Bischoff

Four Thursdays from 7-9pm, October 20 - November 10, 2005
Registration Deadline: October 5
Held on the St. Paul University of Minnesota campus
Register online at:
http://events.cce.umn.edu/events/section_detail.aspx?sect_key=178032&cluster
_cd=WB32
Register by phone at: (612) 624-4000


--------10 of 15--------

From: Alan Carlson <discern [at] visi.com>
Subject: Green tech tour - register

[If interested SAVE this notice -ed]

Brainerd Area Environmental Learning Network (BAELN) 2005-2006 Season
Healthy Communities: People and Landscapes
is pleased to offer

The Green Technologies Tour
Thursday, November 3rd, 2005 from 12:30-4:30pm

This tour will visit three north central Minnesota locations dealing
with green technologies related to design and energy.

All are invited but space is limited. Pre-registration is required at
$10.00 per person. Transportation and refreshments will be provided.

Tour Highlights:

Rural Renewable Energy Alliance - solar technologies including
electricity, water heater and space heat. Featuring a demonstration home
that utilizes all three. Dedicated to bring solar heat to low income
families. http://www.rreal.org <http://www.rreal.org/>

Hunt Utilities Group - exploring and developing systems that support
ecological living. Current and planned projects include: HUGnet, Straw
bale construction, a research campus, buildings that heat themselves
(even in Minnesota), sewage reprocessing and reuse, alternative energy,
and related business incubation. http://www.hugllc.com
<http://www.hugllc.com/>

Forestview Middle School - utilizing an innovative energy design, using
a low cost, high efficient system that exceeds the standards set for
schools today. http://forestview.brainerd.k12.mn.us
<http://forestview.brainerd.k12.mn.us/>

Pre-registration is required at $10.00 per person. To register please
send a check made out to Phil Hunsicker, with your contact information
(please include your phone number) to:
Phil Hunsicker, BAELN Treasurer
1000 Friends of Minnesota
213 South Fifth Street
Brainerd, MN 56401
If you have any questions please call Phil at 218-824-5095 or email him
at phunsicker [at] 1000fom.org.

Tour Itinerary
12:15 p.m. Meet at the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency (MPCA) 7678
College Road, Baxter, MN (phone: 218-828-2492)
12:30 p.m. Transportation departs for Pine River
1:00 p.m. Rural Renewable Energy Alliance Jason Eden, Director
2:00 p.m. Hunt Utilities Group Campus Ray Holm, Researcher
3:00 p.m. Break - HUG Campus Refreshments provided by 1000 Friends of
Minnesota
3:15 p.m. Depart for Baxter
3:45 p.m. Forestview Middle School Earl Wolleat, Director of Buildings
and Grounds
4:25 p.m. Return to Minnesota Pollution Control Agency
4:30 p.m. End of tour

BAELN works to create opportunities for people working in the
environmental field, and the community, to receive timely information on
environmental and sustainability issues, along with the chance to
network with other professionals. This season's theme is Healthy
Communities: People and Landscapes. BAELN is a collaborative effort of
the following organizations: 1000 Friends of Minnesota, Central Lakes
College, Crow Wing County Soil and Water Conservation District,
Initiative Foundation, MN Department of Natural Resources, MN Pollution
Control Agency, Northland Arboretum, Paul Bunyan Trail Association, and
the U of MN Extension Service.


--------11 of 15--------

From: audrey thayer <athayer [at] paulbunyan.net>
Subject: Mexico/peace register/deadline

Delegation to Mexico
January 6 - January 15, 20006
Sponsored by Witness for Peace - Join Audrey Thayer

[If interested SAVE this notice -ed]

The Many Faces of Mexico: The Impact of Free Trade and Globalization with an
Indigenous and Latino perspective

Witness the effects of free trade on workers, farmers, indigenous people and
the environment in Mexico. Eleven years after the passage of NAFTA what are
the impacts of a free trade agreement between a developing country and the
world's largest economy Meet people from Oaxaca and Puebla working for
change. Learn together with people from Mexico and the United States as we
challenge economic injustice.

This is an educational endeavor that will provide you with face-to-face
experiences with people in Mexico and the information you need to advocate
effectively for a more just U.S. and corporate policy towards Mexico.

You will have a full schedule during your stay in Mexico.  Some activities
may include:

Learn from non-governmental agencies working on trade and labor issues

Study the connection between the conflict in Mexico and the globalization
of the economy, including trade agreements such as NAFTA.

Hear from woman who are working for better wages and working conditions in
maquiladoras.

Travel to Oaxaca and Puebla and experience life with a Mexican family
during a home stay.

Talk with U.S. and/or Mexican officials who support free trade
policies.

Explore the impacts of NAFTA and learn about alternatives to the Free
Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA)

Witness the mobilization of grassroots organizations and the struggle for
true democracy in Mexico.

Cost:  The price of the 10-day delegation is $960, including a $150
non-refundable deposit, plus airfare.  This includes all meals,
accommodations, facilitation, translation, group transportation. The fee
also covers extensive reading and activist tools both before and after the
delegation.

Scholarships:  Fund-raising materials or advice available. Occasionally
scholarship money becomes available.

Registration Deadline:  November 4, 2005
For an application or more information, please contact:
Susana at 218-724-5775,  swoodwar [at] d.umn.edu
Audrey Thayer at 218-444-2285,   athayer [at] paulbunyan.net

Witness for Peace (WFP) is a politically independent, grassroots
organization of people committed to nonviolence and led by faith and
conscience.  Our mission is to support peace, justice, and sustainable
economies in the Americas by changing US policies and corporate practices
that contribute to poverty and oppression in Latin America and the
Caribbean.


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War-Hawk Republicans and Anti-War Democrats: What's the Difference?
By Cindy Sheehan
t r u t h o u t | Perspective
Tuesday 04 October 2005

The past week in DC found me in many offices of our elected officials:
Senators, Congresspersons, pro-war, "anti-war," Democrat, Republican. With
a few notable exceptions, all of our employees toed party lines.

Thanks to those who met with me, because, except for Senator Barbara Boxer
(D-Calif.), I was not their constituent. And I believe the Republicans who
met with me, whether they knew it or not, were breaking with their leader
on this, since he was too cowardly to meet with me.

The War Hawks I met with made my skin crawl. They so obviously are
supporting a war that is not in our nation's best interest, nor is it
making us more secure. I heard from Senators Dole (R-NC) and McCain
(R-Ariz.) and Representative Marilyn Musgrave (R-CO) about 9/11 and
"fighting them over there, so we don't have to fight them over here." That
made me sick. George Bush and his lying band of imperialist greed-mongers
exploited 9/11 and our national terror of other terrorist attacks to
invade a country that had nothing to do with the attacks on our country.
Now, in the aftermath of those lies, tens of thousands of innocent Iraqi
civilians are dead, and almost 2000 of our brave young men and women. What
makes the Iraqi babies and families less precious than ours? The crime
that these people committed was being born at the wrong place at the wrong
time. George took his war OF terror to their doorsteps. I even asked
Senator Dole when she thought the occupation would be able to end, and she
was incredulous that I would even think of Iraq as an occupation: she sees
it as a liberation. I really wanted to know how many of them we have to
kill before she considered that they were liberated.

The War Hawks (or war-niks, as I like to call them) also use the rationale
that Saddam used weapons of mass destruction on his own people. I asked
Senator Dole three times where Saddam got those weapons, and she wouldn't
answer me. Because the smiling, kind, patronizing War-Hawkette knew where
Saddam got the weapons. He got them from the USA. Saddam was a bad guy,
but he was our bad guy (see the famous picture of the grinning Rummy
shaking Hussein's hand) until he decided to sell his oil to Russia and
France for Euros ... then, "Oh my gosh, Saddam kills his own people!!"

We didn't care about Saddam killing his own people after the first Gulf
War, when George the First encouraged the people of Iraq to rise up
against Saddam. We didn't care about the Iraqi children dying from the
bombings and the sanctions during the Clinton years. All of a sudden in
March 2003 those things became so important that it was urgent that our
troops invade Iraq. Besides, the memo to Congress in which George asked
for the authority to invade Iraq specifically mentions WMDs and terrorism
- it says nothing about Saddam being a "bad guy" or about spreading
"freedom and democracy" to Iraq. The reasons for our continued occupation
change as fast as the old ones are proven lies.

It was horrible to talk to these three war-mongering Republicans; I almost
felt like I had to take a shower after each visit, but they did not affect
my resolve. Congresswoman Musgrave was openly hostile when we were ushered
(by her very nice staff) into her office. Ms. Musgrave actually has a son
in the service, but she got very defensive when I asked which branch of
the service her son, who is stationed in Italy, was in. I was asking
mother-to-mother, but she basically said it wasn't any of my business. I
told her she must be very worried about her son and he would be in my
prayers.

I know that it is hard to have a child in military service whether in Iraq
or Italy. She also "supports the president" 100%. Do these politicians not
realize that the people are withdrawing their support for this war and for
this president at an unprecedented clip? To support George at this point
is to support a sinking stone. To support George at any time is and was a
mistake of tragic and immense proportions.

The War-Hawk Dems I met with were equally, if not more, disheartening.
Although my meeting with Senator Clinton (D-NY) went well, I don't believe
she will do anything to alleviate the suffering of the Americans in Iraq
or the Iraqi people. I don't believe that sending more troops is the
solution; it will only aggravate an already untenable situation. We met in
NYC with Senator Charles Schumer's aide, who told us that the Senator
thinks the occupation of Iraq is a "good thing for America," but he
wouldn't elaborate on why. The aide was asked if the Senator had a vested
interest in keeping this war going, because the Senator is certainly not
stupid enough to believe that this misbegotten misadventure in the Middle
East is good for anyone. I don't think the people of Louisiana, Alabama,
and Mississippi would agree with the Senator that this illegal occupation
is a "good thing."

The "Anti-War" Dems perplex me the most, however. Except for the good
guys, like the members of the Out of Iraq Caucus and a few Senators, the
Democratic party line is that we must allow Iraq a window of two months'
time, and after the referendum on the constitution this month and the
parliamentary elections in December, it will be time to attack the failed
policies of George and his cabal of liars.

In my meeting with Howard Dean, he told me that the Iraq issue was "hard,"
and the new Democratic "Contract with America" is going to have 10 points,
and the first one is going to be "Universal Health Care." I told Mr. Dean
that if the Dems didn't come out strongly against the war and against
George's disastrous policies, we were going to become irrelevant as a
party (which is already happening) and the "hard" issue should be the one
that is worked on the hardest! I'll admit that the issue doesn't seem so
hard to me: George and his sycophantic band of criminals lied to the
world; too many people are dead for the lies; too many people are in
harm's way for the lies; it is time to bring our troops home. I am just
hoping against hope that the war is on the Dems' contract somewhere.
George is always pulling out the old saw that what he does in sending our
children to die and kill is "hard work." I hate to see that same adjective
used to describe bringing them home. The war issue is not complicated:
Wrong to invade and wrong to stay. Bring our troops home. Simple.

I think if one is not speaking out right now against the killing in Iraq,
one is supporting it. I believe that the members of Congress who have
always been, or are now, opposed to this war, need our 100 percent
support, admiration, and encouragement. Everyone else needs to be prodded
in the right direction. I implored every member I spoke to this past week
(and during our bus trip) to lead our country out of the desert. I believe
that if they did, America would follow them through fire to bring our
troops home.

Finally, I was harrassed at the Capitol Building by a thug security guard,
who screamed at me to get out of the building until my next appointment. I
complained to another security guard about the disrespectful treatment
that I had received from the other guard and he said that most of the
employees were "Republicans" and they didn't appreciate what I was doing.
I have news for them: this is not about politics - to me, this is about
flesh and blood. This is not about right and left, this is about right and
wrong. 19 troops were needlessly killed in Iraq this past week. 19
families were destroyed senselessly and avoidably. Hundreds of innocent
Iraqis were killed for just being home that day, just being out shopping,
or just going about their daily lives. An average of almost three of our
young men and women are killed every day in George's abomination. While
the War-Hawk Repbublicans are wrongfully supporting a wrongheaded war and
the "anti-war" Dems are hemming and hawing about the politics of this
administration's misguided and evil policies, how many more families will
get the news that their lives have been destroyed in the tragic meantime?

What are they waiting for?


--------13 of 15--------

The Cancer Agents of the FBI
The Great Green Scare
By JEFFREY ST. CLAIR
CounterPunch
October 3, 2005

With nothing much better to do and an unlimited budget to burn, the FBI is
turning its mighty inquisitorial arsenal on environmental groups across
the country. Even now the feds are scouring green outfits from Moscow,
Idaho to Cancer Alley Parish, Louisiana, looking to round up bands of
eco-terrorists, the Osama Bin Ladens of the American outback.

Back in Reagantime the rightwingers smeared environmentalists as
watermelons: green on the outside, red on the inside. In those halcyon
days, economist John Baden, major domo of a rightwing think tank called
FREE and the Svengali of the Sagebrush Rebels, made a small fortune
hawking watermelon ties, woven of the finest petro-polyester, to his
retinue of oil execs, federal judges and range lords. Now that cap-C
Communism has faded into the oblivion of high school history text books,
the corporate world's pr mavens have had to concoct a new spine-tingling
metaphor to evoke the threat environmentalism poses to their bottom line:
eco-terrorism.

Apparently, it's just a short step from al Qaeda to PETA. That's right,
the money you save from not buying fur may be going to finance terrorist
raids to liberate condemned mink from their isolation cages on rodent
death row in Corvallis, Oregon.

Of course, the feds haven't had much luck finding Bin Laden. And our
mean-spirited Clouseaus didn't stop any of his kamikazes, even though
their own agents shouted out repeated internal alarums. And when the
whistleblowing agents went public, the FBI brass cracked down on them,
gagged some and gave others, such as the courageous Sibel Edmunds, the
boot.

Several of the feds' biggest terrorism arrests have blown up in their
faces. In Portland, Oregon, the FBI dramatically seized attorney Brandon
Mayfield, trumpeting to the press that the mild-mannered immigration
lawyer was a long-distance mastermind behind the Madrid train bombings, a
kind of Fu Manchu in Birkenstocks. The feds said the technicians in their
crime lab had detected Mayfield's fingerprints on a bag found near the
bomb site that supposedly was linked to the terrorists. After several
harrowing weeks, he was released by a disgusted federal judge, over the
FBI's virulent objections, after Spanish investigators revealed that the
fatal fingerprint bore not the faintest resemblance to Mayfield's and, in
fact, belonged to an Algerian. Yet another crushing blow to the FBI crime
lab.

And after four years, the FBI's snark hunt for the anthrax killer has also
come up empty.

So perhaps tree huggers shouldn't sweat these menacing invigilations from
the big heat.

Then again perhaps they should worry.

What the FBI is truly proficient at is destroying the lives of innocent
people, such as Brandon Mayfield, Judi Bari and Wen Ho Lee. That's when
they don't simply kill you outright, as they did to Fred Hampton, the
blameless men, women and kids in that house of flames in Waco and Randy
Weaver's wife, Vicki, as she held an infant in her arms on the front porch
of their cabin at Ruby Ridge.

Armed with the bulging array of new police and surveillance powers handed
the agency in the wake of 9/11, the FBI is now free to prowl unfettered by
even the thinnest strands of constitutional due process through the lives,
email and bank accounts of activists trying stop chemical plants from
flushing toxins into their water or logging companies from slaughtering
800-year old trees on lands that are purportedly part of the public
estate.

In other words, the FBI is acting as a federally-funded paramilitary force
for the cancer industry and Extinction, Incorporated, as the Pinkerton
Agency and National Guard once did for Anaconda Copper and Standard Oil.

Apparently, no one has told Robert Mueller that the corpse of Edward Abbey
has been moldering in the Arizona desert for 15 years, his place taken by
touchy-feely greens funded by organic body products companies, such as
Julia Butterfly, who would rather talk to trees than drive spikes into
them for their own good.

Of course, this kind of glaring nuance won't deter an agency that persists
in peddling the repeatedly discredited slur that Judi Bari bombed herself.

Over on FoxNews, blinking eco-terrorist alerts have replaced Tom Ridge's
color-coded threat level as the latest alarmist metronome to distract
viewer attention from the plight of Karl Rove, the convictions of
corporate tycoons and the deepening bloodbath in Iraq.

FoxNews devoted extensive coverage to congressional testimony earlier this
summer by John Lewis, the FBI's Deputy Director for Counterterrorism.
Deftly sidestepping border vigilantes, anti-abortion zealots, and white
supremacists, Lewis pointed to environmentalists as the great looming
internal threat to the security of the nation. Lewis breathlessly claimed
that the FBI had documented more than 1,200 acts of eco-terrorism over the
last 15 years, inflicting $110 million in property damage-or about the
same amount that timber companies steal from the national forests each
year. Oddly, executives at the Weyerhaeuser Company - a repeat
offender - haven't done any time in Pelican Bay lately.

Once again these hotly reported stories have mostly fizzled out, with the
supposed acts of eco-terrorism turning to be insurance scams, disputes
between neighbors or angry employees venting their rage with a match and a
gallon of gasoline.

In December of 2004, more than a dozen homes in a Maryland subdivision
near a wildlife reserve were torched. Before the embers from the
smoldering houses had cooled, the FBI publicly fingered eco-terrorists for
the arson. But it soon emerged that the fires in the largely middle-class
black neighborhood had been committed by a drunken gang of white power
pyromaniacs called The Family. Close, boys, but no cigar.

Meanwhile, the Reverend Pat Robertson broadcasts assassination
proclamations on national television. Praise the lord and pay the hit man.
Operation Rescue's Randal Terry publicly threatened federal judges during
the national trauma over Terri Schiavo. One of David Horowitz's featured
writers on Frontpage, a certain Michael Calderon, called for "Chomsky,
Howard Zinn, Michael Parenti, Michael Moore, Ward Churchill, and [Justin]
Raimondos to be found shot full of holes." Another group of beer-gutted
ultra-Patriots in Chicago openly pleads online for the execution of Stan
Goff, Alexander Cockburn and your humble scribe.

None of these would-be terrorists is currently deemed a public menace by
the FBI. Rev. Robertson's notoriously corrupt Operation Blessing is even
sanctioned to receive FEMA money.

Over the past quarter of a century, only abortion providers and Muslim
clerics have been on the receiving end of more death threats than
environmental organizers. It comes with the territory. But these virulent
acts of harassment - messages often driven home with dead spotted owls,
bullet casings, and rocks through the front window - rarely rouse the
interest of the FBI or even local cops. Apparently, the agency doesn't
consider the violent suppression of political speech a terrorist act.

The environmental movement hasn't issued any fatwahs lately. (Although
there may have been discussions at the crusty League of Conservation
Voters of taking some kind of preemptive action against Ralph Nader on the
eve of the last election.) Indeed, the greens haven't had many successes
at all, since Clinton and Gore drained the spinal fluid out of the big
greens back in the mid-90s. With a few feisty exceptions in Montana,
Oregon and Louisiana, the movement is a paper tiger these days. Paper
tigers are easily intimidated into turning on their own, which may be the
point.

The lack of a body count from green sleeper cells hasn't stopped the FBI
from amassing robust files on dozens of environmental organizers and
environmental groups. Of course, this is an agency that harbored files on
Sinatra, Liberace and Louis Armstrong. Satchmo, though, certainly posed a
greater threat to the nation's ruling elite than has ever been evinced by
the National Audubon Society. In these tremulous times, it's the
environmental activist who doesn't have an FBI file who should bear the
greatest scrutiny - there's your potential infiltrator. So perhaps the FBI
had done the environmental movement a service. The next time you're
thinking about giving a green group a contribution, ask to see their FBI
file. If it's thinner than 100 pages, donate to another group.

The feds seem to have a special fetish for Greenpeace. A recent lawsuit
filed by the ACLU forced the FBI to reveal that it had accumulated more
than 2,400 pages of information on Greenpeace. While Greenpeace may be the
Bush administration's most visible environmental critic, this isn't your
grandfather's Greenpeace, which has largely abandoned the flashy direct
actions of yore for glossy direct mailings and run-of-the-mill lobbying
efforts - think National Wildlife Federation with tongue-piercings.

And let us never forget that while Greenpeace has never been charged with
any terrorist act, it has been the victim of a lethal terrorist bombing.
In 1985, two French secret agents detonated three limpet mines on the hull
of the Rainbow Warrior while it was docked in Auckland Harbor. The
explosions killed Fernando Pereira, a Portuguese photographer.

Even the feds can't cite a single death resulting from an alleged act of
eco-terrorism. But that doesn't matter. After the horrors of New Orleans,
it should be clear to all that it's the protection of property, not
people, that really gets the feds going.

Destruction of property in the name of a political cause is now deemed an
act of terrorism that can carry with it prison terms equivalent to
first-degree murder and allows the FBI to deploy the extra-constitutional
powers granted by the Patriot Act and other anti-terrorism laws.

Take the strange ordeal of Tre Arrow, who faces a life-sentence on federal
charges of burning a cement truck and logging equipment in the ancient
forests of Oregon. Today, Mr. Arrow, who denies the allegations against
him, is being held in Canada, where he is fighting extradition. Those
machines torched in the Oregon forests were valued at less than $500,000
combined. Yet Arrow, still in his twenties, is looking at 70 years hard
time in federal prison. Compare that to the Nero of Tyco, Dennis
Kozlowski, convicted, along with his partner in crime Mark Swartz, of
stealing $600 million from his company. Kozlowski will be eligible for
parole in seven years. Enron's Meyer Lansky (AKA Andrew Fastow), the
numbers man responsible for engineering an accounting scheme that resulted
in the largest bankruptcy in US history, got 10 years in Club Fed - and he
almost certainly won't serve all of that. They never do.

As disclosed by former UPI editor Kelly Hearn in an excellent recent piece
for Alternet, under several state laws, and a bill currently being
shepherded through the US congress, you don't even have to destroy
property to be considered an eco-terrorist. All you have to do is block
access to an animal research facility. Chain yourself to the door of entry
into a Dachau of the chimp world and you might find yourself staring down
a 20-year prison term, with all of your personal and organizational
assests seized, as if you were a Colombian drug kingpin. Here the barbaric
RICO statutes are being cast out as the agency's prosecutorial driftnet.

The crackdown on greens is happening at a time when legally sanctioned
avenues of dissent against polluters and pillagers of nature are being
foreclosed daily, as congress and the administration curtail abilities to
appeal and litigate federal rulings threatening the environment. It's even
getting tougher and tougher to find out what is actually going on. With
9/11 as the inevitable rationale, the Bush administration has shuttered
the Toxic Release Inventory, which disclosed the kinds and amounts of
pollutants spew into the water and air by chemical plants, and squeezed
the Freedom of Information Act in the name of national security (read:
corporate wet dream). What was once a fundamental right of remonstrance
against governmental and corporate outrages is now considered an act of
sedition.

So this FBI witchhunt is already well underway and will soon be coming to
a community group near you. The lives of part-time activists, mothers,
nurses, students, will be turned upside down. They will be harassed,
bullied and encouraged to inform on their colleagues. Organizations will
be infiltrated and wrecked from the inside. False stories will be planted
in the press. Environmental funders will be scared off. Foundations will
be audited, hauled before hostile congressional committees and threatened
with revocation of their tax status. It's a creepy new twist in an old
narrative.

They got it all wrong, you say? Tough luck.

Being an FBI agent means never having to say you're sorry. Just ask
Richard Jewel, the man they wrongly fingered for the Olympic Park
bombings.

Jeffrey St. Clair is the author of Been Brown So Long It Looked Like Green
to Me: the Politics of Nature and Grand Theft Pentagon: Tales of
Corruption and Profiteering in the War on Terror.


---------14 of 15--------

William Bennett's 'hypothetical' on racial genocide
A spreading stench of fascism
By Bill Van Auken
3 October 2005
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2005/oct2005/benn-o03.shtml

The statement of former Republican education secretary and "drug czar"
William Bennett that the crime rate could be reduced through the abortion of
all African-American children has touched off a political firestorm in the
US.

Democratic lawmakers and civil rights organizations have demanded he
apologize, while some have called for the termination of his syndicated
radio program "Morning in America." In Philadelphia, parents and education
advocates responded by demanding the city's school district - two-thirds
of whose students are black - cancel a $3 million contract it awarded
earlier this year to K12 Inc., a for-profit company chaired by Bennett.

Bennett is a key player in Republican politics and a leading neoconservative
ideologue. In spite of revelations two years ago concerning his own
multimillion-dollar gambling habit, he still postures as a moral instructor
to the nation. It is a lucrative calling, bringing in money from right-wing
foundations like those of Richard Mellon Scaife and John M. Olin, as well as
retainers from broadcast news networks anxious to air his reactionary
opinions.

On his radio broadcast Wednesday, he said:

"I do know that it's true that if you wanted to reduce crime, you could -
if that were your sole purpose - you could abort every black baby in this
country, and your crime rate would go down."

He continued: "That would be an impossibly ridiculous and morally
reprehensible thing to do, but your crime rate would go down."

Bush's press secretary issued a terse statement declaring, "The president
believes the comments were not appropriate." The Republican Party responded
in almost identical terms.

Bennett himself defended his remarks, calling them "a thought experiment
about public policy."

"I was putting forward a hypothetical proposition," he said.

Such "thought experiments" and "hypothetical propositions" have a long and
repellent history. Theories about "racial hygiene" and eugenics as a means
of curing social problems were widely discussed in right-wing political and
academic circles before they were implemented as a policy of mass
extermination in Nazi Germany.

Significantly, Bennett in his defense tied his comments directly to the
social catastrophe unleashed upon New Orleans and its predominantly black
and poor population in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.

"There was a lot of discussion about race and crime in New Orleans," he
told ABC news. "There was discussion - a lot of it wrong-but nevertheless,
media jumping on stories about looting and shooting, and roving gangs and
so on.

"There's no question this is on our minds," he continued. "What I do on our
show is talk about things that people are thinking.... I'm sorry if people
are hurt, I really am. But we can't say this is an area of American life
[and] public policy that we're not allowed to talk about-race and crime."

Whose minds - in the aftermath of Katrina-are preoccupied with
exterminating black babies? Who are the people who are "thinking" about
the fascistic policy that Bennett put into words on his radio show?

For most who watched as tens of thousands in New Orleans were left to
suffer - and many hundreds left to die - without food, water, medical aid
or means of evacuation, the reaction was one of horror and anger over the
abject failure of the American government and American society as a whole.

But a significant element within the American ruling elite and among its
political representatives saw the chaos in New Orleans as the fault of the
victims themselves, and drew the most reactionary conclusions. Just a day
after Bennett's radio remarks, the Wall Street Journal published a lengthy
editorial comment by Charles Murray, author of the infamous
pseudo-scientific and racist tract, The Bell Curve. The thrust of the book,
published a decade ago, is an unabashed defense of social inequality,
attributing wealth and poverty to superior versus inferior genetically
determined intellectual abilities. Its political conclusion is a rejection
of all policies aimed at ameliorating social injustice and furthering
democratic values.

Responding to the indelible images of human suffering that emerged from the
Katrina disaster, Murray's Journal article, entitled "The Hallmark of the
Underclass," declared that the hurricane merely demonstrated that "the
underclass has been growing during all the years that people were ignoring
it."

The images from New Orleans, he wrote, "show us the face of the hard
problem: those of the looters and thugs, and those of inert women doing
nothing to help themselves or their children. They are the underclass."

Murray's arguments, all designed to portray a layer of society that is
beyond redemption, are internally inconsistent and based on grotesque
distortions of reality. He claims, for instance, that even though the crime
rate has dropped for more than a decade, "criminality has continued to
rise." Why? Because the rate of incarceration has skyrocketed over the past
25 years. That the bulk of this increase results from nonviolent crimes and
the imposition of draconian sentencing for minor drug offenses is not worth
Murray's notice.

He then points to what he terms "unsocialized" young males, based upon an
increase in the number of those who are not actively looking for work. That
the rate of pay for new jobs has fallen even more precipitously is, again,
not worth mentioning.

He then delves into a favorite topic of right-wing ideologues and
pseudo-moralists like himself and Bennett - the "illegitimacy rate" among
blacks and "low-income groups" generally.

Other statistical data doesn't interest Murray. He makes no mention of the
new US Census Bureau data showing a sharp increase in poverty for the fourth
year in a row. More than 13 million American children now live in poverty, a
12.8 percent rise in the last four years. More than seven out of ten of
these children had at least one parent working, many at a minimum wage that
has not increased by a penny in the last eight years.

Based on his selectively culled statistics, Murray concludes that no
government programs can ameliorate the conditions of life confronting the
tens of millions of Americans below the ridiculously low official poverty
line.

He writes: "Job training? Unemployment in the underclass is not caused by
lack of jobs or of job skill, but by the inability to get up every morning
and go to work. A homesteading act? The lack of home ownership is not caused
by the inability to save money from meager earnings, but because the concept
of thrift is alien. You name it, we've tried it. It doesn't work with the
underclass."

His conclusion: Nothing can be done, because poverty, unemployment,
homelessness, the lack of health insurance and all the social ills that
befall large sections of American working people are merely manifestations
of their own "self-destructive" behavior.

The connection between the theories of Murray and Bennett's "thought
experiment" is obvious. If an entire layer of the population is a permanent,
genetically determined "underclass," beyond redemption and an unending
source of crime and social chaos, who can be surprised that within the
ruling elite "final solutions" involving genocide are seriously discussed as
"hypothetical propositions"?

The reality is that Hurricane Katrina exposed the crisis and decay of an
entire social system based on private profit and the accumulation of
personal wealth at the expense of society as a whole. It likewise laid bare
the immense social polarization between wealth and poverty in America - a
chasm that has widened over the course of decades.

These grim social and class realities have inescapable revolutionary
implications that have not been lost on America's ruling plutocracy. Its
response will not be one of renewed social reformism or increased concern
for a new generation of "forgotten Americans." On the contrary, it is
turning even more sharply to the right, embracing the most noxiously
reactionary ideologies and relying ever more heavily on the police and
military powers of the state.

The resurgence of such fascistic conceptions as those of Bennett and Murray
in the wake of Hurricane Katrina's devastation constitutes a grave warning
to the American people. Class antagonisms and social conflicts between the
super-wealthy oligarchy and the broad mass of working people have become so
sharp that they cannot be contained within the traditional political and
constitutional framework.

[Whether I should or not, I constantly trace present BushCo policy back
thru fascist Europe, and then back to the slave-master South. Who really
won the Civil War? Perhaps it should it really be dated 1861-20xx? - ed]


--------15 of 15--------

 O What Is That Sound
 W H Auden

 O what is that sound which so thrills the ear
    Down in the valley drumming, drumming?
 Only the scarlet soldiers, dear,
   The soldiers coming.

 O what is that light I see flashing so clear
    Over the distance brightly, brightly?
 Only the sun on their weapons, dear,
    As they step lightly.

 O what are they doing with all that gear,
    What are they doing this morning, this morning?
 Only their usual manoeuvres, dear.
    Or perhaps a warning.

 O why have they left the road down there,
    Why are they suddenly wheeling, wheeling?
 Perhaps a change in their orders, dear.
    Why are you kneeling?

 O haven't they stopped for the doctor's care,
    Haven't they reined their horses, their horses?
 Why, they are none of them wounded, dear.
    None of these forces.

 O is it the parson they want, with white hair,
    Is it the parson, is it, is it?
 No, they are passing his gateway, dear,
    Without a visit.

 O it must be the farmer who lives so near.
    It must be the farmer so cunning, so cunning?
 They have passed the farmyard already, dear,
    And now they are running.

 O where are you going? Stay with me here!
    Were the vows you swore deceiving, deceiving?
 No, I promised to love you, dear,
    But I must be leaving.

 O it's broken the lock and splintered the door,
    O it's the gate where they're turning, turning;
 Their boots are heavy on the floor
    And their eyes are burning.

	-- W. H. Auden


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   - David Shove             shove001 [at] tc.umn.edu
   rhymes with clove         Progressive Calendar
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