Mn-prog-events Mailing List: Progressive Calendar 10.11.05

[David Shove (shove001]

             P R O G R E S S I V E   C A L E N D A R    10.11.05

1. Anti-war walkout     10.11 4pm
2. Great River Park     10.11 5pm
3. Health care demo     10.11 5pm
4. Call for Cam Gordon  10.11 6pm
5. Vs big $ politics    10.11 7pm

6. Zimmermann/Maria's   10.12 8am
7. Nonviolent revs      10.12 8am
8. Mpls libraries       10.12 10:30am
9. Police accountablity 10.12 1:30pm
10. Anti-torture        10.12 3pm
11. MN FOR              10.12 6:30pm
12. Coke/water/India    10.12 7pm
13. Colombia report     10.12 7pm
14. No Anoka stadium    10.12 7pm
15. Chiapas reportback  10.12 8pm
16. Anti-Columbus       10.12 9pm
17. New Orleans aid     10.12

18. Joshua Frank - Washington's war Dems: no will, no backbone
19. PC Roberts   - The police state is closer than you think
20. Amitabh Pal  - Randall Robinson interview
21. e e cummings - i sing of Olaf glad and big (poem)

--------1 of 21--------

From: bour0112 <bour0112 [at] umn.edu>
Subject: Anti-war walkout 10.11 4pm

Get Active! U of M Nov 2 anti-war walkout planning meeting
Tuesday, October 11
4pm
Coffman 304

Across the Twin Cities high school and college students are mobilizing for
a big student anti-war walkout on November 2, Bush's reelection
anniversary, and will be converging on the U of M for a major student
protest. We need your help to build for the biggest possible turnout of U
of M students!

High school students are striking to protest military recruitment in their
schools and to demand war resources are redirected to provide real job and
education opportunities. At the U of M we are walking out to demand an end
to the war and lower tuition to make the U accessible to working class
youth.

The meeting will begin with a quick introduction to the walkout plans and
purpose, followed by discussing action plans to get the word out. We will
break into sub-committees, each taking responsibility for certain aspects
of the mobilization.

The walkout is being jointly organized by Youth Against War and Racism,
the Anti-war Organizing League, and Socialist Alternative. For more
information, please call 612-760-1980.

Check www.yawr.org for more details on the walkout.


--------2 of 21--------

From: Elizabeth Dickinson <eadickinson [at] mindspring.com>
From: "Patrick Seeb, Saint Paul Riverfront Corporation"
Subject: Great River Park 10.11 5pm

Community discussion on the National Great River Park.

The event is from 5-7pm with a panel of national experts in town sharing
their thoughts on Saint Paul's next phase of riverfront development.

This forum will be held on the Minnesota Centennial Showboat at Harriet
Island and a reception will follow.

National Great River Park
The National Great River Park plan is an ongoing community process
developing the concept of linking natural and recreational resources with
community economic development throughout the river valley.

Since November 2004, many voices have been heard through public forums,
online surveys, community workshops and district council meetings.  These
ideas and concerns from Saint Paul citizens, elected officials, riverfront
stakeholders, national experts and others have been gathered and
synthesized.  Four principles have emerged that are guiding the National
Great River Park plan.  They suggest that the National Great River Park
can be:
More Urban,
More Natural,
More Connected and
a Regional Asset of National Significance

The panel of experts includes Laura Cohen, Confluence Greenway Project
Director, Trailnet St. Louis, Jerry Enzler, Executive Director, National
Mississippi River Museum Aquarium, Mary Jukuri, Principal and Design
Director, JJR and Gordon Price, Adjunct Professor in the School of
Community and Regional Planning at the University of British Columbia will
provide a national perspective and examples on each of these four
principles.  A community discussion on how these principles might be best
realized in the National Great River Park will follow.

Please note:  Due to a scheduling conflict, Ian Smith, Senior Planner,
City of Vancouver, is no longer available for this event.  Gordon Price
will replace him.  More info:  www.GREATRIVERPARK.com
<http://rs6.net/tn.jsp?t=w9ylmpbab.0.nf798obab.mpi7oyn6.4038&p=http%3A%2F%2F
www.greatriverpark.com>

I hope you can attend this exciting event. Please RSVP at 651.293.6860 or
sprc [at] riverfrontcorporation.com

If you know of someone who would like to attend this community forum
please click "forward email" at the bottom of this message.  This is open
to the public.

Ask an Expert!
If you would like to submit a question for our experts, please do so here
<mailto:johnson [at] riverfrontcorporation.com> .

Patrick Seeb Executive Director Saint Paul Riverfront Corporation
Bob Bierscheid Director Saint Paul Division of Parks and Recreation
Susan Kimberly Director Saint Paul Department of Planning and Economic
Development
RSVP: sprc [at] riverfrontcorporation.com


--------3 of 21--------

From: Elizabeth Dickinson <eadickinson [at] mindspring.com>
From: Gena Berglund <genab61 [at] mindspring.com>
Subject: Health care demo 10.11 5pm

Reply to Joel Albers if your organization would like to co-sponsor this
rally.

Need
1. people to speak
2. people to get this message to their list serves, and by
word-of-mouth, far and wide
3. bring signs, banners (some provided)
4. there will be some street theater
5. bring appropriate music
6. we are inviting the media
7. Need organizations to be listed as sponsors

Pls call asap. Other suggestions ? joel 612-384-0973

Below is the Press Advisory

Minnesotans protest United Health Care¹s HMO buyouts, McGuire¹s $124
million CEO pay, while 77,000 children remain uninsured

On Tuesday October 11, at 5PM, several health care reform groups and
allies will hold a demonstration at United Health Care, 9900 Bren Rd.,
Minnetonka, MN. (94 W to 394 W to 169S, Bren Rd. exit to right, then go
left up driveway. Park in the big hotel, Raddisson parking lot across the
street from UHC, which is on the right).

United Health Care is currently the second biggest HMO in the U.S
enrolling 25 million., Since 1991 United Health Care has taken over 35
HMOs and other insurers, the latest being Pacificare in California for
$8.1 billion.  Californians are protesting this, and we in Minnesota plan
to also.

United Health¹s profits have grown at least 30%, each quarter for the past
5 1/2 years with stock up 400%. This has led to egregious executive
compensation for a HMO that serves as a fiscal intermediary. Despite the
buyouts, health insurance premiums have increased by double digits in each
of the past six years, and 400,000 Minnesotans, including 77,000 children,
go without health insurance. United Health announced in 2004 all of its
40,000 employees will be in high-deductible policies next year and will no
longer have the choice of lower deductible, greater coverage policies.

United Health Care¹s CEO, William MacGuire reaped salary and stock options
of $124 million, in 2004, and $94 million in 2003. He is the highest paid
CEO in the history of the state of Minnesota., and consistently in the top
3 in the entire U.S. McGuire¹s 2003 compensation package was a lightning
rod for criticism over how corporate America rewards its executives.

William McGuire, total stock options (exercised, unexercised,
unexercisable) in FY Dec 2003 equal $ 806,007,201. Currently, McGuire sits
on $1 billion in unexercised stock options. In contrast, Mark McClellan,
who runs Medicare, the single biggest health insurance program in the U.S.
makes about $150,000 a year.

Joel Albers, health economist and pharmacist estimates a cost of $ 200
million to insure all 77,000 uninsured Minnesota Children . ³William
McGuire sould pay for this completely out of his last 2 years pay, and
still retain a mere $19 million. Yet he chooses to invest through the
Nadine and William MCGuire Foundation in the Walker Art Center, and the
Translational Research Center at the University of Minnesota. United
Health Care's swallowing up of HMOs across the U.S. makes it the Walmart
of health care²

Of the top 20 executives in the health insurance industry with the largest
value of unexercised stock options in the U.S. in 2002, United Health Care
executives ranked first (William McGuire $530,000,000), second (Stephen
Helmsley $221,458,436), fourth (Robert Sheehy 39,152,576), fifth (R.
Channing Wheeler (34,012,480), and sixth (David J. Lubben $29,131,986),
for a total of nearly $1 billion.

United Health Care still controls core insurance functions of Medica, a MN
HMO, despite attempts by the attorney general since 1994 to make Medica
independent of UHG. Medica, structurally, was a shell corporation managed
by UHG, resulting in Medica¹s administrative costs being far higher than
other HMOs.

This demonstration is sponsored by Minnesota Universal Health Care Action
Network: a grassroots, community-based network of organizations and
individuals dedicated to fundamental health care reform in Minnesota and
the U.S. and center for health care resources, research, and education.


--------4 of 21--------

From: Tom Taylor <tom [at] organicconsumers.org>
Subject: Call for Cam Gordon 10.11 6pm

Callers are needed to help push 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.

Training IS provided and we have FUN!

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, please feel free to forward
this message on to help cast a wider net and THANKS, tt

Tom Taylor 612-788-4252


--------5 of 21--------

From: Daniel Justesen <danjustesen [at] yahoo.com>
Subject: Vs big $ politics 10.11 7pm

[I don't usually list the IP but I have to agree with them on this - ed]

Independence Party Meetup: "Time to get tough on big money in politics".
Tuesday October 11th, 7PM
Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs at the U of M, 301 19th Avenue South,
Minneapolis.

Hamline University Professor of Management David Schultz will pull the lid
off on the effects of big money in politics". Attendees will also consider
several ways of making the money itself an issue in preparation for the
2006 election season. Refreshments will be served.

Learn more and RSVP here:
http://independence.meet up.com/1/events/4761110/
http://www.mnip.org


--------6 of 21--------

From: "Collins, Natalie M" <Natalie.Collins [at] ci.minneapolis.mn.us>
Subject: Zimmermann/Maria's 10.12 8am

Please join 6th Ward Council Member Dean Zimmermann for office hours at
Maria's Cafe, 1113 E Franklin Ave, next Wednesday, October 12 at 8am. 
Coffee will be provided, and menu service will be available.  We will meet
in the back room. Beginning at 8am each second Wednesday, Council Member
Zimmermann will be available to discuss constituents' ideas, questions,
and concerns.   For further information, contact the Ward 6 Office,
673-2206.

Natalie Collins Aide to 6th Ward Council Member Dean Zimmermann
(612)673-2206 natalie.collins [at] ci.minneapolis.mn.us


--------7 of 21--------

From: Charles Underwood <charleyunderwood [at] hotmail.com>
Subject: Nonviolent revs 10.12 8am

Wednesday, 10/12, 8 to 10 am, Mike Bischoff speaks on "From Gandhi to
Serbia, Passion and Power in Nonviolent Revolutions," St. Martin's Table,
2001 Riverside, Minneapolis.


--------8 of 21--------

From: Sheldon Mains <smains [at] visi.com>
Subject: Mpls libraries 10.12 10:30am

Come and support the Minneapolis Library System.
2006-2008 Library Budget Presentation to the City Council Ways & Means
Committee by Director Kit Hadley

Wednesday, October 12 at 10:30
Room 317, City Hall, 350 S.5th Street

More info at www.MainsForLibrary.org


--------9 of 21--------

From: Lydia Howell <lhowell [at] visi.com>
Subject: Police accountablity 10.12 1:30pm

The more people we have at this meeting, the more we can have them pay
attention to us. -Farhen Hakeem

Speak Out!
Improve Police Community Relations!
Implement the Federal Mediation Agreement!

Mpls City Council Chambers, 3rd Floor, City Hall, 350 South 5th Street
(City Council Public Safety & Regulatory Services Committee meeting)
Wednesday October 12, 1:30-3:30pm

The City Council already voted unanimously to support this agreement.
Hold the City Accountable for these promises:

· Diversify the Minneapolis Police Department, MPD

"The MPD will exercise its best efforts to meet its own stated goals for
recruitment, hiring, and promotion for protected classes, to include
people of color, African Americans, American Indians, women, and people of
disability."

"As part of the official recruitment strategy, the Minneapolis Police
Department and the PCRC will establish partnerships with/ /community based
organizations." And, "the MPD will consult with the Police-Community
Relations Council (PCRC) to identify potential barriers to effective
recruitment; to identify community based organizations willing to enter
into a partnership with the MPD to assist in recruiting from within the
members of these communities."

· Foster Cultural Awareness and Sensitivity.

"To recognize and to acknowledge the diversity within the community and
within the MPD, the MPD will work with the Police Community Relations
Council and other community leaders, and will recruit community contacts
and experts for consultation."

"Because language differences can be a barrier to effective
communication, is one indication of cultural affiliation, the MPD agrees
to: 'use officers and contract with community members of different
cultures or ethnic backgrounds to assist in training regarding topics
involving interacting with people from other cultures, races, ethnicities,
or sexual orientations.'"

· End All Racially Biased Policing.

"Racially biased policing is the act of making law enforcement decisions
solely on the basis of race. Often called "racial profiling," racially
biased policing is not only wrong, it is illegal. The MPD agrees to -
provide its employees with training: regarding undoing racism, ethnic
stereotypes, prejudice and white privilege; regarding the inappropriate
conduct that fosters perceptions of biased policing; regarding human
rights."

Contact: Farheen Hakeem 612-395-5559 farheenhakeem [at] hotmail.com
<http://us.f322.mail.yahoo.com/ym/Compose?To=farheenhakeem [at] hotmail.com>
or Angel Morales 612-724-7457 mlop [at] quest.net
<http://us.f322.mail.yahoo.com/ym/Compose?To=mlop [at] quest.net>


---------10 of 21--------

From: Charles Underwood <charleyunderwood [at] hotmail.com>
Subject: Anti-torture 10.12 3pm

Wednesday, 10/12 (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


--------11 of 21--------

From: "Don,Rachel Christensen" <chris385 [at] umn.edu>
Subject: MN FOR 10.12 6:30pm

Want to influence the 'powers that be', stay informed on key issues, and
help build the nonviolent community in Minnesota?  Then the Minnesota FOR
monthly letter-writing gathering is for you!  Each month we will meet to
educate ourselves about current events and write letters to selected
government representatives.  These letters will advocate active
nonviolence in a tone of empathy and connection, and articulate a
nonviolent vision for a world that could be.  We may also write op-ed
pieces for newspapers.

We invite you to join us the SECOND WEDNESDAY OF EACH MONTH AT 6:30 for a
potluck supper, or at 7:15 to practice nonviolent citizenship.  The first
meeting will be WEDNESDAY, JULY 13, at the home of Joyce Bonafield (see
directions below).  All are welcome - bring a friend!

Peace, Alice Kloker and Don Christensen

Joyce Bonafield lives at 3535 Druid Lane in Minnetonka.  Druid Lane is 2
miles west of 494 on Minnetonka Blvd.

Exit 494 at Minnetonka Blvd. (Rte. 5), and continue west about 2 miles to
Druid Lane ( .3 mile west of Minnetonka Community Lutheran Church).  Left
on Druid Lane about 2 blocks to 3535.  (tel. 952-473-3290)


--------12 of 21--------

From: David Strand <mncivil [at] yahoo.com>
Subject: Coke/water/India 10.12 7pm

Impact of Coke:  Water in Rural Indian Communities--Oct. 12 and 13: Dr.
Sandeep Pandey at U of M

Association for India's Development- MN(AID-MN), Asha for Education-MN and
Institute for Global Studies(IGS), University of Minnesota, invite you to
a lecture series by Dr.Sandeep Pandey, social activist and a co-founder of
Asha.

Dr.Pandey returned to India after his Ph.D from the University of
California, Berkeley and dedicated his energies to the cause of
empowerment of the villages around Lalpur and Ballia in Uttar Pradesh.
Involved with a number of campaigns towards social equality, empowerment
through education, water rights and the peace between India and Pakistan,
he was awarded the Ramon Magsaysay award in 2001 as an emergent leader.

As a part of his visit, Dr.Pandey will deliver two lectures:

1. Development: Citizens, Governments, and Corporations
Wednesday Oct 12 at 7pm
Room 102, Fraser Hall, UofM East Bank
106 Pleasant Street SE, Minneapolis 55455

2. Impact of Coke: Water in Rural Indian Communities
Thursday Oct 13 at 1pm
Room 25, HHH Center, UofM West Bank
301, 19th Avenue S, Minneapolis, MN 55455

All are welcome to attend the talks and participate in the discussions.
Admission: FREE !!


--------13 of 21--------

From: Jess Sundin <jess [at] antiwarcommittee.org>
Subject: Colombia report 10.12 7pm

The Truth About Colombia: Report from Summer Delegation

Wednesday 10/12 @ 7pm @ El Norteno Restaurant, 4000 E. Lake St, Mpls.
Come at 6pm to order dinner from this great restaurant & chat with fellow
activists.

Tsione Wolde-Michael, Marty Hoerth & Erika Zurawski went to Colombia this
summer. They learned from human rights activists, trade unionists, and
campesinos (peasants) about the real impacts of U.S. foreign policy. Since
2000, the U.S. has spent over $3 billion on military aid to the Colombian
government's war against its own people. U.S. tax dollars are used by
paramilitary death squads to terrorize people who speak out against
U.S.-backed free trade policies or for democratic rights. You're invited
to hear what the Bush Administration doesn't want you to know - the
truth about Colombia.


--------14 of 21--------

From: Ron Holch <rrholch [at] attg.net>
Subject: No Anoka stadium 10.12 7pm

Taxpayers Against an Anoka County Vikings Stadium

Wednesday October 12, at 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 may be decided this week.  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/ Polling Legislators
Website
Petition Promotion
No Stadium Tax Coalition Update

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


--------15 of 21--------

From: The Babylon Art & Cultural Center <info [at] babylonarts.org>
Subject: Chiapas reportback 10.12 8pm

Wed Oct 12, ART OF THIS GALLERY, 3222 Bloomington Ave. S., Mpls. MN

Local artists return from muraling trip to Chiapas, forming International
Network of Artists in Resistance

Ten local artists have recently returned from an international
solidarity exchange, sponsored by the Babylon Art Collective. They
spent a month in Mexico, first meeting with Mexican artists at a
conference entitled "Artists in Resistance," then traveling to
communities in Chiapas, Mexico. There they painted murals
representing the Zapatista struggle for autonomy and preservation of
the lifestyle of indigenous Mexicans.

The conference took place at the Univeristy of Chapingo, an
agricultural school founded as part of the land reform movement of
the Mexican Revolution, and home to one of Diego Rivera's most famous
murals. The mission of the conference was to bring together political
artists from around the world to form an alliance that will further
creative resistance as a part of the anti-globalization movement.
During this exchange, presentations were made by arts collectives
from the U.S., Mexico, Chile, and Argentina, as well as by many of
Mexico's most famous political muralists.

The conference and caravan were co-sponsored by the Art Across Borders
project of the Babylon Art Collective and L.I.P. Gargola of Mexico City.
The meeting followed the 6th Declaration of the Zapatista Autonomous
Movement in which the indigenous revolutionary movement disavowed all
current political parties in Mexico. They also affirmed their commitment
towards furthering international solidarity work, and stated their
intentions to continue to work closely with artists and other cultural
workers.  Following the conference, 15 participants traveled to Zapatista
territories where 7 murals were painted in 10 days. The muralists were
invited by the Good Government Council of Oventik, one of the 4 Zapatista
capitals. The artists worked with local residents to design the murals,
which were painted jointly by the artists and community members. One
memorialized a massacre by the Mexican government on June 10, 1998 that
left 8 dead and hundreds displaced; one portrayed an Indigenous woman with
machete in hand that read "Another World is Possible," some honored
Emiliano Zapata, Che Guevara, Subcommandante Marcos, and Commandante
Ramona; others celebrated the local corn and coffee harvests. Many murals
incorporated symbols of the Zapatista movement, such as the snail shell
representing participatory democracy and transparency, or the ski mask
which Zapatistas wear because they say as indigenous people, 'only by
covering their faces can (they) be seen.'

Artists returned from Chiapas in late August to attend the closing
ceremony at which the official accords of the conference were announced.
They include an international day of creative resistance on January 1,
2006, and the formation of an International Network of Artists in
Resistance.

All members of the caravan are available to speak about their experiences.

The first reportback will be held Wednesday, October 12, 8pm at the Art of
This Gallery, 3222 Bloomington Ave. S., Mpls. MN.

Please call above number for more information or to schedule an interview.
Information also available in Spanish.


--------16 of 21--------

From: Lydia Howell <lhowell [at] visi.com>
Subject: Anti-Columbus 10.12 9pm

WED OCT 12
A message from Felipe Cuauhtli of Los Nativos:

It's been a while and we hope this message finds everyone in good health.
What's new with Los Nativos, well we are currently in the studio working
on our 3rd project, "The Eagle and the Jaguar", due to be released
sometime 2006.

Also we are approaching the 3rd Annual Anti-Columbus Day event. We have
been holding this event for the last few years to recognize the struggles
of the Native people of this land and all the "Americas". We invite bands
that come from these communities, put them in the same room and rock the
house. Hope to see you there.

Anti-Columbus Day
October 12
Doors 9pm
Ages 18+
$5 at the door
7th Street Entry
701 First Ave. N.
Minneapolis, MN 55403

Also performing;
Dessa and Mictlan, Def Ch'ld, Quilombolas, Palabristas and DJ Nikoless.

Mexica Tiahui, Chicacuauhtli "Felipe Cuauhtli"-Los Nativos/RSE
www.myspace.com/quilombolas <http://www.myspace.com/quilombolas>


--------17 of 21--------

From: Lydia Howell <lhowell [at] visi.com>
Subject: New Orleans aid 10.12

Note from Lydia Howell: This socially-responsible, small business was one
of the very first community intiatives responding to the people hit by
Hurricane Katrina and abandoned by all elvels of government. On FRIDAY
SEPT. 2nd, their first trucks with supplies left for New Orleans.  I went
and contributed to them that very day so I erpsonally saw their efforts.
LH

Today there will be a truck of food and supplies delivered by a group pf
women to the United Houma Nation,and this is what is needed NOW. Please
send this list out to anyone who can help gather these supplies and drop
them off at Stonehenge located on Hennipen Ave @ 25th St in Uptown Mpls.

PHONE:612-827-5352....

A truck will be leaving Wed Oct 12

Items still needed: food - bedding - sheets - blankets(all sizes) - towels
- washcloths - dish towels - dishes - pots and pans(all sizes) - pot
holders - utensils - food - white rice! - personal care items - deoderant
- shampoo - cream rinse - tampons - first aid items - bandaids etc -
flashlights - batteries (all sizes) - cleaning supplies - gloves - buckets
- soaps - bleach - mops - brooms - garbage cans/bags - hammers - saws -
nails - screws - pet food. thank you, mary rivard


--------18 of 21--------

No Will, No Backbone
Washington's War Dems
By JOSHUA FRANK
CounterPunch
October 10, 2005

These are tremulous times for the Republican establishment. A poll
released this past weekend by Ipsos/Associated Press confirms that Bush's
agenda has slid right off the table and into the trash bin. The
president's popularity has plummeted to a meager 39 percent, the lowest of
his tenure. At the center of Bush's nose dive is the Iraq catastrophe,
about which two-thirds of those polled strongly criticized Bush's handling
of the invasion and subsequent occupation. The people's voices have indeed
been heard. They want light, not more tunnel and lies.

So you'd think Democrats, the alleged oppositional party in Washington,
would be elated over the latest findings, quickly devising a scheme on how
to capitalize on Bush's overwhelming disapproval. Well, they are devising
a scheme, all right, but it's not one that will bring the troops home or
provide any mortar for Bush's cracked foreign policy.

Two former staffers of the Clinton administration, William Galston and
Elaine Kamarck, both Democratic Leadership Council patrons, released a
report on October 6 that outlined their strategy to take back Washington.

"The groups that were supposed to constitute the new Democratic majority
in 2004 simply failed to materialize in sufficient number to overcome the
right-center coalition of the Republican Party," wrote Galston and
Kamarck. "[On defense issues], liberals espouse views diverging not only
from those of other Democrats, but from Americans as a whole."

What a load of bull. The American public, although slow to digest the
truth about the Iraq war, is finally coming around. Yet the Democratic
Party has nothing to offer in return. Even with nearly 2,000 U.S. soldiers
and countless civilians dead, the Dems still want to stay the failing
course in Iraq. It's all about winning political campaigns, not justice --
never mind that the Dems can't even win a match that's been forfeited by
the Republicans. The liberal establishment is beyond inept; it's hopeless.

Anti-war crusader Cindy Sheehan recently told me that she thought the
Democrats should be abandoned. "I will not support a pro-war Democrat [in
the upcoming elections] ... I regret supporting John Kerry in 2004," she
said, "[t]he movement gained nothing from his candidacy." Later, in piece
titled "War-Hawk Republicans and Anti-War Democrats: What's the
Difference?," Sheehan wrote, "I think if one is not speaking out right now
against the killing in Iraq, one is supporting it."

Exactly.

Virtually every leading Democrat in DC is silent. They have been from the
get-go. One may wonder what the Democrats are waiting for, now that the
popular tides are turning against Dubya. Do they think the Republicans
will simply crumble on their own? Do they think that Karl Rove and Scooter
Libby are going to be indicted over this whole Valarie Plame affair? While
the stalwarts of the Democratic Party sit idly by waiting for a miraculous
Bush collapse from within, more people are dying in Iraq every day.
Billions more are spent on a war with no end in sight.

So even though Bush is down and out, don't expect the Democrats to ever
capitalize. They have neither the will nor the backbone.

Joshua Frank is the author of the brand new book, Left Out!: How Liberals
Helped Reelect George W. Bush, which has just been published by Common
Courage Press. You can order a copy at a discounted rate at
www.brickburner.org. Joshua can be reached at Joshua [at] brickburner.org.


[If the US falls to the fascist plans of BushCo, it will be due to the
intentionally collusive inaction of Dem hacks like Kerry and Hillary, and
millions of too-trusting rank and file Dem believers. Kerry and Hillary
etc are beyond hope; I agree with Cindy Sheehan that the national Dem
party should be abandoned. The millions of Dem rank and file are not
beyond hope; but they must make the agonizing reappraisal of their
too-comfortably life-long party. More and more writers are speaking openly
of imminent fascism, and the little time we have left to avert it. These
are evil times. Trusting the faithless national Dems for another 2 or 4
years may well use up all the time we may have remaining to avert the
fascist nightmare. Let us at least put up a good fight! -ed]


---------19 of 21--------

The Corpse of Habeas Corpus
The Police State is Closer Than You Think
By PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS
CounterPunch
October 10, 2005

Police states are easier to acquire than Americans appreciate.

The hysterical aftermath of September 11 has put into place the main
components of a police state.

Habeas corpus is the greatest protection Americans have against a police
state. Habeas corpus ensures that Americans can only be detained by law.
They must be charged with offenses, given access to attorneys, and brought
to trial. Habeas corpus prevents the despotic practice of picking up a
person and holding him indefinitely.

President Bush claims the power to set aside habeas corpus and to dispense
with warrants for arrest and with procedures that guarantee court
appearance and trial without undue delay. Today in the US, the executive
branch claims the power to arrest a citizen on its own initiative and hold
the citizen indefinitely. Thus, Americans are no longer protected from
arbitrary arrest and indefinite detention.

These new "seize and hold" powers strip the accused of the protective
aspects of law and give rein to selectivity and arbitrariness. No warrant
is required for arrest, no charges have to be presented before a judge,
and no case has to be put before a jury. As the police are unaccountable,
whoever is selected for arrest is at the mercy of arbitrariness.

The judiciary has to some extent defended habeas corpus against Bush's
attack, but the protection that the principle offers against arbitrary
seizure and detention has been breeched. Whether courts can fully restore
habeas corpus or whether it continues in weakened form or passes by the
wayside remains to be determined.

Americans may be unaware of what it means to be stripped of the protection
of habeas corpus, or they may think police authorities would never make a
mistake or ever use their unbridled power against the innocent. Americans
might think that the police state will only use its powers against
terrorists or "enemy combatants".

But "terrorist" is an elastic and legally undefined category. When the
President of the United States declares: "You are with us or against us,"
the police may perceive a terrorist in a dissenter from the government's
policies. Political opponents may be regarded as "against us" and thereby
fall in the suspect category. Or a police officer may simply have his eye
on another man's attractive wife or wish to settle some old score. An
enemy combatant might simply be an American who happens to be in a foreign
country when the US invades. In times before our own when people were
properly educated, they understood the injustices that caused the English
Parliament to pass the Habeas Corpus Act of 1679 prohibiting the arbitrary
powers that are now being claimed for the executive branch in the US.

The PATRIOT Act has given the police autonomous surveillance powers. These
powers were not achieved without opposition. Civil libertarians opposed
it. Bob Barr, the former US Representative who led the impeachment of
President Clinton, fought to limit some of the worst features of the act.
But the act still bristles with unconstitutional violations of the rights
of citizens, and the newly created powers of government to spy on citizens
has brought an end to privacy.

The prohibition against self-incrimination protects the accused from being
tortured into confession. The innocent are no more immune to pain than the
guilty. As Stalin's show trials demonstrated, even the most committed
leaders of the Bolshevik revolution could be tortured into confessing to
be counter-revolutionaries.

The prohibition against torture has been breeched by the practice of plea
bargaining, which replaces jury trials with negotiated self-incrimination,
and by sentencing guidelines, which transfer sentencing discretion from
judge to prosecutor. Plea bargaining is a form of psychological torture in
which innocent and guilty alike give up their right to jury trial in order
to reduce the number and severity of the charges that the prosecutor
brings.

The prohibition against physical torture, however, held until the US
invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq. As video, photographic, and testimonial
evidence make clear, the US military has been torturing large numbers of
people in its Iraq prisons and in its prison compound at Guantanamo, Cuba.
Most of the detainees were people picked up in the equivalent of KGB
Stalin-era street sweeps. Having no idea who the detainees are and
pressured to produce results, torture was applied to coerce confessions.

Everyone is disturbed about this barbaric and illegal practice except the
Bush administration. In an amendment to a $440 billion defense budget bill
last Wednesday, the US Senate voted 90 to 9 to ban "cruel, inhuman or
degrading treatment or punishment" of anyone in US government custody.
President Bush responded to the Senate's will by repeating his earlier
threat to veto the bill. Allow me to torture, demands Bush of the Senate,
or you will be guilty of delaying the military's budget during wartime.
Bush is threatening the Senate with blame for the deaths of US soldiers
who will die because they don't get their body armor or humvee armor in
time.

It will be a short step from torturing detainees abroad to torturing the
accused in US jails and prisons.

The attorney-client privilege, another great achievement, has been
breeched by the Lynne Stewart case. As the attorney for a terrorist,
Stewart represented her client in ways disapproved by prosecutors. Stewart
was indicted, tried, and convicted of providing material support to
terrorists.

Stewart's indictment sends a message to attorneys not to represent too
dutifully or aggressively clients who are unpopular or demonized.
Initially, this category may be limited to terrorists. However, once the
attorney-client privilege is breeched, any attorney who gets too much in
the way of a prosecutor's case may experience retribution. The
intimidation factor can result in an attorney presenting a weak defense.
It can even result in attorneys doing as the Benthamite US Department of
Justice (sic) desires and helping to convict their client.

In the Anglo-American legal tradition, law is a shield of the accused.
This is necessary in order to protect the innocent. The accused is
innocent until he is proven guilty in an open court. There are no secret
tribunals, no torture, and no show trials.

Outside the Anglo-American legal tradition, law is a weapon of the state.
It may be used with careful restraint, as in Europe today, or it may be
used to destroy opponents or rivals as in the Soviet Union and Nazi
Germany.

When the protective features of the law are removed, law becomes a weapon.
Habeas corpus, due process, the attorney-client privilege, no crime
without intent, and prohibitions against torture and ex post facto laws
are the protective features that shield the accused. These protective
features are being removed by zealotry in the "war against terrorism."

The damage terrorists can inflict pales in comparison to the loss of the
civil liberties that protect us from the arbitrary power of law used as a
weapon. The loss of law as Blackstone's shield of the innocent would be
catastrophic. It would mean the end of America as a land of liberty.

Paul Craig Roberts has held a number of academic appointments and has
contributed to numerous scholarly publications. He served as Assistant
Secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan administration. His graduate
economics education was at the University of Virginia, the University of
California at Berkeley, and Oxford University. He is coauthor of The
Tyranny of Good Intentions. He can be reached at:
paulcraigroberts [at] yahoo.com


--------20 of 21--------

Randall Robinson Interview
By Amitabh Pal
October 2005 Issue of The Progressive
moderator [at] portside.org
http://progressive.org/?q=mag_intv1005

Randall Robinson is a disillusioned man. So much so that he decided to
leave the United States in 2001 and settle down in St. Kitts, where his
wife is from. He has written a book, Quitting America: The Departure of a
Black Man from His Native Land, explaining the reasons for his relocation.
Robinson hasn't completely quit the United States, though. He still
maintains a home in Virginia and comes back often for visits.

A lifelong activist, Robinson is best known as the founder of TransAfrica
Forum, an organization he established in 1977 to push U.S. policy toward
Africa and the Caribbean in a more progressive direction. He has also been
in the forefront of the reparations debate, having written The Debt: What
America Owes to Blacks.

Robinson was born in 1941 in segregated Richmond, Virginia. His father was
a schoolteacher and coach. After dropping out of college for a brief stint
in the army, Robinson graduated from Virginia Union University and then
got accepted into Harvard Law School. When he finished, he went to Africa
to support the liberation movements there. Upon returning, he worked for
the next few years as a legal aid lawyer and community organizer in
Boston. In September 1977, Robinson launched TransAfrica in Washington,
D.C. Through his organization, Robinson lobbied against the white regime
in South Africa and sought to end U.S. support for dictatorial governments
elsewhere in Africa and the Caribbean. Among his actions: Robinson
organized a sit-in of the South African embassy, went on a hunger strike
to urge U.S. intervention to restore democracy in Haiti, and dumped a ton
of bananas on the steps of the U.S. trade representative's office to
protest U.S. trade policy toward the Caribbean. Robinson finally announced
his retirement from TransAfrica in December 2001.

I met Robinson in February at the Hyatt Regency in Atlanta, where he had
come to participate in a conference on the role of the religious
leadership in the African American community. We sat down at the hotel
cafe and spoke for more than an hour.

Question: Why did you decide to leave the United States?

Randall Robinson: I was really worn down by an American society that is
racist, smugly blind to it, and hugely self-satisfied. I wanted to live in
a place where that wasn't always a distorting weight. Black people in
America have to, for their own protection, develop a defense mechanism,
and I just grew terribly tired of it. When you sustain that kind of
affront, and sustain it and sustain it and sustain it, something happens
to you. You try to steer a course in American society that's not
self-destructive. But America is a country that inflicts injury. It does
not like to see anything that comes in response, and accuses one of anger
as if it were an unnatural response. For anyone who is not white in
America, the affronts are virtually across the board.

When we lived here, we accommodated ourselves to the most extraordinary
things. I just didn't think that was the way to live. I wanted to be in
another place.

We also have a daughter who was eleven at the time. We wanted her to have
a normal, fun adolescence, and it was just undoable. When we lived here
and went to a shopping center or someplace, we'd tell our daughter, do not
get out of our line of sight. Now she's in a place where she can walk
around at night and we don't even have to think about that sort of thing.

I got a chance to be in a society where the barriers between classes -
social and economic - are not insuperable, where money is not everything
all the time. Americans have been manipulated into a space by those who
profit from the arrangements of that system. People feel a conscious
disease - a dis-ease or an unease - but I don't think they know what
causes it. We've been taught in America that big is best. That's why
people have to believe that they must live in the greatest country in the
world, which is absolutely idiotic.

Q: Would you offer similar advice to progressives who feel beleaguered?

Robinson: A good many white Americans are leaving the country, too, moving
to Canada. My book provoked a lot of mail, but it is the first time I have
written a book where at least half the mail came from white Americans. So
while the parts about race may not have resonated with them, the diagnosis
of the culture did. Something is very, very wrong with American culture.
The signs are everywhere. I think the country is in almost terminal
descent. The business class is combined with the evangelicals. And I think
the evangelicals want to provoke an immense global disaster to precipitate
the second coming of Christ. So they are very happy about what we're doing
to Iraq - and the menace we present now for Syria and for Iran - because
they think that the apocalypse is an important thing to get into so that
they can see vindicated their most literal interpretation of the Bible.

Q: What do you make of the Iraq War and occupation?

Robinson: This enterprise in Iraq is coming a-cropper. This is an
unwinnable situation. I don't know of any situation except the Brits in
Malaya - when they were fighting an insurgency that had no local support -
no other event of an insurgency in the twentieth century that was
suppressed. You cannot do it. They have learned to fight the giants, and
they do it with a self-belief that is more important than one's life. I
don't think this country was prepared for that because Americans don't
bother to notice anybody else in the world. It's a part of this kind of
arrogance that I was talking about, and it will cost us. Bush has done
more to create passions for what they call terror than any other
Administration in this nation's history. I get rather afraid when the most
powerful man in the world talks to, and gets answers back from, God.

At the same time, I think the business community knows that half the
world's oil reserves are gone. All the low-hanging fruit has been picked,
and now there's the scramble for what remains, and they are willing to do
anything to take - as Henry Kissinger called it once - our oil. What they
don't talk about publicly is how they are prepared to use up lives of
white and black poor to realize these ambitions. We are up against an
anti-democratic foe that is prepared to do anything to preserve its
position of avaricious privilege. I am not hopeful that anything could
happen one way or the other without a good deal of tumult. And I'm aware
that because America is so powerful - with its tentacles reaching out to
the world - one doesn't escape it by leaving. This is the most dangerous
and disturbing time in my life.

Q: More than during Reagan's or Nixon's time?

Robinson: Those were Republicans. This is a different animal. Reagan was
conservative, but he didn't approach global management with an unbending
religious zeal. Fear the zealots. Survival is at stake.

In an interior way, I am not as bleak as I sound. I'm a fairly happy human
being. But am I in the short term optimistic? No. I search for reasons to
be, and I'd be interested in you telling me what some might be, but I
haven't found anything in the short term. So I'm sorry, but I'm just not
hopeful. And then there's the collaboration or the accommodation of
prominent blacks like Dorothy Haight and Andrew Young who stood up for
Condoleezza Rice. One asks the question: Well, doesn't one have to be
something more than black to elicit your support?

Q: What's your assessment of Rice and Powell?

Robinson: I think that they're both dangerous people. What they did in
Haiti is a good measure of it. They destroyed a democracy. They squelched
loans that had been approved by the Inter-American Development Bank. They
did everything behind the scenes, including arming the thugs that came to
overrun the country. They're frauds, every one of them. But Powell labored
relatively more successfully under the guise of charm.

Q: You personally know Aristide. In fact, you accompanied him in his exile
from the Central African Republic to Jamaica. Has that compromised your
ability to objectively assess his record?

Robinson: I don't think so. I've always thought I had pretty good
instincts for people. There is a short list of people I've worked with
over my career with whom I've not been able to distinguish easily between
the public persona and the real private person. [Former Jamaican Prime
Minister] Michael Manley was one case of a man that I had an enormous
personal high regard for. I thought he was of impeccable integrity.
Aristide is another. I don't know many people I can say that about.

And I've never had any trouble opposing people I've been close to. I've
never worried about offending or bothering people I feel strongly about.
I've opposed black regimes and white regimes, leftist regimes and rightist
regimes. I'm close to Aristide because I have respect for him, but all
that is beside the point. There's only one point that counts: Democracy
requires that if you who don't like the outcome of elections you have to
tolerate it and then pursue your interest the next time around. Aristide
said simply that we must learn in this nascent democracy to move from
election to election. It was as simple as that. These people invaded and
threw out 7,000 elected officials, and replaced them with [Gerard]
Latortue, who had been all this time in Florida. A woefully unqualified
fellow. I'm not suggesting that Aristide didn't make mistakes. But he was
put in a place by the United States where it was impossible for him to
succeed. I don't know of any situation where you're going to have an
officeholder in a country of eight million people who's cut off at the
knees by the most powerful force in this world and who can still make it
fly.

Q: So you don't buy the criticism that the 2000 elections in Haiti weren't
completely free and fair.

Robinson: There were only, I think, four or five disputed elections out of
thousands, and Aristide's party was willing to throw those out. It was a
pretext. That wasn't the issue. The issue was, the Bush people didn't like
him, and they never liked him. They didn't like him because they don't
like democracy. They like you to have an election, but they like you to
elect the people they want you to elect.

Q: Moving on to the subject you've been most closely associated with in
the last few years: reparations for slavery. Why do you think that's
necessary?

Robinson: Let me give you some conditions that don't get talked about. The
U.S. has the largest prison population in the world: two million people.
The country with one-twentieth of the world's population has one-fourth of
those in prison. One out of every eight prisoners in the world is an
African American. We are warehousing people as a profit to shareholders or
for benefits to communities that get to host federal prisons. It is modern
slavery. The whole future of America's black community is at risk. One out
of every three young black men in Washington, D.C., is under one arm or
the other of the criminal justice system. These are the continuing
consequences of slavery.

We have sustained so much psychic damage and so much loss of memory. Every
people, in order to remain healthy and strong, has to have a grasp of its
foundation story. Culture is a chrysalis - it is protective, it takes care
of you. That's what cultures are for. You cannot rob a people of language,
culture, mother, father, the value of their labor - all of that - without
doing vast damage to those people. People need their history like they
need air and food. You deprive them of that for 246 years and follow that
by 100 years of de jure discrimination, and then you say with the Voting
Rights Act: It's over, you just go take care of yourself!

Average people do not survive that. You plant twenty coconut trees over
here, and twenty coconut trees over there, and you water this batch and
don't water that batch. Of the batch you water, nineteen will survive and
one will die. Of the batch you don't water, nineteen will die and one will
survive. And then we have somebody like George Bush. I can't think of a
more mediocre human talent than George Bush. He obviously is a product of
family advantage, and he's the worst American President of all time.

Anyway, in my arguments for reparations, I'm not talking about writing
checks to people. The word reparations means to repair. We've opened this
gap in society between the two races. Whites have more than eleven times
the net worth or wealth of African Americans. They make greater salaries.
Our unemployment rate is twice theirs. You look at the prison system and
who that's chewing up. Now we've got the advent of AIDS. Fifty-four
percent of new infections are in African Americans. Many infected men are
coming out of prison and infecting their women. So when I talk about
reparations, I say there has to be a material component. It has to have a
component of education that is compensatory. It has to have a component of
economic development that's compensatory. But in the last analysis the
greater damage is here [points to his head]. So I'm not really talking
about money. And I'm not really talking about the concerns of people who
say, "I didn't benefit from slavery." Nobody said you did.

It's important for white America to be able to face up. Far beyond its
relations with the black community, it is important for white Americans.
It's important in helping us in our approaches to the rest of the world,
and in being sensitive to Islam, and to look at the way other cultures
handle their management of themselves, and to look at it with respect,
with the possibility that you even might learn something. We've got a
country that never takes any responsibility for anything. It forgets its
role and makes everybody else forget what happened, too. And that it is
not just dangerous for the victim, but also for the perpetrator.

Q: What was the formative experience that made you decide to become an
activist?

Robinson: Segregation, surely. I never met a white person till I was a
grown man. I never went to school with a white till I was twenty-six years
old, at Harvard Law School. The insult of segregation was searing and
unforgettable. It has left a great scar, and will be with me for the rest
of my life. It causes you in terror to form reflexes of protection. It's
unnatural but necessary. So I decided a long time ago to join the social
justice movement. It was salvaging. We all have to die, and I preferred to
have just one death. It seems to me that to suffer insult without response
is to die many deaths.

Q: Why did you turn down an honorary degree at Georgetown in the summer of
2003?

Robinson: Well, I knew the moment I saw that George Tenet had been given a
similar honor just the day before that I couldn't accept an honorary
degree from Georgetown. Rejecting it caused me a great degree of
discomfort. First, because the people who fought for Georgetown to confer
the degree on me were occasioned a certain amount of discomfort by me. But
I knew just no other way out. So I explained my situation to the dean. And
if they were annoyed, they masked that. I think they understood why I took
that position. I wouldn't have come that far to receive an honorary degree
if I didn't think that it wasn't an important thing. So I was vastly
disappointed to read about Tenet. But from that point onward, the degree
meant absolutely nothing.

Q: How involved are you with the day-to-day running of TransAfrica?

Robinson: Not at all. Twenty-five years. I thought it was time. I think
people involved with institutions find it harder to know the time to go
than the time to come. I thought it was time for me to go. I wanted to do
other things. I wanted to write and think. Activism is a displacing kind
of passion.

Amitabh Pal is the managing editor of The Progressive. Source URL:
http://progressive.org/mag_intv1005


--------21 of 21--------

 [Reprinted from the 03.22.05 PC, with comment from then - ed]

 i sing of Olaf glad and big
   by e e cummings

 i sing of Olaf glad and big
 whose warmest heart recoiled at war:
 a conscientious object-or

 his wellbelovéd colonel(trig
 westpointer most succinctly bred)
 took erring Olaf soon in hand;
 but--though an host of overjoyed
 noncoms(first knocking on the head
 him)do through icy waters roll
 that helplessness which others stroke
 with brushes recently employed
 anent this muddy toiletbowl,
 while kindred intellects evoke
 allegiance per blunt instruments--
 Olaf(being to all intents
 a corpse and wanting any rag
 upon what God unto him gave)
 responds,without getting annoyed
 "I will not kiss your f*cking flag"

 straightway the silver bird looked grave
 (departing hurriedly to shave)

 but--though all kinds of officers
 (a yearning nation's blueeyed pride)
 their passive prey did kick and curse
 until for wear their clarion
 voices and boots were much the worse,
 and egged the firstclassprivates on
 his rectum wickedly to tease
 by means of skilfully applied
 bayonets roasted hot with heat--
 Olaf(upon what were once knees)
 does almost ceaselessly repeat
 "there is some sh*t I will not eat"

 our president,being of which
 assertions duly notified
 threw the yellowsonofabitch
 into a dungeon,where he died

 Christ(of His mercy infinite)
 i pray to see;and Olaf,too

 preponderatingly because
 unless statistics lie he was
 more brave than me:more blond than you.

Copyright 1931, © 1959, 1991 by the Trustees for E. E. Cummings Trust.
Copyright © 1979 by George J. Firmage, from The Complete Poems: 1904-1962
by E. E. Cummings. Reprinted by permission of Liveright Publishing
Corporation. All rights reserved. [poem *'d to try to pass server censors]

-- 
[Is there some sh*t WE will not eat? We sup on Clinton's NAFTA and bombing
of Iraq, on pro-war Gore and Kerry, and Bush's empire and invasions and
intended destruction of social security and medicaid and class action
suits and lawyer privacy, and on enough elected dems rolling over on ALL
of the above so that there is NO effective opposition to insane neo-con
corporate rule; we vote lesser evil and leave third parties stranded; we
prepare to vote Hilary in 2008 even if she is pro-war and pro a lot of
other evil things.

So, if there is some merde we will not masticate, what is it? When will
that point come? Meanwhile, as long as we're willing to eat it, they're
more than willing to dish it out. We look down on those who reputedly went
quietly to the ovens - but what are we doing? How much crap can we take on
before we are too bloated to move? Will we just sit quietly (perhaps
sighing) while a few bullies steal our lives and world?  -ed]


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