Mn-prog-events Mailing List: Progressive Calendar 10.24.05

[David Shove (shove001]

             P R O G R E S S I V E   C A L E N D A R     10.24.05

1. Bicking/CUAPB/KFAI  10.25 11am

2. Chavez/US           10.26 8am
3. Anti-torture        10.26 3pm
4. Prison/books        10.26 6pm
5. Bicking/Schiff tiff 10.26 7pm
6. Candidate fair      10.26 7pm
7. Renewable energy    10.26 7pm

8. Peace/Dag           10.27 12noon
9. Eagan peace vigil   10.27 4:30pm
10. Small is beautiful 10.27 5pm
11. Mounds View vigil  10.27 5:30pm
12. Ward 13 debate     10.27 6:30pm
13. Larry Long/Katrina 10.27 7pm?
14. Spiritual left/N   10.27 7pm
15. Genocide defined   10.27 7:30pm

16. Joshua Frank       - Invading Iran: who is to stop them?
17. Michelle Bollinger - When abortion was illegal: tragedy for women
18. Mickey Z           - Brian Bogart: strike for peace
19. Jan Baughman       - Theocracy. Hypocrisy. Plutocracy.
20. Raymond Garcia     - The United Corporate States of America
21. ed                 - Speak lies to power (poem)

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

From: Lydia Howell <lhowell [at] visi.com>
Subject: Bicking/CUAPB/KFAI  10.25 11am

Tues Oct 25, 11am on "Catalyst:politics&culture" on KFAI

Hear Green Party candidates DAVE BICKING (running for MInneapolis City
Council Ward 9) and other Greens.

Hear activist/co-founder of CUAPB MICHELLE GROSS on police accountability
issues. Nationally, New Orleans cops were videotaped brutally beating a 64
year old Black man; in Minneapolis, a federal mediation agreement made 2
years ago seems to be in a stqalemate, as civillians continue to be
beaten, shot and killed by police. CUAPB is Communities United Against
Police Brutality, a grassroots activist group working with legislative
changes, law suites and support for vicitims of police brutality. Their 24
Hour Hotline is:(612)874-STOP.

"Catalyst" is produced/hosted by Lydia Howell KFAI Radio 90.3fm Mpls 106.7
fm St Paul All shows archived for 2 weeks at www.kfai.org


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

From: Charles Underwood <charleyunderwood [at] hotmail.com>
Subject: Chavez/US 10.26 8am

Wednesday, 10/26, 8 to 10 am, Amalia Anderson returns from Venezuela to
speak on "U.S. Must Do Better With Chavez," St. Martin's Table, 2001
Riverside, W. Bank, Minneapolis. (People of Faith Peacemakers)


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

From: Lynne Mayo <lynnne [at] usfamily.net>
Subject: Anti-torture 10.26 3pm

Change in Venue, one week only, while our usual meeting place is closed:
Wednesday, October 26
3pm
2nd Moon Cafe - Seward Neighborhood
South Minneapolis
2225 East Franklin Avenue, Mpls
612-343-4255

And on the LAST Wednesday in November, the 30th, we will have an evening
meeting: 6pm
Mpls West Bank
North Country Coop Tea Room - they keep the thermometer low
1929 South Fifth Street
(across the street from St. Martin's Table)
(I think of it at the corner of 20th and Riverside Ave.)
338-3110


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

From: bonnie [at] mnwomen.org
Subject: Prison/books 10.26 6pm

A benefit to purchase books for the women at Shakopee Women's Prison will
be held Wednesday, October 26, 6-8pm at the AAUW College Club, 990 Summit
Avenue in St. Paul.

The event includes a reading by author Patricia Hampl and chance to trade
a good book for a glass of wine.  For a list of books requested, visit
www.amazonbookstorecoop.com.  For more information, call Nancy O'Brien at
651/229-0052.


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

From: Gena Berglund <genab61 [at] mindspring.com>
Subject: Bicking/Schiff tiff 10.26 7pm      [rhyming title by ed]

Dave Bicking, Green Party candidate, will debate Minneapolis City Council
Member Gary Schiff on Wednesday, October 26th at 7pm.  The debate will be
moderated by Ann Alquist of KFAI Radio (612-341-3144 ext.16) and Craig Cox
of The Minneapolis Observer (612-721-0285).  The 60-minute debate between
Council Member Gary Schiff and challenger Dave Bicking will be held at the
Corcoran Park multi-purpose room, 3334 20th Ave. S. Minneapolis, MN 55407.

The debate format will allow each candidate two minutes for an opening
statement, followed by each moderator asking two questions. Together the
moderators will then select three additional questions from those
submitted in writing by audience members. For all questions, each
candidate will have two minutes for their response and one minute for
rebuttal. Each candidate will have one minute for a closing statement.

Contact: Gena Berglund Phone: (651) 208-7964


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

From: Scott Marshall <scottethan [at] gmail.com>
Subject: GetBoB candidate fair 10.26 7pm

Join GetBoB 10/26 from 7-9pm at DelaSalle High School for our pre-general
candidate fair.  All primary-surviving candidates have been invited and we
hope to have a herd of voters on hand, all looking for understanding they
need to cast informed votes in November.

scott marshall GetBoB Kingfield


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

From: Elizabeth Dickinson <eadickinson [at] mindspring.com>
Subject: Renewable energy 10.26 7pm

Moving the Midwest Toward Energy Independence!
Community Forums on Renewable Energy

You are invited to a community forum with Bob Olson from the American
Sustainable Energy Council, Michael Noble and Ken Bradley from Minnesotans
for an Energy-Efficient Economy and local legislators.

7­8:30pm, Wednesday October 26
Eden Prairie Library -565 Prairie Center Dr., Eden Prairie
For more information: Laurie (952)931-9919, lauriepryor [at] aol.com


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

From: Stu Ackman <info [at] unamn.org>
Subject: Peace/Dag 10.27 12noon

Our Dag Hammarskjoeld 100th Anniversary Commemorative Year ends this week
with a final opportunity to learn more about the man whom several of our
speakers have described as the best Secretary General of the United
Nations.

Westminster Town Hall Forum hosts the talk Peacemaking: Lessons from Dag
Hammarskjoeld, presented by Peter Wallensteen, Dag Hammarskjoeld Professor
of Peace and Conflict at Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden, this
Thursday, October 27th.

Peacemaking: Lessons from Dag Hammarskjoeld
Westminster Town Hall Forum
12noon-1pm
Thursday, October 27
Westminster Presbyterian Church
Nicollet Mall at 12th Street
(in collaboration with the American Swedish Institute and the United
Nations Association of Minnesota)

The Chapel Choir of Gustavus Adolphus College will set the mood with a
short concert beforehand, beginning at 11:30 am.  The concert will include
texts from Hammarskjoeld's writings set to music.

Professor Wallensteen will also speak at Gustavus Adolphus College in St.
Peter on the evening of Wednesday, October 26th.
http://www.gustavus.edu/news/?id=1659 for more information.  On Friday,
October 28th, he will speak at the annual United Nations Rally Day
luncheon.  http://www.unamn.org for more information.

Katie Fournier 912 18th Avenue SE Minneapolis, Minnesota 55414
612/331-5615 kfournier1 [at] mn.rr.com


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

From: Greg and Sue Skog <skograce [at] mtn.org>
Subject: Eagan peace vigil 10.27 4:30pm

CANDLELIGHT PEACE VIGIL EVERY THURSDAY from 4:30-5:30pm on the Northwest
corner of Pilot Knob Road and Yankee Doodle Road in Eagan. We have signs
and candles. Say "NO to war!" The weekly vigil is sponsored by: Friends
south of the river speaking out against war.


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

From: Jesse Mortenson <jmortenson [at] Macalester.edu>
Subject: Small is beautiful 10.27 5pm

10.27 5pm
Cahoots coffeehouse
Selby 1/2 block east of Snelling in StPaul

Limit bigboxes, chain stores, TIF, corporate welfare, billboards; promote
small business and co-ops, local production & self-sufficiency.


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

From: Helen or Lennie <major18 [at] comcast.net>
Subject: Mounds View vigil 10.27 5:30pm

This message is to let you know about and invite you to attend a new
weekly peace vigil that has started up in the north-central TC metro area
aimed at ending the US military presence in Iraq.  It is not sponsored by
any organization and is not driven by any agenda or ideology other than
expressing opposition to the Bush administration's war in Iraq and ending
our military involvement there in the foreseeable near future (or sooner).

The vigil takes place in Mounds View every Thursday from 5:30 to 6:30 pm.

The location is the northeast corner of the intersection of Highway 10 and
Co. Road H2.  It's the corner at the north end of the Saturn Dealership on
Hwy. 10, across from a long white liquor store on the northwest corner of
the street, and on the other side of Hwy. 10 from the Windsong Cinema
complex. (Mapquest url of location:
http://www.mapquest.com/maps/map.adp?searchtype=address&country=US&addtohist
ory=&searchtab=home&address=2399+Highway+10&city=&state=mn&zipcode=55112

Areas around Mounds View include New Brighton, Roseville, Shoreview, Arden
Hills, Spring Lake Park, Fridley, Coon Rapids and Blaine.

This vigil evolved out of the desires of a group that assembled at that
spot back in August 17, 2005 in support of Cindy Sheehan's vigil outside
of the Bush Ranch in Crawford, Texas.  We call ourselves the MVPs, for
Mounds View Peaceniks.

Peace with Justice and Love, Cheers, Lennie 763-717-9168


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

From: List manager <mplslist [at] tcq.net>
Subject: Ward 13 debate 10.27 6:30pm

A Ward 13 debate between Betsy Hodges and Lisa McDonald will take place
Thursday, October 27. Meet and greet at 6:30pm, debate starts at 7pm.

Christ the King Church 5029 Zenith Ave S Basement auditorium


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

From: Elizabeth Dickinson <eadickinson [at] mindspring.com>
From: Andy Driscoll <andy [at] driscollgroup.com>
From: Larry <larryl [at] larrylong.org>
Subject: Larry Long/Katrina 10.27 7pm?

Eldersı Wisdom, Childrenıs Song celebration on October 27 at the StLouis
Park Senior High Auditorium. Free-will donations will be collected by the
Minnesota Elementary and Secondary Principalsı Association to support a
school in our nationıs hurricane stricken area.

The two women refugees from Katrina, whom we are honoring in song, have
quite a story to tell about previous floods forced upon the people in the
Lower 9th Ward of New Orleans in the days of Hurricane Betsy & George.

Larry Long 612-237-7746 (cell)
612-728-7985 (work)


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

From: Nichola Torbett <ntorbett [at] emcp.com>
Subject: Spiritual left/north 10.27 7pm

Curious about the interfaith Network of Spiritual Progressives, but unable
to make the Tuesday meeting in Minneapolis? Another group will meet Thursday
night, October 27, at 7pm at White Bear Unitarian Universalist Church, 328
Maple Street in Mahtomedi. The purpose of the new, nationwide, interfaith
Network of Spiritual Progressives is to

1)  Challenge the misuse of religion, God, and spirit by the religious
right

2)  Challenge the current bottom line that judges the productivity and
rationality of organizations, institutions, and people exclusively by how
much money and power they generate and offer a new bottom line that takes
into account the degree to which organizations, institutions, and people
generate kindness, generosity, humility, ecological and ethical
sensitivity, compassion, and awe and wonder at the grandeur of the
universe.

We're interested in building community, supporting each other in our work
on progressive issues, and publicly challenging the assumptions 1) that
the only rational way to live is to look out for one's own interest above
all and 2) that every reasonable human being's highest goal is the
accumulation of as much money, power, and goodies as possible.

People of all faiths as well as those who might identify as "spiritual but
not religious" are welcome. Come join us for a meeting at a beautiful
little church in the woods.

More information on the national network is available at
www.spiritualprogressives.org <http://www.spiritualprogressives.org/> .
For local info, contact Nichola Torbett at ntorbett [at] burningmail.com.


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

From: humanrts [at] umn.edu
Subject: Genocide defined  10.27 7:30pm

October 27 - Paul Boghossian:  A philosopher looks at genocide. 7:30pm
Cost: Free and open to the public.

Speaker: Paul Boghossian, Professor of Philosophy, New York University.

Paul Boghossian is one of the major philosophers in the United States
today.  He received his Ph.D. from Princeton University and has taught at
Princeton, the University of Michigan, and New York University.  In ten
years as chair of the Philosophy Department at NYU, he built its
reputation, nationally and internationally, as a center of intellectual
creativity.  Boghossian's own work is in the philosophy of mind, the
philosophy of language, and epistemology. He has published countless
articles, presented invited lectures all around the world, and won major
fellowships and awards from the National Endowment for the Humanities,
Magdalen College at Oxford, the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton,
and the School for Advanced Study at the University of London, among
others.  His major books are "Fear of Knowledge: Against Relativism and
Constructivism" (Oxford University Press, 2005) and "Content and
Justification: Philosophical Essays" (Oxford Univer! sity Press,
forthcoming 2006).

As the Fourth Arsham and Charlotte Ohanessian Lecturer, Paul Boghossian
will draw upon his expertise as a philosopher to discuss the major
conceptual issues connected with the topic of the Armenian genocide.  How
is genocide distinguished from other crimes against humanity?  What is the
distinction between explanation and justification?  Is there such a thing
as objective historical truth and are there objective ways of ascertaining
it?  Please join us for what is sure to be an important and exciting
lecture.

A reception will follow in the Nolte Hall Library.

Sponsored by the Arsham and Charlotte Ohanessian Chair in the College of
Liberal Arts.

Co-sponsored by:  Center for German and European Studies, Center for
Holocaust and Genocide Studies, Institute for Advanced Study, College of
Liberal Arts, University of Minnesota

For further information, please contact Eric Weitz at the Center for
German and European Studies Email: weitz004 [at] umn.edu Phone: 612.626.7705

OR Robert A. Gambone at the Institute for Advanced Study. Email:
gambo001 [at] umn.edu Phone: 612.626.5054 Location: Nolte Hall, Room 120,
University of Minnesota East Bank, Minneapolis, MN


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

Who is to Stop Them?
Invading Iran
By JOSHUA FRANK
CounterPunch
October 22 / 23, 2005

If the Bush administration wants it, they'll get it. The threat of
hurricanes and indictments isn't going to stop these crazy guys. Nor will
the Democrats, France, or that fallible United Nations. Nope, nothing is
going to step in their way. Even if what they want is war on Iran.

Last week in London, US Ambassador John Bolton expressed his
disappointment with the UN Security Council for their "failure" in dealing
with Iran's alleged nuclear threat. Bolton all but threatened military
action, deliberately implying that the US government would take matters
into their own hands if the UN wouldn't.

It may seem inconceivable that the US government would even be considering
using military force against Iran at this point. US troops are already
overextended and public opinion about the current war is at an all-time
low. The UN International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has thus far refused
to charge Iran with breaking a single commitment under the nuclear
non-proliferation treaty, although they have charged Iran with concealing
their programs in the past. But this surely can't be the best climate to
start another war in the Middle East.

Too bad facts don't matter to the neocons.

During his same visit to London, Bolton and Tony Blair's dubious team
persuaded the IAEA - along with India - to overrule UN inspectors in Iran
and declare the country in breach of the non-proliferation treaty, which
would bring the matter before the Security Council. India signed on, even
though they are producing nuclear weapons and have yet to accept the
treaty themselves. In a lot of ways it is Iraq all over again: Discount
the weapons inspectors and move ahead as planned.

The officials in Tehran aren't helping their cause much, though. But
perhaps they saw what happened to Saddam when he bent over and touched his
toes for the US government prior to the invasion. Iran is still calling
for the annihilation of Israel, and Bush and his buddies in Tel Aviv love
it. Of course, the Iranian government believes they're being threatened -
Israel has nuclear weapons and has openly spoken of the need to rid the
Iranians of its oppressive regime. Even Vice President Dick Cheney has
warned of Israel's threat to Iran.

As UK author Dan Plesch recently wrote in the Guardian Unlimited:
"Shortly after the US elections, the vice-president, Dick Cheney, warned
that Israel might attack Iran. Israel has the capability to attack Iranian
targets with aircraft and long-range cruise missiles launched from
submarines, while Iranian air defenses are still mostly based on
25-year-old equipment purchased in the time of the Shah. A US attack might
be portrayed as a more reasonable option than a renewed Israeli-Islamic
confrontation."

It wasn't long ago that Seymour Hersh in the New Yorker warned of Bush's
desire for a quieter gentler war in Iran - not anything like the Shock and
Awe of Iraq. Hersh relayed that the Bush administration hopes covert ops
and smart bombs alone can topple the religious leadership in the country
and that the hawks at the Pentagon don't think there will be any need for
an extended occupation. They think it'll be quick and easy, nothing like
the mess in Iraq.

Don't count on Bush to bring the American public into this whole
non-debate. He knows after what he's put them through (not to mention the
Iraqis) they aren't about to be snookered into supporting another war with
a country that is posing absolutely no threat to US sovereignty. Karl Rove
doesn't need to spell out that one for him. No, this time around there'll
be no resolution in Congress and no CNN footage when the missiles first
drop.

There is little doubt John Bolton and the UK's maneuvering at the UN is
only serving as a silly ruse. The UN is already irrelevant when it comes
to policing the United States imperial ventures, and he knows it.
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was asked during a Senate Foreign
Relations Committee on October 19, whether or not Bush was planning
military action against Iran and Syria. Rice answered sternly, "I don't
think the President ever takes any of his options off the table concerning
anything to do with military force."

In the end, Bolton and the administration he represents will do what it
wants. Even if it's war on Iran.

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.


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

An Era of Tragedy for Women
When Abortion was Illegal
By MICHELLE BOLLINGER
CounterPunch
October 22 / 23, 2005

Abortion was criminalized throughout the U.S. between the late 1800s and
1973. But during that time, millions of women sought and obtained
abortions anyway.

Of these, tens upon tens of thousands died from illegal abortions or
complications arising from them. One 1932 study estimated that illegal
abortions or complications from them were the cause of death for 15,000
women each year. Current, more conservative, estimates of the death toll
still stand at between 5,000 and 10,000 deaths per year.

Some of these deaths were the result of the abortions themselves, but many
more were from infection and hemorrhaging afterward. Because of the fear
of being punished and socially ostracized, many women - and their
doctors - kept their real condition a secret.

The right wing has gone on an organized campaign to discredit such
statistics, going as far to claim that deaths from illegal abortion were
"just" a few dozen a year - and that the anecdotes of items such as coat
hangers being inserted into women's bodies to cause an abortion are false.
In reality, coat hangers were just one horror among many during the years
of illegal abortion.

* * *
While abortion was illegal for decades, not all eras of illegality were
the same.

In the 1930s, for example, abortion was widespread and extremely common.
There was still tremendous risk involved, given that penicillin and
antibiotics were not available until the Second World War. But even at
this time, abortion was increasingly safe, relatively speaking.

The Great Depression produced an economic crisis that sharpened the need
of women to control childbearing. Due to the 1920s campaign to make birth
control available, by 1937, 80 percent of American women approved of using
birth control. Moreover, the labor movement and socialist movements of
that era produced an environment that largely supported women's
reproductive rights. The fact that Russia following the 1917 revolution
had been performing safe, legal abortions influenced radical doctors in
the U.S.

In 1939, 68 percent of medical students in the U.S. reported that they
would be willing to perform abortions if they were legal.

Many did. As Leslie Reagan describes in her excellent book When Abortion
Was a Crime, clinics operated in open defiance of the law, and were often
run by trained doctors, nurses and midwives. One such clinic in Chicago
performed about 2,000 abortions a year between 1932 and 1941.

For these and other reasons - such as the availability of sulfa
drugs - maternal mortality declined in the 1930s. Illegal abortion
accounted for 14 percent of maternal mortality.

But by the early 1960s, the situation had reversed dramatically. In New
York, for example, deaths resulting from illegal abortions accounted for
42 percent of the maternal mortality rate. There were fewer abortionists
in 1955 than there were in 1940. Across the U.S., larger and larger
numbers of women died from illegal abortion after the Second World War
than before.

In the post-Second World War era in the U.S., there was a backlash against
women's rights, and women working outside the home and living independent
lives. Central to this was a crackdown on illegal abortion that drove it
underground and ushered in an era of tragedy and horror for women.

Clinics and midwives' homes and offices were raided and their patients'
lives exposed publicly in show trials that mirrored the worst of the
anti-communist witch-hunts of the McCarthyist era. Women were accosted by
police detectives outside clinics and forced to testify against those who
performed abortions. Anyone who didn't cooperate was likely to wake up the
next morning with details of their personal lives splashed all over the
pages of the newspaper.

As a result, most illegal abortions were increasingly self-induced by
women, or performed by a back-alley butcher.

Both were nightmares in their own right. Women often tried to induce
abortion or cause a miscarriage by throwing themselves down stairs or
inflicting violence on themselves. They ingested, douched with or inserted
into themselves a chilling variety of chemicals and toxins - from bleach
to potassium permanganate to turpentine to gunpowder and whiskey. Knitting
needles, crochet hooks, scissors and coat hangers were all among the tools
used by women who had no choice but to resort to these means.

Thousands of women died from poisoning and injury. Thousands of others
lived, but with the pain of permanent injuries and disfigurement.

Women who sought abortions from back-alley butchers encountered similar
horrors. Because of the crackdown, the clandestine nature of illegal
abortion meant that women who sought them were often blindfolded, driven
to remote areas and passed off to people they didn't know or couldn't see.
Leslie Reagan's book contains stories of women forced to get abortions
from drunk abortionists, using unsanitary tools in filthy rooms and even
the backseats of cars.

The humiliation and isolation imposed on women because of the illegal
nature of abortion meant that many women, after receiving one, feared
going to a doctor when they suffered complications.

In Reagan's book, one woman recalled how a fellow college student who had
an illegal abortion "was too frightened to tell anyone what she had done.
She locked herself in the bathroom between two dorm rooms and quietly bled
to death."

Some women didn't suffer this fate - because of their class. Nearly all
middle- and upper-class white women who sought abortions were able to
obtain one in hospitals or outside the U.S.

But the vast majority of women faced deplorable conditions, and women of
color suffered the worst. Nearly four times as many women of color died
from illegal abortions as white women. Before 1970, when abortion was
legalized in New York City, Black women accounted for 50 percent of deaths
due to illegal abortions. Puerto Rican women accounted for 44 percent.

The history of back-alley abortion is full of countless horror stories.

In 1964, 28-year-old Geraldine Santoro bled to death on the floor of a
Connecticut hotel room after she and her former lover, Clyde Dixon,
attempted an abortion on their own. Dixon, who had no medical experience
of any kind, used a textbook and some borrowed tools. When things went
terribly wrong, he fled the scene, and Santoro died alone.

Meanwhile, after Roe legalized abortion, every restriction passed has
meant that more women die.

In 1977, Congress passed the Hyde Amendment, banning federal Medicaid
funding for abortions for poor women. Shortly after the law went into
effect, Rosie Jimenez, a 27-year-old student and single mother, couldn't
afford a private abortion. She obtained an illegal one and died from
infection. A decade later, 17-year-old Becky Bell got a back-alley
abortion because of restrictions under Indiana's parental notification
law. She suffered a horrific infection and died as a result.

And these are just a few of the better-known stories of the victims of the
war on women's reproductive rights.

* * *
THE MASS social movements of the 1960s and early 1970s - in particular the
movement for women's liberation - created the context for the Supreme
Court to uphold abortion as a constitutional right for women in 1973.

After Roe v. Wade made abortion legal, women's health improved
significantly. Entire wards of hospitals dedicated to aiding women
suffering from complications from botched abortions could be devoted to
other uses. In New York City, after abortion was legalized in 1970,
maternal mortality dropped by 45 percent. Women were finally freed from
the terror of the back alley.

The legalization of abortion was a shining moment in the struggle for
women's liberation. For one, the shame and nightmares that often
accompanied illegal abortion had been overcome. But also, by winning
abortion rights, the women's movement placed the demand that women alone
must control their own bodies at the center of the broader fight for
liberation.

Under capitalism, women cannot be equal to men without having control over
reproduction. Ultimately, women bear the physical, emotional and financial
burden of bearing and raising a child. And women - working-class women in
particular - bear a "double burden" of both wage labor at work and
domestic labor at home. This dynamic drives the sexism that permeates our
society.

Any fundamental challenge to the inequality faced by women must have the
struggle for women's reproductive rights at its core.

Michelle Bollinger writes for the Socialist Worker.

[If abortion is made illegal again, I expect leading national Dems to cop
out: "O well, it's not really important - it never was important - our
faith-based voters are happy and we need them for all the much more
important issues. You don't like it? Get over it." Standard sell-out mode.

We surrender our better judgment and a good chunk of our ethics to vote
for lesser-evil Gore/Kerry/Hillary - so can they defend some of our basic
rights in return? Sorry, no, the deal is all one-way - we help them, they
won't help us. Who do we think we are? They leave us undefended and open
to attack, as is the wish of their corporate/theocratic bankrollers.

Nevertheless, large numbers of zombies will line up for Hillary in 2008,
proving the national Dems can do anything they want to us, and we will
vote for them anyway. And the country goes further down the tubes. There
needs to be a time when large numbers of Americans stand up and shout "No
more!" What will it take for that time to come? - ed]


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

Strike for Peace
An Interview with Brian Bogart
by Mickey Z.
www.dissidentvoice.org
October 22, 2005

Activist Brian Bogart asked himself: "Our top industry has been the
manufacture and sale of weapons - and we're a peace-loving nation?"
Inspired by this paradox, Bogart created Strike for Peace...described on
its website as an attempt "to highlight for everyone's sake the dominant
role of the military industry in America's economy. We stand for a future
of shared resources instead of a future of resource wars. The weapons we
help the Pentagon develop in our schools will be used in such wars unless
we step away from the microscope to see the macro view and change
America's priority from war-industry profit to the Founding vision of
prosperity for all."

"The action I'm taking is not about political parties," Brian declares.
"It's about deadly priorities that have been ruining this country for 55
years and causing a world of suffering, even here at home, and even to our
soldiers abroad."

I interviewed Brian Bogart via e-mail:

Mickey Z: What was the spark for "Strike for Peace"?

Brian Bogart: I took seriously what I was taught about the founding
vision: that America is a peace loving nation run by servants who operate
by the consent of the governed (the people), and that American citizens
have a duty to monitor their governing body very closely. We are often
told we have a government of by and for the people, and the Declaration of
Independence states more than once that the people have a duty to alter or
abolish any government that threatens their future security. All of this
means we are supposed to be responsible, to participate; not just by
voting, but by knowing exactly what's really going on in government every
minute of every day.

MZ: In other words, take control? In America?

BB: Obviously, Americans have lost control of America, or possibly never
really had control. Most people are too overwhelmed to even talk about the
mess we have today in Washington DC. But, in my career, and then in my
first three years of independent research as University of Oregon's only
graduate student in Peace Studies, I learned something we don't learn
enough of in schools: that the American people were ripped off in 1950,
that without the knowledge and consent of the American people, the office
of President Harry Truman - a Democrat - decided to adopt a
weapons-for-profit-based economy and launch the Cold War against the
Soviet Union.

MZ: What's been the fallout of the rip-off you describe?

BB: Since 1950, our nation has been dependent on conflict - and the world
has suffered more than 200 wars. Our factories that made trains and buses
and other necessities for public use were converted for military purposes,
and that technology was shipped overseas - so today we import these things
and do not have the ability to produce them. Since 1950, our top industry
has been the manufacture and sale of weapons - and we're a peace loving
nation? Our economic aid packages to developing countries are filled with
weapons, and any loans we provide come with terms that allow us to control
and perpetuate their internal strife.

MZ: In other words, the U.S. taxpayer is funding war and knows very little
about it.

BB: I slowly saw this in my career when I was making parts for televisions
in Silicon Valley, when suddenly our companies were saturated with weapons
contracts coming from the Pentagon. I saw so much of our hard-earned taxes
being spent on weapons that benefited only top executives. Even more
wasteful contracts were justified as necessary for the Cold War. For
example, I saw trillions of taxpayer dollars going to waste on President
Reagan's "Star Wars" missile defense system, which was never deployed.
Servants in power today say "Star Wars" was necessary to frighten the
Soviet Union into spending all of its wealth on weapons. "Star Wars" was,
therefore, never intended to be deployed. But if we won the Cold War, why
are we today wasting even more of the people's money making even deadlier
weapons? And doesn't spending our wealth on weapons take us down the same
path as the Soviet Union? The answer is our leaders are addicted to
profit, and serve a war-for-profit machine adopted in 1950.

MZ: This machine requires an enemy.

BB: When we won the Cold War, our leaders were faced with a loss-of-profit
crisis called "peace." So, the Pentagon outsourced its weapons projects
and supply requirements to our companies and schools. The Army used to
make its own tuna sandwiches, but today Bumble Bee has a lucrative
Pentagon contract, and therefore a stake in conflict and a good reason not
to speak out against war. The Navy used to make its own soup, but today
Campbell's has a Pentagon contract, and therefore a stake in conflict and
a good reason not to speak out against war. The Base Realignment and
Closure hearings were not only designed to deploy our forces and bases
around the world - and that's made very clear in the Pentagon's National
Defense Strategy - but the sentiments stirred up among workers here who
want to keep their jobs create that many more reasons for Americans not to
speak out against war. Today more than 300,000 companies have Pentagon
contracts. Some 400 colleges develop combat programs on campus to make up
for the diversion of state funds to the so-called "war on terror."

MZ: Why do you think there isn't more outrage over this system of
corporate welfare?

BB: Americans are not learning these basic facts about their country, but
they are being hired and trained as cogs in our war machine, paid to be
silent workers and accomplices, paid to participate in the industry of war
while being influenced to ignore the violence and wastefulness of war.
Nearly all of our problems, nearly all threats to the future, bleed from
this wound in American history, and only an outcry of popular demand can
change it. Dissent is the highest form of patriotism, so it is right that
we stop to learn what's really happening, and it is right that we stand up
and speak out. But we must do it together or our servants will continue to
steal everything we have, including our lives.

MZ: Assuming more Americans became aware, what do you see as a way to
channel this awareness?

BB: History's greatest lesson tells us to take the profit out of war, and
until we do that, we will increasingly suffer from the misdirection of our
advancing technology. Both major parties have sustained the war industry
for 55 years; both are rife with corruption. Changing administrations or
ending the war in Iraq without changing our national priority will neither
alter our course nor banish perpetual conflict. I realized this after the
third year of my graduate program, and decided to spend my final year
striking for peace, camped across from the administration building at
University of Oregon to - with the assistance of other caring students -
bring attention to the root cause of the world's (and America's) problems.
The purpose of the Camp U.S. Strike for Peace Campaign is to unite people
against this priority of weapons profit over human prosperity, because it
is killing any chance of success for equal rights, a clean environment,
fair elections, a balanced media, a just world, and a peaceful and
meaningful future. Filling the world with weapons is not reasonable and
will never deliver security and prosperity for all. We must take the
profit out of war or war will take the life out of us.

MZ: How's it going so far?

BB: In just three weeks, we have succeeded in prompting our faculty senate
to address the issue of Pentagon-funded research (we have nineteen
future-combat related projects underway at UO, ten more than last year).
We have also been invited by members of Parliament as delegates to the
December 2005 International Peace Conference in London, so we at
strikeforpeace.org are seeking funding assistance.

MZ: What can readers do to learn more and/or get involved?

BB: Go to www.StrikeForPeace.org and then contact us.

Mickey Z. is the author of several books, most recently 50 American
Revolutions You're Not Supposed to Know: Reclaiming American Patriotism
(Disinformation Books). He can be found on the Web at: www.mickeyz.net.


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

Theocracy. Hypocrisy. Plutocracy.
by Jan Baughman
Swans - October 24, 2005

The United States has come to be the antithesis of every slogan, fable,
and legend on which it was founded;  that is, with the exception of "In
God We Trust," emblazoned on the almighty dollar - our last remaining
symbol of freedom. Only those with enough dollars are able to afford the
life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness spelled out in our Constitution.

We have come to be a society that stands for Social Darwinism, originally
referred to as Rugged Individualism. This was once a mythic trait that
conjured up images of crossing the country in a covered wagon, through
dust storms and over mountains, dodging thieves and Indians. The strong
survived and transformed the Wild West into a promised land of milk and
honey, where rice fields and lush green golf courses flourish in the
desert. Only now, rather than having to overcome the physical elements to
survive and succeed, one must overcome the hurdles imposed by poor
education and health care, inadequate nutrition, and poverty wages.

What we stand for can be summed up in one word: Hypocrisy. We are a
country that continues to view itself as being the best in the world,
while the data demonstrate the opposite. The best in education? The U.S.
leaves children behind, graduating students who can't read, allowing
increasing minority dropout rates, and producing declining scores in math
and sciences, while we simply throw money at measuring the pace of their
decline.

The best in health care? If you can afford to buy health insurance and pay
for the most expensive drugs and procedures in the world, then yes.
Otherwise, the U.S. turns its back on 44 million (and growing) people
without health insurance and continues to support a for-profit,
reactionary system rather than socialized medicine and a focus on
preventive care. Just imagine when the generation of obesity reaches
middle age.

The best at freedom and democracy? We don't even know the meaning of the
words. We hold sham elections, constantly draw up new districts to stack
the deck in favor of the desired outcome, allow only the wealthy into the
campaign process, and have no uniform, reliable method to cast and count
ballots. Meanwhile, our civil liberties are quickly and quietly vanishing,
most recently with the help of the Patriot Act, in the guise of homeland
security.

The best at protecting our citizens? We've handed over our freedom and
squandered hundreds of billions of dollars so that the government can be
equipped to protect us from airplanes crashing into buildings, or anthrax
attacks, or dirty bombs on mass transportation; yet when faced with a
known and predicted threat, we're left with bodies floating in the streets
and lives stranded without the means to escape and without food, water, or
shelter. The obscene increases in the military budget have sucked the life
out of state and local governments.

We are a fractionated nation, driven by self-interest and ego (the haves),
or suppressed by poverty and ignorance (the have nots). It is difficult to
find anything that is working in this country, save for the burgeoning
plutocracy that We The People continue to feed.

The frightening questions that only time will answer are, where are we
headed, and to what depth must we sink before we find the will to change
the course?


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

The United Corporate States of America
by Raymond Garcia
Swans - October 24, 2005

The question is, who are we, what have we become in the USA? An
existential question for sure, yet a practical one. What do we represent,
in our own eyes, who are we as a product of our actions? There are clearly
many ways of approaching this question, as the current issue of Swans
illustrates. For me, the closest definition that captures our essential
core, in the USA, is that we are The United Corporate States of America.
We are the nationalist expression of the corporate state.

"In order to form a more perfect union," we, the people, have empowered
corporations with rights far beyond those possibly imagined for
individuals, as the founders of this country envisioned in their
Constitution predicated on the radical principle of popular sovereignty
(see Wood, Bailyn, et al.). Original intent, as such contemporary
constitutional wing nuts as Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas would have
it, means land-owning white men were and should still be the arbiters of
popular sovereignty.

Thankfully, these paleoconservatives and their retrogressive views remain
outside the mainstream of an increasingly reactionary-tilted normative
standard in contemporary judicial philosophy. However, as we fight with
said reactionaries, embodied by the Federalist Society, the base of
devoted, original-intent wing nut central, a far more insidious
philosophical plague has colonized our judicial philosophy: the
corporatist ideal.

The era of Jacksonian democracy in the 1820s ushered in a key electoral
reform in the USA: free white men (non-indentured slaves, essentially)
could now vote in elections, with property ownership no longer a
requirement. Citizenship as the criteria for democratic participation, not
ownership class membership. This was indeed a radical reform, as it
foreshadowed future electoral participation of freed slaves, as well as,
God forbid, women (though not for another hundred years). The quaint
dictates of Madison's Constitution, designed to prevent majoritarian
(those without property) tyranny over the minority (property owners
without popular support) gradually became untenable as an effective
protection for elites against the growing empowerment of the masses.

As the U.S. turned from an agrarian-based economy to an industrial
economy, pushed significantly by regional imbalances and the butchery of
the Civil War, a new base of wealth was being created: access to the
ever-growing largesse of government budgets, especially the federal
budget. As the shift to industrial investment became the primary access to
consolidating wealth over the middle half of the 19th century (say,
1825-1875), governmental power increasingly shifted toward a dual policy
imperative: holding down the power of non-elites (i.e., citizens with a
vote and little else), and directing budgets toward growing industrial
monopolies (see, for example, Howard Zinn's A People's History of the
United States). Thus, a policy of support for monopoly financial power
became ingrained with the development of the history and reality of the
United States.

A serious obstacle to the growth of such elite power developed, however:
The potential growth of democratic power, as embodied in this
constitutional commitment to popular sovereignty. Here the separation of
political and economic power became primary. Madison's constitutional
protection of elites from majoritarian tyranny would no longer suffice. As
noted by a number of disparate social analysts, including Zinn, Noam
Chomsky, Kalle Lasn, and the Alliance For Democracy folks, in stepped the
US Supreme Court with a bizarre ruling that laid the groundwork for The
United Corporate States of America. In 1886, The Supreme Court ruled that
corporations were "natural persons" under the law, essentially extending
civil rights to corporations as a "legal fiction," who now had all of the
rights of a citizen, but none of the responsibilities or obligations.

Given that the corporation's ultimate responsibility is profitability
for stockholders, this ruling institutionalized the separation of economic
welfare and democratic political power. The results of this separation
soon became clear, as great monopolies of industry proliferated in the
late 1800s/early 1900s. Anti-trust efforts of the Progressive movement
succeeded in busting the most onerous of the monopolies, which then
ushered in the oligopolistic reign of corporate power that remains the
foundation of The United Corporate States of America today (again, see for
example Zinn, et al.).

In a nutshell, a corporation formed can pursue its own profitability with
little or (these days) no restraint, and yet renounce any legal
responsibilities, liabilities or obligations it incurs by declaring
bankruptcy and shutting down. This includes escaping responsibility for
any contracts agreed to and any damage done; physical, environmental,
economic or otherwise. The result is socializing the costs of profit
accumulation, while privatizing (for the ownership classes) the benefits
of economic activity. This is how we became The United Corporate States of
America.

Consider the news headlines of today, in specific the Delphi Corporation.
Here we have the largest US supplier of auto parts, a private corporation
created when General Motors decided to divest itself of its parts supply
division in 1999. A mere six years later they have now filed for
bankruptcy. With an unfunded pension liability of 10.8 billion dollars
(that's right, BILLIONS), Delphi is demanding that workers accept an
immediate pay cut of up to and over 50%, radical benefits (health,
pension, and otherwise) cuts, and the immediate elimination of health care
provisions for retirees. And maybe they'll then stay in business. If not,
the bulk of that unfunded pension liability will be borne by a massive
federal bailout, with workers collecting 50 cents on the dollar for
promised pensions, if lucky. And all finances counted on for the future by
workers will magically disappear.

Try to get your mind around this key fact: General Motors and Delphi
negotiated these contracts they now want to abrogate "in good faith." In
other words, past decades of workers agreed to provide their labor power
for established pay rates and benefits (in lieu of higher pay at the time)
for contractual guarantees signified by agreement of corporate leadership.
These corporations paid out billions of dollars in profits over the years
of these contracts, earned through the hard work of their labor force. Yet
when the time comes to make good on their contractually promised
guarantees to workers, corporate legal accountability becomes so much
legal fiction, just like "corporations as natural persons" as established
by the Supreme Court in 1886. The difference is, however, that corporate
contractual responsibilities are in the end REAL fiction, as they pursue
profit without recourse, while the rights of working people to the legal
enforcement of contract law satisfaction is equally fictional.

What happens when a real person defaults on obligations from a contract
signed with a corporate entity? They get sued to the ends of the earth
with the complicity of the state and federal court systems, and end up
paying double the amount owed, with court-sanctioned fees applied, or are
financially ruined if unable to pay. When a corporation defaults? The
workers (and especially unions) get blamed for the failure, and the
corporation is protected by the courts, and/or is allowed to disband with
no responsibility borne by the executives and owners who drove it into the
ground.

Let's return to Delphi. Currently, punditocracy columns and letters to
editors are being cranked out, blaming "greedy" unions for this looming
disaster. How unreasonable, that they should expect corporations to live
up to contractual promises! Meanwhile, Paul Krugman notes in the October
17, 2005 New York Times that "large severance packages (were) given to
Delphi executives even as the company demanded wage cuts." Who are we?
Why, The United Corporate States of America, of course. Accountability
only applies to working individuals, not to the "fictional persons" set up
to insulate wealthy elites from democratic influence.

Ironically, this very contradiction was illustrated in the business
section of The Chicago Tribune on October 13, 2005. The top of the fold
article was titled "Delphi Chief Warns Workers," in which the CEO of
Delphi warned workers that if they didn't accept these radical pay and
benefit cuts, they'd hire scabs or go bankrupt. Directly below it was an
article about Federal Reserve Chief Alan Greenspan (ex-Ayn Rand disciple)
glowingly pronouncing that the US economy was avoiding energy price-fueled
inflation because of its "flexibility."

Here you have the definition of "flexibility": unfettered (by regulation)
liquidity for capital and its investors; zero legal accountability for
corporations who abrogate contractual obligations to real people; and a
workforce of individuals forced to legally and financially bear the burden
of their own demise. It's laughable that we are still regularly treated to
blather from the punditocracy that we are "the pinnacle of free market
capitalism."

The sainted prophet of such ideology, Adam Smith, warned in The Wealth of
Nations that the power of what became monopoly and oligopolistic groups
(in his day, monarchy charter entities like The East India Company and The
Hudson Bay Company) would destroy the possibility of truly free markets
and their social benefits, as he envisioned them. In the U.S., we
ignore(d) that part of Smith's writings. We have set up corporations and
their elite ownership to be insulated from democratic influence and legal
accountability, and reduced individuals to the status of mere corporate
supplicants. That's who we are, what we've become, in The United Corporate
States of America.

REFERENCES

Wood, Gordon, The Radicalism of The American Revolution, Vintage, 1993.

Bailyn, Bernard, The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution,
Harvard U Press, 1967.

Zinn, Howard, A People's History of the United States, Perennial, 2003.

Chomsky, Noam, Profit Over People, Seven Stories, 1998.

Lasn, Kalle, Culture Jam, HarperCollins, 2000.

Alliance For Democracy

Krugman, Paul, "The Big Squeeze," The New York Times, 10-17-2005

The Chicago Tribune Business Section, 10-13-2005

Smith, Adam, The Wealth of Nations, Bantam, 2003.


--------21 of 21x--------

 If knowledge is power,
 speak truth to the powerless,
 speak lies to power.


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