Mn-prog-events Mailing List: Progressive Calendar 12.02.05

[David Shove (shove001]

             P R O G R E S S I V E   C A L E N D A R     12.02.05

1. FNVW craft sale        12.02/03 4pm

2. Venezuela/health care  12.03 10am
3. Letters/ed/workshop    12.03 11:30am
4. Green Party StP        12.03 12noon
5. Global warming protest 12.03 12noon
6. Permaculture bioregion 12.03 1pm
7. Northtown vigil        12.03 1pm
8. Press/Black Dog        12.03 1pm
9. Cam Gordon/party       12.03 7pm
10. Equatorial Guinea     12.03 7pm

11. NV communication      12.04 10am
12. Sensible vigil        12.04 12noon
13. Gaza/peace?           12.04 2pm
14. Kim's story/Nam/film  12.04 2pm
15. Bowling Green         12.04 2pm
16. KFAI/Indian           12.04 4pm
17. MUI                   12.04 7pm

18. Edward Herman - The New York Times versus the civil society
19. US PIRG       - Protect our right to know
20. Charles Simic - Watermelons (poem)

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From: Charles Underwood <charleyunderwood [at] hotmail.com>
Subject: FNVW craft sale 12.02/03 4pm

Friday, 12/2, 4 to 9 pm, and Saturday, 12/3, 10 am to 3 pm, Friends for a
Non-Violent World craft sale, Minneapolis Friends Meetinghouse, 4401 York,
Mpls. www.fnvw.org


--------2 of 20--------

From: Eric Angell <eric-angell [at] riseup.net>
Subject: Venezuela/health care  12.03 10am

Venezuelan Health Care
Sat December 3, 10am
Resource Center of the Americas
3019 Minnehaha Ave, Minneapolis

Minnesota medical students and professionals report back from the
frontlines of the health care system in Venezuela, specifically Barrio
Adentro programs. $4/$3 612-276-0788


--------3 of 20--------

From: Lydia Howell <lhowell [at] visi.com>
Subject: Letters/ed/workshop 12.03 11:30am

Mary Turck will run a "writing letters to the editor" workshop on
Saturday, December 3 at 11:30am-1pm in the RCTA Freire Room, as part of
our citizen journalism project.

More info to come. Contact Mary (mturck [at] americas.org) to get on her email
list regarding this.


-------4 of 20--------

From: Elizabeth Dickinson <eadickinson [at] mindspring.com>
Subject: Green Party StP 12.03 12noon

All people interested in finding out more about the Green Party of St. Paul
are invited to:

Our monthly meeting
First Saturday of every month
Mississippi Market, 2nd floor
Corner of Selby/Dale in St. Paul
noon until 2 pm

Elizabeth Dickinson co-chair, St. Paul Green Party
<http://www.gpsp.org>


--------5 of 20--------

From: Lydia Howell <lhowell [at] visi.com>
Subject: Global warming protest 12.03 12noon

Protest Government Inaction on Global Warming
Saturday December 3
12noon
Outside the Governor's residence
1006 Summit Ave., St. Paul (1.5 blocks east of Lexington)

Join us in demanding that the U.S. join the world in addressing global
warming.  This protest will coincide with the Montreal climate change
conference, where world leaders will meet about global efforts to fight
climate change.  Decisions made at this conference will have a major
impact on our future and on our children's future.

This protest will also coincide with similar actions throughout the
country, including Boston, Columbus OH, Harrisburg PA, New Orleans, New
York City, Portland ME, Seattle, Tucson, Washington DC, and other places.
We will ask Governor Pawlenty to do more to reduce Minnesota's emissions
of greenhouse gases and to urge his colleague Pres. Bush to join the world
at the Montreal conference and help solve the climate change problem.

The demands:
        * Join the World by Ratifying the Kyoto Protocol
        * Mandatory Reductions in Greenhouse Gas Emissions
        * Clean, Safe, Non-Nuclear Energy Alternatives
        * No More Wars for Oil

Cosponsors: Climate Crisis Coalition of the Twin Cities (3CTC), Citizens
for Global Solutions-Minnesota, Women's International League for Peace &
Freedom-Minnesota, Antiwar Committee, Pax Christi-Twin Cities, Iraq Peace
Action Coalition, Alliant Action.

FFI on the local protest: 612-722-9700.  FFI on the national campaign:
www.climatecrisiscoalition.org/


--------6 of 20--------

From: Lynne Mayo <lynnne [at] usfamily.net>
Subject: Permaculture bioregion 12.03 1pm

Let's talk about Permaculture Bioregional community!
Saturday December 3
2420 17 Av S Mpls (home of Lynne Mayo)

1-2:30pm get together/discussion.

Break

2:30pm more talk and sharing or presentations: End of Oil or movie time.
We will decide at the gathering.

First hour and half of meeting: some conversation starters, organizing
themes from Gary Hoover:

Who is currently practicing permaculture in> Minneapolis?  Are there
people or institutions working in a similar way?

How can we apply permaculture principles as we develop our urban
environment?  How can we educate ourselves and others to re-imagine the
development of urban infrastructure along these lines?

Discard the myths.  Let's try to see ourselves and our city with new eyes.

Tea, Fair Trade Coffee, organic cream, and cider & wine.  Bring snacks to
share if you like

RSVP TO LYNNE:612-722-7356.  If you must miss the meeting but want to
participate, call and leave a message.  We will let you know of any future
gatherings.

Hope to see you Saturday!

LLEN Mayo
2420 17th Ave. South
Mpls, Mn.  55404

Love Life, Earth, Neighbor
LLEN [at] usfamily.net
612-722-7356

HERE ARE SOME POSSIBLE ITEMS FOR THE SECOND PART OF THE GATHERING:
Megan McGuire has put together a presentation on the End of Oil, lasting
about 15˛, which she will be happy to share.

EATING, the DVD, is one of the best I have seen for great photography,
good commentary and personal interviews, and a powerful message that would
be meaningful to anyone struggling with food issues.  "Discover why we eat
like robots and die like robots.  Learn how to unplug your eating habits
and reverse the damage that's already been done to your health."  EATING
also explores the environmental damage done by Big Agriculture and the
lies they perpetrate through advertising and control of decision making
bodies.

"The Future of Food", is a DVD giving an in depth look at agriculture
industry and biotech.


--------7 of 20--------

From: Lennie <major18 [at] comcast.net>
Subject: Northtown vigil 12.03 1pm

The Mounds View peace vigil group has changed its weekly time and place.
We will now be peace vigiling EVERY SATURDAY from 1-2pm at the at the
southeast corner of the intersection of Co. Hwy 10 and University Ave NE
in Blaine, which is the northwest most corner of the Northtown Mall area.
This is a MUCH better location.

We'll have extra signs.  Communities situated near the Northtown Mall
include: Blaine, Mounds View, New Brighton, Roseville, Shoreview, Arden
Hills, Spring Lake Park, Fridley, and Coon Rapids.

For further information, email major18 [at] comcast.net or call Lennie at
763-717-9168


--------8 of 20-------

From: Chris Fischbach <fish [at] coffeehousepress.org>
Subject: Press/Black Dog 12.03 1pm

Coffee House Press invites you to our 2nd annual Holiday Book Sale!
Saturday, December 3, 1-5:30pm
Black Dog Cafe 308 Prince Street in St. Paul (kitty-corner from the
Farmer's Market)

Please join Coffee House Press for a day of caffeinated fun at the Black
Dog Cafe in St. Paul. We will have our books for sale and, for your
enjoyment, there will be some readings by our local authors, who will also
be available for book signing and mingling. Enjoy special holiday prices
on our newest releases, sip a cup of hot chai and chat with us about our
21 years of successful service to writers in the Twin Cities and across
the country.

Readings by Local Authors
3:15pm: Warren Woessner, Our Hawk.
4pm:    Wang Ping, The Magic Whip
4:45pm: Alexs Pate, Losing Absalom

Raffle! A copy of A Visit from St. Alphabet and a gift ornament, 3 & 5pm
Special Holiday Sale Prices!
Hardcovers $10,
Paperbacks $8
Any 3 books for $20,
Remainder books and broadsides $3

About the Black Dog Cafe
The Black Dog Cafe is a home for activities and arts related events in the
neighborhood. They support community activism and events that bring people
together to meet, to dialogue and to exchange ideas. Coffee, wine,
pastries, soup and sandwiches are served. The Black Dog Cafe is a
neighborhood treasure. Come and share in its ambiance.

About Coffee House Press
Founded in 1984, Coffee House Press, a nonprofit literary publishing
house, is a nationally recognized literary arts organization with a
reputation for presenting award-winning writers in beautifully designed
books. Our commitment to the representation of cultural diversity and
emerging writers is realized by closely adhering to our mission, which
asserts that: The mission of Coffee House Press is to promote exciting,
vital, and enduring authors of our time; to delight and inspire readers;
to increase awareness of and appreciation for the traditional book arts;
to contribute to the cultural life of our community; and to enrich our
literary heritage

"There are many establishments like [Coffee House Press] that have
had distinguished careers in the salvation business, introducing the new
talent and standing by it, supporting avant-garde work that New York
turns away and smuggling texts of foreign origin into a country made of
foreigners." -Willam Gass

"Coffee House is renowned for its ability to turn up gems. Over the years,
they've produced many critically acclaimed books and authors." Skyway News

For more information contact: Megan Richter Office Manager & Development
Assistant megan [at] coffeehousepress.org (612) 338-0125 phone (612) 338-4004
fax 27 North 4th St., Suite 400, Minneapolis, MN 55401 Good books are
brewing at coffeehousepress.org


--------9 of 20--------

From: Cam Gordon <CamGordon333 [at] msn.com>
Subject: Cam Gordon/party 12.03 7pm

Volunteer Appreciation Party Thank you!

As you've probably heard, we did it.  We won.
As you may have heard....we did it!  We won and this January I will take
office as Second Ward Minneapolis City Council Member. It is time to
celebrate our success.

Please join me, the wonderful people who volunteered on my campaign, and
other supporters like yourself for
A Volunteer Appreciation Celebration!
Spokes Pizza
(Seward Cafe at the corner of E Franklin and 22nd Ave S)

This Saturday, December 3, 7-9pm
Everyone is welcome [even Herbie].  Please spread the word


--------10 of 20--------

From: August H Nimtz Jr <animtz [at] tc.umn.edu>
Subject: Equatorial Guinea 12.03 7pm

"We Start with the World and How to Transform It"
Report of the First Equatorial Guinea Book Fair

FOR THE FIRST TIME EVER, in October 2005 a book fair was held in the
central African country of Equatorial Guinea. Five supporters of
Pathfinder Press took part, making its titles available. Their experiences
in that country - a former Spanish colony and staging post for the slave
trade, in an oil-rich region where Washington is today increasing its
military buildup - shed light on the openings for militants in the new
political situation being produced by intensifying conflicts among
contending classes worldwide.

JOIN US in a discussion of the history and struggles of the peoples of
Central and West Africa; the internationalist course and political weight
of Cuba's socialist revolution; the increased politicization of working
people resisting the employers' economic, social, and political assaults;
the road forward in the fight for Black emancipation and women's rights;
and much more.

And after the Saturday evening meeting, come back for more informal
discussion and a brunch on Sunday! Bring co-workers, friends, and family!

Speakers: Mary-Alice Waters, president of Pathfinder Press, and Arrin
Hawkins and Martin Koppel, participants in First Equatorial Guinea Book
Fair

Meeting 7:30pm Sat Dec 3, reception 7pm
Martin Luther King Center, 271 Mackubin St., St. Paul
(From Interstate 94 take the Dale St. exit south several blocks to
Marshall Ave., then go east one block to Kent.  The King Center is on
your left)

Brunch 11:30am-2pm Sun Dec 4
El Burrito Mercado Café Room
175 Concord St., St. Paul

Sponsored by the Socialist Workers Party and Young Socialists For more
information, contact Twin Cities SWP or Twin Cities Young Socialists,
651-644-6325 or tcswp [at] qwest.net.


--------11 of 20--------

From: Lydia Howell <lhowell [at] visi.com>
Subject: Non-violent communication 12.04 10am

Citizens for Corporate Responsibility is integrating the process of
Nonviolent Communication into its internal processes, its communication
with others and its framing, The following training is available for those
who want to learn more about Nonviolent Communication:

Living, Speaking and Listening from the Heart

1. A Basic Training in Nonviolent Communication (NVC), a practice that
supports a consciousness based on living in the present moment. We will
explore how to carry an active heart-based mindfulness meditation into
each interaction by tapping into the deep spring of love that lives in
each and every one of us. Through this work we will open up to a world
full of compassionate giving.

NVC powerfully facilitates personal growth, family peace, compassionate
social change, conflict resolution and mediation.

NVC helps us focus our attention on
1) Empathic understanding of others while maintaining each other's values,
and
2) Expressing our real feelings and needs openly and honestly, yet without
blame or criticism.

NVC delineates four components of communication:
1) Observations free of evaluations;
2) Feelings straight from the heart;
3) Needs, values and longings; and
4) Requests expressed clearly in positive action language.

2. Offered by Margarita Mac & John Karvel
Two Sundays, December 4 & 11, 2005, 10 am To 6 pm

Northrup King Building 1500 Jackson St. NE Studio #404 Minneapolis, MN

3. Requested donation: $150-$80.
We request a $30 deposit and administration fee with registration. In
addition we request that you pay by donation after the class the highest
amount you can joyfully give if the class contributed to your life. We are
following BayNVC's financial arrangements because they meet our needs for
support, beauty and inclusion. For more information follow this link:
http://www.baynvc.org/financial.php

Contact Margarita Mac at margaritaemac [at] netscape.net
<mailto:margaritaemac [at] netscape.net> or 612-729-1699 for more
information or to request a registration form.

Nonviolent Communication comes from the work of Marshall Rosenberg
and the Center for Nonviolent Communication. For more information about
NVC go to the global website at www.cnvc.org <http://www.cnvc.org/> or
the local website at www.tcnvc.org <http://www.tcnvc.org/>.


--------12 of 20--------

From: skarx001 <skarx001 [at] umn.edu>
Subject: Sensible vigil 12.04 12noon

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


--------13 of 20--------

From: wamm <wamm [at] mtn.org>
Subject: Gaza/peace? 12.04 2pm

"After the Gaza Withdrawal: Peace?"

Dr. Mohammed Bamyeh, Palestinian and visiting professor in International
Studies at Macalester College in St. Paul, will discuss Israeli and
Palestinian concepts of peace in response to the Israeli/Palestinian
conflict.

The talk would discuss the background behind the Gaza withdrawal and other
possible future "disengagement" plans in the West Bank, situating them in
the context of the various peace initiatives from the 1990's, beginning
with the Oslo Accords. It would also add a larger historical dimension,
including the role of disengagement in Zionist thought in general, and the
reason for why this notion has become identified with peace. Palestinian
perspectives will also be highlighted in this regard, as well as the role
of the US in favoring one conception of peace over others. He will also be
comparing the relative virtues of various conceptions of peace, offer his
own sense of what might work better, and assess the role of the US in this
conflicting light of the emerging regional status of the US.

Sunday December 4, at 2pm

St. Mark's Episcopal Cathedral, Fontaine Auditorium
519 Oak Grove Street, Minneapolis

Contacts: Elizabeth Burr at 651-699-6407 or the Women Against Military
Madness (W.A.M.M.) Office: 612-827-5364


--------14 of 20--------

From: humanrts [at] umn.edu
Subject: Kim's story/Nam/film 12.04 2pm

December 4 - ReelMN Documentary Series: Kim's Story.  2pm
Cost: Free and open to the public..

One famous photo of the Vietnam War became an international symbol of the
horrors of war affecting children: Nick Ut's image of 9-year-old Kim Phuc
running naked down the road outside her village, screaming in agony as
napalm burned its way through her skin.  The film traces her life after
the bombing, from her rescue to rehabilitation to enrollment in medical
school. It follows Kim as she travels to America to Washington's Vietnam
War Memorial, where she meets the former American officer who ordered the
napalm strike that almost killed her. It also recalls how the photograph
comes back to haunt her and forces Kim to finally confront the past it
represents.

The film's crew follows Kim as she travels to America to meet people who
might help fill in the holes of her story - information she can't remember
or understood only as an injured child. The film is presented in
conjunction with the History Center exhibit The Pulitzer Price
Photographs: Capture the Moment.

Location: Minnesota History Center, St Paul, MN


--------15 of 20--------

From: Eric Gilbertson <aleric [at] tcq.net>
Subject: Bowling Green 12.04 2pm   [ed head]

Green Party Social presented by the 5th Congressional District Green
Party of Minnesota.

Come bowl with the Greens!
Sunday, December 4
beginning at 2pm
Memory Lanes, 26th Ave and 26th St in South Minneapolis
(the old Stardust Lanes)

All Greens, Green-leaners, Green sympathizers, along with their friends
and family are welcome, of all ages. Memory Lanes has a full bar and cafe,
along with 30 lanes for open bowling.

See http://www.memorylanesmpls.com/ for more information about the site.

Email ericgilbertson [at] mngreens.org for more information or if you have a
suggestion for our January Social event - we will use IRV to poll
attendees and determine the most popular.


--------16 of 20--------

From: Chris Spotted Eagle <chris [at] spottedeagle.org>
Subject: KFAI/Indian 12.04 4pm

KFAI's Indian Uprising for Dec. 4th, 2005

VINE DELORIA JR., CHAMPION OF INDIAN RIGHTS, DIES AT 72 by Kirk Johnson,
The New York Times November 15, 2005.  Mr. Deloria, who was trained as
both a seminarian and a lawyer, steadfastly worked to demythologize how
white Americans thought of American Indians. The myths, he often said -
whether as romantic symbols of life in harmony with nature or as political
bludgeons in fostering guilt - were both shallow. The truth, he said, was
a mix, and only in understanding that mix, he argued, could either side
ever fully heal.
 http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/15/national/15deloria.html?emc=eta1.

'INSPIRATION FOR A GENERATION' PASSES AFTER A LIFE OF REVOLUTIONARY WORK
by Jim Adams for Indian Country Indian Country, November 18, 2005.  Vine
Deloria Jr., the intellectual star of the American Indian renaissance,
passed away on Nov. 13 after struggling for several weeks with declining
health. His immeasurable influence became immediately apparent in an
outpouring of tributes from all corners of Indian country.  ''I cannot
think of any words I could possibly say that even begin to capture the
significance of this man and his work among Native people and on our
behalf for the past half-century,'' said Richard West Jr., director of the
National Museum of the American Indian, in a message to his staff.
http://www.Indiancountry.com/content.cfm?id=1096411945.

VINE DELORIA JR. - IN MEMORIAM (Editorial) by Indian Country Today
November 17, 2005.  Deloria, the world-renown Dakota author and scholar
from the Standing Rock Reservation, made a huge contribution to the Native
peoples of North America and the world. His intellectual output, at once
free-ranging with creativity and yet tight with academic rigor, pinned
down the legal and historical bases desperately needed by the national
Indian discourse. He provided a great piece of the intellectual locomotion
upon which a moving platform of American Indian/Native studies research,
publishing, production and teaching has been constituted.
 http://www.Indiancountry.com/content.cfm?id=1096411939.

ON THE PASSING OF VINE DELORIA, JR., by Richard B. Williams, President of
the American Indian College Fund, published in the Lakota Journal (Voices
of the People), November 18, 2005.  He was always supportive and willing
to help young Indian people in their intellectual pursuits.  This applied
even to me during my years as a scholar.  I had great fortune to sit in on
nearly every class Vine taught at the University of Colorado-Boulder that
I could.  His lectures were awe-inspiring.  The historical material
included often-over looked items such as the Indian Depredations Act, or
personal recollections of the modern wars being fought over federal policy
during his time with the National Congress of the American Indian.
 He was history himself, a living treasure.

CHALLENGING AN ASSERTION BY THE AIM OF COLORADO by Laura Waterman
Wittstock, Minneapolis, Nov. 19, 2005.  It is very difficult, in these sad
times, as we try to remember and give Vine the just place he deserves in
the rich history of American Indians during the 20th Century, not to give
over to notions Vine himself did not espouse.

* * * *
Indian Uprising is a one-half hour Public & Cultural Affairs radio program
for, by, and about Indigenous people & all their relations, broadcast each
Sunday at 4:00 p.m. over KFAI 90.3 FM Minneapolis and 106.7 FM St. Paul.
Current programs are archived online after broadcast at www.kfai.org, for
two weeks.  Click Program Archives and scroll to Indian Uprising.


--------17 of 20--------

From: mn_united_ireland [at] lycos.com
Subject: MUI 12.04 7pm

Minnesotans for a United Ireland
651 645-9506
MUI Meeting and Social
Dec 4th 7 PM at Arise Bookstore 2441Lyndale Av S Minneapolis

Agenda 1 -1st book group
Blanketmen- O'Rawe first 90 pages

2- We will address holiday cards to all the irish political prisoners.
Come help sign the cards. We have done this for over 20 years.The
prisoners do enjoy the cards.


--------18 of 20--------

The New York Times Versus The Civil Society
By Edward S. Herman
ZNet (http://www.zmag.org).

The biases of the New York Times surface in one or another fashion on a
daily basis, but while sometimes awfully crude, these manifestations of
bias are often sufficiently subtle and self-assured, with facts galore
thrown in, that it is easy to get fooled by them. Analyzing them is still
a useful enterprise to keep us alert to the paper's ideological premises
and numerous crimes of omission, selectivity, gullible acceptance of
convenient disinformation, and pursuit of a discernible political agenda
in many spheres that it covers.

The veteran Times reporter John Hess has said that in all 24 years of his
service at the paper he "never saw a foreign intervention that the Times
did not support, never saw a fare increase or a rent increase or a utility
rate increase that it did not endorse, never saw it take the side of labor
in a strike or lockout, or advocate a raise for underpaid workers. And
don't let me get started on universal health care and Social Security. So
why do people think the Times is liberal?" The paper is an establishment
institution and serves establishment ends. As Times historian Harrison
Salisbury said about former executive editor Max Frankel, "The last thing
that would have entered his mind would be to hassle the American
Establishment, of which he was so proud to be a part."

One very important feature of an establishment institution is that it
gives heavy weight to official and corporate news and opinion and little
attention to facts and opinions put forward by those disagreeing with the
official/corporate view. Government and corporate officials are "primary
definers" of the news, and experts affiliated with, funded by, and/or
supporting them function to institutionalize those views. In a perverse
process, the links of these experts to official and corporate sources give
them a preferred position in the media despite the built-in
conflict-of-interest, unrecognized by establishment institutions. (PBS has
repeatedly turned down labor-funded programs on grounds of
conflict-of-interest, but doesn't do the same for corporate-funded
programs, as PBS officials have internalized the establishment's
normalization of conflicts-of-interest involving the dominant institutions
of society.) Those in opposition, even if representing very large numbers,
even a majority of the population, have difficulty gaining access. Another
way of expressing this is to say that the media, as part of the
establishment, align themselves with other constituents of the
establishment, and are very often at odds with and give little voice to
the civil society.

Of course the media defend their heavy and largely uncritical dependence
on the primary definers for news on the ground that they make the news and
define the reality, so that giving them the floor is justified on grounds
of inherent relevance. What this ignores is that the media may be helping
these primary sources accomplish their goals by serving as conduits of
assertions and claims that may be false, misleading, and designed to
manipulate the public; effectively, by allowing themselves to be managed.
Substantive, as opposed to nominal, objectivity calls for examining and
possibly contesting these claims, providing valid information to the
public, and serving as watch-dogs rather than lap-dogs. Regrettably, we
have moved into the age of the lap-dog, nowhere more clearly than in the
case of the New York Times.

This lap-dog role and failure to serve civil society is regularly
displayed in the media's treatment of protests where large numbers are
often driven to gathering in the streets to try to gain media access
denied them in the normal course of events. Where the protests are large
enough, they may be covered, but the media regularly give undercounts of
numbers, unfavorable placement, disproportionate attention to
counter-protestors and protester violence - sometimes concocted as well as
inflated - and they rarely attempt to convey the messages and analyses of
the protesters, let alone give editorial support to the protesters. This
is true of protests against wars of aggression, globalization, racism, or
corporate aggrandizement and labor disputes.

In The Whole World Is Watching, Todd Gitlin described how during the
Vietnam War the New York Times eased out of reporting on war protest a
reporter who was showing too much sympathy with the protesters (Fred
Powledge) and gradually moved to trivialization and aggressive denigration
of antiwar protests, in the process "screening out discrepant information
to which its own routines gave access." Gitlin showed how in a major
antiwar protest in April 1965, while the Times's news article acknowledged
that the protesters outnumbered the counter-demonstrators by better than
150-1, the paper carefully selected from among a set of available photos
the one that gave the pro-war counter-demonstrators equal photographic
space. (On the fallacy that the paper was "against the Vietnam war," see
Edward Herman, "All The News Fit To Print, Part 3, The Vietnam War and the
myth of a liberal media": www.zmag.org.)

Throughout the Cold War, the Times treated protests in the Soviet Union
and among the Soviet satellites with great and uncritical generosity, with
front page attention, photos of crowds, and in one case even providing a
box featuring the protest signs of Soviet protesters, something they never
did with U.S. protests.

Jumping to the present, the Times placed its small news report on the
large September 24, 2005, Washington, DC antiwar protest on page A26
(Michael Janofsky, "Antiwar Rallies Staged in Washington and Other
Cities," September 25, 2005) and gave that protest no editorial support.
By contrast, on October 22, the paper had a large front page picture of
"Hundreds of protesters [there were 150,000 or more in Washington on
September 24] gathered at the grave of Lebanon's former prime minister in
Beirut yesterday to demand the ouster of Syria's president." This front
page picture - and there was one on A8 as well, showing the crater that a
bomb left that had killed Rafik Hariri - geared well into the Bush
administration's campaign to destabilize Syria. On the same day there was
a front page article on "Bush pushes U.N. to Move Swiftly on Syria
Report," and day after day there has been a steady tattoo of similar
articles featured in the paper as it serves Bush once again in the same
capacity as it had served in the pre-invasion Iraq propaganda campaign.

We should also note that the civil society uprising in the Ukraine in
2004-2005, funded heavily by U.S. government agencies and friendly NGOs,
was given much more lavish news treatment than domestic protests, along
with editorial support. The close association between news-editorial
attention and support and external protests consistent with U.S. foreign
policy initiatives, and grudging attention and non-support (or opposition)
to domestic civil society actions protesting ongoing official policy, is
long-standing and is observable in other areas.

Labor Disputes

The New York Times, as well as its mainstream news rivals, all supported
the North American Free Trade Agreement in 1994, following the lead of the
business community, whereas organized labor and a consistent majority of
the population at large opposed that agreement. In one of the most telling
exhibitions of the Times's class bias and narrow definition of the
"national interest," and its resentment at labor's and the civil society's
refusal to accept this elite initiative, the paper actually editorialized
against labor's attempt to influence the outcome of this debate ("Running
Scared From Nafta," November 16, 1993, with a chart, Labor's Money:
Congressional opponents of NAFTA from the New York metropolitan area,
northern New Jersey and Connecticut who have received more than $150,000
in campaign contributions from labor political action committees since
1983). It had no comparable editorial on the even larger business
intervention in this debate, or even the multi-million dollar publicity
campaign carried out by the Mexican government in the United States.

The Times had only modest and scattered coverage of the Reagan-business
community attacks on organized labor in the 1980s, even though many of
these attacks were in violation of the law, and although they were badly
weakening an important civil society institution that protects ordinary
citizens both in the workplace and political arena and was arguably
essential to a real rather than nominal democracy. Business Week wrote in
1984 that "over the past dozen years...U.S. industry has conducted one of
the most successful union wars ever" assisted by "illegally firing
thousands of workers for exercising their right to organize." But you
would hardly know this reading the New York Times (or for that matter its
mainstream colleagues).

As in the case of political protests, however, you could find a great deal
of Times coverage of the Solidarity movement actions in Poland in the
early 1980s, and the Soviet miners strike in the late 1980s. The latter is
especially interesting as it overlapped the significant Pittston miners
strike in the United States, which took place in 1989, with a plant
takeover phase in September of 1989. The plant takeover was not covered at
all by the Times (or by the TV networks), and was barely mentioned
anywhere in the mainstream press. The Times did have a fair number of
articles on the Pittston strike - 54 versus 39 on the Soviet miners strike
between February 1, 1989 through February 21, 1990 - but the Soviet strike
drew more full-length treatments (24 versus 16), more front page attention
(9 versus 1) and more op-eds (3 to 0). The Soviet strike received
concentrated attention in July 1989, with 15 full-length articles, 7
beginning on page 1, 1 on the first page of the Sunday Week in Review, and
2 op-ed columns. The coverage of the Pittston strike never had any such
concentrated attention, and its one front page article was on the
settlement of the strike.

Again, this fits a pattern of news coverage that follows an establishment
agenda. The intensive coverage of the Soviet strike served the Reagan-era
effort to put the "evil empire" in a bad light and encourage opposition to
Soviet rule. Intensive treatment of the Pittston strike might have aroused
interest in the deteriorating condition of U.S. labor and sympathy with
labor's plight here, which is not something the U.S. elite was eager to do
(the Times "left" in the 1980s, Anthony Lewis, even lauded Margaret
Thatcher for having put labor in its place; and Lewis assailed labor for
its opposition to NAFTA in 1993). Similarly, in the same time frame as the
great attention given Solidarity in Poland, the Times and its colleagues
essentially ignored the even more ferocious attack on labor in Turkey by
its military government, which, hardly coincidentally, was supported by
the U.S. government.

War Crime Tribunals

Privately organized tribunals are another way in which civil society tries
to counter establishment criminal activity like aggressive wars and
sponsored terrorism. Of course, the establishment organizes its own
tribunals, as with the ICTY and the trial of Milosevic, and through
tribunals nominally organized by its client/puppet governments, as in the
case of the forthcoming trial of Saddam Hussein. The New York Times has
given the Milosevic trial enormous - and hugely biased - coverage (Edward
S. Herman and David Peterson, "Marlise Simons on the Yugoslavia Tribunal:
A Study in Total Propaganda Service," (ZNet, 2004), although interestingly
that coverage fell to virtually zero once the prosecution case was ended
and the defense began. The trial of Saddam Hussein has produced more
coverage in the paper than all the dissident tribunals in history, even
before the trial has commenced.

In 1967, when Bertrand Russell organized an International War Crimes
Tribunal to examine and denounce the U.S. war against Vietnam and fight
"Against the Crime of Silence" (the title of the published proceedings),
the New York Times and other establishment media treated it with extreme
brevity and hostility. The same was true of a Second Russell Tribunal on
"Repression in Latin America," held in Rome and Brussels in April 1974 and
January 1975, which took very impressive testimony on the brutalities of
the U.S.-sponsored system of National Security States that had made Latin
America the torture center of the world, but which was barely mentioned in
the mainstream media.

The Iraq invasion-occupation brought forth a surge of civil society
tribunals - 20 or more linked tribunals on U.S.-British war crimes against
Iraq, culminating in a major three-day session in Istanbul from June
24-27, 2005 (www.worldtribunal.org). This very moving session, featuring
Arundhati Roy, Richard Falk, Dennis Halliday, Hans Von Sponeck, Walden
Bellow, Dahr Jamail, Wamidh Nadhmi (and seven other Iraqis), provided a
large volume of telling evidence and background on the U.S.-British war,
and, as Richard Falk indicated, it represented civil society speaking.
This civil society had spoken in the massive, global protest marches of
February 2003 before the war and polls at that time showed that a large
majority of people in the world opposed that war. The New York Times and
mainstream media in general have completely ignored the Istanbul and other
tribunals, a deterioration from 1967, and showing the growing gap between
the establishment, establishment media, and ordinary citizens.

Militarization and War

As the United States has militarized and become a global interventionist
and rogue state par excellence, the Times has gone along with this, with
occasional small reservations at haste and excess. It never challenged the
string of "gaps" and threats used to justify each surge in the buildup of
overkill, brilliantly exposed in Tom Gervasi's The Myth of Soviet Military
Supremacy (1986), which the Times failed to review in the midst of the
Reagan-era buildup based on the lies of that era. It was revealing that
the Times editorialized in favor of barring Ralph Nader from the debates
in 2000 on the ground that Gore and Bush provided the public with all the
alternatives they needed, although both supported a further enlargement of
the U.S. military budget - neither favored any "peace dividend," and then
and still today the paper does not contest a military budget that has
little to do with "defense." The civil society demurs, polls disclosing
regularly - except in times of actual war and stoked fears - that the
majority would like to see social expenditures enlarged and the military
budget reduced.

It is now clear and has even been admitted by the editors that the Times
served the Bush administration in its drive to an invasion-occupation of
Iraq. What is remarkable in their doing this is that the basis of the
invasion was so crude, the lies so blatant, the violation of international
law so gross that you would think a hired press agency of the government
would be embarrassed to have to swallow these and push for war. But the
Times pushed ahead, not just disseminating propaganda, but propaganda
whose central components were disinformation. Judith Miller's statement
that, "The analysts, the experts and the journalists who covered them - we
were all wrong. If your sources are wrong, you are wrong," is a lie. There
were a great many experts and analysts who were right, but the New York
Times ignored them, misrepresented their views, and even smeared them
(Barry Bearak, "Scott Ritter's Iraq Complex," November 24, 2002).

It is important to recognize that the paper's performance as a de facto
public relations arm of the war party was by no means confined to Judith
Miller. It was an institutional process that can be seen in the
editorials, opinion columns, news, magazine, and book reviews. It
reflected the choices and decisions of the paper's leadership, including
publisher Arthur Ochs Sulzberger and executive editor Bill Keller. The
editorials were vacillating, but had these characteristics: they never
once mentioned international law and the UN Charter and the fact that an
invasion without Security Council approval would be the "supreme crime";
and they repeatedly asserted as proven that Iraq had weapons of mass
destruction (even speaking of its "storehouses of biological toxins,"
September 13, 2002). The editorials set the moral stage for war, as did
their op-ed columns that gave no space to informed opponents of the war
like Scott Ritter, Hans Von Sponeck, or Glen Rangwala (a close student of
the official lies: see Glen Rangwala and Raymond Whitaker, "20 Lies About
the War," The Independent, July 13, 2003); or legal authorities like
Richard Falk, Francis Boyle, or Michael Mandel; but instead offered
generous space to war protagonist Kenneth Pollack (four long op-ed
columns) and pro-war legal authorities Ruth Wedgwood, Anne-Marie
Slaughter, and Michael Glennon. The New York Times Magazine was saturated
with the war apologetics of George Packer, Michael Ignatieff, Barry Berak,
and James Traub.

These were the choices of editors with an agenda, and that agenda
overwhelmed the news department as well. Whatever the Bush team spouted,
the paper would feature heavily, even if it was repetitive and another
"vow" or expression of "resolve." They felt no obligation to check the
sources cited (if any) and to search aggressively for alternative sources,
even though the Bush team had already shown an unrestrained willingness to
lie.

Even when alternative sources were available, time after time the paper
would filter out news that was incompatible with the party line. Thus,
while Miller and her colleagues swallowed a steady stream of informants
supplied by Chalabi and the Bush team, whose credibility was extremely
dubious, the paper never got around to reporting the fact that the
defector Hussein Kamel told the CIA that Saddam Hussein had destroyed all
of his chemical and biological weapons stocks and delivery missiles in
1991. Here was the highest-ranking Iraqi official ever to defect from
Saddam Hussein's inner circle, a person who had direct knowledge of what
he claimed: for ten years he had run Iraq's nuclear, chemical, biological
and missile programs. His admission had been hidden by the Clinton
administration, but was finally reported in Newsweek in early March 2003
(John Barry, "Exclusive: The Defector's Secrets," March 3, 2003).

This extremely important information about Saddam's WMD by a qualified and
credible defector has never yet been mentioned by the Times. They have
also failed to report Colin Powell's statement made in 2001, but before
9/11, that Saddam Hussein "has not developed any significant capability
with respect to weapons of mass destruction. He is unable to project
conventional power against his neighbors." This admission, made before the
party line was firmed up, is not only newsworthy in itself but would alert
an honest news agency to the possibility of fraud in the later claims.

The steady stream of evidence by Mohamed ElBaradei and the IAEA that
Saddam's nuclear programs had been destroyed and their negative reports on
their examination of alleged sites of possible renewed activity was
ignored by Kenneth Pollack and the Times editors and news gatherers, all
of whom preferred to pass along the claims of administration officials and
their favorite expatriates and defectors. (For detailed evidence of the
Times's ignoring or misrepresenting ElBaradei's and the IAEA's findings
(see Howard Friel and Richard Falk, The Record of the Paper: How the New
York Times Misreports U.S. Foreign Policy). Judith Miller, of course, set
the standard for reliance on administration claims and the supposed
evidence of defectors provided by Chalabi. This was sometimes coordinated
with administration claims, with Miller reporting the new "evidence," and
then Cheney or some other official the next day citing the New York Times
for evidence of the discovery of WMD like mobile weapons labs. Here most
clearly the Times operation was closely integrated into the
news/disinformation management efforts of the Bush war-manufacturing
machinery, that was, in the Times's own words, "following a meticulously
planned strategy to persuade the public...of the need to confront the
threat from Saddam Hussein." Here also it might be argued that Miller and
her bosses, Sulzberger and Keller, were part of a "joint conspiracy" to
carry out the supreme crime, and ought to be in prison awaiting trial for
serious criminal behavior.

The awfulness of the Times's news coverage possibly reached its peak in
the front page article by Judith Miller on April 21, 2003, "Illicit Arms
Kept Till Eve of War, An Iraqi Scientist Is Said To Assert." Notice that
this piece reaches page one although it is clear from the title that
Miller didn't even talk with the alleged scientist, who is "said to
assert" something by "U.S. military officials," the same folks who brought
us the disinforming stories of Jessica Lynch, Pat Tillman, etc. The
"scientist" said everything the Bushies wanted: that Saddam had buried his
WMD, sent such stuff to Syria, and was cooperating with Al Qaeda. While
Miller couldn't talk to this ultra-convenient "source," "she was permitted
to see him from a distance at the sites where he said the material from
the arms program was buried. Clad in nondescript clothes and a baseball
cap, he pointed to several spots in the sand where he said chemical
precursors and other weapons material were buried." That's the last we
heard of this find and this source's revelations.

This story is eerily reminiscent of an earlier Times fiasco, given a
marvelously satirical treatment by Alexander Cockburn, where one
Christopher Jones, writing in the New York Times Magazine on "In the Land
of the Khmer Rouge" in 1982, after visiting Khmer Rouge country, wrote:
"By an old Cambodian cemetery a blind man was chanting the Ramayana, a
part of Cambodia's cultural heritage, as he twanged a primitive guitar.
What better personification of Cambodia could I have found than this old
singer, whose heroic and poetic ballad had ceased to have any connection
with anything I had just seen? Cambodia, a land possessed, its ancient
hymns, like its temples, fallen on evil days. Of all dead lands, the most
dead." Cockburn pointed out that this exact language is to be found in
Andre Malraux's 1923 novel La Voie Royale. Cockburn commented: "Of course
if he was old when Malraux heard him in 1923, the singer must be quite
marvelously venerable by now, but I dare say Jones was too enthralled, on
his remote frontier crossing, to notice that."

Judith Miller and the Times's editors must have been too enthralled with
the marvel of the new Iraqi "source" that found all these good things
supporting every claim of the Bushies to note that such lies had been
pushed and then embarrassingly found wanting with painful regularity in
the past. But some people will not learn if their biases and
will-to-believe are overwhelmingly strong. Unfortunately, however, as the
paper admitted in the wake of the Christopher Jones incident, such


--------19 of 20-------

From: Gene Karpinski, U.S. PIRG Executive Director<mailto:GeneK [at] uspirg.org>
Subject: U.S. PIRG : Protect Our Right to Know

In October 2005, EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson proposed an egregious
assault aimed at slashing the amount of pollution information companies
would be required to disclose.

Without information about toxic chemicals being released into our air and
water, dumped, and otherwise transferred from facilities across the
country, local communities would be unable to adequately act to protect
their health.

The Toxic Release Inventory Program (TRI) started in 1987.  It requires
companies to report toxic releases to air, land and water, as well as
toxic waste that is treated, burned, recycled, or disposed.
Approximately 26,000 industrial facilities disclose information about any
of the 650 chemicals in the program.

EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson is proposing changes to the program.
These changes would be three-fold:

 * A rule to propose that companies be allowed to release ten times as
much pollution before they are required to report their releases.

 * A rule that would allow companies to withhold information about some of
the most dangerous chemicals, such as lead and mercury.

 * A notification to Congress that EPA Administrator Johnson intends to
release a rule to change the frequency of reporting to the program next
fall from every year to every other year.

The first two rules are currently open for public comment while the third
proposal is a notification of a future rule that Stephen Johnson will
propose in October 2007.

If these rules become law, there will be devastating implications in a
variety of areas:

 * Lost Incentives to Reduce Pollution : Since the inception of the
program in 1987, releases have dropped by nearly 60%.  In the past five
years, EPA has reported a 42% drop in the 600 chemicals in the program.
When companies are required to disclose their pollution, they have an
incentive to reduce it.  Under the proposed rules, not only would this
incentive be reduced, but companies could also increase their releases and
we wouldn't even know it.

 * Impacts on Public Health : The 650 chemicals that are currently a part
of the Toxic Release Inventory are chemicals of concern.  Many are known
carcinogens, reproductive toxicants and respiratory toxicants.  Increases
in these releases could have devastating impacts on our health.

 * State and Local Regulators Impacted : State and local regulators use
the Toxic Release Inventory to implement specific state programs.  For
instance Washington state regulators are opposing the Bush
administration's plan because they use the TRI to identify facilities
eligible for their pollution prevention program.

 * Communities Would Lose Powerful Tool : Many communities and citizen
organizations use TRI information in their campaigns and to protect their
family's health.  The PIRGs have long used this information in air, water
and other successful campaigns.

Gene Karpinski U.S. PIRG Executive Director
GeneK [at] uspirg.org<mailto:GeneK [at] uspirg.org>
http://www.USPIRG.org<http://www.uspirg.org/>


--------20 of 20--------

 Charles Simic

 Watermelons

 Green Buddhas
 On the fruit stand.
 We eat the smile
 And spit out the teeth.


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