Mn-prog-events Mailing List: Progressive Calendar 02.07.06

[David Shove (shove001]

           P R O G R E S S I V E   C A L E N D A R     02.07.06

1. WalMart book author 2.07 2pm
2. Saucy poetry/music  2.07 7:30pm
3. Altera Vista/9-11   2.07 8pm
4. Bonhoeffer/TV       2.07 9pm

5. Peace/volunteers    2.08 8am
6. Indigenous summit   2.08 11am StCloud MN
7. Pentel/capitol      2.08 11am
8. Corp responsibility 2.08 11:30am
9. Elections 2006      2.08 12noon
10. Bad textbooks      2.08 3:30pm
11. Anti-torture       2.08 6:30pm
12. Women/rights/film  2.08 7pm
13. No Anoka stadium   2.08 7pm
14. 64A candidates     2.08 7pm
15. Better ballot      2.08 7pm
16. Rondo voices       2.08 7pm

17. Nicolas Davies - Burying the Lancet Report
18. PC Roberts     - The true state of the union
19. Cynthia Bogard - Looking for the Woolworth's lunch counter of 2006
20. ed             - In our new homeland (poem)

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Date: Mon, 6 Feb 2006 10:25:30 -0600
From: Laura Hedlund <Laura [at] AirAmericaMinnesota.com>
Subject: WalMart book author 2.07 2pm

Author and investigative journalist Charles Fishman will discuss his new
book The Wal-Mart Effect at the U of M Bookstore at Coffman Memorial Union
on February 7 at 2pm

Author Charles Fishman
Discussion and book signing
Tuesday, February 7 at 2pm
University of Minnesota Bookstore 300 Washington Av SE Minneapolis

Contact: Kari Erpenbach, University of Minnesota Bookstore (612) 625-6564,
kari [at] umn.edu

Charles Fishman, author, journalist and senior editor of Fast Company
magazine, will discuss his new book The Wal-Mart Effect: How the World's
Most Powerful Company Really Works - And How Its Transforming the American
Economy.

2pm on Tuesday Feb 7 at the U of M Bookstore located in Coffman Memorial
Union, 300 Washington Av SE Minneapolis.

Fishman's investigative research into the largest company in the history
of the world, examines the impact Wal-Mart has on retailers,
manufacturers, wages, jobs, the culture of shopping, the shape of our
communities, and the environment. Through unprecedented, behind-the-scenes
access to Wal-Mart headquarters and ex-executives, Fishman uncovers how
Wal-Mart strong-arms even the most established brands.

Wal-Mart saves American consumers $10 billion a year with its mandate to
sell for less, but as the largest employer in 37-states fewer than half of
its employees can afford even the least expensive health insurance package
offered by the company.  This thought-provoking book shows how Wal-Mart's
power is shaping the structure of the world's market for good and how it
has emerged as an economic eco-system, and an unprecedented global force.

Fishman will sign copies of his book following the discussion. This event
is free and open to the public.  For more information, or to order a
signed copy visit <http://www.bookstore.umn.edu/genref/authors.html>

www.bookstore.umn.edu/genref/authors.html.


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From: Jennifer <jennifer_nemo [at] yahoo.com>
Subject: Saucy poetry/music 2.07 7:30pm

Thursday, February 7

MedusaHead Productions invites you to bring someone you love [or want to]
to Marysburg Books, for a saucy evening of poetry and music. 7:30pm at
Marysburg Books in Minneapolis located at 304 Washington Avenue North in
Suite 100. Call 612-340-0078.  [ed likes saucy]


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

From: leslie reindl <alteravista [at] earthlink.net>
Subject: Altera Vista/9-11 2.07 8pm

Tues Feb 7, 8pm on Minneapollis cable MTN channel 16, Altera Vista
program:  "Loose Change: A Documentary on 9/11."

Thur Feb 9. 8:30pm on St. Paul cable SPNN channel 15, Altera Vista
program:  "International Inquiry into 9/11: Phase One," with panel Nafeez
Ahmed, Paul Thompson, and Barry Zwicker, and talk by Jiim Marrs.


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

Date: Mon, 6 Feb 2006 09:58:48 -0600 (CST)
From: Stephen Feinstein <feins001 [at] umn.edu>
Subject: Bonhoeffer/TV 2.07 9pm

Minneapolis PBS Channel 17 will show a documentary on the life of Dietrich
Bonhoeffer this evening at 9PM. Bonhoeffer was one of the leaders of the
Confessing Lutheran Church that broke with the German Evangelical Lutheran
Church that swore allegience to Hitler. He was hanged at Flossenburg in
April 1945.

for information see:
http://www.ushmm.org/bonhoeffer/
TPT Description:

Bonhoeffer
Channel 17  Tuesday, Feb. 7 at 9PM

Dietrich Bonhoeffer was among the first to oppose Adolf Hitler. As a young
pastor, he helped organize the Confessing Church, Germany's only true
organized challenge to the Nazi state. A prolific writer and acclaimed
preacher, Bonhoeffer went to New York on a teaching fellowship and taught
Sunday school in the famed Abyssinian Baptist Church in Harlem. When he
returned to Germany in 1932, he took with him a new awareness of racial
prejudice and became one of the first to challenge the Christian churches
to defend the Jews in their moment of peril. In the end, Bonhoeffer paid
with his life for his beliefs. Three weeks before the end of World War II,
the 39-year-old minister was executed.

---
When I first met Bonhoeffer
by Jim Wallis
www.sourners.org

When I first met Dietrich Bonhoeffer, through reading his books as a young
seminarian, he explained the world of faith to me. This young German
theologian who was executed by the Nazis for his opposition to Hitler
helped me to understand the difficult religious experiences I had known in
America.

I had just come back to Jesus after rejecting my childhood faith and
joining the student movements of my generation when I discovered for the
first time the Sermon on the Mount as the manifesto for a whole new order
called the reign of God. I discovered Matthew 25: "As you have done to the
least of these, you have done to me."

The evangelical Christian world I had grown up in talked incessantly about
Christ but never paid any attention to the things that Jesus taught.
Salvation became an intellectual assent to a concept. "Jesus died for your
sins and if you accept that fact you will go to heaven," said the
evangelists of my childhood. When it came to the big issues that cropped
up for me as a teenager - racism, poverty, and war - I was told explicitly
that Christianity had nothing to do with them: they were political, and
our faith was personal. On those great social issues, the Christians I
knew believed and acted just like everybody else I knew - like white
people on racism, like affluent people on poverty, and like patriotic
Americans on war.

Then I read Bonhoeffer's The Cost of Discipleship, which relied heavily on
the beatitudes from the Sermon on the Mount and the idea that our
treatment of the oppressed was a test of faith. Believing in Jesus was not
enough, said Bonhoeffer. We were called to obey his words, to live by what
Jesus said, to show our allegiance to the reign of God, which had broken
into the world in Christ. Bonhoeffer warned of the "cheap grace" that
promotes belief without obedience. He spoke of "costly discipleship" and
asked how the grace that came at the tremendous cost of the cross could
require so little of us. "Christianity without the living Christ is
inevitably Christianity without discipleship," he said, "and Christianity
without discipleship is always Christianity without Christ. It remains an
abstract idea, a myth."

At the time, I had just experienced a secular student movement that had
lost its way. Without any spiritual or moral depth, protest often turned
to bitterness, cynicism, or despair. Finding Jesus again, after years of
alienation from the churches, reenergized my young social conscience and
provided a basis for both my personal life and my activist vision. Here
again Bonhoeffer showed the way, by providing the deep connection between
spirituality and moral leadership, religion and public life, faith and
politics. Here was a man of prayer who became a man of action - precisely
because of his faith.

Bonhoeffer will appeal today to all those who are hungry for spirituality.
But his was not the soft New-Age variety that only focuses on inner
feelings and personal enlightenment. Rather, it was Bonhoeffer's
spirituality that made him so politically subversive. And it was always
his deepening spiritual journey that animated his struggle for justice.

Bonhoeffer will appeal today to all who are drawn to Jesus Christ, because
at the heart of everything Bonhoeffer believed and did was the centrality
of Christ. The liberal habit of diminishing the divinity of Christ or
dismissing his incarnation, cross, and resurrection had no appeal for
Bonhoeffer. But his orthodoxy has demanding implications for the
believer's life in the world. He refused to sentimentalize Jesus,
presenting him as the fully human Son of God who brings about a new order
of things.

During a stint at Union Theological Seminary in New York City,
Bonhoeffer's response to theological liberalism was tepid, but he became
inspired by his involvement with the Abyssinian Baptist Church in Harlem.
Meeting the black church in America showed the young Bonhoeffer again that
a real Christ was critical of the majority culture.

Bonhoeffer will appeal today to all those who love the church and long for
its renewal. But they won't find in Bonhoeffer somebody who was primarily
concerned with new techniques for more contemporary worship, management
models for effective church growth, or culturally relevant ways to appeal
to the suburban seekers. Bonhoeffer could not imagine the life of solitary
discipleship apart from the community of believers. But he would not
tolerate the communal life of the church being more conformed to the world
than being a prophetic witness to it.

And, of course, Bonhoeffer appeals today to all those who seek to join
religion and public life, faith and politics. Because he doesn't fit
neatly into the categories of left and right, and liberal and
conservative, Bonhoeffer can speak to Democrats trying to get religion, to
Republicans who want a broader approach than hot-button social issues, and
to people who are unhappy with our contemporary political options. He was
drawn to the nonviolence of Jesus and, like Martin Luther King Jr., was
planning to visit Gandhi in India to learn more about nonviolent
resistance. Like King, he was killed before he could make the trip. But
Bonhoeffer's pacifism gave way to what he saw as the overriding need to
confront the massive evil of Nazism by participating in a plot to
assassinate Adolf Hitler.

Yet, according to F. Burton Nelson and Geffrey Kelly, in their book The
Cost of Moral Leadership: The Spirituality of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, he
believed that violence was "still a denial of the gospel teachings of
Jesus," and his decision to join the conspiracy against Hitler was
accompanied by "ambiguity, sin, and guilt" that were only expiated by a
reliance on Christ who "takes on the guilt of sinners, and extends the
forgiveness of his Father God to those sinners." That decision, which cost
him his life, demonstrates Bonhoeffer's profound wrestling with the
always-difficult questions of how faith is to be applied to a world of
often imperfect choices.

Excerpted from Jim Wallis' introduction to A Year With Dietrich
Bonhoeffer, published by Harper San Francisco, 2006.


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From: humanrts [at] umn.edu
Subject: Peace/volunteers 2.08 8am

February 8 - Waging peace and promoting justice through Global Volunteers
8-9:30am

Bud Philbrook, president of Global Volunteers and former candidate for
governor.  He describes GV as an organization that helps forming of
friendships across international boundaries by working with people in
their communities.  He will reflect on the process of being a candidate
for governor.

St. Martin's Table, 2001 Riverside Ave, Mpls


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

From: Lydia Howell <lhowell [at] visi.com>
Subject: Indigenous summit 2.08 11am StCloud MN

Global Indigenous Peoples' Summit: A Dialogue on Land, State and Empire

Wednesday, February 8, 11:00 - 8:00, all day conference at St. Cloud
State University.
"Global Indigenous Peoples' Summit: A Dialogue on Land, State and Empire"

11:00 - Welcoming Ceremony [College of Education Lounge]
11:30 - 1:15  Bill Miller, musical performance [Atwood Quarry]
1:30  - 2:30  Lunch at the SCSU American Indian Center
2:30  - 4:00  Guest Speakers' Panel: Kani Xulam, Dr. Dia Cha, Jesus
       "Chucho" Garcia, and Nuri el Okbi [Atwood Theater - Student Union]
4:00  - 5:00  Student Panel on the Use of American Indian Mascots in
        Sports [Atwood Theater]
5:00  - 6:00  Winona LaDuke, Keynote Address [Ritsche Auditorium]
6:00  - 7:00  Global Indigenous Voices Roundtable Discussion: A
Summation [Ritsche]

The central organizing themes center around themes such as: Colonialism
and Imperialism, landlessness, statelessness, resource exploitations,
cultural identity struggles, human rights abuses, and
resistance/organizing.


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

From: Stephen Eisenmenger <stephen [at] mngreens.org>
Subject: Pentel/capitol 2.08 11am

Ken Pentel will be conducting Green tours of the Capitol on the following
dates in February:

Wednesday, 2/8
Wednesday, 2/15
Tuesday, 2/21
Thursday,  2/23
Monday,  2/27

This is a chance to become familiar with the place where policy decisions
are made and the people who have influence on them.  It is not about
becoming a lobbyist.  It is a way to learn the ins and outs of how our
laws are passed and how we can change them.

Tours will meet in the cafeteria on the ground floor of the Transportation
Building (on Ireland Boulevard, second building from the Capitol on the
west side of the Mall) at 11 am and will last until about 3 pm.  They will
include:

--Introductions
--Overview of legislative committees
--Walking tour of the State Office Building
--Walking tour of the Capitol
--A visit to the Campaign Finance and Disclosure Board
--Discussion of next steps in influencing the process

If the dates given do not work for you, PLEASE contact Ken Pentel.  Other
arrangements can be made, especially for those who come from a distance.
The only days in February that the Capitol is closed are weekends and
Presidents Day (2/20).

If you intend to participate, NOTIFY KEN:  <kenpentel [at] yahoo.com> or (612)
387-0601.  Hešll be happy to answer questions or give you more detailed
directions for reaching the Capitol.


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

From: Lydia Howell <lhowell [at] visi.com>
From: jane.cracraft [at] businesswire.com
Subject: Corp responsibility 2.08 11:30am

Business Wire Conference Series
Co-sponsored by CSRWire

Communicating Corporate Social Responsibility: Potential Risks and
Benefits
Wednesday, February 8, 2006
Minneapolis Hilton -- 1001 Marquette Avenue
Registration -- 11:30 AM
Lunch &Presentation -- Noon to 1:30 PM

Whether a corporation is contributing to a disaster relief effort,
developing environmental management systems, creating initiatives to
combat and eliminate corruption or establishing principles to encourage
diversity, these virtuous efforts directly impact the company's reputation
and value in society. Learn why it is vital to manage and communicate your
company's social responsibility and how to foster an honorable reputation
in the eyes of the media, investors and the general public.

Moderator:
Joe Sibilia, President &CEO, Meadowbrook Lane Capital Sibilia is Chairman
of Meadowbrook Lane Capital, a socially responsible investment bank. He is
also the President of CSRwire, the Corporate Social Responsibility
newswire service.

Panelists:
Nina Utne, Editor, Utne Magazine
Kelly Groehler, Corporate Reputation Manager, Best Buy Co., Inc.
Eric Wieffering, Deputy Business Editor, Minneapolis Star Tribune

 - What are some of the benefits and risks of communicating CSR
    initiatives and results?
 - What should an effective CSR communications strategy include?
 - Who should be involved in the development and management of the
    communication strategy?
 - How can you measure the impact of CSR communications?

Reserve your space today!
Email: jane.cracraft [at] businesswire.com
phone: (612)376-7979

There is no charge to Business Wire members to attend this event.


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

From: Bonnie [at] mnwomen.org
Subject: Elections 2006 2.08 12noon

Wednesday, February 8, Noon to 1:30 PM at the Minnesota Women's Building,
550 Rice Street, St. Paul 55103, we will host a special Brown Bag on
Elections 2006.

Consortium member groups will explain what they are doing - get out the
vote initiatives, issues education, endorsing candidates, and more - and
how you can help.  A light lunch is provided and space is limited, so
please RSVP to Bharti [at] mnwomen.org or 651/228-0338.


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

From: humanrts [at] umn.edu
Subject: Bad textbooks 2.08 3:30pm

February 8 - Textbooks and the Politics of Historical Memory.  3:30pm

Aftermaths - Lecture series from CHGS in cooperation with the Institute
for Advanced Studies, Ohanessian Chair in CLA, CLA, History, Minnesota
Center for Population

The focus will be on how textbooks over contentious issues are written and
how myths are realities seep into popular culture because of textbook
issues. In some cases, such as Native American issues, mythologies and
denial can develop, as in the case of the United States. In the case of
Japan and China, Japanese textbooks deny many aspects of World War II
atrocities. In the aftermath of the Rwanban genocide, views are still
being articulated that the Hutu were the principal victims of genoicide,
rather than the Tutsi, 800,000 of whom were killed in 100 days during the
Spring of 1994.

Participants:
 Brenda Childs      (American Studies UofM)
 Hiromi Mizuno      (History Dept UofM)
 Jean O'Brien-Kehoe (History Dept UofM)
 Michele Wagner     (History Dept UofM)
 Masako Watanabe    (Independant Scholar, Japan)
Facilitator: M.J. Maynes (History Dept UofM)

Often written off as commercial ventures of slight intellectual value,
history textbooks are key sites for the circulation of authoritative
narratives about the past, and for the construction of collective
historical memory. Textbooks are never less innocent than when they
address collective traumas or collective guilt that call into question the
comforting historical identities underlying nationalisms of the present.

This conversation will focus on discussions of indigenous peoples in
U.S.,on writing history textbooks in the wake of the Rwandan genocide, and
the controversies about accounts in Japanese textbooks of the WWII era.

"Textbooks" is part of the Aftermaths Lecture series from CHGS in
cooperation with the Institute for Advanced Studies, Ohanessian Chair in
CLA, CLA, History, Minnesota Center for Population

Location: Nolte Hall, room 125, University of Minnesota-Twin Cities East
Bank


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

From: Dave Bicking  <dave [at] colorstudy.com>
Subject: Anti-torture 2.08  6:30pm

Every Wednesday, meeting of the anti- torture group, T3: Tackling Torture
at the Top (a sub-group of WAMM).  Note new location:  Center School, 2421
Bloomington Ave. S., Mpls.

We have also added a new feature:  we will have an "educate ourselves"
session before each meeting, starting at 6:30, for anyone who is
interested in learning more about the issues we are working on.  We will
share info and stay current about torture in the news.


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

From: humanrts [at] umn.edu
Subject: Women/rights/film 2.08 7pm

February 8 - Women's Human Rights Film Series: No More Tears Sister:
Anatomy of Hope and Betrayal.  Time: All films begin at 7pm.  Cost: Free
and open to the public.

"No More Tears Sister: Anatomy of Hope and Betrayal" was written and
directed by Helene Klodawsky and is a National Film Board of Canada
Production.

About the film: A story of love, revolution, and betrayal, No More Tears
Sister explores the price of truth in times of war. Set during the violent
ethnic conflict that has enveloped Sri Lanka over decades, the documentary
recreates the courageous and vibrant life of renowned human rights
activist Dr. Rajani Thiranagama. Mother, anatomy professor, author and
symbol of hope, Rajani was assassinated at the age of thirty-five.

Laura Nelson, staff attorney in the Women s Program at Minnesota
Advocates, will introduce the film and facilitate discussion afterwards.

Sign language interpretation and other accommodations are available with
advance notice. To request this service, contact The Friends at
651-222-3242 or friends [at] thefriends.org.

For more information, contact Mary Hunt at 612-341-3302, ext. 107,
mhunt [at] mnadvocates.org, or visit The Friends at www.thefriends.org.

The Women's Human Rights Film Series is organized by The Women s Human
Rights Program at Minnesota Advocates and The Friends of the Saint Paul
Public Library

Location: Highland Park Branch Library, 1974 Ford Parkway, St. Paul


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

From: Ron Holch <rrholch [at] attg.net>
Subject: No Anoka stadium 2.08 7pm

Taxpayers Against an Anoka County Vikings Stadium
Wednesday February 8, at 7pm

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

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

No matter where you live in Minnesota, If you haven't already done so
please write your representatives and tell them we do not need to waste
more money on a special session to decide on stadium giveaways to
Billionaires.  Please continue to tell them we want a vote as required by
state law for any tax increase to pay for a stadium.  Write your local
paper too.

AGENDA ITEMS INCLUDE:
Updates on City resolutions to support Referendums
Website
Survey of Legislators
Petition Promotion
Fund Raising Ideas

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


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

From: Kelly <ladycharissa [at] earthlink.net>
Subject: 64A candidates 2.08 7pm

Here in this forum, we have talked about changing the way that our
treasured St Paul is financed. Many of our favored solutions involve
changing state law or shifting to more state funding. Here is an
opportunity to make our views known and to also know our candidates.

I invite you to a Forum for the District 64A candidates, on Wednesday,
February 8, from 7 until 9 PM, at Macalester College Chapel, 1600 Grand
Avenue, Saint Paul, MN 55105. Please do forward and invite others to come
as well.

Since there are over 10 candidates, each candidate will have a five minute
speech.  Later, each of the candidates will also have a few minutes to
answer at least two questions. Questions will be picked ahead of time, you
can contribute questions to me at ladycharissa [at] earthlink.net. Many
brochures should also be available for your selection.

This is my effort to ensure that I act, instead of just being a
curmudgeon. I hope all of you also come and be politically active. I would
really like it if we could discuss the many races going on in St Paul on
this forum as well. I would love it if some of the candidates could write
here and introduce themselves.

Here are the current list of candidates (the list is still growing):

Arnosti, Don  DFL
Berry, Jim  DFL
Dady, Sara  DFL
Keith, Ian DFL
Murphy, Erin  DFL
Swanson, Donna  DFL
White, James, M  DFL
Mortenson, Jesse  GPM
Beach, Kirstin  RPM
Koch, Rory  RPM

If you have questions or suggestions, please contact me. We welcome
coverage by media.


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

From: Jeanne Massey <jkmassey [at] earthlink.net>
Subject: Better ballot 2.08 7pm

Minneapolis Better Ballot Campaign House Parties:

Wednesday, Feb 8
Time: 7:00 - 9:00 PM
Location: 410 Groveland, Unit #901
Host: Tom Arneson, 612-813-0034 (TArne18293 [at] aol.com)

Thursday, Feb 9
Time: 7:00 to 9:00 PM
Location: 912 18th Ave SE
Hosts: Katie Fournier, Jim Davnie, Don Fraser, Cara Letofsky, Sherri
Lessinger, Sean Broom, and Mark McHugh
Contact: Katie, 612-331-5615 or Cara, 612-724-5163.

Better Ballot Campaign Neighborhood Presentations:

Feb 7, 7:00 PM - Linden Hills Neighborhood Council, Linden Hills Park, 3100
43rd St W

Feb 8, 7:00 PM - Fulton Neighborhood Association, Pershing Park, 48th St &
Chowan Ave S

Feb 9, 7:00 PM - Windom Community Council, Windom Comm Center, 5821
Wentworth Ave S

Feb 16, 7:00 PM - Longfellow Community Council, Hiawatha Park, 4305 42nd
St E

Feb 16 7:00 PM - Jordan Area Community Council, Location TBA

Feb 23 7:00 PM - Prospect Park/East River Road Improvement Association,
Prospect Park United Methodist Church, SE Malcolm & SE Orlin Ave


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

From: Jennifer <jennifer_nemo [at] yahoo.com>
Subject: Rondo voices 2.08 7pm

Wednesday, February 8
Vanne Owens Hayes reading from Voices of Rondo: Oral Histories of St.
Paul's Historic Black Community 7pm at Amazon Bookstore Cooperative
4755 Chicago Av Minneapolis. 612-821-9630.


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

Burying The Lancet Report
By Nicolas J. S. Davies
Z MAGAZINE February 2006 Volume 19 Number 2

Over a year ago an international team of epidemiologists, headed by Les
Roberts of Johns Hopkins School of Public Health, completed a cluster
sample survey of civilian casualties in Iraq. Its findings contradicted
central elements of what politicians and journalists had presented to the
U.S. public and the world. After excluding any possible statistical
anomalies, they estimated that at least 98,000 Iraqi civilians had died in
the previous 18 months as a direct result of the invasion and occupation
of their country. They also found that violence had become the leading
cause of death in Iraq during that period. Their most significant finding
was that the vast majority (79 percent) of violent deaths were caused by
"coalition" forces using "helicopter gunships, rockets or other forms of
aerial weaponry," and that almost half (48 percent) of these were
children, with a median age of 8.

When the team's findings were published in the Lancet, the official
journal of the British Medical Association, they caused quite a stir and
it seemed that the first step had been taken toward a realistic accounting
of the human cost of the war. The authors made it clear that their results
were approximate. They discussed the limitations of their methodology at
length and emphasized that further research would be invaluable in giving
a more precise picture.

A year later, we do not have a more precise picture. Soon after the study
was published, U.S. and British officials launched a concerted campaign to
discredit its authors and marginalize their findings without seriously
addressing the validity of their methods or presenting any evidence to
challenge their conclusions. Today the continuing aerial bombardment of
Iraq is still a dark secret to most Americans and the media present the
same general picture of the war, focusing on secondary sources of
violence.

Roberts has been puzzled and disturbed by this response to his work, which
stands in sharp contrast to the way the same governments responded to a
similar study he led in the Democratic Republic of Congo in 2000. In that
case, he reported that about 1.7 million people had died during 22 months
of war and, as he says, "Tony Blair and Colin Powell quoted those results
time and time again without any question as to the precision or validity."
In fact the UN Security Council promptly called for the withdrawal of
foreign armies from the Congo and the U.S. State Department cited his
study in announcing a grant of $10 million for humanitarian aid.

Roberts conducted a follow-up study in the Congo that raised the fatality
estimate to three million and Tony Blair cited that figure in his address
to the 2001 Labor Party conference. In December 2004 Blair dismissed the
epidemiological team's work in Iraq, claiming, "Figures from the Iraqi
Ministry of Health, which are a survey from the hospitals there, are in
our view the most accurate survey there is."

This statement by Blair is particularly interesting because the Iraqi
Health Ministry reports, whose accuracy he praised, have confirmed the
Johns Hopkins team's conclusion that aerial attacks by "coalition" forces
are the leading cause of civilian deaths. One such report was cited by
Nancy Youssef in the Miami Herald of September 25, 2004 under the headline
"U.S. Attacks, Not Insurgents, Blamed for Most Iraqi Deaths."

The Health Ministry had been reporting civilian casualty figures based on
reports from hospitals, as Blair said, but it was not until June 2004 that
it began to differentiate between casualties inflicted by "coalition"
forces and those from other causes. From June 10 to September 10 it
counted 1,295 civilians killed by U.S. forces and their allies and 516
killed in "terrorist" operations. Health Ministry officials told Youssef
that the "statistics captured only part of the death toll," and emphasized
that aerial bombardment was largely responsible for the higher numbers of
deaths caused by the "coalition." The breakdown (72 percent U.S.) is
remarkably close to that attributed to aerial bombardment in the Lancet
survey (79 percent).

BBC World Affairs editor John Simpson, in another Health Ministry report
covering July 1, 2004 to January 1, 2005, cited 2,041 civilians killed by
U.S. and allied forces versus 1,233 by "insurgents" (only 62 percent
U.S.). Then something strange happened. The Iraqi Health Minister's office
contacted the BBC and claimed, in a convoluted and confusing statement,
that their figures had somehow been misrepresented. The BBC issued a
retraction and details of deaths caused by "coalition" forces have been
notably absent from subsequent Health Ministry reports.

Official and media criticism of Roberts' work has focused on the size of
his sample, 988 homes in 33 clusters distributed throughout the country,
but other epidemiologists reject the notion that this is controversial.

Michael O'Toole, the director of the Center for International Health in
Australia, says: "That's a classical sample size. I just don't see any
evidence of significant exaggeration. If anything, the deaths may have
been higher because what they are unable to do is survey families where
everyone has died."

David Meddings, a medical officer with the Department of Injuries and
Violence Prevention at the World Health Organization, said that surveys of
this kind always have uncertainty, but "I don't think the authors ignored
that or understated. Those cautions I don't believe should be applied any
more or less stringently to a study that looks at a politically sensitive
conflict than to a study that looks at a pill for heart disease."

Roberts has also compared his work in Iraq to other epidemiological
studies: "In 1993, when the U.S. Centers for Disease Control randomly
called 613 households in Milwaukee and concluded that 403,000 people had
developed Cryptosporidium in the largest outbreak ever recorded in the
developed world, no one said that 613 households was not a big enough
sample. It is odd that the logic of epidemiology embraced by the press
every day regarding new drugs or health risks somehow changes when the
mechanism of death is their armed forces."

The campaign to discredit Roberts, the Johns Hopkins team, and the Lancet
used the same methods that the U.S. and British governments have employed
consistently to protect their monopoly on "responsible" storytelling about
the war. By dismissing the study's findings out of hand, U.S. and British
officials created the illusion that the authors were suspect or
politically motivated and discouraged the media from taking them
seriously. This worked disturbingly well. Even opponents of the war
continue to cite much lower figures for civilian casualties and innocently
attribute the bulk of them to Iraqi resistance forces or "terrorists."

The figures most often cited for civilian casualties in Iraq are those
collected by Iraqbodycount, but its figures are not intended as an
estimate of total casualties. Its methodology is to count only those
deaths that are reported by at least two "reputable" international media
outlets in order to generate a minimum number that is more or less
indisputable. Its authors know that thousands of deaths go unreported in
their count and say they cannot prevent the media misrepresenting their
figures as an actual estimate of deaths.

Beyond the phony controversy regarding the methodology of the Lancet
report, there is one issue that does cast doubt on its findings. This is
the decision to exclude the cluster in Fallujah from its computations due
to the much higher number of deaths that were reported there (even though
the survey was completed before the widely reported assault on the city in
November 2004). Roberts wrote, in a letter to the Independent, "Please
understand how extremely conservative we were: we did a survey estimating
that 285,000 people have died due to the first 18 months of invasion and
occupation and we reported it as at least 100,000."

The dilemma he faced was this: in the 33 clusters surveyed, 18 reported no
violent deaths (including one in Sadr City), 14 other clusters reported a
total of 21 violent deaths and the Fallujah cluster reported 52 violent
deaths. This last number is conservative because, as the report stated,
"23 households of 52 visited were either temporarily or permanently
abandoned. Neighbors interviewed described widespread death in most of the
abandoned homes but could not give adequate details for inclusion in the
survey."

Leaving aside this last factor, there were three possible interpretations
of the results from Fallujah. The first, and indeed the one Roberts
adopted, was that the team had randomly stumbled on a cluster of homes
where the death toll was so high as to be totally unrepresentative and
therefore not relevant to the survey. The second possibility was that this
pattern among the 33 clusters, with most of the casualties falling in one
cluster and many clusters reporting zero deaths, was an accurate
representation of the distribution of civilian casualties in Iraq under
"precision" aerial bombardment. The third possibility was that the
Fallujah cluster was atypical, but not sufficiently abnormal to warrant
total exclusion from the study, so that the number of excess deaths was
somewhere between 100,000 and 285,000. Without further research, there is
no way to determine which of these three possibilities is correct.

No new survey of civilians killed by "coalition" forces has been produced
since the Health Ministry report last January, but there is strong
evidence that the air war has intensified during this period. Independent
journalists have described the continuing U.S. assault on Ramadi as
"Fallujah in slow motion." Smaller towns in Anbar province have been
targets of air raids for the past several months, and towns in Diyala and
Baghdad provinces have also been bombed. Seymour Hersh has covered the
"under-reported" air war in the New Yorker and writes that the current
U.S. strategy is to embed U.S. Special Forces with Iraqi forces to call in
air strikes as U.S. ground forces withdraw, opening the way for heavier
bombing with even less media scrutiny (if that is possible).

One ignored feature of the survey's results is the high number of civilian
casualties reported in Fallujah in August 2004. It appears that U.S.
forces took advantage of the media focus on Najaf at that time to conduct
very heavy attacks against Fallujah. This is perhaps a clue to the
strategy by which they have conducted much of the air war. The heaviest
bombing and aerial assault at any given time is likely to be somewhere
well over the horizon from any well-publicized U.S. military operation,
possibly involving only small teams of Special Forces on the ground. But
cynical military strategy does not let the media off the hook for their
failure to find out what is really going on and tell the outside world
about it. Iraqi and other Arab journalists can still travel through most
of the country and news editors should pay close attention to their
reports from areas that are too dangerous for Western reporters.

A second feature of the epidemiologists' findings that has not been
sufficiently explored is the one suggested above by Michael O'Toole. Since
their report establishes that aerial assault and bombardment is the
leading cause of violent death in Iraq and, since a direct hit by a 500
pound Mark 82 bomb will render most houses uninhabitable, any survey that
disregards damaged, uninhabited houses is sure to underreport deaths. This
should be taken into account by any follow-up studies.

Thanks to Roberts, his international team, Johns Hopkins School of Public
Health, and the editorial board of the Lancet, we have a clearer picture
of the violence taking place in Iraq than that presented by "mainstream"
media. Allowing for 16 months of the air war and other deaths since the
completion of the survey, we have to estimate that somewhere between
185,000 and 700,000 people have died as a direct result of the war.
Coalition forces have killed anywhere from 70,000 to 500,000 of them,
including 30,000 to 275,000 children under the age of 15.

Roberts has cautioned me to remember that whether someone is killed by a
bomb, a heart attack during an air strike, or a car accident fleeing the
chaos, those who initiated the war and who "stay the course" bear the
responsibility.

As someone who has followed this war closely, I find the results of the
study to be consistent with what I have seen gradually emerging as the war
has progressed, based on the work of courageous, mostly independent
reporters, and glimpses through the looking glass as more and more cracks
appear in the "official story."

Nicolas J.S. Davies is indebted to Medialens, a British media watchdog
group, for some of the material in this report. This article was first
published by Online Journal.


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

The True State of the Union
More Deception from the Bush White House
By PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS

Gentle reader, if you prefer comforting lies to harsh truths, don't read
this column.

The state of the union is disastrous. By its naked aggression, bullying,
illegal spying on Americans, and illegal torture and detentions, the Bush
administration has demonstrated American contempt for the Geneva
Convention, for human life and dignity, and for the civil liberties of its
own citizens. Increasingly, the US is isolated in the world, having to
resort to bribery and threats to impose its diktats. No country any longer
looks to America for moral leadership. The US has become a rogue nation.

Least of all did President Bush tell any truth about the economy. He
talked about economic growth rates without acknowledging that they result
from eating the seed corn and do not produce jobs with a living wage for
Americans. He touted a low rate of unemployment and did not admit that the
figure is false because it does not count millions of discouraged workers
who have dropped out of the work force.

Americans did not hear from Bush that a new Wal-Mart just opened on
Chicago's city boundary and 25,000 people applied for 325 jobs (Chicago
Sun-Times, Jan. 26), or that 11,000 people applied for a few Wal-Mart jobs
in Oakland, California. Obviously, employment is far from full.

Neither did Bush tell Americans any of the dire facts reported by
economist Charles McMillion in the January 19 issue of Manufacturing &
Technology News:

During Bush's presidency the US has experienced the slowest job creation
on record (going back to 1939). During the past five years private
business has added only 958,000 net new jobs to the economy, while the
government sector has added 1.1 million jobs. Moreover, as many of the
jobs are not for a full work week, "the country ended 2005 with fewer
private sector hours worked than it had in January 2001."

McMillion reports that the largest sources of private sector jobs have
been health care and waitresses and bartenders. Other areas of the private
sector lost so many jobs, including supervisory/managerial jobs, that had
health care not added 1.4 million new jobs, the private sector would have
experienced a net loss of 467,000 jobs between January 2001 and December
2005 despite an "economic recovery." Without the new jobs waiting tables
and serving drinks, the US economy in the past five years would have eked
out a measly 64,000 jobs. In other words, there is a job depression in the
US.

McMillion reports that during the past five years of Bush's presidency the
US has lost 16.5% of its manufacturing jobs. The hardest hit are clothes
manufacturers, textile mills, communications equipment, and
semiconductors. Workforces in these industries shrunk by 37 to 46 percent.
These are amazing job losses. Major industries have shriveled to
insignificance in half a decade.

Free trade, offshore production for US markets, and the outsourcing of US
jobs are the culprits. McMillion writes that "every industry that faces
foreign outsourcing or import competition is losing jobs,"  including both
Ford and General Motors, both of which recently announced new job losses
of 30,000 each. The parts supplier, Delphi, is on the ropes and cutting
thousands of jobs, wages, benefits, and pensions.

If the free trade/outsourcing propaganda were true, would not at least
some US export industries be experiencing a growth in employment? If free
trade and outsourcing benefit the US economy, how did America run up $2.85
trillion in trade deficits over the last five years? This means Americans
consumed almost $3 trillion dollars more in goods and services than they
produced and turned over $3 trillion of their existing assets to
foreigners to pay for their consumption. Consuming accumulated wealth
makes a country poorer, not richer.

Americans are constantly reassured that America is the leader in advanced
technology and intellectual property and doesn't need jobs making clothes
or even semiconductors. McMillion puts the lie to this reassurance. During
Bush's presidency, the US has lost its trade surplus in manufactured
Advanced Technology Products (ATP). The US trade deficit in ATP now
exceeds the US surplus in Intellectual Property licenses and fees. The US
no longer earns enough from high tech to cover any part of its import bill
for oil, autos, or clothing.

This is an astonishing development. The US "superpower" is dependent on
China for advanced technology products and is dependent on Asia to finance
its massive deficits and foreign wars. In view of the rapid collapse of US
economic potential, my prediction in January 2004 that the US would be a
third world economy in 20 years was optimistic.  Another five years like
the last, and little will be left. America's capacity to export
manufactured goods has been so reduced that some economists say that there
is no exchange rate at which the US can balance its trade.

McMillion reports that median household income has fallen for a record
fifth year in succession. Growth in consumer spending has resulted from
households spending their savings and equity in their homes. In 2005 for
the first time since the Great Depression in the 1930s, American consumers
spent more than they earned, and the government budget deficit was larger
than all business savings combined. American households are paying a
record share of their disposable income to service their debts.

With America hemorrhaging red ink in every direction, how much longer can
the dollar hold on to its role as world reserve currency?

The World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, is the cradle of the
propaganda that globalization is win-win for all concerned. Free trader
Stephen Roach of Morgan Stanley reports that the mood at the recently
concluded Davos meeting was different, because the predicted "wins" for
the industrialized world have not made an appearance.

Roach writes that "job creation and real wages in the mature,
industrialized economies have seriously lagged historical norms. It is now
commonplace for recoveries in the developed world to be either jobless or
wageless - or both."

Roach is the first free trade economist to admit that the disruptive
technology of the Internet has dashed the globalization hopes. It was
supposed to work like this: The first world would lose market share in
tradable manufactured goods and make up the job and economic loss with
highly-educated knowledge workers. The "win-win" was supposed to be
cheaper manufactured goods for the first world and more and better jobs
for the third world.

It did not work out this way, Roach writes, because the Internet allowed
job outsourcing to quickly migrate from call centers and data processing
to the upper end of the value chain, displacing first world employees in
"software programming, engineering, design, and the medical profession, as
well as a broad array of professionals in the legal, accounting,
actuarial, consulting, and financial services industries."

This is what I have been writing for years, while the economics profession
adopted a position of total denial. The first world gainers from
globalization are the corporate executives, who gain millions of dollars
in bonuses by arbitraging labor and substituting cheaper foreign labor for
first world labor. For the past decade free market economists have served
as apologists for corporate interests that are dismantling the ladders of
upward mobility in the US and creating what McMillion writes is the worst
income inequality on record.

Globalization is wiping out the American middle class and terminating jobs
for university graduates, who now serve as temps, waitresses and
bartenders. But the whores among economists and the evil men and women in
the Bush administration still sing globalization's praises.

The state of the nation has never been worse. The Great Depression was an
accident caused by the incompetence of the Federal Reserve, which was
still new at its job. The new American job depression is the result of
free trade ideology. The new job depression is creating a reserve army of
the unemployed to serve as desperate recruits for neoconservative military
adventures. Perhaps that explains the Bush administration's enthusiasm for
globalization.

Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan
administration. He was Associate Editor of the Wall Street Journal
editorial page and Contributing Editor of National Review. He is coauthor
of The Tyranny of Good Intentions.He can be reached at:
paulcraigroberts [at] yahoo.com

[Behind all the above problems is the ruling class, smiling and stomping
us into poverty and powerlessness. Time to stop loving them, or admiring
them, or wanting to be them; time to wake up and fight back. If they want
us to do X, don't; if they don't, do. Flout them everywhere and everywhen.
-ed]


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

Looking for the Woolworth's Lunch Counter of 2006
by Cynthia Bogard
Saturday, February 4, 2006
CommonDreams.org

Remember when protest was allowed to happen? When protest riveted the
country and changed it too? In these dark days, when a grieving
middle-aged mother is roughed up, removed and arrested for silently
wearing the wrong t-shirt to a speech about how free we are, it's
necessary to remember that it wasn't always this way.

Forty-six years ago this week, a silent protest by four young black men
started a revolution. Remember?

It was on February 1, 1960 that Ezell Blair, Jr., Franklin McCain, Joseph
McNeil and David Richmond, four freshmen enrolled at the North Carolina
Agricultural and Technical College, walked into the local Woolworth's in
Greensboro, sat down at the lunch counter and asked to be served.  They
weren't, but they weren't arrested either and they remained seated at the
counter, waiting, until the store closed that evening. By then, a crowd
had gathered outside the store and news of the four young men's actions
had spread throughout the state. The next day there were more than 20
students asking to be served. The following day other people showed up to
sit-in at other lunch counters in Greensboro. By the sixth day the
protests had attracted hundreds of participants, both black and white.

Newspapers all over the state ran banner headlines and some described in
detail the strategies that the protesters used. Intense coverage of the
sit-ins by newspapers and radio helped the protests to spread.
Sympathizers in other cities scoured these stories of protest and then
they replicated them in their own towns.

In the next two weeks sit-ins had spread to 15 other cities. By April,
sit-ins - these straightforward and highly symbolic protests for
recognition, justice, for equal treatment as American citizens - were
taking place in more than 70 American cities.

A few months later, some of these protesters formed the Student Nonviolent
Coordinating Committee (SNCC), one of the pivotal student protest groups
of the era.

SNCC members and many other Americans continued to protest for the cause
of civil rights. Three years later, President John F. Kennedy asked for
legislation that would give all Americans "the kind of equality of
treatment which we would want for ourselves." That same summer, on August
28, 1963, Martin Luther King thrilled a crowd of more than a quarter
million protesters in Washington with his dream for a future of racial
integration and equality. Less than a year later, in the wake of the
Kennedy assassination, Congress passed, and President Lyndon Johnson
signed, the Civil Rights Act. The Voting Rights Act came the following
year. Both bills passed with bipartisan majorities in Congress.

These acts of protest and their effects inspired the hopes of millions of
Americans and gradually gave rise to the women's movement, the disabled
persons' movement and the gay rights movement. And civil rights expanded
significantly for all of us.

What a contrast with our nation's trajectory today, sliding fast into the
dark waters of civil rights repression, even abrogation.

               Today, protest is contained in advance.

Our unpopular president gives speeches to audiences specially selected for
their inability to criticize him. When he's not talking to members of our
armed forces, he's regaling his tuxedoed funders or pre-screened loyal
members of his fan club. And occasionally, he speaks before that august
body, our elected Representatives, who find it too unseemly, in their
gentleman's fashion, to disrupt the man who would be monarch. So he speaks
without opposition and admonishes the other side to mind their manners.
And they do.

At contentious events, protesters face police-created "free speech zones"
- chain-link and cement-barricaded cordons far from the action - where
would-be protesters can complain - to nobody.

The Republican PR machine regularly rolls out dismissive or derogatory
names for progressive protesters before they even open their mouths. They
are "French," "unpatriotic," even "traitors." We have a name now for what
will happen to those who dare protest: They will be swift-boated.

The mainstream media finds protest a yawn. They barely cover it. Peaceful
protest, by today's standards, is insufficiently dramatic.

When more people than ever marched against the Vietnam War take to the
streets to protest the invasion of Iraq, newspapers bury it on page 23.
The all-news channels spare 15 seconds in the wee hours to inform their
viewers. And word of protest is contained.

Today's college students, the bulwark and often the shock troops of the
movements of the sixties have been pre-contained too. They live at home
with their parents until their late 20's (what could be more
stultifying?), they work full-time, they take overloads to minimize their
years in college. They mostly do these things because they must - the cost
of an education is obscene these days and the widespread federal college
education grants that gave the baby boomers the freedom and free time to
protest no longer exist. Though many of today's students are dissatisfied
with things as they are, most no longer believe in the potency of protest.
So they don't.

The average American's response to protest has been contained too by the
unrelenting cynicism that has become our cultural currency. Fed on a diet
of television shows that revolve around glorified violence or humiliating
the weak and nonconforming, our culture has seen to it that nothing
shocks, nor impresses, nor moves the American heart anymore. We are
indifferent. Thus are the potential effects of protest contained.

And in these days of massive technological abilities to snoop almost into
our very thoughts, even those who still define themselves as citizens
might hesitate to voice a protest. They self-censor and are contained.

We who continue to plan and participate in protests (and I do) knowing in
advance that mostly we'll be unheard and contained, bear some of the blame
too. It helps us through these hard times to gather with one another. But
protests have become predictable rituals and we haven't often found the
recipe to make them fresh again.

As Marcuse observed at a similar moment in our history, we have become a
society without opposition.

America can't go back fifty years and regain the propriety that made that
lunch counter protest a discomfiting act of persuasion. And we who would
protest must keep faith with Gandhi, with Martin, with the Greensboro
protesters and all those who were committed to non-violent social change.

But given the state of our union, it's crucial to free protest from the
many ways it has been contained and find a way to make it shake up the
nation again.

Where will we find the Woolworth's lunch counter of 2006?

<mailto:Cynthia.J.Bogard [at] hofstra.edu>Cynthia Bogard is a professor of
sociology at Hofstra University in New York.


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

 In our new homeland
 you must lick Bush's boots hands
 and etcetera.


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