Anarchism's topics - tribe.net

Back UP, Obama-fans

2009-12-11T18:32:29Z

The President is Executive of the United States and its laws.

The Presidents are RIOTERS, since the illegal, secret and overt treaties, with UK, to illegally favor by fascist conspiracy and against our royal favors exclusion clause:

FOR, illegally: WINDSOR (since Victoria), SAUD (appointed by Windsor), DAVID (illegal Israeli and non-kosher RICO Zionists, whereby actual Jews are from Ethiopia, Isaiah 20:5, no doubt of fraud, by any other origin, to incite the several world wars), TSARS (US purchased Alaska in bad faith, to thwart the coming revolutionary republic, by invading Russia, with the AEF), and VATICAN, a fascist organ of Rome

AGAINST, illegally: SPAIN, ASIAN ROYALS, AFRICAN ROYALS, ARAB ROYALS, and all other royalty and republics

The USA co-opted British crusades, and by illegal interest taints the President.

The Presidency has been unviable since the 1893 coups against Hawaii, to incite WWI and the following start, to WWII.

The President has been a seditious conspirator, since the passage of the Sedition Act, 18 U.S.C. 2384.

The President WOULD BE and COULD BE a traitor, but the riot and inciters have profiteered by distorting the very nature of WAR, which is not evident, and so, SHARIA.

No sharia terror would issue, but for the President of the USA being so sold out and at such disrespect for law, Barack Obama and John McCain both tried to lose the last election, by letting SAMUEL JOSEPH WURZELBACHER III take up an entire half hour, of Debate III.

Joe owed $1200 to the IRS, which he paid, AFTER the November 3, 2008 election.

Naturally, Mr.Obama's Grandma Maddie Dunham called him home and called him a Kenyan, and then she died, of her cancer, in despair, at his corruption.

The creepy, rioting Americans impose 50 senates on the cost-structure of the entire world. Only Nebraska has no state senate, and so is relatively safe, for a new capitol, when the tsunamis caused by the impending La Palma eruption wash over Maine to Miami and all over the Atlantic area. Note the design of the Washington Monument, which suggests how the NW part of La Palma will fall into the water, like the marble column, which is a mere fraction of the size of the large object, about to splash-down.

See the pool, at the Capitol? The whole place will get wet. Ask Ben Franklin.

Obama lost Prop.8 and Arizona's Governorship, by trying to out-dive better Bush-pilots, which know the leading cause of death in Alaska is bush-piloting, mixed, with alcohol.

Obama opposed the duly appointed Roland Burris, and so incited Catholic cops to riot and mayhem, and to murder several young black men, around New Year 2009.

John Burris had his secretary blow me off, and OPD and BART hung up on me, that first week, of 2009. None report riot to press or to court, which suppress facts and discovery, to obstruct justice, in grave error. California may collapse, over this.

The President will not admit JEWS ARE FROM ETHIOPIA, and so, he intends to incite the expected assassination of any several persons, by plane crashes, ten years after 9/11/2001, which equals 23, if added sideways, which math is dire, by 2011.

Note the trend to ten-year disasters, since the 1882 invasion of Palestine and the Intifada of 1926, see KRYSTALNACHT, 1936, with the CIA appointment of the Shah in 1953, with Saddam in 1958, as incitement for assassination of Zionist President Kennedy in 1963 and his brother Robert, in 1968.

The President of the United States is a nuisance, an inciter to riot, an aggravated violator of 18 U.S.C. 371, conspiracy to interagency fraud, which with profiteering by decree violates all by BILLS OF ATTAINDER, at riot, CPC 404, in California, and by incitement, CPC 404.6(a).

The USA distorts all persons and things, since fixing the War of 1812 to end, after peace was declared in 1814, and the British made up for burning D.C. by sending their troops, deliberately, into Andrew Jackson's guns, without attacking the US artillery.

The current President is of the NIXON regimes, which fixed all media, when Richard Milhous Nixon was Vice President, under Dwight D. Eisenhower. All riot, unrestrained.

The music is all ripped off by government and corporate gangsters into actually illegal warrantless surveillance, and so when DAVID BOWIE overproduced Nixon feeds, he was able to profile attorneys, by suing VANILLA ICE off a jam, which any several fakers eventually used, as dupe media, proving all attorneys were churned, into the riot.

Time-Warner duped warrantless survellance IP, for AC-ZZ and for all kinds of movies, commercials, concerts, and false processes.

By referring to Nixon in YOUNG AMERICANS (1978), Bowie foreshadowed US and UK conspiracy, to defraud Iran of its assets and me, of my music, and to then oppress me and a class, for notice and relief, and to wage war, illegally, against Iran and China, since the BRITS had their TITS twisted by Saladin, in 1187, and dropped their loads beside the roads, went away contented, and plotted, to two invasions, of CHINA and of SHIITES, to control all territory, or British Crusaders and other Vatican clowns would be routed from Jerusalem, repeatedly.

NO ATTORNEY WILL CHALLENGE BUSH, OBAMA, OR THE RIOT, since Jerry Brown slept with Linda Ronstadt, back when the California A/G was Governor and regularly running for President. But the Islamic Republic of Iran, People's Republic of China, or others may sue.

The President is such a nuisance, the debt-holder nations can sue him down, or force his resignation, or cause Congress to discover his several seditions, OR THE DEBT MAY BE CANCELLED, FOR CAUSE. Hear AC-DC? HEY! CDC! No coffee at county jails, DUDES!

Mr.Obama needs to do some time, out here in California, after he gets impeached, or we have a problem, with him flying in, from Houston.

Notice how the Ming Dynasty's WHITE FLEET sailed around the world, in the 1430s, but in the course of this lost at least one sailor with gear, to England, which took any gun-powder AND the triangular arrowheads, for use by Robin of Loxley's longbowmen.

Their reign was short, and so any Chinese moved to France, where the crossbow emerged, as a way for Europe to kill, liberally, in continental wars of the day.

Isabella of Spain wised up, and sent Columbus to Hispaniola and two other locales, where he discovered wrecked Chinese and their descendants. Think you can throw a fast one, past SF Giants' 3B Pablo Sandoval? Kung Fu Panda is a clever hitter, dude.

Think you can sue your way, into the Houston Rockets' lineup? Yao trumps Obama.

Clowning contemner CHARLEY WONG has a kiddie TV show, based in Taiwan, with contraband tunes, he took from the same source, which Van Halen sang about, as in, 'I heard the news, all about your disease (cancer, as in the big C, at CAL, Berkeley, where the song was first played, and then ripped, by Nixon-Windsor surveillance).

The FRUITY PIE show features young faces, which actors have, from actual connection, to other land-bridge Asians, brought to China, now Taipeiese. See the POUNDCAKE graphic, at the beginning of the show? If not, get a clue, why DAN HALEN is a cartoon, late at night.

All the rock is stolen. Obama's whores campaigned on a billion dollar bubble, for two and a half years!

This comic KNOWS, how warrantless electronic surveillance worked, to cause the Democrats and the Emmanuel Brothers to seek crackhead Barack H. Obama, from Greenwich Village, and get him into Harvard, thereby inspiring MTV's JACKASS.

Steve O looks like Ari had a kid with Rahm, but they are bastards, so Steve is all tatted up, but his premise is Ari and Rahm are not really related.

Wee Man's premise is Ari of the CIA had a kid with Hillary, who he is related to, so Wee is short. Johnny Knoxville's premise is Mike Emmanuel of CNN did himself in a test-tube, since that is what Johnny looked like, a Mike. Reconstitute cokehead Bam Margeram's nose, into crackhead Obama's nose, with a magic mirror, since Obama's mole on his identical nose is on the left. Viva La Bam has a mole, on the right.

They all chase Bushwick Billy and Beetlejuice, on the Stern Show, since Obama intends to take his AF1 black box down, to the Atlantic Trench, like the Air France jet, which crashed when he went to France over D-Day 2009 and let a Honduran coups go down.

Calling Sioux and other natives 'Indians' is a conspiracy against commerce and business, and against fundamental rights. A person may SUE, for cause, hereby.

The USA may not attack the last Emperor with Steve McQueen, and then leave the door open, for the CIA to over-fly by B-24 Liberators, from Tibet and Taiwan, to start the Korean War and to incite taking of Tibet.

The US established a Pusan, then a Yalu perimeter, and was blasted back, to Inchon and to Parallel 38, the third and absolutely unresolved invasion, of China, by the USA.

The PRC may not harbor cause of action against the USA, contaminate processes in the USA and in the several states, accumulate debt, and thereby enable riot and incitement by illegal administrations, and so host President Nixon and his followers.

By making a movie, called INCHON, Sun Myung-Moon slyly intimated, he knows the moon has risen, over the illegal US-UK Empire and the United Nations, illegally chartered, to support Israel and to violate the same US Constitution, which was not violated as royal favors exclusion clause or any other clause, when the US stayed out of the League of Nations, since the UK intended to start an Imperial Crusade, and did so, to contaminate all US process of law, so now all persons and US land are at riot.

At riot, the USA allows the PRC, South Korea, and actual enemies England and Japan to riot, fix winnable wars, and then to undermine commerce and peace, and pretend commerce is served, by illegal debt accumulation, which will never be repaid, by conspiracy to profiteer and to obstruct justice.

NO PRESIDENT MAY RIOT AND INCITE, AND CONSPIRE, WITH ANY NATION, WHICH PLAYS AT COWBOYS AND INDIANS, TO KILL US CITIZENS AND ITS OWN, WITH THE RIOT.

The President is a review evader, for high crimes and misdemeanors, and for manslaughter and incitement, to mayhem and riot, unrestrained.

Resign or be sued, MR.OBAMA and your fans, and your Republican 'friends,' actually co-conspirators, for issuance of any order to chill or desist, and to disband.

Tiger seems to have hit the wrong pedals, at an odd anniversary, you know?

posted in Anarchism - 1 reply

CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS - copyleft magazine

2009-12-01T17:27:59Z

QZQZ:

ART MEETS ACTIVISM IN FIRSTHAND ACCOUNTS FROM THE MEDIA'S BLINDSPOTS

announcing the launch of a new no-budget, copyleft magazine specializing in first-hand accounts of what mainstream media doesn´t cover

the magazine will be downloadable online in color and a version for photocopying

WHAT WE CELEBRATE:

culture jamming. poetic terrorism. citizen journalism. autonomous direct action. reclaiming the streets. free spaces. transculturalism. psychogeographic and nomadic exploration. indigenous, minority, & underground culture. surrealism. reality hacking. spontaneous & free living. deconstructionist theory. situationist practice. DIY education. holistic health. mental freedom. radical subjectivity. freeganism. outsider art. transgressive literature. language experimentation. fluid consciousness. odes to beauty and redefinitions thereof.

WHAT WE RESIST:

media monopoly. gentrification. information copyright. capitalism, consumerism, & conformism. police & border control. fascism & human rights abuses. slavery & repression. fashion & tourism industries. franchises. shopping malls. hierarchy & authority. expensive education. commodification of art. empty culture. staidness.

upcoming issue themes include:

gentrification of subculture

society of the spectacle 2.0

direct action

spaces/ places

dirty words

consciousness

SEND US YOUR:

manifestos. gonzo journalism. transgressive fiction. cultural & media critiques. poetic terror. reports of direct action. witnessings of political events. psycho- & socio- logical experiments. ideas for changing the established order. blueprints for free spaces. travelogues. mash-ups, cut-ups, culture-jams. recipes for non-consumables. diy inventions. photojournalism & visual fiction. photocopied souvenirs. subversive posters. inserructionary surrealism. deconstructionist & situationist theory. semiotic analysis of everyday life. primary-source research. transcultural artifacts. psychogeographical explorations. propaganda detournement. obscure histories. new mythologies. phenomenologies of the opressed. advice learned the hard way. replacements for fashion. omni-erotic adventures. psychotic visions. wildest hopes. outsider art. language play. LOVE AND RAGE.

direct all ideas, submissions, love, and hate to: qzqzzine@gmail.com

more info at qzqz.wordpress.com/

submission requests for specific themes:

qzqz.wordpress.com/issues

posted in Anarchism - 0 replies

radical prison movements

2009-11-23T00:38:33Z

I am currently working on a thesis that examines radical prison organisations, their prevalence, their effects and the question if they still exist today. These include the Radical Alternatives to Prison, as well as that of California's Radical Prison Movement, and are specifically focused on bottom-up prisoner-led resistance initiatives.

Hence, I will be greatly appreciative if anyone could link me to any resources on the above topic, as well as related ones such as the sociology of movements.

Thank you!

posted in Anarchism - 9 replies

. Simple . Daily . Radical . Constructive .

2009-11-20T11:07:53Z

In light of the recent weight of contentious, obsessive threading around here and also in counterpoint to a lot of other heavy, theoretical, and confrontational discussions that I've been personally bumping into elsewhere ....
- - - - - - - - -
( As in the frou-frah over "Are We Addicted To Rioting?" over at infoshop and indybay: news.infoshop.org/article.php and news.infoshop.org/article.php
lus the eternal wrangling over "Give Up Activism" - eng.anarchopedia.org/Give_up_Activism , libcom.org/library/anti-activism )
- - - - - - - - -
...... I found an old post of mine that I had sent to Practical Anarchy for their ongoing tips-for -living thread (and their general theme as well).
I found it refreshing as a reminder, and as a renewal of essential foundations:

www.practicalanarchy.org/index.html
________________________________

11/20/04
[my contribution to "How to put some anarchy into your life"]

"-Don't call the cops to solve problems. Try to confront the issues on our your own without authority.

-Live free of welfare, handouts from the state etc.

-Resist taxation with barter, reuse and cash based work.

-Live, hangout, talk with non-anarchists. (Seemingly obvious and inevitable, but cliques and 'ghetto-ization' are everywhere.) It's the front line for "hearts and minds" plus who says YOU know it all.

-If you work, in authority, or under authority, work against commands and coercion with cooperation and communication.-Give something away every day.

-Be good at whatever you are doing.. Half asses never get anywhere. Try to do what you are afraid to do or what you aren't good at. TRYING COUNTS. (plus you're getting better at 'trying'.)

-Say "please" and "thank you". Treating each other like human beings is always a step towards becoming one. (Same goes for "Sorry" and "I was wrong.")

-Share your skills. Teach someone who wants to learn and vice versa. It's what you have to give and ISOLATION is the enemy of REVOLUTION.

-Take a vacation from "the struggle" when you need it. Living a life defined by 'making revolution' leads to burnout and obscures the wellspring of your own desires, a free life and all that it might include.

-Pause before excluding someone because of how they look or seem. Odds are you will be surprised. You don't know where someone is coming from just cuz they don't dress or smell, or talk, or live like your milieu."

_________________________

So hey.... What do you personally have to add? relate from your daily life?

posted in Anarchism - 27 replies

Anarchism

2009-11-17T03:50:30Z

This is to clarify and help those of you who are still confused about Anarchy, here are the basics:

"Ever reviled, accursed, ne'er understood, Thou art the grisly terror of our age. "Wreck of all order," cry the multitude, "Art thou, & war & murder's endless rage." 0, let them cry. To them that ne'er have striven The 'truth that lies behind a word to find, To them the word's right meaning was not given. They shall continue blind among the blind. But thou, O word, so clear, so strong, so true, Thou sayest all which I for goal have taken. I give thee to the future! Thine secure When each at least unto himself shall waken. Comes it in sunshine? In the tempest's thrill? I cannot tell - but it the earth shall see! I am an Anarchist! Wherefore I will Not rule, & also ruled I will not be! "

~John Henry Mackay~

http://2012.tribe.net/thread/20f6baa5-f0cf-491a-b57c-7ed58ca100ad

*There are great discussions in the link provided above that will clear things up more after the reader has understood the basics. now, here is a link to a discussion specifically on this subject of Anarchism, one will find that it clarifies further on what we have been trying to expound:

http://2012.tribe.net/thread/20f6baa5-f0cf-491a-b57c-7ed58ca100ad

*A great summarized explanation about Anarchism and the FAQ's provided in the first thread about the basics, from a good Friend :

"Infoshop has the best FAQ work on the subject possible, but it's draw back is that you can't get a good ideal of anarchism from it quickly. Infoshop FAQ is geared for the new anarchist that wants to sit down and really study in length, where as the Question Everything page and the anarchist leaflet is for those that have no introduction to anarchism at all. The Question Everything page is serves a good purpose other than an introduction too - it clarifies the most basic questions that people need answered before they can relax enough to study the Infoshop FAQ. Who can concentrate on hundreds of pages about hard core political change and human rights if they are still thinking this is JUST about "not wanting to follow the rules and co-operate within a society" as portrayed by the current system (and the social anarchist's)?

Also whenever speaking about anarchism you ALWAYS run up against one basic confusion, the massive difference between political anarchism and social anarchism (which is roughly nihilism). Nothing has caused more confusion about political anarchism (libertarian-socialism) than social anarchism. They are both lumped under one heading, but are radically different. Probably the easiest way to understand social anarchism is to picture the Sex Pistols and that attitude of *uck everyone - others DON'T matter etc. On the other hand you have The Clash that were political (at least Joe Strummer)..... But I digress. Political anarchism is not about a loss of order and chaos etc - it is more complicated than all those generalities. It seeks to break down external conventions of power that prevent the individual from self representation WITHIN society. It also very much focus's on co-operation and direct democracy within society in order to see that everyone is helped, listened to and respected. None of this s*it like with our present day external mobsters and corporate investors running the show without the people. The people have the "power" with political anarchism - no pyramid structures of oppression are protected. It's also important to mention that a lack of oppression structures is not the same as giving violence towards children and others free reign. Within a co-operative society personal rights do NOT extend to violation of another. So the term oppression is something that needs careful understanding in order to understand anarchism.. Social anarchist's define oppression as anything that prevents them from acting like ass's. Political anarchist's are careful to define oppression and likewise can easily spot when authentic oppression is occurring..

Anyway, that does not provide any condensed information about the differences between the two camps, I just wanted to say that the two camps are distinctly different. However I will add this - Obviously social anarchism can not be applied in a society in any real way without it setting up extreme violent and failed structures. This is NOT what the political anarchist's want at all, and they certainly don't believe in chaos. The ONLY thing that might be remotely attributed to the political's "wanting chaos" is that they ARE more than willing to fight a CLASS WAR in order to bring down the structures of oppression. But their views on society are all about community, mutual aid and co-operation, direct and consensus democracy (much like the religious Quakers even). Along a different note, "hippie passivity" is also all good and well except they that also stand by and allow madmen to rule the world. 30,000 children die every day because people have not learned to stand up and protect them! In the meantime there is a war already in progress."

posted in Anarchism - 109 replies

Anybody Else See the Parallels Between Loki and Pomo Kid . (Granted Loki has a somewhat more polished lexicon)

2009-10-30T01:48:31Z

NOTE : The following is a fictitious (though it is an appropro portrayal of relativist/postmodernist thinking) story that depicts a young man (age 24) who supports postmodernist/relativist ideology . He is sent back in time from circa 2007 A.D. to 1855 Oneida, New York (by a University sociology department) to engage in discussion with an abolitionist orator. The young man is called in the story : Pomo kid ...'pomo' being an abbreviation for postmodernist . He is sent back into time with a special hidden video and audio device designed to record sound and image of the discussion that he will have with Benjamin Obadiah Whittaker --an abolitionist and former slave, who is scheduled on that June evening to give a speech on the evils of slavery at the Shaker meeting house during a meeting hosted by the Oneida abolitionist society .

The exchange between Pomo Kid and the abolitionist leader is a cautionary tale presented in a format similar to a one-act play designed to reveal the incongruity and general murkiness of postmodernist/relativist thinking .

PREFACE :Pomo kid has gotten in the time machine and the controls have been set for June 25, 1855 . Since the machine is the first of its kind and time travel with it expected to be slow going on what the scientists back at the lab call it's "maiden voyage" , Pomo Kid has taken some magazines: the UTNE reader (bought for him by his limosine- liberal parents who read it themselves ) and Relevant Magazine .

Pomo Kid --having a short attention span fostered by years of chronic MTV watching --has also taken a specially made CD player and some CDs to keep him amused. When he gets to 1855 Oneida , New York he discovers that miraculously the CD players and CD's work --though he has a hard time getting them to work while riding in the time machine. The CD 's he has taken are as follows : Jewel's Greatest Hits, a CD by the musical band Toad The Wet Sprocket, a CD by Jimmy Eat World, The Dawson's Creek t.v. show soundtrack, a CD from the band Barenaked Ladies, and Rumors by Fleetwood Mac (A CD that he borrowed from his parents) , and a CD from a singer named Dan Hasletine .

The time machine soon arrives in a dairy cattle field in 1855 Oneida,
New York . He steps out of the time machine with his CD head set over his ears --and hidden minature camera recording device cocked and disguised as one of his piercings . As he steps out on to the farm field of Ezra Howell Drummond --no person sees the machine land nor him emerge. The dairy cows give him monentary glances of dull suprise and then return to to crunching and grazing down the vast green verdure . He looks at a minature digital map device and proceeds to walk to the shaker meeting house to hear the speech by Obadiah Whittaker .

He arrives on time and sits down . Some of the abolitionists and interested town folks noticed Pomo kid as he arrives and are somewhat baffled by his odd appearance --as his clothes , hairstyle and general demeanor do not look period, but do not approach him . They are more interested in the speech by Mr. Benjamin Whittaker . Benjamin Whittaker presents a cogent and eloquent indictment of the evils of chattel slavery in the antebellum south. He especially highlights the treatment of slave women by slavemasters, overseers, and their cronies and acquaintances who from time to time rape the slave women on the plantations .

Pomo kid allows his CD headspeakers to droop a little so he can hear the speech ---and gives a skimming of the main elements . As the speech draws to its close Pomo kid hears the anti-slavery orator sum up the directive set before good citizens everywhere in a way that does NOT mince words .

' And so good citizens of Oneida , we can send forth the clear message ...both to posterity , to others who have shared and will share the North American continent, and to all nations and every town and village abroad , that we will no longer accept, nor even partially accept, a wicked commerce of bodies and souls that treats marriage and kinship as makeshift gambits in some sordid game , where transgression of the convenants between man and women is done with impunity . We will stand with the men , women, and children who long to have the stability accorded to man and wife by civilized society. We make no caveat to the forces of darkness and depravity that would settle for anything less! '

There is a roar of applause and even a few Amens from the audience .

Soon the speech is then over and there is time for handshakes and entreties from the audience .

Pomo Kid then approaches the abolitionist orator .

POMO KID : "Hey Mr.Whiitaker , dude . I, like, enjoyed your speech . I can see that feel quite passionate about racial oppression and all , but there's some stuff I'd like to discuss with you . I know that slavery is a bad scene and it's kinda bogus how slaves are treated , but you gotta learn to respect the opinion of those who want to rape their slave women and sell their kids to other plantations too and look at it from their perspective some too . You are like so judgemental, so preachy , dogmatic ...so one-sided towards the opinions of those who want to rape slave women, beat them some, and sell their children downriver . It's like you want to preach instead of discussing...you preach. You got to learn to look at it from other perspectives. What you are doing is the us versus them approach towards people who oppress and exploit slaves . The us versus them approach isn't good . It's fanatical to take the us versus them approach . The us versus them way is, like, so yesterday . Everything is connected . it's all connected. Really the slavowner and the oppressed slaves are really part of the same thing . Making distinctions is so passe /so yesterday . It's all one . It's all how you look at it .

You know there's many sides to every issue. Stuff like slavery is not all black and white there are shades of grey. It's not totally bad being oppressed as a slave . You got to look at it from other points of view . Learn to accept that problems are part of life...a growing experience . You know, getting raped and being sold away from your family just goes to show that life is give and take . If nobody ever got raped or exploited then you wouldn't have give and take ...and so you wouldn't have reality ; it would be all idealistic . We can't have stuff being idealistic all the time. Life is supposed to be a mixture of things . People are a mixture of things. It's all the duality of man . In the time period I come from, we study deconstructionism and post-structuralism at my college and I've been getting into Michel Foucault , and Lyotard, and Richard Rorty. They teach us not to totalize . what your are doing is totalizing ...making people out to be villans if they don't agree with rigid moral constructs . It's all just language games --the divisions of beleifs that people have . There aren't any absolute truths ...or if there are, there aren't very many...or we can't be sure what they are .

You got to learn something Mr.Whittaker: don't be so single-minded ....

(Pomo kid pauses for an extended period of time and fiddles with his CD player and changes the Jewel CD for a Dawson's Creek CD . He turns it down slighly so he can somewhat hear Mr . Benjamin Whittaker speak .)

Benjamin Whittaker stares at Pomo Kid with a look of utter credulity and disgust at the weirdly pusillanimous , and convoluted statements that have poured forth from the young man's mouth . He then speaks

BENJAMIN WHITTAKER SPEAKS : Young man, I scarcely know where to begin to disabuse you of the false , and weirdly ludicrous statements you have put forth here. You claim I must respect the vile opinions of those who support the exploitation and tyrrany which oppresses persons of African descent--and , moreover, exploits women whose virginity has been taken from them by force! What on earth have such opinions done to merit such respect, or to even almost halfway earn such respect .? Young man I can scarcely help wondering if you have fallen in with revelling hooligans in Manhattan that smoke opium in houses of ill repute and, that such riotous living has altered your febrile brain to such an extent that you find it a habit to talk nonsense . Young man, I do not know where you are from ---

(Pomo Kid then interrupts Mr. Whittaker in mid sentence . Pomo kid is, after all, a postmodernist of the MTV generation and considers being fair and waiting till someone is finished talking to be passe and old fashioned communication practice, which he wants nothing to do with . Pomo kid favors a more edgy , open ended approach .)

POMO KID SPEAKS : (Decides to start out with circular thinking ) . Dude, the idea that it's wrong to rape slave women , or brutally beat and exploit slaves and sell their children away from them ...that's wrong to us , but not to the people who support exploiting and raping slaves... Doing that's right to them . Morals and truth are relative and subjective. What's true to you may not be true to them . It's all just different perspectives. If you go and say that its absolutely wrong for people to exploit and rape their slaves instead of saying that it's wrong to us, then ...you're like Hitler. Now you probably aren't familiar with who Hitler is ...but in the 20 Century there's gonna be this guy called Hitler, who takes over and takes away people's rights. And if you say that some belief is totally wrong and another belief is totally right then you're like Hitler . Just like these holocaust survivors that the nazis put into concentration camps and came out being all bitter and one sided and preachy and say what Hitler and the nazis did was wrong and don't respect the nazi point of view a little---well they're like Hitler too ! Just like a person who always stops a bully from bullying people and won't look at it from a bully point of view a little...well that makes that kind of one-sided person who is against bullying, a bully too and just as bad as the real bully . Furthermore, just by saying that some belief or practice is wrong--- just by verbally calling that belief wrong you violate their right to free expression to say that opposite belief...even without any physical violence against them ...without a single shot being fired .

You got to understand also that if somebody says that some belief isn't absolute , then that right there prooves that it isn't . Take the proposition that says that 2+2=4 . Well as long as somebody disagrees with the idea that 2+2=4 then that automatically shows that the idea that 2+2=4 isn't absolute, otherwise every person would have to say they agreed with 2+2 being = 4, otherwise it's not absolute .

In the time period of history that I come from (which is the late 20 th and early 21 Centuries ) there's this show called the Real World . Now since television hasn't been invented yet in 1855, you probably aren't familar with that word. Television in the time I come from is a lot like what plays are on stages in the time you're in . Television is kind of like a play ---only more fun . So in the time I come from there is a show called 'The Real World' ...and people on that show sometimes have different beliefs and so they can come together and get real and talk about the issues that bother them . The show teaches people to come out of their comfort zone (Pomo Kid runs through memory banks to come up with more newspeak words and phrases and finds some) and therefore they can have an impactive, impactful affect on each others lives and give each other feedback about what they think. Now the people who are being raped , beaten , or exploited by masters and overseers down on those slave plantations they got to stop being so one-sided and look at from another perspective and come out of their comfort zone and stop portraying rape and exploitation as something totally bad. They can then get together with the slave owners and overseers and tell them about the way they feel and then get the slave owners and overseers to come out of their comfort zone too , and maybe tone down the rape and exploitation a little . That way you don't have an us versus them .

Some people would say that what I'm saying doesn't make much sense ...that it's inconsistent /ambivalent thinking (which is another way of saying sell- out thinking ) but I don't call it selling out . I call it "looking at it from another perspective" . And about the people claiming that postmodernism like I've been trying to get you to support, doesn't make much sense, well it doesn't have to make sense. Making sense is so passe ...so yesterday . Distinctions are just so passe . I don't bother with rigid distinctions. I 've gotten into a sort of thinking called lateral thinking ...that doen't get all hung up on distinctions . Lateral thinking doesn't have to always make sense.

You Mr. Whittaker are a linear thinker ...that consistent thinking is so out of style....so outmoded . Lateral thinking, that postmodernists such as me go for doesn't bother with having to make sense ...it tolerates ambiguity . You mr. Whittaker are so rigidly consistent /so single-minded ...a fanatical ideologue that goes to extremes of consistent thinking. You aren't conflicted about anything !!!!

In the time period I came from, there was a singer called Moby---who used to be so dogmatic and one-sided about the animal rights cause, but lately he learned not to be so judgemental towards opinions of people who don't support animal rights . He respects the outlook of the people who are against animal rights now --even though he's for animal rights .The same flexibility applies to any social cause. After all, a professor I had once in a classroom, quoted the quote, "a foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of small minds" .I've learned that selling out is not so bad . '

(Pomo kid having temporarily dropped the Dawson's Creek soundtrack picks it up and puts in the Toad The Wet Sprocket CD . He changes CDs about as quickly as a chain smoker replaces cigarettes)

BENJAMIN WHITTAKER : (Still flabbergasted, begins to speak) 'Without consistency of thought human affairs descend into meaninglessness....

POMO KID SPEAKS : Not if you think they have meaning for you . You know, by the way, in 1855, the people who exploit and rape slaves are doing what was thought right at the time. We shouldn't be so chauvanistic as to try to harshly criticize people who own slaves by the morality of later periods. If you say that people who exploit slaves are doing something totally wrong then you're just as bad as they are . Morality is different from one period to another ...some people say that people in different periods might call different actions moral ...and it not be a case of inherently different morals ...but that's all the same anyway ...since I don't bother with hair-splitting distinctions like that .

(Pomo Kid's CD jams and stops playing temporarily. He pauses from speaking and, in so doing, ejects that CD and puts in the machine a CD of music by musician Dan Hasletine) .

BENJAMIN WHITTAKER SPEAKS : How are you so sure that people who exploit slaves are unaware that what they are doing is fully wrong ? (The good abolitionist has managed to put aside being shocked by the weirdly insipid statements presented by Pomo Kid long enough to get the composure to ask him that question .)

POMO KID REPLIES : Well if they thought it was wrong to exploit and mistreat slaves then they wouldn't do it .

BENJAMIN WHITTAKER SPEAKS : So let me get this straight, young man...you allege that the mere willingness of somebody to do some act is in of itself some ad hoc proof that in every such case they must be sincere in doing so.? Where do you arrive at such a facile conclusion-- if that is what you are alleging ?

(Pomo kid, who does not know a specific response to the question that can save face for how facile the previous statement he has just put forth has been...then searches his memory banks for the word he likes to bandie about whenever somebody presents an argument that is elaborate , doesn't have postmodern cliches, and one which , moreover, he doesn't want to slow down and bother to analyze . He finds that word .... the word "pseudo-intellectual" which he uses to lambast elaborate arguments from people who refuse to sell out and entertain his lazy mind . )

POMO KID SPEAKS : Dude, I realy don't have time for pseudo-intellectual questions and statements like you have been making. Mellow out, Dude . You are so single-minded . You just need to get laid .

(Pomo Kid pauses and then speaks again )

POMO KID SPEAKS : You want to know something ? If you judge a belief or lifestyle that somebody supports ...that's the same as judging them, because an emo-singer I like said so, in an interview I read about in Spin magazine . He later said the same stuff about that on a VH-1 documentary . He said that the beliefs a person supports are the person themself ---so by judging the belief your judging the person . Beliefs are people . (Pomo Kid gets oddly quiet all of a sudden )

BENJAMIN WHITTAKER THEN ASKS : So to take such preposterously silly statement to its conclusion , do you then allege that if someone no longer believes the beliefs they once supported ...they are no longer themselves .?

POMO KID ASKS : Yes , why not say that ?

BENJAMIN WHITTAKER SPEAKS : Well young man, I hope that you will reconsider those murky notions you have given a voice to . Slavery is quite ugly and the others here know that .

(Pomo Kid then takes out the Hasletine CD and puts in a CD of Rumors by Fleetwood Mac in his CD player and adjusts the headset .) .

POMO KID SPEAKS : (Takes on the weirdly petulant snippness that young postmodernists sometimes adopt) 'You know what dude, you just don't understand . I'm starting to think that it's just a waste of time explaining this to you ...since you have a close mind. I can see you have a closed mind because you keep having to take everything apart and you keep insisting on consistent distinctions . That's very anal retentive of you Mr. Whittaker . That's also a power play on your part . It shows that you have control issues and will not look at anything a different way . You just don't understand. You got all that deductive reasoning ...but that's a defense mechanism . Since you refuse to come out of your comfort zone and become conflicted about anything there's probably no point in having a discussion .You just don't understand ...all you want to do is be a true believer and stereotype the lifestyle of other people . So, like WHATEVER , dude ...that's not my problem !

(Pomo Kid then speaks again )

You probably don't think I identify with oppressed people but I do . My girlfriend and life partner Jasmine and me have gone to a lot of take back the night rallies . We've protested date rape on campus. I've known oppression and been a victim of oppression myself . The year before last I went to go stay with my aunt Veronica because parents were using their house as a meditation center for married couples and me being kind of high maintence ...we figured I'd get in the way and so I went to go live with Veronica . But my aunt is an old school Mennonite --and so she's like real rigid , dogmatic , and puritanical and so she wouldn't let me and Jasmine's ex boyfriend (he's a real kewl guy who pierced my belly button when we went to Woodstock 94) and her ex boyfiriend 's cat all get together and have group sex games together in her house . She's real dogmatic against sex (if you ask me she has some real issues if she's against group sex games) . Sex is like my identity . Also i understand oppression because people sometimes look at me funny because I have a lot of piercings ...so I know what it's like to be oppressed too . '

BENJAMIN WHITTAKER SPOKE : 'Young man, I pity someone with such a murky , ridiculous attitude as you have . If you excuse me, now myself and the other people here are going to march to the town hall where we will make the protest of slavery public ... ' (He then turns away and walks toward the others who have gathered at the far door of the Shaker meeting house ) .

POMO KID SPEAKS (Runs up ahead to meet up with them): ' So you guys are going to a protest down town. Kewl ! For shizzle ...that's the shiznic ! I've been to protests with my girlfriend and our boyfriends ...we've been to take back the night ...and we've been to rallies at Lillith Fair too, so I know the routine . I once met Michael Stipe at a protest !

(Mr. Whitakker and the other abolitionists have begun already begun to file out signs en hand . They cast backwards glances of disgust and perplexity at Pomo Kid ) .

Pomo Kid then runs out after them , "Let's do it . End oppression now. Oppression is f--ked up . The people united will never be defeated ...the people united will never be defeated ! The people united will never be defeated ! '

(He then hearing the onset of a track on the CD playing the Fleetwood Mac song ' Don't stop thinking about tommorrow', then begins to sing in unision to the song ---as if it were a marching chant ...As he runs out into the starlit roads of 1855 Oneida, New York, he soon finds he wishes he had a latte to round out the day) .

posted in Anarchism - 26 replies

gee twenty yesterday

2009-10-09T14:18:58Z

Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.

the overwhelming majority of the reports from major media outlets on the protests talk about "a handful of anarchists" and such. in reality, we were only a handful compared to the police, who used tear gas (hand-thrown and, at times, air-dropped from helicopters) in residential areas. when we broke through their line at baum and liberty (another under-reported event) they fired on us with rubber bullets. after some searching, i found some decent pictures

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/gallery/2009/sep/25/g20-pittsburgh-tear-gas
http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/news/specialreports/g20/photogallery/
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/images/200909/20090924mh_confrontation_3_500.jpg
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/images/200909/mh_illegalmarch_15_500.jpg

Love is the law, love under will

posted in Anarchism - 6 replies

Hello I am Efrit Mbotu!

2009-09-15T12:49:03Z

Please to enjoy pictur of cute panda babys!

http://www.reuters.com/news/pictures/articleslideshow?articleId=USSIB71407820070717&start=1#a=1

posted in Anarchism - 2 replies

Prison reform

2009-09-15T12:44:57Z

I don't hear many people speaking about this...but prison is an inherently immoral construct. Treating humans worse than animals is immoral even if they truly are heinous criminals...I don't really know what can be done about this but I guess the first step is sentencing reform.

posted in Anarchism - 11 replies

Legalize Hemp and Cannabis in California

2009-09-14T02:45:34Z

Hi Family,

Right now there are two competing signature drives to put Cannabis legalization initiatives on the ballot in California in

November 2010.

One is found at www.taxcannabis2010.org

The other is found at www.CaliforniaCannabisInitiative.org

Please look carefully at the text of both laws (the text of each is finalized) and make up your own mind which one you support.

I am supporting www.CaliforniaCannabisInitiative.org because our law will protect Cannabis users from discrimination in

healthcare, employment, and housing. It is a full legalization measure for industrial hemp and recreational cannabis which will restore full human rights to Hemp farmers and Cannabis users all across California. Of course supplying Cannabis to children will remain illegal just as it is today. Driving vehicles under the influence will remain illegal just as it is today. Cannabis users will still be fired from their jobs if they show up to work impaired.

There are two parts to our plan. The first part is to publicly post and personally distribute our "Freedom Lover's Call to Arms" in order to recruit volunteers. This document is available here-

www.imgur.com/dbU83

The second part of our plan is to ask everyone who volunteers to make a pledge for how many signatures they can collect in

the next 30 days or so. 15-30 signatures is a good number. If enough volunteers show this level of commitment we can succeed. You can probably get that number from your family members, friends, co-workers, and neighbors without having to solicit in public too much. This is an "out of the closet" movement. We will have to proudly advocate human rights for responsible, honest, hard-working Cannabis smokers in order to convince legitimate people to support us. I can supply stickers equivalent to each persons pledge number. These stickers can be used to generate interest and be given to voters who sign the petition. Here is the sticker design-

www.imgur.com/2cjvb

Feel free to distribute and use these images. Just don't copyright them.

We have 145 days in order to get the number of signatures that we need. Our petition is hot off the press on 9/11 and we

have started collecting the first signatures yesterday 9/12.

We are polling 56% public support for Cannabis legalization in California which menas that this is an initiative which is not doomed. Its time has finally arrived; we are at the tipping point right now. Now is the time to do this and to do it right. We may only get one chance. If a law which is not exactly what we want is implemented then we may lose our critical mass and our ability to set it right.

I believe that less adults will smoke cannabis after it is legal. This is the case in the Netherlands where it has been

available over-the-counter for 30 years yet only half as many citizens (percentage-wise) smoke as do citizens here. My economics professor has taught for years that prohibition has not succeeded in decreasing usage by increasing penalties. Instead it has destroyed lives and families without substantial benefit to society. After legalization hard-drug usage will decrease due to a "separation of the markets," a decline in the price of Cannabis relative to hard-drugs, and the restoration of honesty and common sense in drug education. Violence, thievery, and the incarceration of honest people will decrease as well. I also believe that a well regulated market will decrease the availability and appeal of cannabis to children. In fact teenage Cannabis use in California has fallen steadily since the passage of Proposition 215. Furthermore the adults who smoke Cannabis after legalization will be better able appreciate the majesty of nature in peace and unity without learning to fear and disrespect authority figures. This will be better for their spirits and better for society. Finally the human rights of legitimate medical Cannabis patients will be better protected than they are today. Legalizing Cannabis will create a safer, healthier, and more humane California for us all to live in.

If you want to help me in any way please contact the CCI campaign at www.CaliforniaCannabisInitiative.org or write me at
deep_space_underground@yahoo.com I give you my encouragement to modify this message if necessary and distribute it to anyone who might help on any forum or by any mechanism.

Love,
-Fully Committed

posted in Anarchism - 0 replies

Dreaming the NEW American Dream

2009-08-21T19:29:09Z

California poets Ava Bird & Rex Butters, and....

Santa Cruz artist Russell Brutsche - Karen Kwiatkowski of Virginia

Protests to stop immigration raids ... and more.
____________________

http://www.newamericandream.net

The New American Dream

What's New?

* Karen Kwiatkowski column
* Ava Bird poetry
* Rex Butters poetry
* Gary Mennie poetry

Columns:
Sherwood Ross — why not shut down a few prisons in the United States as well?
Mickey Z — Americans are cowards, too comfortable, will never-ever-not-in-one-million-years revolt-or-even-bother-to-stand-up — no matter what the rich folks do to them.
Lydia Sems — It's The American Dream that is the problem.

and more from Jack Saunders ...

Resistance:
* Planned civil disobedience in Minnesota to stop raids against immigrants
* Protests at Creech AFB against U.S. drone terroristic activity
*100 days of protest against Guantanamo to culminate

All this, Northern Exposure, The Big Lebowski, Paradise by the Dashboard Lights ... a certificate for free toast ... and more.

Join us.

The New American Dream
Dude.
... because ... Sister Mary Anne told us, "There are no wrong questions, if you don't know the answers."

... from the Dream Team

http://www.newamericandream.net

posted in Anarchism - 4 replies

This Week on The New American Dream

2009-04-13T22:47:55Z

http://www.newamericandream.net/index.html

The New American Dream
... well ... because we're dreaming of Dick Cheney and George Bush in a big black car limousine motorcade with those little American flags on the front quarter panels on their way to prison

... we're dreaming of a USA truth commission and Cub Scout tours of the "secret" FBI and CIA

and some other stuff

This Week's Feature Interviews:

Monday - Timbre Wolf, a musician who moved from Tulsa to Hawaii

Tuesday - Al Markovitz, of Norfolk, Virginia, the Tulsa of the east coast, editor of the Blue Collar Review, "journal of working class literature"

Wednesday - Aimee England, the mayor of Tulsa — no, actually, Aimee lives in Michigan and spent over twenty years working in an independent, radical bookstore

Thursday - Lee Rayburn, radio show host, formerly of Air American Radio and also Madison, Wisconsin. [never been to Tulsa.]

Friday - Bartcop, of Bartcop.com, from where else? Tulsa.

Columns:
Steve Clemens of the Twin Cities
Lydia Sems from Atlanta

Poetry:
More from Ava Bird of Berkeley

and some other stuff

Thank you.

The Dream Team
http://www.newamericandream.net/index.html

posted in Anarchism - 0 replies

Fw: Nazis meet in Bay Area. Shut them down!

2009-03-20T17:10:09Z

[ This message was forwarded to me. I don't know anything beyond what is in this e mail. - Steven ]

Sent: Wednesday, March 18, 2009 5:50 PM
Subject: Fw: Nazis meet in Bay Area. Shut them down!

---------------------------------Forwarded Message:
It has come to people's attention that the National Socialist Movement is having an organizing meeting on Sunday, March 20th. Thanks to intrepid anti-fascists their original meeting spot was cancelled. New info about a new gathering point has been found. It is: FYI, this is new information on the Nazi fuckhead gathering:

"We will be meeting Sunday, 22 at 2pm however we have changed the location
of the meeting. We will gather in a parking lot before driving to the location
were the meeting is to be held. The parking lot will serve as a safe gathering
location for us and as a checkpoint. After the first meeting we will not use
checkpoints for individuals we have met.
Checkpoint:
Safeway Food & Drug: Grocery

Address:
2 Camino Sobrante
Orinda, CA.
94563

Park in the main parking lot and look for people in NSM shirts or NSM black BDU
uniforms. Be there by 2:15pm. Call 951-259-6095 if you have any questions."

You can also look at http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2009/03/17/18578601.php
on indybay for more info including links for more about these nazis. Read the
comments and post new info there.

posted in Anarchism - 1 reply

Korea: struggle against eviction and redevelopment

2009-02-11T01:19:55Z

A few weeks ago in Yongsan, Seoul, South Korea, 5 demonstrators were killed by the Korean SWAT team during a sit-in occupation rally against forced eviction in the cold winter. Since then, we have been having demonstrations almost every day in order to protest police repression, the Seoul Metropolitan Government's 'redevelopment' program (which puts money in the hands of huge corporations like Samsung and Posco), the Lee Myung Bak administration and forced eviction.

The next large demonstration will be held this saturday, Feb 7 (or 6th, depending on where you are now). This is an ongoing struggle and solidarity is wished for.

Read more at the temporary & experimental Korea Indymedia site: http://indymedia.cast.or.kr

or on the Global Indymedia site: http://www.indymedia.org/en/2009/02/920422.shtml

posted in Anarchism - 6 replies

Jailed Liberty Activists

2009-02-01T21:49:35Z

Hi. A lot of Liberty happenings and groups in New Hampshire where activists are confronting the system's victimless laws daily.

The latest ... Liberty activists in New Hampshire have started some websites for Liberty activist to keep informed and support jailed activists.
http://jailedactivist.info/

http://www.mail-to-jail.com/

If you know of any liberty activist or would like to support those struggling towards freedom more details, forums and links can be found at www.NHFree.com or listen to www.freetalklive.com and http://freemindstv.com/

posted in Anarchism - 0 replies

bit-torrent/file sharing as road to bringing anarchistic thoeries into reality

2009-01-29T19:50:46Z

I saw a post informing people that the documentary "Anarchary in America" was possibly available on the internet for free (which it is, thats where I saw it first). Which leads me to ask why more anarchist have not used the process of file sharing (bit torrents inparticular) to show people what a functioning anarchist fourm looks like in reality. I think of the ideas brought up in the movie "Steal this Film 2" and the fact that copyrighted material that maybe transfered to the internet almost immedately losses its ability to be comodified. Bit torrents in particular offer an existing pratical platform for experimentation of anarchist theories of free association (social/group interaction). Second Ii would like to propose that all anarchists promote bit torrents/ file sharing or any other existing platform for bypassing corporate or governmental filtering or "gate keeping" of information or products. This will also require us to sharpen our own views about artists being compensated for their work and the imagined fear of destroying existing media production methods (the movie industry is the one I hear most about). I would suggest handing out easy to use instructions on how to file share safely, tips for not being tracked, and what to look out for. The bit torrent entry for Wikipedia might be a good place to start, but I'm not sure how much info they may post as they may consider some info against the law (i.e. posting how to make a bomb). Anyway I would love to hear what other existing systems are out there that maybe used to "crash" the control network.

posted in Anarchism - 7 replies

New Middle East Culture & Politics Tribe

2009-01-28T20:16:55Z

New Middle East Culture & Politics Tribe

This group is open to all who want to discuss Near East and Middle East culture & politics and imperialist intervention in a meaningful way.

Those who want to argue using personal attacks, lies, slander, red baiting, and ridicule instead of addressing the issues will be banned from the group. People with a history of doing so in other groups will not be allowed entry into this group.

In addition, it is fine to question the legitimacy of any and all religions, but racism and attacks on entire oppressed groups such as Palestinians and Kurds is not allowed.

Join Near and Middle East Culture & Politics:
http://tribes.tribe.net/neareast

posted in Anarchism - 0 replies

SubRosa

2009-01-11T23:19:10Z

Join the new community related to the Anarchist Bookshop known as SubRosa 703 Pacific Ave. next to the Bike Church.

posted in Anarchism - 1 reply

Oakland Uprising-Support those arrested

2009-01-11T06:07:52Z

On January 7th a spontaneous uprising occurred following the brutal execution of Oscar Grant, a 22 year old Hayward man who has left behind a 4 year old daughter. This was not a riot for the sake of a riot, this was the result of failures to address systematic problems within law enforcement. Their failure to immediately bring Grants murderer into custody to be tried for the killing ignited a long boiling frustration over racism and poverty that are such a major part of the lives of minorities and poor in Oakland. The media of course is framing the incident as violent and uncontrolled, but as I ran through those streets with folks i may never have had the opportunity to speak to, I felt the camaraderie of revolutionary consciousness. We embraced each other, protected each other and shared our emotions. It is easy to see footage of cars being smashed and fires being set on your television set and be tempted into lumping, stereotyping and making broad assumptions, but unless you were out there in the streets feeling the anger and pain, you are only hearing the voices of the corporate rulers. This is exemplified in the fact that police protected downtown business and actually pushed the crowds through residential areas. Yes, some innocent people woke up to find their cars had been vandalized, but by assuming that the vandals simply wanted to smash things for the hell of it is to say that these people are ignorant. The truth is these were people who saw the injustice and needed to send a message that we will not accept another police murder, we will not accept the silence from our public officials and we are fighting not just in the name of Oscar Grant, but the brutal massacre of workers, the poor and minority populations all over the world.

Hearing older folks recall the spirit of the Black Panther movement of the1960s has revitalized my faith in the struggle against oppression. Unfortunately it always takes an assassination, murder or massacre to ignite our passions communally. Let's keep pushing for justice through both effective direct action and non-violent resistance, through art, through music, through festivity. Now is the time to embrace each other. Don't just sit around complaining about other peoples actions, reach out in your own ways. Over a hundred people were arrested Wednesday night, many charged with felonies so right now I am working on organizing benefits to help legal expenses. One idea I have is to hold an art exhibition, so if your an artist and would be willing email me, I know there's a lot of amazing visionary artists out here on Tribe that are socially conscious and i'd love to here from you. I am an artist (albeit not the best) myself so i'm working on some pieces at the moment, maybe we can collaborate. Please email me at StephanieM23@gmail.com if you can provide any assistance, no matter how benign it may seem, also any other ideas on how to continue and expand the resistance and help those facing charges.

Blessings to you all, please support our fellow brothers and sisters.

posted in Anarchism - 0 replies

Direct Action in Solidarity w/ Gaza

2009-01-11T04:22:14Z

Please Distribute Widely
***************************************************************************

Direct Action in Solidarity with Gaza
Monday, January 5th, 8AM
Market and Montgomery, outside Sen. Diane Feinstein's office
Mass Civil Disobedience
Arrestable and Non-Arrestable Actions
Rain or Shine

Gaza Action, a coalition of Arab, Jewish, and allied anti-occupation
groups, is organizing a response to the ground invasion of Gaza. We
invite your organization to co-sponsor and to attend the civil
disobedience planned for Monday. We will host both arrestable and
non-arrestable actions. We also encourage your organization to form an
affinity group and select specific targets for hard blockades.

In the last week Israel has shown the brutality of its illegal war against
the people of Palestine. And we have witnessed the US government's
unwavering support for these crimes. It is up to us to stop them. By
targeting business a usual in San Francisco we up the social cost
war-makers must consider when planning these assaults. By targeting the
Congressional leadership based in San Francisco we send a clear message:
"End US support for Israel. Stop the $3 billion in yearly military aid to
Israel. End the assault, end the siege, and end the occupation."

For more information go to
araborganizing.org
actagainstwar.net

or email
gazaaction@gmail.com

if your affinity group would like to co-ordinate actions email
dasw.media@gmail.com

Gaza Action is: Arab Resource and Organizing Center, Al-Awda, Free
Palestine Alliance, Arab American Union Members Council, International
Jewish Anti-Zionist Network, the ANSWER Coalition, Direct Action to Stop
the War, Queers Undermining Israeli Terrorism, Women in Black,
International Action Center

posted in Anarchism - 2 replies

War Risk & Terrorism Coverage Insurance

2009-01-08T18:57:11Z

War Risk & Terrorism Coverage provides otherwise unavailable insurance for acts of war and terrorism and in areas of political unrest.

In today's political and economic climate, acts of war and terrorism remain a constant threat. Many businesses, contractors, and professionals are finding that their jobs require them to travel abroad to places of political unrest. We specialize in providing insurance plans for Business Travel Accident (domestic & international), War and Terrorism Insurance, Special Risk Insurance (tailored to specification), Kidnap, Ransom and Extortion Insurance, International Medical Insurance, Emergency Medical Evacuation (domestic and international), Political Risk Insurance and Political Evacuation, General Liabilty & Employers Liabilty, International Life Insurance, Defense Based Act (DBA), Disability Income Protection, Flight Accident and/or Common Carrier Accident plans for these high-risk areas.

Who's Buying This Coverage?
* Small and Large corporations conducting business abroad
* Freelance Journalists, Photographers, and War Correspondents
* Defense Contractors, Sub-Contractors, and Government Agencies
* Relief Organizations and Missionary Groups
* Individual Travelers needing specific risks covered

I wonder if this covers people under the military commissions act of 2006? secret detentions, enforced disappearances, in definite incarceration and last but not least torture? whats worse is this is becoming so evident in our society with things like vigilant shield 2008, and our new baby USNORTHCOM. we all need good security now! and weve got it.....

and now heres a history of homeland security, and usnorthcom

1700s

"To provide for calling forth the militia to execute the laws of the union, suppress insurrections, and repel invasions."

- Article 1, Section 8, Clause 15,
Constitution of the United States
(does this include invasion of privacy?)
Because the common defense of the New World was so crucial, our forefathers explicitly stated in the preamble of the Constitution that defense was a basic government obligation( its the governments basic obligation to defend us).

(maybe thats why we have our second admendment...A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed! yet there are now more americans being infringed upon everyday labeled as terrorists???? )

As Commander in Chief of the Continental Army. General George Washington, on July 3, 1775, at Cambridge, Massachusetts, took command of his ill-trained troops and embarked upon a war that was to last six grueling years. The revolution against the mother country was fought on the land and seas of the new world. The Army and the Navy provided homeland defense.

President Washington interpreted "common defense" as defeating a foreign invasion and defending against Indians.(those pescie rebels)

Military forces -- and this included the state militias -- were raised to defend the country against England, France and Spain.

1800s

"... that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain; that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom; and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth."

- President Abraham Lincoln
Gettysburg Address
(written with under god due to the fear that the american people would look back at their great country thinking we were heathens, we now have this on our money to remind us that we are in the right due to us being "blessed")

Throughout the 1800s, Congress authorized the military to build and staff forts and harbor defenses, and to build steam ships. Americans viewed the Navy as America's first line of defense. Many of the brightest graduates of the U.S. Military Academy became engineers and built forts to defend the U.S. from foreign enemies.

The War of 1812

The ongoing British impressment of American seamen (hahahaha) from 1803-1812, and the seizure of cargoes, forced President James Madison on June 1, 1812 to ask Congress to declare war.

The young nation was not prepared to fight; its forces took a severe trouncing. The British entered Washington and set fire to the White House and the Capitol. But a few notable naval and military victories, capped by General Andrew Jackson's triumph at New Orleans, convinced Americans that the War of 1812 had been gloriously successful.

On The Frontier

The U.S. Army patrolled the frontier with soldiers protecting settlers and trade routes. In many cases, the Army acted as "frontier cops." This mission would continue through the 1890s.

After the Civil War

The Reconstruction Era saw changes in homeland defense. The Army occupied and policed the South. It propped up courts and protected former slaves, and soldiers had arrest powers. Reconstruction ended in 1876. The passage of the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878 removed civilian law enforcement powers from the military. (two years later? why so long?)

The Spanish-American War

During the six-month war, the U.S. Navy defeated Spanish fleets off Cuba and in Manila Bay. The United States gained the Philippines, Guam and Puerto Rico.

Americans were shocked as they perceived the thousands of miles of undefended coasts. In the years following, money poured into building new port defenses.

A Navy able to keep the sealanes open became a necessity.

1900s

"Yesterday, December 7, 1941 - a date which will live in infamy - the United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan."

- President Franklin D. Roosevelt

World War I

After several attempts to broker peace failed, and five American ships in neutral waters were fired upon and sunk, President Woodrow Wilson called upon Congress to declare war in 1917.

During the war, aircraft patrolled ports looking for German and Japanese subs. Navy destroyers patrolled sealanes and pursued enemy aircraft.

World War II

America reacts and prepares for Continental Defense.

Until the nation went to war in December 1941, the primary and basic concern of the United States government, and the military, was for the safety of the continental United States. The military guarded the harbors and air, protected the nation against internal disturbances, and protected vital non-military installations. During the war, the U.S. military guarded the rest of the western hemisphere against military attacks by the Axis Powers.

As a result, the United States adopted a new national policy of hemisphere defense.

Cold War

The safety Americans felt due to their isolation between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans evaporated. Air power entered the homeland defense equation. The advent of nuclear weapons further threatened the skies over America.

The North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) was formally established in 1958 by Canada and the United States to monitor and defend North American airspace. The NORAD Agreement was first signed by the governments of Canada and the United States on May 12, 1958, and has been renewed for varying periods since that time. Although there have been eight NORAD renewals since 1958, the basic text of the Agreement has been revised substantially only three times, in 1975, 1981 and 1996.

During the Cold War era, students were taught air raid drills and Americans build shelters. Homeland defense began to be viewed as civil defense.

With the exception of NORAD, Americans began to view the military as assets to defend U.S. interests in distant lands and no longer the U.S. shores. Wars broke out throughout the world.

Terrorism

The U.S. began to view homeland defense as the responsibility of the federal government. Meanwhile, the military fought wars abroad, and stood by to help if called.

In the late 1960s, factions began hijacking planes and assaulting innocent civilians. The response was not military, but centered on law enforcement. Sky marshals protected airliners. FBI agents investigated hijackings and threats. Justice Department counterterrorism programs were established.

The 21st Century

"We have got a long way to go to secure the homeland, to defend freedom and to defeat this enemy. And it's important for the American people to understand that... we now know that thousands of trained killers are plotting to attack us, and this terrible knowledge requires us to act differently."

- President George W. Bush

Homeland defense has come full circle as a result of the attacks of September 11, 2001.

While the threats to America have evolved and changed, the military has again been tasked "to provide for calling forth the militia to execute the laws of the union, suppress insurrections, and repel invasions," per Article 1, Section 8, Clause 15, of the Constitution of the United States.

After the events of Sept. 11, 2001, and as authorized by President George W. Bush, the Department of Defense established U.S. Northern Command to consolidate under a single unified command those existing homeland defense and civil support missions that were previously executed by other military organizations.

USNORTHCOM attained initial operational capability on Oct. 1, 2002, and full operational capability on Sept. 11, 2003.

NORAD, meanwhile, shed its Cold War image as a result of the 2001 terrorist attacks. The focus on aerospace threats from outside the borders of Canada and the United States now includes domestic airspace. The highly skilled men and women of this bi-national military organization use ground-based radar, airborne radar, satellites, fighter aircraft, proven command structures and intelligence capabilities to enforce control in the skies over the United States. The commander of USNORTHCOM also serves as the commander of NORAD.

so where does that leave us? safe? protected? or is it just a huge hyper reality created for control? FEAR is the key.. so are you in?

posted in Anarchism - 1 reply

Just a quick question... whats your defintion of a anarchist, and or anarchy?

2008-12-02T19:09:25Z

with so many minds out there and so many thoughts, i am curious to what yours is... what does it mean to be a anarchist whom believes in anarchy?

posted in Anarchism - 15 replies

Philadelphia Officials Again Seek Mumia’s Execution

2008-11-30T20:28:31Z

Philadelphia Officials Again Seek Mumia’s Execution

by Jeff Mackler / November 2008

http://www.socialistaction.org/mackler30.htm

In late October 2008 the Philadelphia District Attorney’s office announced that it would again appeal the 2001 Federal District Court decision by William H. Yohn that invalidated the death sentence imposed at Mumia Abu-Jamal’s 1982 frame-up trial presided over by "hanging judge" Albert Sabo.

Yohn ruled at that time that Judge Sabo had improperly instructed the jury by informing them that they had to be unanimous on each and every mitigating circumstance in order to impose a sentence of life in prison rather than execution by lethal injection. Sabo had sentenced more defendants to execution, the vast majority Black, than any other sitting judge in the country.

Yohn ordered Philadelphia officials to conduct a new sentencing hearing with the proper jury instructions within 180 days. That order has been delayed for the past eight years pending the outcome of the city’s appeal.

While akin to a new trial, including the right of the defendant to introduce evidence of innocence, the procedure only allows the jury to impose a sentence of life in prison or execution. A verdict of innocence and freedom is excluded since Mumia’s frame-up 1982 trial resulted in a guilty verdict.

Jamal is an awarding-winning journalist, leading critic of the racist Philadelphia Police Department, and perhaps the world’s most well-known innocent political prisoner. He was falsely convicted in 1982 of the murder of police Officer Daniel Faulkner. Massive evidence of Mumia’s innocence has been systematically excluded from the legal proceedings that have marked this racist persecution for the past 26 years.

Having failed in its first effort to reverse Yohn’s ruling before the U.S. Court of Appeals, Third Circuit, Philadelphia officials announced that they would meet the Nov. 19 deadline and ask the U.S. Supreme Court to reverse the two previous court federal decisions and order Mumia’s execution.

While many legal specialists as well as Third Circuit precedents indicate that a re-imposition of the death sentence by the Supreme Court is highly unlikely, the experience of the past 26 years teaches that the "law of the land" is subordinate to the single-minded institutional hatred of Mumia Abu-Jamal, a leading revolutionary critic of capitalist society. The desire to demonstrate that the criminal "justice" system has acted properly at all junctures of the case weighs heavily on the system’s most ardent defenders.

A case in point is the recent interview with Barack Obama by right-wing Philadelphia talk-show host Michael Smerconish—co-author of the new book, "Murdered by Mumia" and a major advocate for executing Mumia. Smerconish asked Obama where he stood. Obama responded that while he didn’t know much about the case, "let just me lay out a very clear principle: In my mind if someone killed a police officer, they deserve the death penalty or life in prison" (Philadelphia Inquirer, Oct. 10, 2008).

It is curious that the diplomatic Obama did not respond to Smerconish, a former Republican recently turned Obama supporter, "if someone is innocent, they should be freed."

Obama might even have pointed out, "There is significant evidence of his innocence and even more evidence that the court’s own precedents have been violated." But this would be too much to expect from a candidate wedded to a system in which institutional racism is the norm.

If the past record of misapplication of the law to Mumia’s case continues as it has during the past 26 years, a Supreme Court decision ordering his execution cannot be excluded, however unlikely it might be from a "legal" point of view.

In his dissenting opinion before the Third Circuit, Judge Thomas Ambro, for example, expressed his annoyance with his colleagues’ blind eye to their own previous rulings when he wrote, "I see no reason why we should not afford Abu-Jamal the courtesy of our precedents." Ambro’s dissent referred to the court’s application of the historic 1986 Batson v. Kentucky ruling, which held that the exclusion of Black jurors based on race was unconstitutional. Out-voted by 2-1 in the Third Circuit, Ambro stated that the majority’s decision, "goes against the grain of our prior actions."

Indeed, the Third Circuit’s anti-Batson ruling violates the most recent Supreme Court decision on the same issue, which held that the exclusion of a single Black juror on account of race necessitates a new trial. In Mumia’s case 11 Blacks were excluded! Nothing can be taken for granted today. Mumia’s life is still very much on the line.

Mumia’s legal team is now seeking to reverse the Third Circuit decision denying him a new trial. His lead counsel, Robert R. Bryan, was recently successful in extending the deadline for the filing of an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court to Dec. 19.

The Supreme Court has no legal obligation to certify that it will even hear Mumia’s final appeal. Indeed, it rejects some 95 percent of the 2500 petitions it receives in death penalty cases every year.

This "killing machine" is driven forward by a series of laws and court decisions that severely restrict appeal rights in the federal courts, with the infamous 1996 Clinton-signed Anti-terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act (AEDPA) being first on the list. This heinous legislation requires federal courts to grant a "presumption of correctness" to state court findings of fact—in this case, the findings of the overtly racist Judge Albert Sabo. It was designed to make state level decisions "effective," that is, virtually totally immune to federal appeal.

Similar court decisions, applied to Mumia in the past and to Troy Davis today, include the 1993 Supreme Court decision in Herrera v. Collins, holding that "innocence is no defense" and that it is trumped by "timeliness." Both laws were designed to facilitate the execution of innocent people, mostly oppressed nationalities.

According to Herrera, evidence of innocence that is presented beyond whatever state statutory deadlines have been put into place is inadmissible. In the case of Troy Davis, whose life now hangs in the balance, seven of the nine so-called witnesses who testified against him have recanted their testimony and stated that it was originally given under police pressure.

The Davis case is among the most blatant applications of capitalist law today. Eight years ago, Gary Graham was executed in Texas, although his post-deadline evidence of innocence included several extremely credible eyewitnesses proving that he was nowhere near the murder scene and a county sheriff who demolished the prosecution’s murder-weapon theory with irrefutable evidence.

Mumia is alive today only because a broad and unrelenting national and international movement has been constructed in his defense.

While Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell has pledged to sign a third warrant for Mumia’s execution (if the Supreme Court reverses its previous legal precedents), Mumia’s supporters are pressing forward with a public campaign that has captured the imagination of millions who cherish human rights and freedom.

The recent publication of J. Patrick O’Connor’s book, "The Framing of Mumia Abu-Jamal," has been acclaimed across the country and cited in The New York Times, a publication that has previously failed to publish any favorable material on Mumia’s case. In late October, O’Connor spoke at 13 public meetings and radio and television appearances in California organized by the Mobilization to Free Mumia Abu-Jamal. These will be followed this month by meetings organized in Connecticut and in New York.

Also, a new award-winning documentary, "In Prison My Whole Life," recently purchased by the Sundance Channel, is to be premiered on HBO-TV in the coming months and then scheduled for local distribution across the country.

Mumia’s national defense network, led by the International Concerned Family and Friends of Mumia Abu-Jamal, has set Saturday, Dec. 6, for local protests across the country.

A victory for Mumia and his freedom would be a victory for democratic rights for everyone. A free Mumia will contribute immensely to the power of the mass movements that will inevitably arise to challenge the foundations of the present system of war, racism, poverty, and corruption.

For further information contact, (West Coast) The Mobilization to Free Mumia Abu-Jamal: (510) 268-9429, freemumia.org, alerts@freemumia.org. (East Coast) ICFFMAJ, (215) 476-8812, www.freemumia.org or www.Abu-Jamal-News.com.

Also, join the Free Mumia Tribe
http://freemumia.tribe.net/

posted in Anarchism - 0 replies

interesting and thought-provoking dvd

2008-11-29T06:40:04Z

If you havent seen "Anarchism in America" , definitely check it out at your video store. Im not a netflix guy, so i dont know whether or not they carry it. It was filmed in 1980, so it's a tad dated, but the interviews with Murray Bookchin and some of archival footage of Emma Goldman are priceless.

posted in Anarchism - 4 replies

Groening is a Trotskyite!

2008-11-23T14:47:10Z

Just thought I'd let all you suckers know.

posted in Anarchism - 0 replies

LOOKS LIKE A DILDO; sounds awesome, single reed horn in E

2008-11-23T14:45:34Z

<http://theicarusproject.net/forums/viewtopic.php?t=11100&start=15>

Scroll down the page to my post about "Sasquatch TreeWoman"

posted in Anarchism - 0 replies

Why even Anarchists should vote...

2008-11-19T02:44:59Z

I've always been very extreme in my stance toward voting,
and as a result have never voted once in my life.
I still sincerely believe that voting only allows a certain amount of change,
yet never addresses that which really needs changing most:
the horribly fraudulent distribution of land, resources and wealth of our planet.
Inheritances of property and wealth have enabled this problem to
grow to extreme proportions, resulting in the world we see today.
The concept of "ownership", whether it be of wealth, land or resources,
is at the core of Capitalism, which is at the core of Taxation,
which is at the core of Government.
Therefore, imho, we cannot bring forth drastic fundamental change in
land-, wealth-, and resource distribution through elections.

Now, as an immigrant, having lived in the US since 2007,
I've been thinking and debating a lot because of all this 'hype' around the elections.
Also, I've educated myself on some political issues,
with documentaries like "Jesus Camp" and the "Israeli Lobby"
really shocking me to the core...
Eventually, I reached the conclusion that the best thing to do for any
"anarchist, rebel, punk, hippy, progressive, or liberal, or whatever",
is to vote for the Obama - Biden ticket.
Why?
Simply because of the realization that no matter what I do,
I vote anyway.
My actions, or lack thereof, count.
3rd party votes won't cut it; the race is obviously between McCain and Obama.
Millions of very religious US citizens are told that they might not go to heaven,
if they don't vote Republican.
Not voting therefore simply equals empowering the McCain/Palin-camp.

You could of course shrug and say:
"It doesn't matter, it's all just a dog-and-pony show", and I wouldn't necessarily disagree.
There's a lot to say for certain conspiracy theories.
But how will you feel if you DIDN'T vote, and McCain wins;
compared to how you would feel if you DID vote, and McCain wins?
Or compared to how you will feel if you DID vote and Obama wins?
There's 4 scenario's here, so which one is more appealing to you,
besides not having voted, and Obama winning?

Sure the elections can get rigged, and eventually it's up to the electoral college to decide
if they're even gonna use your vote, but it undeniably still means a lot to a lot of people.
If anything, you can at least have decent conversations with people coz if McCain wins,
every debate about a better world you will have with someone will start with:
"But did you vote or not?"
Then you quickly go: "Yes, I did, but did it help?"

If this passionate "Change" movement wins over the republican, religious conservatives,
it could have great benefits for the non-political grassroots "Change" campaigns,
even the anarchist ones, ...especially if Obama turns out to be just another lying sack of schijt.
Hopefully, all these people donating money and time to Obama's campaign right now will keep donating them,
in pursuit of a better world, which I think is more likely to happen if Obama wins.
Then he's gotta bring it; and if there truly is a conspiracy, it will show.

This world needs a LOT more changing than just a President,
and in order for us to facilitate such drastic change we need to be able to change ourselves,
inspire others to change themselves, speak freely, protest freely, think & write freely, sing & dance freely,
spread information without censorship freely... etc. etc.
Between McCain/Palin & Obama/Biden, who are more likely to let us?
Book burning, anyone?

Then, after all these realizations, I made the move;
I went to register as a voter, and I discovered I'm not yet eligible.
I'm still a Resident Alien, not a citizen...

Well, the current U.S. president has in his 8 years in office affected many lives worldwide,
and not for the better, as I'm sure most here will agree.
Yet many of these people, if not most,
have no right to vote whatsoever on the US presidency.

Do you?

posted in Anarchism - 7 replies

Child raising

2008-11-13T17:36:40Z

For those of you with children, how do you do it? I had a very authoritarian father, who used physical punnishment, and was the "because I say so type." I don't have children yet, but I will someday, and I want to raise a child in a non-oppressive mannor without them running wild.

posted in Anarchism - 4 replies

LOVE REVOLUTION OR LOCAL REVOLUTION?

2008-11-07T04:00:14Z

LOVE REVOLUTION OR LOCAL REVOLUTION?

Opening soon on Venables & Commercial is the 13th CHAIN store from TEXAS, THE LOVE REVOLUTION. Selling water pipes, growing supplies and accessories. ALL of their inventory is NON-LOCAL, bought and shipped internationally.

These three business men from Austin, Texas told their new employees that IF THEY WERE TO TELL anyone in the Vancouver / Commercial Drive community that they were NOT A LOCAL starting up business that they would be instantly terminated from their job.

They also mentioned that they were only in Vancouver to set up the store then leave back to the states.

A friend of mine was recently employed to become apart of their team, not knowing the owners intentions within the store and community.

That person attended the first staff meeting on a Saturday night, The boss gave them all a book stating the costumer service intentions of the chain. He also mentioned that they wouldn't be meeting again until mid November to start working. The next morning, My friend got a call (Sunday) at around 11am. He mentioned that there is a staff meeting at 6:30 that night. She said alright, and asked what they would be doing. He said "Why does it matter?, It's a suprise." They didn't even give their employees even 24 hours notice!
So she went to the staff meeting, when she got there one of the business men said "We're taking all the shelves and lining them, here are some scissors." He didn't explain how to do it and one of the other business men in the company was standing around doing his own thing. Everyone looked at each other in awkwardness, thinking it went from a 'meeting' to hours of work on a Sunday night? Everyone got to work, trying to figure out how to line the shelves. My friend read everyone's faces and spoke up.
She said that first off it was Sunday and calling your employees in without even 12 hours notice to a 'meeting' was very unprofessional. And that everyone expected to be there for only a half hour or so and that they were not prepared to work. About an hour later, the boss shows up, The 'Big Man' aka leader of the company. He doesn't even say hi before he looks at the shelves and say's "That's disgusting! Take all that liner off!"

My friend looked around in disgust at the organization of the evening. She went up to the boss and said "May I speak with your privately?" He said "For sure, let's go outside"
They went out side and she goes "Sir, I enjoy the opportunity of being apart of this company however, I think that the way this evening was organized was very unprofessional and I would prefer to be called 24 hours prior to meeting."

He gave her a nasty look and said "Do you want to work here?"
She said "Yes but, I would like to be told what were are doing instead of a 'Surprise'. That's very unfair, I have family waiting to eat dinner with me at home and If I knew that you wanted us to help with setting up the store I would have eaten before hand as well as come more prepared to do so."
He said again "Do you want to work here?"
She said "Yes."
He said "This is a communication problem, YOU DIDN'T ask how long we were going to be here this evening."
She replied "I asked you over the phone earlier today what we would be doing this evening and you said why? it's a suprise?"
He replied "It doesn't matter what we're doing!"
She said "Well I didn't come here to line shelves, I'm hired as an employee when the store opens."
He replied back "You guys were not supposed to do shelves, plus they were the wrong ones anyway."
Then she said "Well, maybe that's a communication error between you and your colleagues, isn't it? I have to go home for dinner now."

When she came back in the room everyone was looking and curious to as what had happened. Considering my friend was the only person to step up about the situation, she swallowed her pride and went back into the room, saying nothing. The vibe was gross and the boss let her go home for dinner.

The next day she recieved a phone call from him saying that they would no longer be needing her to be apart of her company. Saying it was schedule issues, which is a crock of shit.

It's really unfortunate that these Americans get away with treating local citizens like shit.

DON'T LET INCONSIDERATE AMERICAN OR EVEN CANADIAN BUSINESSES FUCK YOU OVER.
FIGHT FOR YOUR RIGHT AND KEEP DOING SO UNTIL THEY GET THE FACT THAT WE ARE NOT SLAVES TO THEIR MONEY BAGS.

------------------

I've lived in the Commercial Drive community since I was 17 years old. I have met tons of shop owners including friends and family with nothing but positive intentions within their stores and the community.

It is OUR responsibility to keep our community positive, and know who's coming in and out of it. I know i'm not going to buy a over priced, factory made bong from china to help contribute to these money driven Texan business men. ALL it is to them is another house to buy.

Why support these liars when you can go down to The Amsterdam cafe downtown and support Local Glass blowers & artists.

HELP SPREAD THE WORD!

DO WE REALLY WANT PEOPLE LIKE THIS IN OUR COMMUNITY?

posted in Anarchism - 0 replies

PATRIARCHY KILLS!

2008-11-02T04:10:54Z

PATRIARCHY KILLS!
Nov. 2nd, Day of The Dead
7pm
24th St. and Bryant St., Mission District, San Francisco

The last week of September of this year two of our friends and comrades, Sali Marcella Grace and Kirsten Brydum, were both brutally murdered in acts of blatant violence against women.

These young and strong anarchist women truly died in the struggle- Sali was raped and murdered while doing solidarity work in Oaxaca, Mexico, and Kirsten, who was missing for 8 hours before found shot dead, was on a tour researching "collective autonomy" projects in New Orleans.

During this year's Day of the Dead procession in the Mission, we will be present in the streets to show our grief and rage for our fallen comrades but also to demonstrate what Sali and Kirsten embodied- resistance to the very same interconnected systems of oppression that led to their untimely deaths. We will walk in a contingent with a banner that reads "Patriarchy Kills" and we are encouraging people to bring signs, banners, or incorporate messaging against patriarchy into their face paint and on costumes.

We do not view Sali and Kirsten as victims but rather casualties in the on-going war on women and trans people- a war that the state and economic systems enable, empower, finance and benefit from. We recognize that murder is a direct result of rape and gendered violence. In rejecting the social model of the "white middle class woman victim" present in mainstream discourse concerning violence towards women, we see race, class and gender oppression dangerously intersecting for many women around us .

As anarchists, we know that we cannot effectively fight the state or capitalism without also smashing patriarchy. Join us in solidarity in showing our resistance to patriarchy in remembrance of women casualties of the gender war.

We recognize the spiritual nature of Dia de los Muertos and will reflect the solemn yet celebratory tone of the evening.

posted in Anarchism - 0 replies

Political dissent as terrorism: “Minnesota Patriot Act” charges filed against RNC Eight

2008-09-29T00:20:42Z

Political dissent as terrorism: “Minnesota Patriot Act” charges filed against RNC Eight
By Tom Eley
11 September 2008

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2008/sep2008/minn-s11.shtml

The charges of terrorism leveled against the eight youth who had sought to organize protests and civil disobedience against the Republican National Convention (RNC) in Minnesota last week sound an alarm that political opposition in the US is on its way toward being criminalized.

In what may be the first case of its kind, American citizens have been arrested and charged as terrorists for no other act than planning to protest and obstruct a political event. In this case the occasion was the nominating convention of a party chiefly responsible for policies detested by the majority of Americans, including the war in Iraq and the enrichment of a tiny layer of the enormously wealthy.

Even a casual review of the case reveals that the charges are a baseless frame-up, carried out in the name of constitutionally dubious “anti-terrorist” legislation enacted since 2002.

More alarming than the case itself, however, is the fact that it has gone virtually unnoted by the national news media. This reporter could also find no mention of the case on the web sites of left-liberal publications such as the Nation, the Progressive, or In These Times. No major politician from either party has commented on the case, including Minnesota’s Democratic Senator Amy Klobuchar. Attempts to contact the campaign and Senate office of Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama revealed that he had not released a statement on the arrests.

This silence on the case is no indication of its lack of importance. In essence, the terrorism charges against the RNC 8 show what the World Socialist Web Site has long warned: that anti-terrorism laws like the Patriot Act—enthusiastically supported by both major parties—have never been about protecting the American people from terrorism. They were put into place to create the legal framework for the suppression of basic constitutional and democratic rights of the population.

The eight members of the anarchist group Republican National Convention Welcoming Committee (RNCWC) were arrested the weekend before the RNC began and charged with the felony “conspiracy to commit riot in the second degree in furtherance of terrorism.” They have since been released on $10,000 bail. If convicted at trial, the RNC Eight could each face five years in prison plus a $10,000 fine. A ninth individual has been named in the police complaint, but has yet to be charged.

Bruce Nestor, president of the Minnesota chapter of the National Lawyers Guild and attorney for Monica Bicking, one of the eight defendants, told the World Socialist Web Site that the authorities have shown no indication that the charges will be dropped.

The charges are predicated on an a priori assumption of guilt; not on what actually happened, but what might have happened had no arrest been made.

Furthermore, the charges are almost entirely based upon the evidence of two confidential paid informants.

Nestor pointed out in an earlier interview with the Minnesota Independent that “the most outrageous allegations made by the authorities are not supported by any evidence other than the statement of the confidential informants. They’re not supported by the evidence seized.”

The physical evidence gathered by law enforcement was even more threadbare than the purchased testimony of informants. “We have the sheriff displaying a single plastic item that he claims was a shield,” Nestor said, “as if one shield was going to protect demonstrators from 3,500 armed riot police who have projectile-tear-gas weapons.” In addition, police seized a rusty hatchet, nails, lighters and other common household items as evidence, and rather ludicrously reported discovering “weaponized urine.”

This is the same method the Federal Bureau of Investigation has used in its attacks on Muslim organizations and other “terrorism” suspects. In such scenarios, anonymous police infiltrators enter an organization, create a provocation or even a crime itself, and then turn over uncorroborated testimony, thereby implicating an entire group of people

Lawyers for the RNCWC members have also pointed to the climate of fear created surrounding their clients by the very charge of terrorism. “All they do is they label people as terrorists and anarchists, and at that point what people are actually saying and the content of their views has no meaning anymore,” said attorney Jordan Kushner.

Nestor told the WSWS that the arrests are “part of an overall law enforcement strategy to intimidate people from exercising political rights in the streets and to intimidate people from political organizations, to put citizens outside of the realm of acceptable behavior, to limit acceptable protest to voting and writing letters, and anything else is dangerous and potentially criminal.”

The arrests are based on a 2002 law enacted with overwhelming bipartisan support in response to 9/11 and the adoption of the national USA Patriot Act. According to Nestor the Minnesota law is a version of the latter. According to the law, “a crime is committed to ‘further terrorism’ if the crime is a felony and is a premeditated act involving violence to persons or property that is intended to: (1) terrorize, intimidate, or coerce a considerable number of members of the public in addition to the direct victims of the act; and (2) significantly disrupt or interfere with the lawful exercise, operation, or conduct of government, lawful commerce, or the right of lawful assembly” (emphasis added).

In other words, the statute lays out a legal framework for the categorization of protest as “furthering terrorism.” Police could quite easily determine that a protest aims to “coerce” “members of the public” or “interfere with” the operations of government, industry and meetings. In a broad sense, that is precisely what public demonstrations have always aimed to do.

The passing of the 2002 legislation was not the only, or most recent, preparation made by the government for the repression that has unfolded in St. Paul.

It has been revealed that the city government of St. Paul and the Host Committee of the Republican National Convention—which organized the event and solicited corporate donors—worked out a bargain whereby the Host Committee would assume the first $10 million in liability resulting from lawsuits civilians might launch against the city’s police. This agreement gave a signal to police that financial liability need not serve as a deterrent to police repression of protests.

Police preparation in the Twin Cities was elaborate. Because the RNC, like the Democratic National Convention, was declared a “National Security Event,” the local police were placed under the supervision of the federal government through the Secret Service and combined with numerous other state and federal police and military agencies.

It has also become clear that the media, especially independent media, were targeted for harassment and arrest during the convention. This included the unlawful search and seizure of filming equipment, computers, and cell phones.

As the scope of the arrests and police brutality has begun to take shape—multiple reports have emerged of police beatings, gassings, denial of medical treatment, and use of mace and taser guns on protesters and those already detained or arrested—it appears increasingly unlikely that this was simply an overreaction, as some liberal commentators have claimed.

The goal of this repression—which most assuredly would be a central preoccupation of the mainstream media had it taken place in, for instance, Russia—was only secondarily aimed at intimidating or squelching the RNC protests. Instead these measures were cut from the same cloth as the sort of massive repression carried out in third world police states. The massive police operation’s primary aim was to benumb, intimidate and silence the population as a whole.

It also provided the opportunity for a trial run of large-scale repression against the mass opposition to war and social immiseration that will inevitably emerge in the coming months and years.

posted in Anarchism - 0 replies

Unconventional Futures: A Proposal for Building Decentralized, Nationwide Anarchist Momentum

2008-09-20T05:16:33Z

Unconventional Futures: A Proposal for Building Decentralized, Nationwide Anarchist Momentum

Over a year ago, a group of anarchists hoping to initiate nationwide anti-authoritarian organizing against the DNC and RNC formed a project called Unconventional Action. Their vision of catalyzing organizing on the local level to promote coordinated resistance to the conventions yielded success, as over 20 different collectives in various cities and regions took on the UA banner and began preparations for plugging into the convention protests. The informal network of UA groups from coast to coast, working in conjunction with local projects and organizers in Denver and the Twin Cities, successfully mobilized hundreds of anarchists to attend the DNC and RNC protests. Now that the conventions have come and gone, let’s continue to build on the infrastructure we’ve created for this single event. Rather than simply letting that energy and organization evaporate with the conventions done and gone, what sorts of uses can we create for these active, interconnected nodes of direct action-oriented radicals?

Anarchist organizing in the post-Bush political situation

If Obama becomes president, many anarchists and other radicals predict, the euphoria on the part of liberals and progressives will quickly give way to disillusionment as the shining star of the Democrats fails to follow through on his empty promises of hope and change. It’s extremely unlikely that an Obama administration will end the occupation in Iraq, threats against Iran, police repression, anti-immigrant crackdowns, escalating poverty, oil dependence, or any of the other crises facing the US; given this, how will the country respond? One possibility is that the vast liberal/progressive base of Obama’s campaign and the new Democratic Party followers will find themselves disaffected from the two-party path and open to new, increasingly radical directions. In this case, anarchists should be ready to seize the moment with consistent, visible, exciting actions and propaganda, and provide accessible points of entry for people to become involved in anti-political organizing and direct action. On the other hand, another possibility is that large sectors of the US population will respond to the failure of the hope/change rhetoric by moving in a more overtly fascist direction (supporting heavily authoritarian leadership, accelerating imprisonment and police repression, intensified scapegoating of immigrants, etc). In this instance, a solidly functioning network of communication and action will be crucial to anarchist self-defense, to oppose right-wing reaction from the community level and promoting anti-authoritarian analyses of the situation.

It’s also possible that McCain will become president, in which case two distinct trends may emerge with possibilities for anarchists. For one, military involvement abroad and border militarization at home will likely increase even more swiftly, along with social conservative attacks on reproductive rights and queer and transgender people. In all of these areas, direct action will be crucially necessary to stem the tide of militarism and oppression, and the haphazard, disconnected, and sporadic undertakings of these past years won’t be enough. Also, the massive grassroots swell behind Obama will find their hopes frustrated, and many will seek new political outlets for their disappointment. Anarchists demonstrating alternatives in practice to the electoral system can provide a path for this energy away from the two-party black hole and towards direct action.

In any of these scenarios, anarchists in the US will need ways to effectively mobilize ourselves to respond to the political situation. In recent years, the fantastic variety of projects, networks, actions, and culture that constitutes anarchism in the US rarely comes together in a coordinated way except around specific mass mobilizations. This can result in an effective but woefully brief fighting force that coalesces sporadically at the expense of local organizing and projects, and at great cost in terms of time and resources invested with little lasting momentum beyond the mobilization in question. How can we harness the collective power that we have, but in a way that sustains rather than depletes it and expands beyond mass mobilizations to everyday and local resistance?

What we’re proposing is to use the infrastructure we’ve created through these Unconventional Action chapters in different cities and regions, and expand them into a network that can plan, coordinate, and carry out anarchist action and resistance on a variety of fronts.

As we see it, here are some of the potential strengths of using the foundation of Unconventional Action organizing to create a national anarchist action network:

It already exists. UA collectives exist in over 20 cities and regions around the country, and with the context for them already established, can be easily founded anywhere. The UA framework has successfully mobilized people to attend the protests, to create and circulate propaganda, to gather and disseminate information, to initiate and carry out local organizing and solidarity actions, and more. Since we’ve seen that this loose network of collectives in different places works effectively, it is the most promising starting point for national and regional anarchist organizing.

Seize the post-convention momentum, with an eye towards the future. As a first step, this emerging UA network can take on organizing election day and inauguration day actions. For November 4th, UA collectives can offer each other strategies, talking points, messages, propaganda, and our collective wisdom; conversations between chapters could produce a few themes or tactical innovations to make our efforts coherent. Unlike previous election years, in which either scattered acts of consciousness-raising or resistance went unnoticed in their isolation, or focused solely on the elections without connection to previous or subsequent actions (i.e. the Don’t Just Vote campaign), actions from a UA network will allow us to make connections between resistance against the conventions, the elections, the inauguration, and more. Coordinating actions by UA chapters and through UA networks has the triple advantage of tapping into an existing, effective network [increasing participation]; having an explicitly anarchist/anti-authoritarian “brand” [making our perspectives clear and avoiding simply having to participate in liberal or communist front-group actions]; and using the common UA theme to link them [building coherent connections in the media and public consciousness around the interconnectedness of anarchist resistance to politics, capitalism, and all systems of oppression]. After the election and dialogue about whether a national mobilization in DC or coordinated local actions makes the most sense, we can apply the same reasoning to the inauguration on January 20th. Looking even further ahead, we can anticipate immigrant and worker solidarity actions on May 1st; resistance to police brutality on the US day of action October 22nd and/or the Canadian date, March 15th; opposition to the occupation of Iraq on March 20th, the war’s anniversary; and other coordinated days of action that we can decide regionally and nationally. These coordinated days can combine with our own locally-focused organizing to create vibrant, active, and nationally linked momentum of anarchist resistance in the US.

Organization for specific action, not for organization’s sake. By basing the foundation of regional and national anarchist networking in an existing web of interconnected nodes that came together for a specific purpose, we can avoid the pitfalls that come from attempting to create an artificial organizational structure for a general purpose anticipating future actions. Learning from the mistakes of regional efforts such as the Southeast Anarchist Network, where such an artificial framework for general purposes never got off the ground in spite of considerable enthusiasm, we can ensure that the network always has a basis in shared actions, and that organizational structure can be adopted or scrapped on an ad-hoc basis as necessity demands. Anarchists and others will join or found collectives for the UA network out of a desire to work on a specific action or campaign, so it won’t get abstract and overly formal.

Accessible points of entry beyond the cookie-cutter projects. One part of the stagnation of anarchist resistance over the past years is that of the “cookie-cutter” project. Many types of common community anarchist projects – Food not Bombs, Indymedia, etc – that once held fresh and vital roles as a part of broader anarchist resistance often now provide the only local entry points into anarchist action, and become bogged down in inertia and internal politics. Because they frequently exist in isolation both within communities (detached from other radical projects in the same area) and between communities (little or no regional and national discussion, gathering, or organizing amongst different chapters), these groups often putter along without genuinely engaging participants, threatening the status quo, or assessing how to build towards long-term success. Local UA chapters can avoid this stagnation by staying rooted in organizing for particular actions (election day, the inauguration, and beyond), with the energizing effect and multiplied support and resources of a national network behind them. At the same time, chapters can provide an entry point for new anarchists and radicals, pathways into various projects and a catalyst for broad, integrated anarchist resistance.

Harmony through diversity. UA collectives are not homogenous or uniform. Not all are comprised solely of self-described anarchists; some focused exclusively on the convention organizing, while others organized a variety of events around different themes; their sizes, styles, and methods of functioning varied greatly. This is one of the network’s strengths, and can continue to be as it expands past the specific focus of the conventions. Continuing and new UA groups can range from tight-knit anarchist collectives who undertake numerous specific local projects together, to a loose coalition of radicals who agree to come together to organize non-hierarchically around particular events or issues in a broad region. Some collectives take the name “UA-city/region,” while others have entirely different names; ultimately what’s important isn’t the title but the commitment to forming a tight-knit network of mutual aid, solidarity, and coordinated action. We don’t need to strive for unity and identical ideological lines, but for harmony and mutual interests, goals, and tactics. The conventions showed that we can do this, so let’s take it further.

Connect capitalism, the state, and oppression coherently through harmonized anarchist resistance. When the UA network takes on coordinated active resistance not just to the political conventions, but diverse manifestations of the oppressive power of capitalism and the state, we will demonstrate concretely the links between these struggles. For example, currently anarchists who search for a visible militant response to a police murder in one city or an ecologically destructive building project in another have few ways of tapping into our collective power other than resorting to an empty “call to action” posted on Infoshop or Indymedia. What if instead we could count on a national network to turn out solidarity actions in 20 different cities under a common UA theme? Our power to respond as anarchists would expand exponentially, and the coherence of our critique of all power and domination would increase along with it, as people witness UA resistance to various manifestations of domination culture. It will take consistent and coordinated anarchist action to begin to demonstrate anarchism and direct action as viable alternatives to government and voting, and a network rooted in UA organizing can build our capacity to deliver it.

Decentralization with coordination. Because UA chapters take diverse forms, and since regional and national networking need only involve as much formality as the moment demands, there’s no risk of creating some central anarchist directive whose commands we’ll slavishly obey, or risk excommunication from anarchist circles. As St. Paul showed, our decentralization is one of our strengths: pre-emptive arrests of the Welcoming Committee “leaders” couldn’t stop four days of actions from different groups and individuals. But in the absence of effective coordination, our power and effectiveness remains a fraction of what it could be. Based off of the model of different UA collectives tackling different sectors, actions, and tasks, we can extend this decentralized but coordinated approach to a wide variety of campaigns and days of action across the country using the UA network.

Capitalizing on renewed anarchist visibility. One success of the convention protests is renewed anarchist visibility: journalists, politicians, and pundits across the country used the terms “anarchist” and “anarchism” consistently in association with radical or “violent” protestors, to an extent unprecedented in recent history. So now that anarchists have entered the popular consciousness as the militant opposition to the political order, it’s up to us to continue that process by showing more and more examples of anarchist action as a viable alternative to the futility of politics. An expanded UA network can provide the basis for consistent coordinated anarchist action that can keep up that visibility, demonstrating alternatives to the two-party dead end that will come increasingly under scrutiny as disillusionment with Obama intensifies.

The consulta model works. Regionally and nationally, Unconventional Action chapters organized consultas to share information and skills, develop links between cities and regions, and make decisions about strategies and planning actions. From these gatherings emerged concrete plans for actions such as the blockades strategy and the map of sectors, as well as new and strengthened links between collectives and individuals and also broadened bases of skills and knowledge. We can continue this model of consultas on a regular or infrequent basis, as we plan for future coordinated actions, set themes for giving coherence to local projects and campaigns, and continue to teach each other skills and analysis. Of course, for a decentralized network to work, local collectives shouldn’t be dependent on consultas to authorize their actions or set their priorities for them. Instead, consultas can convene only as they’re needed to address issues of collective concern.

Now is the time. With a national network of anarchists organizing diverse local projects and actions under a common theme, we can offer an accessible route for disaffected ex-Obamaites to tap into resistance to politics and capitalism. At the same time, we can offer cohesive resistance to any right-wing backlash, with a network for efficient communication and to mobilize support and coordinated action. There hasn’t been any national anarchist organizing network beyond event-specific coordination since the Love and Rage Federation, which disintegrated before Seattle. Building off of the UA framework, we can create the strongest foundation for collective anarchist resistance that has existed for a very long time.

Conclusion – Where do we go from here?

To summarize, we believe that the network of Unconventional Action collectives contains the seed of a vibrant, nationwide, decentralized network for anarchist action and resistance. It currently exists and has demonstrated its capacity, and its concrete purpose and orientation towards action avoids the pitfalls of organization for its own sake and the staleness of cookie-cutter projects. We can take advantage of the diversity of different UA chapters to create a decentralized but coordinated framework for anarchist resistance, using the successful consulta model to move forward collectively. Our actions through the network can capitalize on renewed anarchist visibility and demonstrate clear links between capitalism, politics, and oppression, advancing anarchist analysis and providing crucial accessible points of entry. Using this network, we can use the momentum from the conventions to flow into election day, inauguration, and more actions, and effectively respond to this pivotal moment of political change in the US.

So how can we make this vision into a reality? We propose that over the next two months, local UA collectives meet, debrief their experiences at the convention, and set local priorities for action based on their own local circumstances and capacities. One of the key functions of the UA network can be to support the initiatives of local collectives, so at home with our crews we can focus on planning creative new directions for action and assessing how a broader network can support us in those. On regional and national levels, we can direct our efforts towards prisoner and legal support from the conventions and continuing the conversations about the future. Specifically, we can discuss possibilities for coordinated election day actions on November 4th: what themes should we focus on? What kinds of writing, propaganda, and information should we share and distribute? How can we link together our actions in different areas? What are our goals, targets, and tactics? And in the aftermath of the election, we should immediately begin discussing plans for responding to the inauguration. Should we collectively mobilize in Washington, or focus on local action? Depending on who’s elected, what themes are most important to emphasize? Over the winter, different UA chapters can consider hosting regional consultas to plan for these days of action and discuss possibilities for the future. Above all, let’s keep talking, planning, and resisting, with an eye towards building our capacity to fuck their shit up and create other worlds.

This statement was created through the collaboration of members from UA collectives in several cities. You can reach us at unconventionalfutures@riseup.net.

http://news.infoshop.org/trackback.php?id=20080919163835704

posted in Anarchism - 0 replies

DNC Protest, Split, and the Principled Stand of Cynthia McKinney

2008-08-18T03:43:00Z

DNC Protest, Split, and the Principled Stand of Cynthia McKinney

By Steven Argue

Protest plans have been in the works against the Democratic National Convention (DNC) for some time now, with organizers opposing the Democrat Party’s policies of war and occupation, backing of continued corporate policies that cause global warming, and their attacks on immigrants.

The people who have been organizing the protest schedule formed a coalition called Recreate ‘68. A rightward split has occurred in this coalition, and another group has also been formed called the Alliance for Real Democracy. The Alliance for Real Democracy is organizing their own separate events, one of which is a reception for Democrat Party delegates complete with drinks and BBQ.

The Alliance for Real Democracy is made up of the Colorado Green Party, Code Pink, United for Peace and Justice, the Rocky Mountain Peace and Justice Center, the American Friends Service Committee, Iraq Veterans Against the War, Colorado Street Medics, and Students for Peace and Justice.

While the Alliance for Real Democracy consists largely of white liberals who are trying to influence the hopelessly corporate run Democrat Party, Recreate ‘68 is made up primarily of minorities, socialists, anarchists, communists, and other radicals who have fewer illusions in reforming the Democrat Party and who instead want to organize the power of the people.

Glen Spagnuelo, spokesperson of Recreate ‘68, says he’s not bothered by the formation of the Alliance for Real Democracy, because both groups oppose the war in Iraq and neither is advocating a violent protest.

Yet, the Alliance for Real Democracy has gotten extensive coverage in the corporate media of Colorado for their violence baiting of Recreate ‘68. The stand of Recreate ‘68 is, however, one where they simply explain that they are not planning violence, but if the police attack them, they do not disavow the right of protesters to self-defense.

As Benjamin Whitmer of Denver explained in the letters column of the Rocky Mountain Times in a June 5, 2008 letter entitled, “Re-create 68 members aren't violent extremists”:

“I’m a little confused as to the media’s portrayal of Glenn Spagnuolo and the members of Re-create 68 as violent extremists. Though Mr. Spagnuolo is getting painted as Vlad the Impaler with a bag full of severed heads, I’ve yet to hear of him engaging in a single act of violent protest. Moreover, I’ve attended several Re-create 68 meetings – meetings which, it’s worth noting, are never without a media presence – and have yet to hear a single suggestion of violent protest from him or from anyone else attending.

“The controversy seems to stem from Re-create 68’s refusal to disallow the right to self-defense to its members. Re-create 68’s explanation of this refusal is clear. There will be people protesting with Re-create 68 arm-in-arm with their children and elders. In large part, these will be representatives of communities which have most suffered from the never-ending betrayal of the Democrats. To attempt to deny them the right to defend themselves is to deny a fundamental human right.”

Yet, the Alliance for Real Democracy is demanding everyone roll over and die when and if they are violently attacked by the police, and painting those who do not have such a commitment as “violent”. The coverage their denunciations have received in the corporate media play into the hands of government attempts to deny permits, and, ultimately plays into the hands of police violence if the government does decide to physically attack these protests. In fact, the Alliance for Real Democracy’s denunciations of the right to self-defense and denunciations of Recreate ‘68 as “violent” creates a ready made excuse for the police and government that may actually cause police violence.

In addition, the Green Party of Colorado has issued false statements to the press and all over the internet claiming that Green Party presidential candidate Cynthia McKinney will not be participating in the Recreate ’68 events. Here is one such statement from Dave Chandler, co-chair of the Colorado Green Party, Green Party candidate for U.S. Congress in the Seventh Congressional District, and supporter of a Denver ballot measure that would seize the vehicles of illegal immigrants:

“Cynthia McKinney, Green Party candidate for President, and Rosa Clemente, Green Party candidate for Vice President are NOT participating in any Recreate ‘68 activities. Both candidates, and the Green Party of Colorado, are refuting this announcement and are stating that neither candidate, nor the Green Party of Colorado, are in any way associated with Recreate ’68, nor will any of their candidates be speaking at or attending any event, nor are they in any way associated with the group Recreate ’68.”

This is a blatant lie. Cynthia McKinney and Rosa Clemente will be speaking at the Recreate ’68 events.

Liberation News does not endorse the Cynthia McKinney campaign, partly because she is running on the Green Party ticket, a capitalist party. Yet, she has the right positions on many issues, and does show what a candidate who is not beholden to corporate interests can speak out on, such as for single payer healthcare, immediate withdrawal from Iraq and Afghanistan, and for freeing political prisoners in the U.S. like Mumia Abu-Jamal.

It is for these reasons, and the good principled stand that McKinney is taking on the protests at the Democrat National Committee, standing up to the leadership of the Green Party of Colorado, that Liberation News prints Cynthia McKinney and Rosa Clemente’s statement on the DNC in full:

*******
Open Letter from Cynthia McKinney

As the United States activated Navy ships and the Air Force to begin an airlift of non-specified goods into the former Soviet state of Georgia, and military exercises began in the Persian Gulf near Iran, I received communications from certain individuals among the Colorado Greens who were organizing campaign support events there, suggesting that I not participate in an anti-war program being organized by other individuals in Colorado.

Perplexed, I began to do my research to understand the nature of the fissure that I seemed to be placing myself in the middle of. The communications to me about not participating in one of the scheduled events became more and more shrill. The events ran through August 26th. When the lineup of speakers, including Rosa and me, was announced for the events in question, I received multiple communications stating in various ways that the sender from the Green Party of Colorado, was on the verge of desperation over the latter.

Within a few hours, I was reading messages stating that the Green Party of Colorado would be ruined if I participated in the End the Occupations/End the War march and rally slated to take place on the morning of August 24th on the steps of the Colorado State Capitol, or if Rosa participated in a Freedom March and Rally for Human Rights and Political Prisoners at Civic Center Park the following day.

An article appeared in a local Colorado newspaper stating that Rosa and I would not appear at the events for which we had been scheduled. Rosa responded to our Colorado Green Party contact that yes, indeed, we were appearing at the two events. Both Rosa and I then received messages demanding to know by a time certain what our plans were, and asserting that the Green Party of Colorado would be totally ruined if we associated with the group sponsoring the events. In addition, we were told that at least one resignation and sustaining membership would be tendered to the Party, and that Rosa and I could expect no support on the ground in Denver from the Green Party of Colorado, including a planned fundraiser and a place to stay.

Without receiving any additional response or information from either Rosa or I, the correspondent sent a message informing us that all Green Party of Colorado events previously scheduled for us had been canceled. Further, the message stated that ballot access petitioning by Green Party of Colorado would cease in neighboring Wyoming and that all efforts would be made to remove Rosa's and my names from the ballot in Colorado. The message also noted that the Colorado delegation overwhelmingly supported Elaine Brown at the Green Party Convention.

With the e-mail messages flying "fast and furious," I hope I have mentioned the highlights of this episode in somewhat chronological order. What Rosa and I would like to address now, is the ideological and rational order that produced this outcome. At the very first Green Party debate held in San Francisco earlier this year, I pleaded for unity of action and purpose as we face the challenges that confront us as a country. Rosa and I are proud to join with others who are sick and tired of war, occupation, human rights abuses, and the continued incarceration of our political prisoners. We are proud to join with others who are willing to do something about it. In the context of activities in Denver, that means cooperating with some organizations new to us and others with which Rosa and I have had a long-standing relationship. Let me explain some of those relationships.

I am proud to have received a Backbone Award from the Backbone Campaign, one of the co-participants of the anti-war, anti-occupation events in question, according to the organizers.

Rosa and I are pleased to have received the endorsement of M-1 of Dead Prez, who put out a video of endorsement and is rallying other conscious Hip Hop, Generation X voters to the Green Party with Rosa and I as its nominees. Rebel Diaz was on the stage with Rosa as she accepted her Green Party nomination for Vice President. Both Dead Prez and Rebel Diaz are participating in the events in question, according to the organizers.

Fred Hampton, Jr.'s mother, a victim of COINTELPRO, came to Georgia in the mid-1990s to help me gain reelection after a malicious redistricting case that went all the way up to the Supreme Court. Ward Churchill has traveled to my Congressional district to educate my former constituents on the COINTELPRO of yesterday and the COINTELPRO of today. Natsu Saito introduced me to other victims of COINTELPRO. I asked Kathleen Cleaver to co-author a report that was submitted to Mary Robinson, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights at the time of the World Conference Against Racism, on the unsolved murders of Black Panther Party members who were victims of COINTELPRO. Fred Hampton, Jr., Ward Churchill, Natsu Saito, and Kathleen Cleaver are all participating in the events in question, according to the organizers.

As a Member of Congress, I supported the release of all political prisoners and welcomed information from the American Indian Movement about Leonard Peltier. I have at many times in my political career been allied with the ACLU, and have always supported Pam and Ramona Africa and the MOVE Organization. The American Indian Movement of Colorado, King Downing of the ACLU, and Pam and Ramona Africa of MOVE are all participating in the events in question, according to the organizers.

Mumia Abu Jamal has endorsed the Power to the People Campaign and my Green Party candidacy. According to the organizers, Mumia will transmit a message to all of us participating in the events in question.

Finally, I have appeared on various stages with many Palestinians; I have proudly spoken at rallies organized by Larry Holmes. Debra Sweet with World Can't Wait was among the very first to my knowledge to organize around impeachment as an imperative and I support hers and all other impeachment groups in their efforts. And finally, I have known Ben Manski for a long time as a socially conscious activist who is also a member of the Green Party. According to the organizers, a Palestinian refugee is slated to speak at the events in question, as well as Larry Holmes, Debra Sweet, and Ben Manski.

Rosa and I have not been given any rational, ideological, or strategically-acceptable reason by the Green Party of Colorado to dissociate ourselves from the movement that this country so desperately needs and that these individuals and organizations participating represent, as we all attempt to hold the Democratic Party accountable for its complicity in all of the crimes of the Bush Administration. Therefore Rosa and I will keep our appointments in Denver and we hope that the members of the Green Party of Colorado will attend our sessions and listen to what we have to say. I have faith that by taking principled stands against war and occupation, human rights abuse, the prison-industrial complex, and in support of freedom for political prisoners, the Green party will emerge stronger.

Cynthia McKinney
Green Party Nominee for President of the United States

Rosa Clemente
Green Party Nominee for Vice President of the United States

*******
Liberation News endorses and encourages people to attend:
Recreate ‘68 Protest: Speakers and Free Concerts Schedule
http://recreate68.com/?p=135

FYI:
Alliance for Real Democracy: drinks and BBQ for Democrat Party delegates and their other scheduled events:
http://slapstickpolitics.blogspot.com/2008/07/alliance-for-real-democracy-dnc.html

This is an article of Liberation News, subscribe free:
https://lists.riseup.net/www/info/liberation_news

posted in Anarchism - 3 replies

Anti-Capitalist-Block RNC 2008

2008-08-06T04:23:15Z

Anti-Capitalist Bloc @ the RNC
by erin - anti-capitalist bloc Thursday, Jul 17 2008, 12:31am
erinzona.s@gmail.org phone: 707.499.8276
north america / mexico / anarchist movement / other libertarian press

Call out to the bloc/Principles of Solidarity

If you're planning to be in the Twin Cities during the RNC and are interested in class struggle anarchism, please contact us and hear about our events and projects!

Call out to join the Anti-Capitalist Bloc @ the RNC

***Please Forward***

A Call for an Anti-Capitalist Bloc (Red & Black Bloc) at the RNC Protests September, 2008 * Twin Cities, Minnesota * anticapbloc@iww.org

On “Labor Day” 2008, and throughout the Republican National Convention (RNC), tens of thousands of people from our community and from across the Unites States will protest against the GOP’s pro-corporate policies of war and discrimination. The Anti-Capitalist Bloc will join these mobilizations not just to protest a bad president or failed policies, but to stand up against the whole system of exploitation and oppression: capitalism.

It is the inherent character of capitalism that is creating the current economic crisis. Tens of thousands of laid-off workers, thousands of homes in foreclosure, and quickening inflation of gas and food prices are all signs of a system out of control, a system where the sins of the bosses are visited on the masses of workers.

Capitalism needs wars and exploitation to maintain itself. The war in Iraq was not simply a blunder by W., but the extension of a long-term strategy of U.S. domination of that region. The forced displacement of the poor of New Orleans is a new episode in an old legacy of racist subjugation. The recent raids against immigrant workers show the insidious connection between racism, and the system’s needs for a low waged precarious workforce. Continued oppression of women and the hatred whipped up against the GLBT community are designed to reinforce an authoritarian patriarchal culture.

Not a conspiracy or mistaken policy, capitalism is a system in which a small ruling class profits from the labor of the working class majority. The stolen wealth is used to dominate the political system (including both major political parties), and finance a massive apparatus of repression, cooptation and division necessary to maintain capitalist rule. While the earth warms, and bridges collapse, the capitalists continue to do whatever is necessary to increase their profits. To defeat their attacks we must defeat their entire system.

The Anti-Capitalist Bloc stands for solidarity, direct action, the general strike and revolution. We advocate an economic system controlled collectively and democratically, and an end to the racism, sexism and violence of the capitalist system.

Is this a black bloc like in Seattle? No. While remaining tactically flexible, our goal is not a confrontation with the police, but to raise the profile of organized working class direct action against capitalism. The Anti-Capitalist Bloc is independent from, but not competitive with or hostile to the RNC Welcoming Committee.

Join Us Under the Red & Black flags of the Anti-Capitalist Bloc!

Tentative schedule of Anti-Capitalist Bloc events:

*Saturday Night August 30th
CONCERT
Bands and DJ’s TBA

*Sunday Afternoon August 31st
DAY of ACTION AGAINST PRECARITY:
SOLIDARITY with I.W.W. IU640 ORGANIZING!

*Monday September 1st “Labor Day”
ANTI-CAPITALIST BLOC in major march against the war

*Tuesday morning September 2nd
Anti-Capitalist Bloc Panel Discussion

*Tuesday afternoon September 2nd
ANTI-CAPITALIST BLOC in POOR PEOPLE’s MARCH
also
*Solidarity with Independent Truckers Actions

To endorse the Anti-Capitalist Bloc, or to get more information:

anticapbloc@iww.org or 612-339-1266.

Initial Endorsements:

Anti-Capitalist Alliance Twin Cities
tc-anti-cap@lists.riseup.net

Twin Cities General Membership Branch
Industrial Workers of the World (I.W.W.)
TwinCities@iww.org * 612-339-1266

Macalester College chapter
Students for a Democratic Society (SDS)
macpeace.justice@gmail.com

Solidarity & Defense
P.O.Box 15024 Detroit MI 48215
sd@riseup.net * solidarityanddefense. blogspot. com

ANTI-CAPITALIST BLOC PRINCIPLES OF SOLIDARITY

1. ABOLITION OF CAPITALISM

We seek to abolish capitalism in favor of a system based on direct and democratic control of the means of production. The poverty, warfare, oppression and environmental devastation that are inherent in the capitalist system can only be ended by eliminating that system.

2. DIRECT ACTION AND DIRECT DEMOCRACY

We believe that the mass direct action of the working class and its allies, working through democratic organizations, can abolish the capitalist system. We reject the notion that we should wait for experts or politicians, elected or otherwise, to accomplish our goals on our behalf.

3. SOLIDARITY WITH ALL OPPRESSED PEOPLE

We honor the struggles and experiences of all oppressed peoples, whether their oppression is based on race, sex, gender, disability, age, sexual identity, or other social constructs. We know that defeating capitalism requires the solidarity of all oppressed peoples, and we commit ourselves to organizing in ways that do not recreate the hierarchies we resist.

4. INTERNATIONALISM

We reject national borders and nation-states as artificial barriers. We support no action or ideology that separates the working classes of the world, encouraging them to ignore each other at best, exploit each other most of the time, and kill each other at worst.

5. ORGANIZING

We will build networks of solidarity to organize and effectively support community struggles in our neighborhoods, workplaces, and cities. Protest is not enough. We participate in the Anti-Capitalist Bloc in order to promote and move toward our goal of a just and democratic world free from the disease of capitalism.

posted in Anarchism - 16 replies

U.S. strike hit wedding party, 47 civilians killed

2008-07-30T20:04:54Z

Afghan official: U.S. strike hit wedding party
47 civilians killed, commission chief says; U.S. says probe still under way

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25635571/

updated 6:38 a.m. PT, Fri., July. 11, 2008

KABUL, Afghanistan - A U.S. military airstrike this week killed 47 civilians traveling to a wedding, the head of an Afghan government commission investigating the incident said Friday.

The airstrike on Sunday in Deh Bala district of Nuristan province also wounded nine civilians, said Burhanullah Shinwari, the deputy chairman of the Senate, who led the delegation.

The U.S. military on Sunday denied that any civilians were killed in the incident. At the time Afghan officials said 27 civilians had been killed.

On Friday, U.S. coalition spokesman 1st Lt. Nathan Perry said that "any loss of innocent life is tragic."

"I assure you that civilians are never targeted, and that our forces go to great lengths to avoid civilian casualties," he said. "This incident regarding the air strike on July 6th is still under investigation by coalition forces."

Shinwari said that 39 of those killed in the airstrike were women and children, including the bride.

Dispatched by Karzai
The group was targeted twice on Sunday, as they walked along with the bride from her village toward the groom's house in another village, Shinwari said.

The nine-man commission was dispatched by President Hamid Karzai to investigate the incident on Tuesday. They returned to Kabul on Thursday. The commission included officials from the Ministry of Defense, the country's intelligence agency and parliament.

Shinwari said the group gathered information from eyewitnesses and victim's relatives.

All those killed in Deh Bala incident were buried in one cemetery near the village where the attack happened, Shinwari said.

"They were all civilians, with no links to al-Qaida or the Taliban," Shinwari said.

The members of the commission gave $2,000 for every person killed and $1,000 for those wounded, he said.

The issue of civilian casualties has caused friction between the Afghan government and U.S. and NATO troops, and has weakened the standing of the Western-backed Karzai in the eyes of the population.

More than 2,100 people — mostly militants — have been killed in insurgency-related violence in Afghanistan this year. More than 8,000 people died in attacks last year, according to the U.N., the most since the 2001 U.S.-led invasion.

U.S. Out of Afghanistan!
http://tribes.tribe.net/outnow

posted in Anarchism - 0 replies

Anarchist Black Cross Paralegals???

2008-07-28T17:08:45Z

So, I was on the Crimethinc website and saw that this was one of the groups listed. I work in a Criminal Defense firm, and would like to do some volunteering for defending arraigned anarchists....I tried to email the group but never heard back. Anyone know how I might get into this???

posted in Anarchism - 1 reply

New tribe against the occupation of Afghanistan

2008-07-27T06:13:06Z

New tribe against the occupation of Afghanistan
http://tribes.tribe.net/outnow#

Massive U.S. intervention in Afghanistan began in 1978 and continues to this day. The ongoing war in Afghanistan continues to kill thousands of Afghan civilians and cause extreme suffering due to horrendous injuries, the displacement of people from their homes and livelihoods, home invasions, sexual abuse, arbitrary arrests and torture, and the general humiliation of the Afghani people.

As this author stated for Liberation News on September 12, 2001:

“Americans watched in horror as the World Trade Center collapsed. Yet it was a horror no different from what the U.S. government has done with it's bombing of civilian populations in Iraq, Yugoslavia, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, and Korea. The U.S. bombings of just these countries, not to mention many other U.S. acts of war, murdered millions of civilians. Terror against civilians is never justified…

“Today the clerical fascists of the Taliban rule Afghanistan. The CIA put them in power with billions of dollars in U.S. military aid. This massive U.S. intervention in Afghanistan was in opposition to the revolutionary PDPA government that came to power in 1978 on issues of promoting women’s rights and land reform. Literacy campaigns began teaching the poor and women how to read and write.

“Foreign religious fanatics and wealthy defenders of the old feudal system came together in a terrorist organization called the Mujahideen. With billions of dollars in assistance from the U.S. [starting under the Jimmy Carter presidency] these fanatical cutthroats waged a holy war that included killing women for teaching little girls how to read and write and throwing acid into the faces of women who had become liberated from the veil. The Taliban came to power as a result of this U.S. intervention.

“Will a U.S. war now against the Taliban and former CIA aid recipient Osama Bin Laden set things straight? No. It will be the people of Afghanistan who suffer death and destruction from war as the U.S. attempts to install a puppet government friendly to U.S. corporate (oil) interests.” Steven Argue, Liberation News, September 12, 2001

The Taliban was put in power by U.S. intervention. U.S. occupation today is a cause for war and continues to keep an extremely reactionary religious government in power. Afghanistan had secular governments with much wider women's rights before the U.S. began its massive intervention in Afghanistan in the 1970's. All U.S. imposed governments have been religious and anti-women. In Afghanistan, the Afghanis are better qualified to solve the problems caused by U.S. imperialism than U.S. imperialism is.

Yet rather than get out of Afghanistan Obama and McCain are proposing more troops, more helicopters, and more war.

NO TO THE BIPARTISAN OCCUPATION OF AFGHANISTAN!!!!

NO TO OBAMA and MCCAIN'S PROPOSED SURGE IN AFGHANISTAN!

U.S. OUT OF AFGHANISTAN NOW!

*~U.S. and Allies Out of Afghanistan!!~*
http://tribes.tribe.net/outnow#

posted in Anarchism - 0 replies

YouTube of RNC/DNC conventions

2008-07-23T06:48:52Z

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=magUBVXrgiQ

posted in Anarchism - 0 replies

Obama Lays Out Plans for Continued War

2008-07-15T04:01:21Z

Obama Lays Out Plans for Continued War

By Steven Argue

In a July 14, 2008 New York Times Op Ed, Barack Obama says:

"As I’ve said many times, we must be as careful getting out of Iraq as we were careless getting in. We can safely redeploy our combat brigades at a pace that would remove them in 16 months. That would be the summer of 2010 — two years from now, and more than seven years after the war began. After this redeployment, a residual force in Iraq would perform limited missions: going after any remnants of Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, protecting American service members and, so long as the Iraqis make political progress, training Iraqi security forces."

In other words, he does not plan to get all of the troops out of Iraq and he will only get most of the troops out in two years. And what does he explain he will do with these troops? Redeploy them. Redeployed where? His rhetoric has been clear: Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Iran.

Obama goes on to call for a surge in Afghanistan as well as war in Pakistan:

"Ending the war [in Iraq] is essential to meeting our broader strategic goals, starting in Afghanistan and Pakistan [...] As president, I would pursue a new strategy, and begin by providing at least two additional combat brigades to support our effort in Afghanistan. We need more troops, more helicopters [...]"

U.S. intervention has also been very bad for the people of Pakistan. It is US intervention that has kept a long series of dictators in power there. The US has no right to intervene against those fighting that dictatorship that it labels "terrorists". Likewise, it is US intervention in support of a long series of Pakistani dictators that is the cause of Bhutto's death, brutal repression against the majority, exploitation, and poverty, all of which has resulted in rebellion against the Pakistani government. The US has already harmed the Pakistani people enough with massive aid to dictators and would do more harm by sending in troops.

NO TO OBAMA’S PROPOSED MILITARY INTERVENTION IN PAKISTAN!

Massive U.S. intervention in Afghanistan began in 1978 and continues to this day. The ongoing war in Afghanistan continues to kill thousands of Afghan civilians and cause extreme suffering due to horrendous injuries, the displacement of people from their homes and livelihoods, home invasions, sexual abuse, arbitrary arrests and torture, and the general humiliation of the Afghani people.

As this author stated for Liberation News on September 12, 2001:

“Americans watched in horror as the World Trade Center collapsed. Yet it was a horror no different from what the U.S. government has done with it's bombing of civilian populations in Iraq, Yugoslavia, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, and Korea. The U.S. bombings of just these countries, not to mention many other U.S. acts of war, murdered millions of civilians. Terror against civilians is never justified…

“Today the clerical fascists of the Taliban rule Afghanistan. The CIA put them in power with billions of dollars in U.S. military aid. This massive U.S. intervention in Afghanistan was in opposition to the revolutionary PDPA government that came to power in 1978 on issues of promoting women’s rights and land reform. Literacy campaigns began teaching the poor and women how to read and write.

“Foreign religious fanatics and wealthy defenders of the old feudal system came together in a terrorist organization called the Mujahideen. With billions of dollars in assistance from the U.S. [starting under the Jimmy Carter presidency] these fanatical cutthroats waged a holy war that included killing women for teaching little girls how to read and write and throwing acid into the faces of women who had become liberated from the veil. The Taliban came to power as a result of this U.S. intervention.

“Will a U.S. war now against the Taliban and former CIA aid recipient Osama Bin Laden set things straight? No. It will be the people of Afghanistan who suffer death and destruction from war as the U.S. attempts to install a puppet government friendly to U.S. corporate (oil) interests.” Steven Argue, Liberation News, September 12, 2001

The Taliban was put in power by U.S. intervention. U.S. occupation today is a cause for war and continues to keep an extremely reactionary religious government in power. Afghanistan had secular governments with much wider women's rights before the U.S. began its massive intervention in Afghanistan in the 1970's. All U.S. imposed governments have been religious and anti-women. In Afghanistan, the Afghanis are better qualified to solve the problems caused by U.S. imperialism than U.S. imperialism is.

Yet rather than get out of Afghanistan Obama is proposing more troops, more helicopters, and more war.

NO TO OBAMA”S PROPOSED SURGE IN AFGHANISTAN!

U.S. OUT OF AFGHANISTAN NOW!

In addition, at AIPAC, Obama’s speech laid the groundwork for war with Iran:

“The Iranian regime supports violent extremists and challenges us across the region. It pursues a nuclear capability that could spark a dangerous arms race and raise the prospect of a transfer of nuclear know-how to terrorists. [...] The danger from Iran is grave, it is real, and my goal will be to eliminate this threat.”

A war on a major oil producing nation under the imperialist excuse of weapons of mass destruction. Sound familiar? Bush would have a good case for a charge of plagiarism against Obama.

And what will the Iranians think of more imperialist intervention?

In 1953 the CIA overthrew the democratically elected government of Mohammed Mossadegh in Iran and put the brutal dictatorship of the Shah in power. Mossadegh had plans to nationalize the Iranian oil fields, a plan that would have taken a good chunk of the oil profits out of the private control of major international oil companies. Such nationalizations have greatly helped people in other countries, such as Venezuela, where oil wealth is used to better the conditions of the poor and provide needed programs like healthcare.

The CIA sponsored overthrow of the Mossadegh government paved the way for 26 years of dictatorship under the U.S. backed Shah. Freedom of speech did not exist under the Shah, and the CIA participated in the torture of political opponents to the Shah. Meanwhile, U.S. oil corporations made massive profits from Iranian oil while the vast majority of the Iranian people lived in extreme poverty and did not benefit from the oil wealth.

The Iranian people rightly saw the Shah as a puppet of U.S. imperialism, and finally overthrew his dictatorship in 1979. Unfortunately, repression was so bad under the Shah that the only place that people could organize opposition was in the Mosques. This gave the Mullahs a tremendous advantage in taking control of the revolution. The Islamic nature of the revolution led to a deterioration of women's rights and socialists, many of whom had naively supported the Islamic Revolution, were executed by the clerical fascist state.

Despite the brutal nature of the new Iranian government, in that respect the same as the old regime the U.S. had supported, the U.S. was not satisfied. The new regime nationalized the Iranian oil fields under government control. In addition, the new government was full of anti-imperialist rhetoric and took American hostages; a natural result of 26 years of U.S. imposed dictatorship and exploitation. The U.S. government hated the Iranian revolution most for nationalizing the oil, and they feared that the Iranian Revolution may become an influence for similar anti-imperialist revolutions in the region.

As a result, the U.S. encouraged then ally, Saddam Hussein to send Iraqi troops to invade Iran. During the war, the U.S. armed both sides, but most armed Iraq and provided Iraq with military intelligence. The Iraqi invasion of Iran began on September 22, 1980 and the war continued until 1988. As a result of the war, between half million and a million and a half people died. This U.S. support to Iraq also helped enable Iraq to murder between 50,000 and 100,000 Kurds in the Anfal campaign of 1988. At the time, the U.S. corporate media was silent about this crime, and only exposed it later when U.S. alliances changed.

So U.S. intervention against Iran imposed decades of dictatorship, repression, war, exploitation, poverty, and, just in the Iran-Iraq war alone, the deaths of around a million Iranian people. Like Iraq, U.S. troops on the ground in Iran will not be treated as liberators.

The Iranian working class has many scores to settle with their Iranian rulers, but as bad as the current regime in Iran is, Iranians need only look across the border into Iraq to see that U.S. occupation will be much worse. War, a puppet capitalist regime, a million dead, torture, millions of refugees, and an occupier mainly interested in privatization to loot resources. As Iraq shows, there is no liberation at the hands of U.S. occupation. And as the CIA’s Shah showed, there is no liberation under a U.S. imposed puppet. Only anti-imperialist socialist revolution can begin to solve the problems faced by women, ethnic minorities, and the working class of Iran.

NO TO OBAMA’S THREATS AGAINST IRAN!

U.S. HANDS OFF IRAN!

On Iraq, Obama has never promised to fully withdraw. In a debate in September 2007, when asked if he would have U.S. troops out of Iraq by 2013 Barack Obama said "I believe that we should have all our troops out by 2013, but I don't want to make promises not knowing what the situation's going to be three or four years out." ("The Democratic Presidential Debate on MSNBC", New York Times 9/26/07).

The U.S. must leave by air, sea, and land as quickly as possible. U.S. imperialism has created a horrible situation, but that is no excuse to stay, and U.S. troops, Halliburton, etc. are only making matters worse. Over a million Iraqis are dead. These deaths are not just caused by the civil war that the U.S. has ignited, nor are they just caused by the death-squad government that the U.S. has put in power. U.S. guns and bombers are also the direct cause of a large number of deaths. Iraq needs to be turned over to the Iraqi people through immediate withdrawal.

In addition, Obama has directly supported the U.S. war and occupation of Iraq by voting in the Senate to fund it. If it were not for the Democrat votes in congress, the recent $162 billion dollars for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan would have never passed.

This most recent New York Times Op Ed from Obama continues on with a pro-war position. Obama is clear. He wants a gradual redeployment of the majority of troops to fight other wars while calling for continuing keep some troops fighting in Iraq.

On Blackwater mercenaries fighting in Iraq Obama also refuses to support a ban, and promised to continue to use Blackwater when he becomes president (Democracy Now!, June 2, 2008).

The US government has no right to be in Iraq murdering, torturing, and humiliating their people while making massive profits for the military industry and other contractors. The U.S. is attempting to privatize Iraqi oil to eliminate Iraqi control over this most important resource and give U.S. and British oil companies control over the oil. The puppet government the US has set up is a death squad government that should not be protected by U.S. troops. Continued occupation of Iraq is a continued attempt to subvert the national will of the Iraqi people and it must end immediately, yet Obama's plan is to only leave, partially, after a couple years, and this, assuredly, only after the oil law has been passed and oil ownership handed over to the multi-nationals. This, as Obama's own use of the term "redeployment" indicates, will free U.S. troops up for other oil wars.

NO TO OBAMA’S “PHASED REDEPLOYMENT”!

U.S. OUT OF IRAQ AND AFGHANISTAN NOW!

U.S. HANDS OFF THE WORLD!

Another major cause for war in the Middle East is U.S. military support to the racist regime in Israel. Obama promises to continue this practice. At AIPAC Obama promised:

“Defense cooperation between the United States and Israel is a model of success, and must be deepened. As president, I will implement a Memorandum of Understanding that provides $30 billion in assistance to Israel over the next decade — investments to Israel's security that will not be tied to any other nation. First, we must approve the foreign aid request for 2009. Going forward, we can enhance our cooperation on missile defense. We should export military equipment to our ally Israel under the same guidelines as NATO.”

This despite Israel’s recent war of aggression against Lebanon, a war that, if it were not for the heroic resistance of Hezbollah fighters, would have ended in another Israeli occupation like Israel’s brutal occupation of Lebanon that took place in the 1980’s. That occupation included crimes against humanity committed by Israeli and allied Christian Phalangists when they massacred thousands of Palestinians in cold-blood at the Sabra and Chatila refugee camps.

In addition, Obama’s speech made no reference to the suffering faced by the Palestinian people as a result of the creation and continuation of the Jewish state. Israel is a state that created a homeland for one people, through force and violence, by denying the homeland of Palestine’s original inhabitants. Also missing from Obama’s speech was the brutal blockade currently being carried out against Palestinians in Gaza. Obama expressed zero sympathy for the Palestinians and other Arabs, only promises to supply Israel with the weapons to kill more Arabs.

Massive U.S. military aid helps keep the repressive governments of Israel, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia in power. Instead of promising more U.S. military aid, that aid should be cut off to better allow the people of the Middle East to decide their own future.

NO TO OBAMA’S PROMISE OF BILLIONS TO ISRAEL!

Another indicator of where Obama stands on imperialist war is how he sees the past wars of the United States. Of H. W. Bush and his war on Iraq Obama recently stated, "I have enormous sympathy for the foreign policy of George H. W. Bush. I don't have a lot of complaints about their handling of Desert Storm." (Barack Obama, from David Brooks article, "Obama Admires Bush, NY Times, May 16, 2008)

Leading up to that war, Kuwait was slant drilling into Iraqi Ramaila oil fields. Iraq saw this as theft. In addition, the Kuwaiti monarchy went against OPEC quotas and increased oil production by 40%, bringing down the price of oil on the world market, something Saddam Hussein called economic warfare.

Before Iraq invaded Kuwait, Saddam Hussein was, at that time an ally of the United States in the wars against Iran and the Kurds. He had received massive U.S. military backing in those wars. When he assembled troops on the Kuwaiti border, US ambassador April Glaspie met with Saddam Hussein and told him, "We have no opinion on the Arab-Arab conflicts, like your border disagreement with Kuwait."

Saddam Hussein saw this as a green light from his powerful U.S. ally to invade Kuwait. Soon after, he did.

But Saddam Hussein was set up by the United States because the U.S. wanted a war. The reason for this was to prop up the profits of the military industrial complex. The Soviet Union had just fallen, and the military industries needed an excuse to keep spending billions of dollars of our tax dollars on the military.

Saddam Hussein was the perfect boogie-man to meet their needs. The U.S. corporate media pointed out that he had murdered tens of thousands of Kurds, never mentioning why they were silent when the operations were taking place with weapons supplied by the United States.

The U.S. corporate media also claimed that premature babies in Kuwait had been taken out of incubators and left to die so that the incubators could be shipped back to Baghdad. The whole story was a complete fabrication, and the corporate media even admitted it after the war, but the lie served its purpose in swaying many people who otherwise questioned going to war for the repressive Kuwaiti monarchy.

In addition, President H.W. Bush claimed as reason for war, "Within three days, 120,000 Iraqi troops with 850 tanks had poured into Kuwait and moved south to threaten Saudi Arabia. It was then that I decided to act to check that aggression." This was based on supposed Pentagon satellite photos. Yet, from commercial satellite photos acquired by the St. Petersburg Times, this was proven to be a lie, the desert Bush senior and the Pentagon referred to was nothing but empty desert.

While playing up false stories of baby killers and the new Hitler that was going to march across the Middle East, the U.S. corporate media ignored Kuwait’s theft of Iraqi oil as well the historic claim of Iraq to Kuwait, with Kuwait being a construct of British imperialism to divide the territory and limit Iraqi access to the sea.

In addition, the U.S. corporate media completely ignored the repressive nature of the Kuwaiti monarchy that U.S. troops were sent to fight and die for. The vast majority of those living in Kuwait were denied the right to vote and other more basic rights. This included women and people labeled foreigners, many of whom had been in Kuwait for generations. Some who had ancestors in Kuwait prior to 1920 were even denied Kuwaiti citizenship. Palestinian workers built modern Kuwait, but they were kept in second class status. This situation was so bad that many Palestinians aided the Iraqi troops and saw them as a liberation army. After the U.S. re-installed the monarchy, most Kuwaiti Palestinians were driven out of Kuwait.

For women in Kuwait the Iraqi invasion also brought hope. Unlike all of the US supported governments and forces in the Arab World, Iraqi women have many rights found nowhere else in the Arab World except in the Asian republics of the former Soviet Union. Under Saddam Hussein, over 50% of Iraqi doctors were women. Iraqi women were allowed to walk unescorted in the streets. They were allowed to drive. Iraqi women could even freely criticize men. In addition, Iraqi women had the right to work and control their own funds. This was in stark contrast to the treatment of women under the repressive monarchy of Kuwait where women had / have no rights what-so-ever.

In carrying out the war to defend the Kuwaiti monarchy the U.S. used depleted uranium (DU) weapons that have contaminated Iraqi water, soil, and food with radiation. This radiation has caused large numbers of birth defects and other diseases for the Iraqi people. In addition, U.S. soldiers were not given protection and, as a result, became ill in massive numbers with the symptoms of radiation poisoning. Like Agent Orange poisoning in Vietnam, the military brass pretended they had no clue to the cause of this illness that became dubbed “Persian Gulf War Syndrome”. Yet this was later exposed as a lie when reports were made public warning the military brass of the health risks of DU weapons before the war.

Government demographer Beth Osborn Duponte lost her job when she estimated the civilian loss of life in Iraq to be around 83,000, 13,000 directly from U.S. bombing and another 70,000 civilians dead as a result of U.S. targeting of civilian necessities such as water treatment facilities, medical facilities and supplies, and the electric power grid.

In addition, Duponte estimated deaths of Iraqi troops to be around 40,000. Many of the Iraqi troops killed were buried alive. In defense of U.S. actions Col. Lon Maggart said, "People somehow have the notion that burying guys alive is nastier than blowing them up with hand grenades or sticking them in gut with bayonets, well it's not."

So Obama has no problems with Bush targeting civilians, irradiating U.S. troops and the Iraqi people, burying people alive, and re-installing a repressive monarchy in Kuwait. In addition, Obama wants to escalate the war in Afghanistan, send troops into Pakistan, is already threatening Iran with war, will never fully pull out of Iraq and only promises to pull out most troops in two years after an extended gradual re-deployment of troops to other wars, will continue to use murderous Blackwater mercenaries in Iraq, and promises billions in military aid to Israel. Enough said.

Obama will be nominated the presidential candidate of the Democrat Party on August 24-28 at the Democrat Party National Convention (DNC). In opposition to the DNC convention, protests are being organized, with organizers stating:

"On August 24-28, the ruling elite and their defenders will converge in Denver Colorado, in an attempt to recuperate the gains of global social movements and produce another myth of progress. Lip service to global warming, the economic crisis and the war will endow them with the magic to spread amnesia across the hearts and minds of North America... Outside those doors, however, so many will exclaim, smash and sing a harmonious ‘no.’...”

In addition, there will be protests at the equally pro-war Republican National convention being held September 1-4 in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

Although virtually ignored by the corporate press, there are other presidential candidates who are running in opposition to the Democrats and Republicans who are for immediate withdrawal from Iraq and Afghanistan. These include Cynthia McKinney running on the Green Party ticket, Brian Moore of the Socialist Party, Gloria La Riva on the Party for Socialism and Liberation ticket, and Róger Calero on the Socialist Workers Party ticket. Corporate controlled elections and media assure that these authentic anti-war candidates will not get elected, but these candidacies do help expose people to positions of politicians not controlled by corporate interests and the pro-war Democrat Party machine. In addition, through some of these campaigns, more people become exposed to socialist ideas and the ideas of class struggle methods to bring about change.

A vote for Obama or McCain is a vote for war! So that's what, in active terms, you're really voting for when you vote Democrat or Republican. Those of us voting for third parties, or refusing to vote, will not change the country directly through the elections either, but at least we won’t be dumb enough to vote for own oppressors and exploiters that are waging imperialist war. Instead, we will have the sense to be working for something different.

And those of us in unions should be angry that our hard earned union dues are being squandered on the Democrat Party when that money should instead be put into stronger strike funds to strengthen our ability to fight for better contracts, for socialized medicine, and for bigger strikes against the wars.

Build the Anti-War Movement! For More Strikes for Immediate Withdrawal Like the May 1st ILWU Anti-War Strike That Shut Down 29 Ports! Support Soldiers Refusing to Fight Including the 10,000 U.S. Soldiers Who Have Gone AWOL! Build the Socialist and Anti-Imperialist Movements! U.S. Hands off Iran! U.S. Out of Iraq and Afghanistan Now!

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Unionists Protest Uribe Venezuela Visit

2008-07-11T15:23:27Z

Uribe visit to Venezuela

STATEMENT OF CCURA UNION TENDENCY ON URIBE VISIT

July 6--The Corriente Clasista Unitaria Revolucionaria y Autonoma of the National Union of Workers (U.N.T.) rejects categorically the visit that has announced of Alvaro Uribe to Caracas, top representative of the bloody Colombian oligarchy. Venezuelan workers have shown that we are anti-imperialist fighters in fact and not just in words. We do not share the judgment issued by President Chavez when he referred to the Colombian president as a "brother" and "friend" in the opening event of the Non-Aligned Ministers Conference, We know he represents the drug traffickers and paramilitarists that kill Colombian workers and peasants. He can never be a friend or brother of our people.

The Venezuelan government has announced a meeting between Chavez and Uribe on July 11th. It will be one month since the infamous act of President Chavez, together with representatives of the Venezuelan bourgeoisie, announced "the productive reimpulse" through a strategic alliance with the exploiters. Just as the class enemies of Venezuelan workers form alliances with the government, now the maximum representative of imperialism in South America, Alvaro Uribe, will visit Caracas to give a "reimpulse" to relations with the Venezuelan government.

But the workers know who Uribe is and no government can fool us and present him as a friend or ally. Our class brothers are persecuted and murdered by the paramilitaries headed by Uribe, as Colombia has been the country where the largest number of trade unionists in the world have been murdered. This year several activists and worker fighters were murdered because they participated in a national march against the paramilitaries and state terrorism. Our brothers and friends are those who are carrying the democratic struggles against the fascist government of Uribe.

We salute the action of community radio ECOS 93.9 of Merida and other revolutionary collectives to organize a massive mobilization in repudiation of the visit of Uribe, and our organization will join this action which will class struggle, revolutionary and anti-imperialist.

(translated by Earl Gilman)

Distributed by Liberation News
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Cool Earth Party
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Iran redux

2008-06-27T05:47:05Z

ZNet ZNet

United States and Israel against Iran

Flashpoints Interview

June, 26 2008

By Gareth Porter
and Dennis Bernstein

Source: Flashpoints

Gareth Porter's ZSpace Page
Join ZSpace

Dennis Bernstein: We focus on potential war by the United States and Israel against Iran. We're watching that closely. The drums of war are beating again in the Middle East, as we say. And the war that may be brewing between Israel and the U.S. and Iran has the potential to dwarf the consequences of the U.S. invasion of Iraq, as deadly and horrific as that's been. The latest warning sign came in the New York Times reported last Friday that in early June, Israel had carried out a major military exercise. U.S. officials called it "a rehearsal for a potential bombing attack on Iran's nuclear facilities." The exercise involved more than a hundred Israeli F-16 and F-15 fighters. The same week, Germany's Der Spiegel reported that Israel's leadership has concluded that diplomacy has failed to stop Iran's nuclear program and that military action is unavoidable, a warning that was earlier sounded by the German foreign minister. These ominous developments come after months of escalating threats and charges by the U.S. and Israel against Iran for its actions in Iraq and Lebanon and Gaza and for supposedly pursuing nuclear weapons despite repeated international atomic agency findings to the contrary. Top Bush officials have taken trips to the region, perhaps for military consultations. Andrew Cockburn reports that earlier this year, the Bush administration secretly authorized a sweeping covert action program against Iran, including assassinating officials. And there have been reports in The Asian Times, the Times of London, and by former CIA officer Philip Giraldi that a U.S. strike on Revolutionary Guard camps inside Iran has already been authorized. So is this all for show simply to pressure Iran or is a war really possible?

With us to examine these developments is Gareth Porter. He is the author of Perils of Dominance: Imbalance of Power and the Road to War in Vietnam. He is a contributor to InterPress News Service, The American Prospect, The Nation, and Salon.com...

Gareth Porter, it is good to have you in the studio... You've done some interesting investigations in terms of what has been leading up to this, and the role that the U.S. is playing with Israel in a potential attack on Iran. In particular, you found out and wrote about how Cheney and his allies actually tried to win approval for strikes against Iran's Revolutionary Guard camps last August. Can you talk about this incident and why there was a little bit of restraint?

Gareth Porter: Right. This is, I think, very important for the simple reason that it does provide a kind of smoking gun evidence, if you will, that this whole unfolding threat to Iran has not been simply a psyops, simply an intimidation operation. We know now for a fact that Dick Cheney did, in fact, propose within the Administration that they attack Revolutionary Guard bases in Iran that were supposedly connected with supplying or training the Iraqi Shiite militiamen coming back to Iraq to fight U.S. occupation forces. And this would be done if and when they could get some kind of concrete evidence that would basically convict the Iranians of some direct involvement in the fight in Iraq.

What we now know is that the Pentagon responded to that proposal very quickly and very strongly by arguing that it's not going to be on to simply go out and launch a so-called limited strike without considering what is going to be the consequence of that in terms of escalation on the Iranian side and then what are we going to do, assuming as they did assume, that the Iranians would in fact respond by targeting probably American bases, American personnel in the Middle East and probably in Iraq. And assuming that, then what would the United States do in response and how far are we going to go up the escalatory ladder?

That was the issue that they raised, according to a former State Department official who went on the record with me: Jay Scott Carpenter. This is the first time that a former Bush administration official had actually gone on the record and said yes, there was in fact not only a Cheney proposal officially within the Administration, but a very important and very high-level debate over that. And the result of it was, in effect, that the Pentagon -- and the Joint Chiefs of Staff were supporting them on this, according to Jay Scott Carpenter. They supported the Pentagon officials who said, "No, we can't do this without figuring out how far we're going to go", and the implication being that we're not going to support an all-out war with Iran, which would -- certainly, the obvious implication that was being drawn from the Cheney proposal, that that's what he really wanted.

Dennis Bernstein: Any sense how close Cheney got to having his way?

Gareth Porter: No, you can't really find out from a single source who was obviously getting this somewhat indirectly, because he was not personally involved in the meetings themselves, just how close we might have come to that. But the impression that I got was that the response was so negative and so strong, and that it was so unanimous within the Pentagon, including the military leadership, that Cheney was really put on the defensive, that he did not have the kind of arguments that he could come back with to basically counter this very strong argument by the Pentagon against his proposal. But what I did point out in my article is that this was the second time that Cheney had been, in a way, checkmated or stopped by the National Security bureaucracy in Washington - if you will, the permanent government - from making moves toward sort of setting up a war with Iran.

The first time was in early 2007. It was in February 2007 - or January/February 2007 - when Cheney essentially ordered the military in Baghdad to put out a briefing that would essentially take the position that Iran had been manufacturing these explosively formed projectiles which were armor-penetrating explosives, which were killing American troops in Iraq. And he was arguing that Iran is really fighting a proxy war by supplying these to the Iraqi Shiite militia. Well, the Defense Department, the State Department, and the NSC all said, "We can't say that. There's no evidence for it. And we've already been through this once with Iraq. And we'll all have egg all over our faces and our credibility will be shot." And so they said no to that. And so it looked like Cheney was checkmated because it went into the interagency process and essentially they sent the briefing back to the authors and said, "Do it again and do it right so that it's consistent with the evidence." Well, this time, in February 2007, Cheney did an end-run around the bureaucracy by getting Petraeus, who was going out to become the top commander in Baghdad of the U.S. forces, to agree that as soon as he arrived, they would, in fact, give that same military briefing that gave the Cheney line that the bureaucrats said no to. And that's exactly what happened. Within 24 hours of Petraeus's arrival in Baghdad and his taking over the command of U.S. forces, that briefing was given. The State Department, I guarantee you, did not know it was coming until two days beforehand.

Dennis Bernstein: Now you're saying then, you are suggesting - or more - that General Petraeus was an active player, that he was a willing partner in what appears to be a Cheney operation or deception

Gareth Porter: Absolutely. There is no doubt in my mind.

Dennis Bernstein: Say a little more about that.

Gareth Porter: Clearly, what happened was that Petraeus, when he got his job, it was on the condition that he would support the Bush-Cheney policy, both in Iraq and with regard to Iran. And that's exactly what happened. When he went out there, from the White House, from the Cheney wing of the White House, to have the military briefers give that briefing, which had been vetoed in Washington.

Now, that was just the first step in this. We later see Petraeus in September of 2007, after he's been out there several months, give an interview with Brit Hume of Fox News Television in which he said - I won't try to put forward the same words that he used - but he said, in effect, that we have been saying to the White House and to CENTCOM that we need to do something about the allegation or reality of Iranian interference in Iraq, implying very clearly that he was supporting the Cheney proposal to attach the Iranian bases, which are connected, supposedly, with that issue.

Dennis Bernstein: And, of course, given the short tenure that he had in Iraq, it gives one the impression that he was really an agent in this process. So he gets in, he does a few things, and then he's kicked upstairs. That was very interesting. Everybody wondered if he was so successful, so effective, The Man, then why did they take him out so fast? But maybe he had a mission.

Gareth Porter: He is not an independent actor. Petraeus is a man who has been sent to Iraq to carry out the policy of the Bush White House, and he will do the same thing on Iran. And that is why his being named to replace, in effect, Admiral Fallon as commander of CENTCOM is so important and why it sets up a situation in which Cheney and Bush can do an end-run around the opponents of war with Iran in Washington.

Dennis Bernstein: And, of course, you take out the unwilling general and you put in the willing general.

Gareth Porter: Exactly. And he's arriving - and this is very important - the timing of his arrival is late summer, early fall. It's going to be August or September. So I think that we can say that the period of maximum danger about U.S. intentions -- which I think that there is a serious possibility that they do intend to attach Iran - it will be after the arrival at CENTCOM in Tampa of General Petraeus in later summer or early fall.

Dennis Bernstein: ...We did hear - and Reese Ehrlich did some significant reporting on what was happening at the border, and the fact that the United States, with Israeli intelligence such as Mossad, were already busy going back and forth over the border. There was a great deal of counterinsurgencies. There are connections between what was going on there and this.

Gareth Porter: If you mean the connection between the Israeli role in Iraq and Iran, of course they're connected in the sense that Israel is very deeply involved in all of the Cheney -Bush policies in the Middle East. There's a very, very close working collaboration across the board, whether it's Lebanon, Iran, Iraq, or other parts of the Middle East. They are very, very closely working together on a common strategy. At least they discuss common strategies. That is not to say that everything Israel does has been planned ahead of time by the White House with the Israelis. In fact, the White House neocons, including Cheney, wanted Israel to go much farther in 2006 than they actually did. They wanted them to take down the Syrian regime instead of stopping in Lebanon. So there's not a perfect correlation, by any means.

Dennis Bernstein: Now following up right on that, that brings us to these recent exercises. The United States reported them as if they were surprises. It's like, oh, they'd better tell the New York Times that Israel did an exercise because they didn't know it was happening. Let's talk about what this exercise has to do with the relationship between the U.S. and their push toward war in Iran. What about this story?

Gareth Porter: First of all, I think we have to see that the purpose of this story -- from both Israeli and Bush Administration point of view - was to implicate the United States more deeply in the Israeli policy, to give the appearance to the world and to the American people that the Bush Administration is speaking, not on behalf of Israel, but speaking with Israel, announcing that this is taking place and giving it their interpretation, in a way that was useful to Israel.

But there's a second point here that I think you also need to keep in mind. That is that Israel is not likely to strike Iran without the direct involvement, militarily, of the United States. The United States will be involved in some way if Israel strikes Iran, whether it's sending American bombers or simply providing the intelligence and other support for an Israel strike. They have to do it with the Americans; they can't do it successfully without the Americans.
From: Z Net - The Spirit Of Resistance Lives
URL: http://www.zcommunications.org/znet/viewArticle/18006

posted in Anarchism - 2 replies

Message From Iraqi Resistance

2008-06-26T21:34:01Z

While I have disagreements with the following group, they make many good points in this video, and I agree most fundamentally with the right of Iraqis to run their country as they see fit without the US occupation.

Message From Iraqi Resistance
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ccMuRyBnTIs&feature=related

The following are insane US troops caught on tape in Iraq. Would you want this occupation army in your country?

US Marines Throw Puppy Off Cliff
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K6zXpgcpW5w&feature=related

US Soldier on tape admits to rape and torture in Iraq!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O3dvoBhevOQ&feature=related

Iraq - Soldiers shoot civilians
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hWE5hu4z_8Y&NR=1

Abu Ghraib - Iraq
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rz7UNxnOI3M&NR=1

American Soldiers attack on Terrorist sheep
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3TQdgyEapvw&feature=related

KILL EVERYBODY: American soldier exposes US policy in Iraq
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VwwMF6biCJU&feature=related

Iraqi Kids Begging For Water
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tSnHudm5Cmk&feature=related

Apache killing Iraqi Truck drivers
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LbVTfrm06v8&feature=related

Winning the hearts and minds of the Iraqis
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CyRPYMTICRM&feature=related

Soldiers beat teenage Iraqis
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mnp0C0PNZT4&feature=related

US Soldiers Shoot A Dog!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5bQU89FyVw0&feature=related

US soldiers Killing a wounded Iraqi
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z0qs71TYwoM&feature=related

American Soldiers having fun Killing Civilians in Iraq
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7FD1jHueZZc&feature=related

American Soldiers Taunt Thirsty Iraqi Kids
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=667SaGS-Jqg&feature=related

US / British Troops Out of Iraq!

posted in Anarchism - 0 replies

Obama on Blackwater-A glaring hint that he isn't going to pull out.

2008-06-07T05:41:33Z

AMY GOODMAN: I want to talk about the future of Blackwater and also the bases here in the United States. But first, let me play for you a little exchange I had with Barack Obama, asking him about Blackwater. He had come to Cooper Union a few months ago to talk about the economy, and afterwards in the rope line, I asked him.

AMY GOODMAN: Would you call for a ban on the private military contractors like Blackwater?

SEN. BARACK OBAMA: I’ve actually—I’m the one who sponsored the bill that called for the investigation of Blackwater in [inaudible], so—

AMY GOODMAN: But would you support the Sanders one now?

SEN. BARACK OBAMA: Here’s the problem: we have 140,000 private contractors right there, so unless we want to replace all of or a big chunk of those with US troops, we can’t draw down the contractors faster than we can draw down our troops. So what I want to do is draw—I want them out in the same way that we make sure that we draw out our own combat troops. Alright? I mean, I—

AMY GOODMAN: Not a ban?

SEN. BARACK OBAMA: Well, I don’t want to replace those contractors with more US troops, because we don’t have them, alright? But this was a speech about the economy.

AMY GOODMAN: The war is costing $3 trillion, according to Stiglitz.

SEN. BARACK OBAMA: That’s what—I know, which I made a speech about last week. Thank you.

AMY GOODMAN: That was Barack Obama.

JEREMY SCAHILL: This is interesting. I mean, this is one of the more interesting exchanges I’ve seen with a presidential candidate on this issue. I mean, it almost never gets raised at all.

Barack Obama—this is the reality about this. Barack Obama understands this issue extremely well. His staff has been on top of this for quite some time. He—what he said to you is true. He did introduce the legislation in the Senate that has become the Democrats’ official legislation on these private security companies, and he did it eight months before Nisour Square. So, clearly, Barack Obama is someone who has been following this very closely. He understands it very intimately.

What’s interesting—and you raised this with him—is that he won’t take the step toward actually trying to ban these companies. Representative Jan Schakowsky and Senator Bernie Sanders have put forward legislation called the Stop Outsourcing Security Act in the Congress, and Barack Obama has said he’s not going to come onboard and support that legislation.

Interestingly, when I reported in The Nation that Obama would not support that legislation, which seeks to ban the use of these companies in US war zones, Hillary Clinton, five days before the Texas and Ohio primaries, the day my piece comes out, she responds by putting a statement on her website saying that she’s going to endorse Bernie Sanders’ legislation, and she becomes the single most important US political figure to come out for a ban. Now, I’m glad that Hillary Clinton did that, and I look forward to her making this one of her top legislative priorities after the primary season is over.

But on Barack Obama, he’s in a very complicated situation, because his Iraq plan actually is not a plan to end the occupation of Iraq. It’s to continue it with a different label attached to it. And so, you hear him there talking about how “I don’t want to replace contractors with US troops.” The reality is, and Barack Obama knows this very well, his Iraq plan could not be implemented if he was against the use of Blackwater or other private security forces. And the reality is, he’s probably going to have to use these companies for two to three years at a minimum, unless he makes it an aggressive point of trying to shut them down. He might even have to use Blackwater for the first year of his administration.

http://www.democracynow.org/2008/6/2/blackwater_jeremy_scahill_on

posted in Anarchism - 0 replies

Raygun used against mock protesters.

2008-06-02T23:52:02Z

60 Minutes: Pentagon's raygun demonstrated on mock protesters
06/02/2008 @ 10:01 am
Filed by David Edwards and Muriel Kane

The Pentagon has been developing a raygun which can harmlessly repel enemies by causing a burning sensation in the top layer of the skin. However, according to CBS's 60 Minutes, the military is unwilling to actually trust this weapon enough to deploy it in Iraq.
Advertisement

"We are now stepping into the Buck Rogers scenario," explained Colonel Kirk Hymes, who is in charge of testing the "Active Denial System" at Moody Air Force Base in Georgia.

Hymes demonstrated the weapon by staging what CBS somewhat oddly called "a scenario soldiers might encounter in Iraq" -- a handful of military volunteers, dressed as civilian protesters, who carried signs saying "peace not war" and threw objects at a small group of soldiers. A series of raygun blasts from half a mile away disrupted their chants and finally sent them running.

Assistant Secretary of the Air Force for Acquisiton Sue Payton calls the Active Denial System a "huge game-changer" which "would save huge numbers of lives." She told CBS, "It could be used to read someone's mind, in effect. ... If they continue to come at you, then you're fairly sure ... they're probably a terrorist or an adversary who wants to do you harm."

The Active Denial System was developed in secret for ten years before being unveiled by the Pentagon in 2001. As of 2004, it was being described as ready for use in Iraq within the next 12 months. This has still not occurred, and according to Secretary Payton, use of the weapon in Iraq is now "not politically tenable" because after Abu Ghraib "you don't ever, ever, ever want a system like this to be thought of as a torture weapon."

However, the failure to deploy the weapon as planned has raised suspicions that the real intention is to use it for domestic crowd control.

In 2006, Air Force Secretary Michael Wynne was quoted as saying that the device should be used first on Americans, because "if we're not willing to use it here against our fellow citizens, then we should not be willing to use it in a wartime situation. ... If I hit somebody with a nonlethal weapon and they claim that it injured them in a way that was not intended, I think that I would be vilified in the world press."

Raytheon, which developed the system for the Pentagon, is currently selling a more limited-range civilian version of the system, under the name "Silent Guardian," which it promotes as being suitable for "law enforcement, checkpoint security, facility protection, force protection and peacekeeping missions."

Commander Charles "Sid" Heal of the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department, who advised Raytheon in developing the raygun, told CBS that the real reason the system has not been deployed in Iraq is "cowardice." Heal, a former Marine, took a variety of non-lethal weapons to Somalia in 1995 and was dismayed to find that his superiors felt their supposedly humanitarian mission was better accomplished by killing. He would love to have the Pentagon's raygun available for such purposes as controlling prison riots.

The Pentagon is spending just $13.1 million on the raygun this year. Secretary Payton agrees this is "absolutely peanuts ... chump change," but she explained to CBS that with only a $475 billion annual budget, "we don't have enough money to do things that are the here and now." The raygun is seen as unproven because it has never been deployed in the field, and it has not been deployed in the field because it is unproven.

"Lethal weapons have an easier time getting into our system," acknowledges Colonel Hymes.

This video is from CBS's 60 Minutes, broadcast June 1, 2008.

http://rawstory.com/news/2008/60_Minutes_Pentagons_ray_gun_tested_0602.html

posted in Anarchism - 0 replies

Iraqi Oil Workers Tell Chevron "Hands Off Iraq"

2008-05-26T22:13:52Z

Iraqi Oil Workers Tell Chevron "Hands Off Iraq"

In a letter to Chevron executives and shareholders (and to ExxonMobil, who meet the same day), Iraqi Oil Workers Unions call on Chevron to end the occupation and stop pushing for the Iraq Oil [Theft] Law. This message will be delivered by antiwar, environmenta, and labor organizers as a protest converges on Chevrons annual shareholder meeting. Their message is below. This event will be on Wednesday May 28, at 7am at Chevrons Corporate headquarters in San Ramon. For more information, see: http://bayareadirectaction.wordpress.com/2008/05/14/may-28-demand-justice-from-chevron/

******************
To: The Shareholders of ExxonMobil and Chevron Corporations and All Peace Loving People of the World

From: Hassan Juma’a Awad, President, Iraqi Federation of Oil Unions (IFOU)

We call upon the governments, corporations and other institutions behind the ongoing occupation of Iraq to respond to our demands for real democracy, true sovereignty and self-determination, free of all foreign interference.

Five years of invasion, war and occupation have brought nothing but death, destruction, misery and suffering to our people. In the name of our “liberation,” more than a million of our citizens have been killed or wounded, our nation’s schools, hospitals and other infrastructure have been destroyed, our neighbourhoods have been bombed, our homes have been broken into, our children have been traumatized, many of our family members and neighbours have been assaulted and arrested, our national treasures have been looted, and nearly twenty percent of our people have been turned into refugees.

The continued occupation fuels the violence in Iraq rather than alleviating it. The occupation has helped to foment and then exploit sectarian divisions and terror attacks where there had been none.

The Ba’athist legislation of 1987, which banned trade unions in the public sector and public enterprises (80% of all workers), is still in effect and continues to be enforced against us. Our union offices have been raided. Union property has been seized and destroyed. Our bank accounts have been frozen. Our leaders have been beaten, arrested, abducted and assassinated. Our rights as workers are routinely violated. This is an attack on our rights and the basic precepts of a democratic society. It is a grim reminder of the shadow of dictatorship still stalking our country.

We call upon you and all the world’s peace-loving peoples to help us to end the nightmare of occupation and restore our sovereignty and national independence so that we can chart our own course to the future.

1) We demand an immediate withdrawal of all foreign troops from our country, and utterly reject the agreement being negotiated with the USA for long-term bases and a military presence. Iraq must be returned to full sovereignty.

2) We demand the passage of a labour law promised by our Constitution, that adheres to ILO principles to protect the rights of workers to organize, bargain and strike, independent of state control and interference and on which Iraqi trade unionists have been fully consulted.

3) We demand an end to meddling in our sovereign economic affairs by the International Monetary Fund, the USA and UK, and multinational energy corporations, and recognition that no major economic decisions concerning our services and resources can be made while foreign troops occupy our country.

4) We demand that the US government, oil companies and others immediately cease lobbying for the oil law which would fracture the country and hand control over our oil to multinational companies like ExxonMobil and Chevron. We demand that all oil companies be prevented from entering into any long-term agreement concerning oil while Iraq remains occupied. The Iraqi government must tear up the current draft of the oil law, and begin to develop a legitimate oil policy based on full and genuine consultation with the Iraqi people. Only after all occupation forces are gone should a long term plan for the development of our oil resources be adopted.

We seek your support and solidarity to help us end the military and economic occupation of our country.

We look forward to the day when we have a world based on co-operation and solidarity.

We look forward to a world free from war, sectarianism, competition and exploitation.

******************
Also See:

Take the Profit Out of Global Warming and War, Nationalize the Oil Industry
http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2008/05/24/18501994.php

Clinton and Obama: Failures on War and Global Warming
http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2008/02/10/18478172.php

Join the Cool Earth Party
http://tribes.tribe.net/coolearth

Distributed by Liberation News, Subscribe Free:
https://lists.riseup.net/www/info/liberation_news

posted in Anarchism - 0 replies

1950: 100,000 Executed by Imperialism's Korean Dictatorship

2008-05-19T17:50:49Z

[The US war of aggression in Korea murdered 5 million Koreans. Part of that murder was the cold blooded executions of over 100,000 leftists and suspected leftists by the South Korean government in 1950. Over 54,000 U.S. soldiers died in the U.S. war to defend that murderous U.S. imposed regime. The following AP article exposes what many on the left have known about for decades, but has been hidden from the general public in the United States by the government and corporate media. -Steven Argue]

AP Probes 'Cold-Blooded Slaughter' in South Korea
http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003805038

By CHARLES J. HANLEY and JAE-SOON CHANG, The Associated Press

Published: May 18, 2008 4:15 PM ET

DAEJEON Grave by mass grave, South Korea is unearthing the skeletons and buried truths of a cold-blooded slaughter from early in the Korean War, when this nation's U.S.-backed regime killed untold thousands of leftists and hapless peasants in a summer of terror in 1950.

With U.S. military officers sometimes present, and as North Korean invaders pushed down the peninsula, the southern army and police emptied South Korean prisons, lined up detainees and shot them in the head, dumping the bodies into hastily dug trenches. Others were thrown into abandoned mines or into the sea. Women and children were among those killed. Many victims never faced charges or trial.

The mass executions - intended to keep possible southern leftists from reinforcing the northerners - were carried out over mere weeks and were largely hidden from history for a half-century. They were ``the most tragic and brutal chapter of the Korean War,'' said historian Kim Dong-choon, a member of a 2-year-old government commission investigating the killings.

Hundreds of sets of remains have been uncovered so far, but researchers say they are only a tiny fraction of the deaths. The commission estimates at least 100,000 people were executed, in a South Korean population of 20 million.

That estimate is based on projections from local surveys and is ``very conservative,'' said Kim. The true toll may be twice that or more, he told The Associated Press.

In addition, thousands of South Koreans who allegedly collaborated with the communist occupation were slain by southern forces later in 1950, and the invaders staged their own executions of rightists.

Through the postwar decades of South Korean right-wing dictatorships, victims' fearful families kept silent about that blood-soaked summer. American military reports of the South Korean slaughter were stamped ``secret'' and filed away in Washington. Communist accounts were dismissed as lies.

Only since the 1990s, and South Korea's democratization, has the truth begun to seep out.

In 2002, a typhoon's fury uncovered one mass grave. Another was found by a television news team that broke into a sealed mine. Further corroboration comes from a trickle of declassified U.S. military documents, including U.S. Army photographs of a mass killing outside this central South Korean city.

Now Kim's Truth and Reconciliation Commission has added government authority to the work of scattered researchers, family members and journalists trying to peel away the long-running cover-up. The commissioners have the help of a handful of remorseful old men.

``Even now, I feel guilty that I pulled the trigger,'' said Lee Joon-young, 83, one of the executioners in a secluded valley near Daejeon in early July 1950.

The retired prison guard told the AP he knew that many of those shot and buried en masse were ordinary convicts or illiterate peasants wrongly ensnared in roundups of supposed communist sympathizers. They didn't deserve to die, he said. They ``knew nothing about communism.''

The 17 investigators of the commission's subcommittee on ``mass civilian sacrifice,'' led by Kim, have been dealing with petitions from more than 7,000 South Koreans, involving some 1,200 alleged incidents - not just mass planned executions, but also 215 cases in which the U.S. military is accused of the indiscriminate killing of South Korean civilians in 1950-51, usually in air attacks.

The commission last year excavated sites at four of an estimated 150 mass graves around the country, recovering remains of more than 400 people. Working deliberately, matching documents to eyewitness and survivor testimony, it has officially confirmed two large-scale executions - at a warehouse in the central South Korean county of Cheongwon, and at Ulsan on the southeast coast.

In January, then-President Roh Moo-hyun, under whose liberal leadership the commission was established, formally apologized for the more than 870 deaths confirmed at Ulsan, calling them ``illegal acts the then-state authority committed.''

The commission, with no power to compel testimony or prosecute, faces daunting tasks both in verifying events and identifying victims, and in tracing a chain of responsibility. Under Roh's conservative successor, Lee Myung-bak, whose party is seen as democratic heir to the old autocratic right wing, the commission may find less budgetary and political support.

The roots of the summer 1950 bloodbath lie in the U.S.-Soviet division of Japan's former Korea colony in 1945, which precipitated north-south turmoil and eventual war.

In the late 1940s, President Syngman Rhee's U.S.-installed rightist regime crushed leftist political activity in South Korea, including a guerrilla uprising inspired by the communists ruling the north. By 1950, southern jails were packed with up to 30,000 political prisoners.

The southern government, meanwhile, also created the National Guidance League, a ``re-education'' organization for recanting leftists and others suspected of communist leanings. Historians say officials met membership quotas by pressuring peasants into signing up with promises of rice rations or other benefits. By 1950, more than 300,000 people were on the league's rolls, organizers said.

North Korean invaders seized Seoul, the southern capital, in late June 1950 and freed thousands of prisoners, who rallied to the northern cause. Southern authorities, in full retreat with their U.S. military advisers, ordered National Guidance League members in areas they controlled to report to the police, who detained them. Soon after, commission researchers say, the organized mass executions of people regarded as potential collaborators began - ``bad security risks,'' as a police official described the detainees at the time.

The declassified record of U.S. documents shows an ambivalent American attitude toward the killings. American diplomats that summer urged restraint on southern officials - to no obvious effect - but a State Department cable that fall said overall commander Gen. Douglas MacArthur viewed the executions as a Korean ``internal matter,'' even though he controlled South Korea's military.

Ninety miles south of Seoul, here in the narrow, peaceful valley of Sannae, truckloads of prisoners were brought in from Daejeon Prison and elsewhere day after day in July 1950, as the North Koreans bore down on the city.

The American photos, taken by an Army major and kept classified for a half-century, show the macabre sequence of events.

White-clad detainees - bent, submissive, with hands bound - were thrown down prone, jammed side by side, on the edge of a long trench. South Korean military and national policemen then stepped up behind, pointed their rifles at the backs of their heads and fired. The bodies were tipped into the trench.

Trembling policemen - ``they hadn't shot anyone before'' - were sometimes off-target, leaving men wounded but alive, Lee said. He and others were ordered to check for wounded and finish them off.

Evidence indicates South Korean executioners killed between 3,000 and 7,000 here, said commissioner Kim. A half-dozen trenches, each up to 150 yards long and full of bodies, extended over an area almost a mile long, said Kim Chong-hyun, 70, chairman of a group of bereaved families campaigning for disclosure and compensation for the Daejeon killings. His father, accused but never convicted of militant leftist activity, was one victim.

Another was Yeo Tae-ku's father, whose wife and mother searched for him afterward.

``Bodies were just piled upon each other,'' said Yeo, 59, remembering his mother's description. ``Arms would come off when they turned them over.'' The desperate women never found him, and the mass graves were quickly covered over, as were others in isolated spots up and down this mountainous peninsula, to be officially ``forgotten.''

When British communist journalist Alan Winnington entered Daejeon that summer with North Korean troops and visited the site, writing of ``waxy dead hands and feet (that) stick through the soil,'' his reports in the Daily Worker were denounced as ``fabrication'' by the U.S. Embassy in London. American military accounts focused instead on North Korean reprisal killings that followed in Daejeon.

But CIA and U.S. military intelligence documents circulating even before the Winnington report, classified ``secret'' and since declassified, told of the executions by the South Koreans. Lt. Col. Bob Edwards, U.S. Embassy military attache in South Korea, wrote in conveying the Daejeon photos to Army intelligence in Washington that he believed nationwide ``thousands of political prisoners were executed within (a) few weeks'' by the South Koreans.

Another glimpse of the carnage appeared in an unofficial U.S. source, an obscure memoir self-published in 1981 by the late Donald Nichols, a U.S. Air Force intelligence officer, who told of witnessing ``the unforgettable massacre of approximately 1,800 at Suwon,'' 20 miles south of Seoul.

Such reports lend credibility to a captured North Korean document from Aug. 2, 1950, eventually declassified by Washington, which spoke of mass executions in 12 South Korean cities, including 1,000 killed in Suwon and 4,000 in Daejeon.

That early, incomplete North Korean report couldn't include those executed in territory still held by the southerners. Up to 10,000 were killed in the city of Busan alone, a South Korean lawmaker, Park Chan-hyun, estimated in 1960.

His investigation came during a 12-month democratic interlude between the overthrow of Rhee and a government takeover by Maj. Gen. Park Chung-hee's authoritarian military, which quickly arrested many then probing for the hidden story of 1950.

Kim said his projection of at least 100,000 dead is based in part on extrapolating from a survey by non-governmental organizations in one province, Busan's South Gyeongsang, which estimated 25,000 killed there. And initial evidence suggests most of the National Guidance League's 300,000 members were killed, he said.

Commission investigators agree with the late Lt. Col. Edwards' note to Washington in 1950, that ``orders for execution undoubtedly came from the top,'' that is, President Rhee, who died in 1965.

But any documentary proof of that may have been destroyed, just as the facts of the mass killings themselves were buried. In 1953, after the war ended in stalemate, after the deaths of at least 2 million people, half or more of them civilians, a U.S. Army war crimes report attributed all summary executions here in Daejeon to the ``murderous barbarism'' of North Koreans.

Such myths survived a half-century, in part because those who knew the truth were cowed into silence.

``My mother destroyed all pictures of my father, for fear the family would get an image as leftists,'' said Koh Chung-ryol, 57, who is convinced her 29-year-old father was innocent of wrongdoing when picked up in a broad police sweep here, to die in Sannae valley.

``My mother tried hard to get rid of anything about her husband,'' she said. ``She suffered unspeakable pain.''

Even educated South Koreans remained ignorant of their country's past. As a young researcher in the late 1980s, Yonsei University's Park Myung-lim, today a leading Korean War historian, was deeply shaken as he sought out confidential accounts of those days from ordinary Koreans.

``I cried,'' he said. ``I felt, 'Oh, my goodness. Oh, Jesus. This was my country? It was true?'''

The Truth and Reconciliation Commission can recommend but not award compensation for lost and ruined lives, nor can it bring surviving perpetrators to justice. ``Our investigative power is so meager,'' commission President Ahn Byung-ook told the AP.

His immediate concern is resources. ``The current government isn't friendly toward us, and so we're concerned that the budget may be cut next year,'' he said.

South Korean conservatives complain the ``truth'' campaign will only reopen old wounds from a time when, even at the village level, leftists and rightists carried out bloody reprisals against each other.

The life of the commission - with a staff of 240 and annual budget of $19 million - is guaranteed by law until at least 2010, when it will issue a final, comprehensive report.

Later this spring and summer its teams will resume digging at mass grave sites. Thus far, it has verified 16 incidents of 1950-51 - not just large-scale detainee killings, but also such events as a South Korean battalion's cold-blooded killing of 187 men, women and children at Kochang village, supposed sympathizers with leftist guerrillas.

By exposing the truth of such episodes, ``we hope to heal the trauma and pain of the bereaved families,'' the commission says. It also wants to educate people, ``not just in Korea, but throughout the international community,'' to the reality of that long-ago conflict, to ``prevent such a tragic war from reoccurring in the future.''

CHARLES J. HANLEY and JAE-SOON CHANG, The Associated Press
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

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posted in Anarchism - 0 replies

NYT: Obama admires Bush Sr.: ''no complaints about handling of Desert Storm"

2008-05-17T18:33:07Z

Support for Empire is support for Empire -- any way you cut it. There's a reason Corporate American bankrolled Obama's campaign
...
**************
"I have enormous sympathy for the foreign policy of George H. W. Bush. I don't have a lot of complaints about their handling of Desert Storm."

Source:
- Barack Obama, from David Brooks article, "Obama Admires Bush, NY Times, May 16, 2008
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/16/opinion/16brooks.html?em&ex=1211169600&en=1577a90ae5048a04&ei=5087%0A

See:
Clinton and Obama: Failures on War and Global Warming
by STEVEN ARGUE
http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2008/02/10/18478172.php

posted in Anarchism - 0 replies

Israel and the Ongoing Holocaust in Congo

2008-05-16T18:16:39Z

[See link for citations. My answer to those who say the U.S. isn't doing enough in the Congo other parts of southern Africa: it is already doing too much –Steven Argue]

Gertler’s Bling Bang Torah Gang
Israel and the Ongoing Holocaust in Congo (Part 1)

http://www.dissidentvoice.org/2008/02/gertlers-bling-bang-torah-gang/

by Keith Harmon Snow / February 9th, 2008

Maurice Tempelsman is one of the top funders of the Democratic Party who has funded Barrack Obama and Hillary Clinton. Templesman was the unofficial ambassador to the Congo (Zaire) for years, but a new Israeli-American tycoon has replaced him. In the world of bling bling and bling bang, some things change, some stay the same. The CIA, the MOSSAD, the big mining companies, the offshore accounts and weapons deals—all hidden by the Western media. The holocaust in Central Africa has claimed some six to ten million people in Congo since 1996, with 1500 people dying daily.1 But while the Africans are the victims of perpetual Holocaust, the persecutors hide behind history, complaining that they are the persecuted, or pretending they are the saviors. Who is responsible?

For Israeli-American Dan Gertler, business in blood drenched Congo is not merely business, it is a quest for the Holy Grail. Young Dan Gertler goes nowhere—does nothing—without the spiritual guidance of Brooklyn-born Rabbi Chaim Yaakov Leibovitch, a personal friend of Condoleeza Rice.2 Gertler and Leibovitch are two of the principals behind a diamond mining company, Emaxon Finance Corporation, involved in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). Gertler and gang won the majority rights to the diamonds from the state mining company, Société Minière de Bakwange, MIBA, found near the government-controlled town of Mbuji-Mayi, the rough diamond capital of the world.

Emaxon Finance Corp. has apparently out-maneuvered diamond competitors, especially the big rivals Energem and De Beers. Energem is one of the many shady mining companies connected to Anthony Teixeira, a Portuguese born businessman now residing in South Africa whose daughter married Congolese warlord Jean-Pierre Bemba. The warlord’s deadly battle in Congo in March 2007 was a bid between rival agents—Jean-Pierre Bemba and Joseph Kabila—to be the black gatekeeper for the mining cartels run by dynastic families like Templesman, Oppenheimer, Mendell, Forrest, Blattner, Hertzov, Gertler and Steinmetz, and for companies like NIKANOR, whose stock prices rose early in July 2006 in expectation of a July 30th “win” for Joseph Kabila.3 Africa Confidential called President Kabila’s 2003 visit to the Bush White House a “coup” for the Israeli diamond magnates Dan Gertler and Beny Steinmetz.

Canadian-based Energem, formerly DiamondWorks, is owned by British mercenary Tony Buckingham and its director/shareholders include Mario and Tony Teixeira, J.P. Morgan, and Gertler’s partner Israeli-American Beny Steinmetz (50%).4 Through subsidiary Branch Energy, the Energem-DiamondWorks gang has perpetuated war in 11 African countries.5 In December 2007, Energem re-launched itself on the London Stock Market with the newly laundered image of a renewable energy company. Regarding diamonds, it said only it “had decided to give up exploration rights in the Central African Republic.”6 The Energem spokesman explained that Tony Teixeira “had a clean bill of health” etc., etc. Of course, Energem “quit” the C.A.R. because Jean-Pierre Bemba marched his troops into C.A.R., where they raped and pillaged widely.7 Energem is still operating in Congo, but Dan Gertler is the new, unofficial ambassador to the Congo for the George W. Bush gang.

Gertler and partners like Beny and Danny Steinmetz, Nir Livnat, Chaim Leibovitz and Yaakov Neeman run a hornet’s nest of companies involved in African hotspots, including: Dan Gertler International (DGI), Steinmetz Global Resources, International Diamond Industries, NIKANOR and Global Enterprises Corporate.

“Dan Gertler is ‘the new kid on the block,’” writes Yossi Melman in Israel’s Haaretz news. “Bold, sophisticated, brutal, he is an adventurer with a short fuse.” Haaratz confirmed that Dan Gertler owns a complex network of interconnected companies, often registered in offshore tax havens and involved in India, Russia, Belgium and the United States, and that Dan Gertler is looking to God for guidance.8

THOU SHALT NOT STEAL

“In the diamond industry,” Melman wrote, “Gertler is considered something of an odd bird. He maintains few ties with the other merchants and is not very sociable… Alongside his business affairs, most of his energy is channeled into matters of faith. He is a donor to religious institutions and from time to time makes a pilgrimage to the rabbi he most admires, Rabbi David Abuhatzeira, from Nahariya, in order to consult with him and receive his blessing. Gertler is surrounded mostly by religious people and laces his speech liberally with praise to God.”8

In 2003, Condoleeza Rice, then Assistant to President Bush for National Security Affairs, introduced Dan Gertler and Chaim Leibovitch to U.S. official Jendayi Frazer, a Harvard Kennedy School affiliate and former National Security Council agent focused on Africa. On December 6, 2006, Frazer, then Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs, was one of seven special Bush delegates sent to the inauguration of Congo’s newly installed President Joseph Kabila in Kinshasa.9

When Dan Gertler and Chaim Leibovitch and their friends visit the luxury Gertler villa in Lumumbashi, the capital of Katanga, Congo’s large southern province, their kosher meals arrive by private plane from Kinshasa. The special executive jet that flies their kosher meals a few hundred miles over the roadless Congo costs some $US 23,000 per trip.10

The average income for Congolese citizens each year—if they survive it—is about $95. Shootings at mining facilities and diamond mines are common, land is stolen from Congolese people, strikes are crushed by security forces that companies are partnered with, and black overseers of state terror routinely arrest and torture any vocal opposition—and sometimes disappear them—in support of white bosses. The Société Minière de Bakwange—MIBA— and the diamond fields of Mbuji-Mayi in Congo have a long history of bloodshed backed by Western powers, including Israel, from the beginning.11 Amnesty International points out that not a single state agent has ever been prosecuted for the extrajudicial executions of suspected “illegal” miners in Mbuji-Mayi.12

After a century of exploitation and slavery, we find MIBA consistently withholding payment of salaries to starving Congolese laborers and middle managers for months at a time. April and May 2007 saw strikes and protests leading to the Kabila government’s arbitrary arrest, detention and torture of trade union organizers like Leon Ngoy Bululu; police have also shot protestors.13 So-called ‘illegal’ diamond workers—disenfranchised local Congolese people forced into “criminal” activities to survive—were summarily executed on MIBA concessions in Mbuji-Mayi. MIBA security guards have also been sniping unemployed diamond miners.14

Meanwhile, Dan Gertler’s kosher meals depart Kinshasa, the capital of the big Congo, through the arrangements of Rabbi Chlomo Bentolila, high priest of the Chabad of Central Africa. Rabbi Chlomo Bentolila has been a Kinshasa Rabbi since 1991, and he was a spiritual force who survived the terrorism of the old dinosaur, Mobutu Sese Seko, the way most elites did: by working with him. Rabbi Bentolila is a member of the Chabad Lubavitch Global Emissary Network, headquartered in Brooklyn, New York, and his wife Miriam is the sister of Rabbi Mena’hem Hadad, a high priest in Brussels.15

“Kosher does not mean that a Rabbi blesses the food,” Rabbi Betolila corrected me, “but rather that the food was supervised by a Rabbinical Thora [sic] authority who sees that the ingredients were in accordance with the laws of Kashrut expressed in the Bible (Leviticus and Deuteronomy).”16

Dan Gertler often flies people into Congo, on his private jet, for sacred Jewish rituals. For the Bar Mitsvah of Rabbi Chlomo Bentolila’s son Binyamin Avrahim in June 2005, guests included eminent Rabbis, Hassidic singer Yoni Shlomo and special orchestra Yossef Brami, all arriving in “special flights” from Israel, New York and Brussels. The reception was held at the luxurious and exclusive Memling Hotel. Joseph Kabila sent a sizeable delegation but did not attend: his closest advisers provided a blessing on his behalf.17

The Gertler, Steinmetz and Templesman interests are advanced in part through the support of the Committee of the Jewish Community of Kinshasa—le Comité de la Communauté Israélite—that is tightly coordinated with the power structure in Kinshasa to exert influence and assure control of Israeli-Belgian-Anglo-American interests over the geopolitical arena.

From June 26-30, 2007, the Communaute Israelite de Kinshasa received a visit from the Israeli Ambassador Yaakov Revah, director of the Africa Department of the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs; Revah also flew to Lumumbashi for meetings with Dan Gertler and his agents, including Moishe (Moses) Katumbi, the Governor of Katanga, and they most likely enjoyed a lovely, $23,000 kosher meal sent from the Chabad in Kinshasa.18 The Communaute Israelite de Kinshasa maintains very intimate political relations with President Joseph Kabila’s PPRD party, the People’s Party for Reconstruction and Democracy. On March 1, 2006, in a formal ceremony, the President of the Communaute Israelite de Kinshasa, Ashlan Piha, was awarded the Congo’s Medal of Civil Merit.

THOU SHALT NOT COVET

Before his assassination on January 16, 2001, Laurent Desire Kabila—the President of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC)—made a deal with the Gertler gang that would play out in favor of the current President Joseph Kabila and, it seems, be a central factor in relation to both Congo’s ongoing war and the bloody warlord’s battle in Kinshasa in March 2007.19

Back in 2000, former Congolese president Laurent Kabila offered a monopoly on Congolese diamonds, and 88% of the proceeds, to Gertler’s International Diamond Industries (IDI) in exchange for Israeli military assistance to his new government.20 Top Congolese military officials apparently flew to Israel in 2000 to negotiate the deal. Gertler pledged military assistance to President Laurent Kabila through top Israeli officials.21

The original Gertler-Kabila deal fell through after Laurent Kabila was assassinated for not cooperating with the Great White Fathers of industry (January 2001), but Gertler and Leibovitch and their disciples formed another company, Dan Gertler International, and advanced their Congo plan.22 By 2002 Gertler’s company was the leading exporter of Congolese gems, controlling a diamond mining franchise worth about $US 1 billion annually.23

In 2003, the mighty Congolese diamond parastatal Societe Miniere De Bakwanga (MIBA)—which has been forever controlled by the Great White Fathers in Belgium, Israel and America—signed an exclusive contract with Gertler’s startup company, Emaxon Finance International. The deal involved Israeli’s Foreign Defense Assistance and Defense Export Organization (SIBAT), and high-level Israeli defense and intelligence officials. Gertler and his buddies reportedly bribed Congolese officials and Angolan generals who, on and off, have commanded Angolan Army troops protecting Kinshasa, Congo’s capital.21,24

Security for mining operations in Congo is provided by exclusive security companies like Overseas Security Services (OSS) one of the many DRC interests of Belgian billionaire tycoon Philippe de Moerloose. A member of the Kinshasa elite, de Moerloose supplies jets and other presidential toys to DRC President Kabila. In 2006, President Joseph Kabila’s campaign helicopter was at the centre of a legal battle involving Philippe de Moerloose.25 De Moerloose’s companies operated in Mobutu’s Zaire from at least 1991, backing state terrorism and Western corporate plunder that was rendered invisible by the Western media. De Moerloose is also an adviser to European Union (EU) Commissioner—and diamantaire—Louis Michel.

Dan Gertler and Philippe de Moerloose were, reportedly, the only two white men who attended the wedding of Joseph Kabila and the two clearly share interests in “security” provided by OSS at MIBA and elsewhere in Congo. The April 2003 secret agreement signed between the Gertler/Steinmetz company Emaxon Finance and the Kabila government involved MIBA and two de Moerloose companies, OSS-Congo and Demimpex, and other firms.

Overseas Security Services (OSS) operations are apparently grounded in the experience of top expatriate security operatives formerly involved with the biggest security firm in Mobutu’s Zaire.26 According to OSS public relations materials, “these persons have a not unimportant experience in the safety of this country.”26 Providing mine security, body-guard and protection services, OSS operates in Burundi, Ivory Coast, Rwanda, Dubai, South Africa, Republic of Congo (Brazzavile) and Belgium, placing them in cahoots with all sides warring and plundering eastern Congo today.27

Emaxon Finance International is a real gem, one of these octopuses of mining tangled up with interlocking companies and subsidiaries based in specious geographical offshore “tax havens” that work to shield from prosecution people who are responsible for money laundering, weapons and drugs operations, assassinations and other terrorism.

NIKANOR is registered as an Isle of Man (UK) company, an offshore tax haven that helps to conceal criminal activities and maximize profits. NIKANOR directors include Dan Kurtzer, former U.S. ambassador to Israel (2001-2005) and Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Intelligence and Research under Madeleine Albright. NIKANOR partners include Mende and Moshe Gertner [sic], Israeli property tycoons with vast holdings in London who control 22 percent of NIKANOR. Another partner is Israeli-born Nir Livnat, managing director of Johannesburg-based Ascot Diamonds, a member of the Steinmetz Group of Diamond Companies, and a principal involved in numerous U.S.-based businesses from Miami to New York.28

THOU SHALT NOT BEAR FALSE WITNESS

Back in 2001, when the Gertler enterprises surfaced in dirty diamond deals, public relations was handled by Lior Chorev, the “Special Strategic and Communications Consultant” to International Diamond Industries (IDI), and Chorev continued in this role to support Dan Gertler businesses.29 Today, Lior Chorev is partnered with the brothers Yuval and Eyal Arad as director-owners of the Israeli marketing and public relations firm, ARAD Communications.30

“We do work for Mr. Gertler on some of his business issues,” said Lior Chorev.31 ARAD’s many clients include Dan Gertler companies, Los Angeles-based Coral Diamonds and an Israeli aeronautics weaponry manufacturer producing Unmanned Aerospace Vehicles (UAVs)—robotic weapons and intelligence platforms like those being used against the people of Congo today.32 As a political strategist, Lior Chorev has worked for Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and current Prime Minister Ehud Olmert.33 He has also participated in Israel-NATO defense planning conferences.34

Dan Gertler is close to Israeli politicians, especially Avigdor Lieberman, head of the right-wing Yisrael Beiteinu party, and he is very close to diamantaire Beny Steinmetz, a good friend of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert. Gertler’s inseperable friend, Chaim Leibovitz, is also very close to Lieberman, and was “a regular fixture” in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s offices.35

Beny Steinmetz is considered to be one of the richest billionaires in Israel. The Steinmetz Group, controlled with his brother Daniel, is one of the biggest clients of the de Beers diamond syndicate. Steinmetz is also involved in an Israeli real estate group that purchased the assets of the British Haslemere real estate company for $1.46 billion. Steinmetz’s real estate partners include the billionaire Israeli investors David and Simon Reuben, and the Saudi Arabian Olayan Group, an investment company that is deeply connected with Bechtel Corporation.36 The Steinmetz web site map of operations hides their involvement in war-torn Congo.37

Seems Dan Gertler’s land grabs and exclusion in Congo have a lot in common with the current crimes against humanity being committed by Israel through its illegal partition in the Middle East. On January 3, 2008, the Jerusalem Post reported that Lior Chorev was an integral part of past Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s advisers, and he was recently quoted to say that even though Sharon did not get to finalize Israel’s final borders (he suffered a debilitating stroke in 2006), the route of the security fence—which he decided—would ultimately serve as the basis for the border and as Sharon’s lasting legacy.38

“He felt he needed to set the border because he didn’t trust the younger generations,” Chorev was quoted to say. “He knew the fence route by heart and the reason for every stretch of land being on one side or the other.”38

In 2003, the U.N. Panel of Experts on war in Congo revealed that Emaxon Finance International is controlled by Israeli diamond traders Chaim Leibovitz and Dan Gertler.39 Emaxon lists as its address an office in Montreal, Canada, but Emaxon’s majority shareholder is listed as FTS Worldwide, a nebulous global corporation whose business address is that of a firm of lawyers, Mossack Fonseca & Company, in Panama City. FTS Worldwide is registered with the U.S. Securities Exchange Commission to lawyer Andre Zolty of Geneva Switzerland. A copy of the MIBA-Emaxon contract was signed on 13 April 2003 by Israeli-Americans Yaakov Neeman and Chaim Leibovitz.40

Yaakov Neeman is a founding partner of Herzog, Fox and Neeman, Tel Aviv, one of Israel’s top law firms, and he has held Israeli government cabinet and ministerial positions.41 Neeman is on the Advisory Board of Markstone Capital Group, a very influential group of investment bankers, with Eli Hurvitz. On the board of Israel’s Teva Pharmaceutical Industries with Eli Hurvitz is Northrup-Grumman director Philip Frost.42 Both Philip Frost and Maurice Templesman are top-level councilors for the American Stock Exchange. Eli Hurvitz sat on the International Advisory Counsel of Harvard University’s Belfer Center, 2002-2005, during the period when the Belfer Center and their intelligence operative Robert Rotberg formalized the “Kimberley Process” to officially whitewash blood diamonds.43 Yakov Neeman is also a governor of the World Zionist Organization and Jewish Agency for Israel.

One of the main objectives of the Kimberley Process, and the Harvard Belfer Center’s role, was to protect the South African Oppenheimer and De Beers diamond cartels and their leading buyers and agents like Maurice Templesman and Beny Steinmetz.44 Added to those diamond industry firms whitewashed by the Kimberley Process are all the Zionist diamond dealers and cartels that have risen like a phoenix out of the ashes of the Holocaust.

The Israeli-American enterprises of the Gertler/Steinmetz gang have proliferated and today are major shareholders or owners of diamond concessions in Congo’s Kasai province and copperbelt concessions in Katanga. The copperbelt is the big money in Congo. Copper prices recently hit an all time high due to monopoly control by corporations and new applications in transportation, aerospace and weaponry. Cobalt is used in dye and paint processes for manufacturing. More importantly, it is elemental to superalloys used for tank armor, spacecraft, turbines, ship hulls, ship hulls, blast furnaces, refineries, petroleum drilling rigs, nuclear reactors and nuclear weapons. Like coltan, or columbium-tantalite, cobalt is also used in cell phone batteries. The Katanga copperbelt is also rich in germanium, a rare metal used in optical fibers, infrared lenses and telecommunication satellites.45

The entire military-industrial-prisons complex revolves around minerals like cobalt, niobium and heterogenite (cobalt oxide), yet the truth about what happens to African people in lands taken over by these mining companies is hidden by the corporate media. More and more land is being stolen, more and more atrocities committed, with less and less transparency, and less and less accountability, and fewer and fewer voices for the voiceless. And, as usual, there are always a lot of empty promises.

THOUGH SHALT HAVE NO OTHER GODS

Over the past fifty years, elite Israeli nationals have perpetrated conflict and injustice in Africa, fueled by and for minerals. Operatives associated with the Israeli military or intelligence services—the Mossad—maintain strategic criminal syndicates in competition and in partnership with other syndicates involving men like Philippe De Moerloose, Louis Michel, Viscount Etienne Davignon, John Bredenkamp and Tony Buckingham.

Israeli trained shock troops became Mobutu’s bodyguards, with Mossad advisers. According to a report by the American Jewish Committee: after 1980 “Mossad agents, military emissaries, and a small group of private businessmen… replaced diplomats as Israel’s main interlocutors with African leaders and political (mainly opposition) groups.” The report cites rising involvement of private defense and security interests, especially in Angola, DRC and Central Africa Republic, since 1992.46

Israeli operatives and “businessmen” appear everywhere there is egregious suffering and dispossession. Dan Gertler’s forays into the bloody world of diamonds involve Israeli arms dealers Yair Klein, who is reportedly wanted by the U.S. for training Medellin drug-cartel militias in Colombia, and Dov Katz.47 Klein was convicted by Israel (1991) for his involvement with groups that targeted and assassinated Colombian politicians, journalists, and police. Jailed in Sierra Leone in 1999, Klein was a field representative for Gertler in war-torn Sierra Leone and Liberia. Gertler also mingles with the Russian Military Brotherhood, a group of “retired Russian generals whom Gertler describes as good friends.”48,49

Retired Israeli Defense Forces Colonel Yair Klein reportedly organized arms for diamonds networks in Sierra Leone and Liberia after President Charles Taylor was deposed. In 1999, Klein was arrested in Sierra Leone on charges of smuggling arms to the rebel Revolutionary United Front.50 The U.N. also documented collaborations between Sierra Leone’ rebels and Lazare Kaplan agent Damian Gagnon; Lazare Kaplan International is one of the organized crime syndicates of Jewish American Maurice Templesman.51

The Steinmetz Group of companies are also involved in the bloody diamond fields of Sierra Leone, along with Energem (formerly DiamondWorks), the company described above that is connected to the white mercenaries depicted in Hollywood’s Blood Diamond propaganda film.52 In December 2007, local people in Sierra Leone struggling to gain the smallest livelihood from their own resources were shot by police during peaceful protests against the Steinmetz-controlled Koidu Holdings site. It’s the same old local people’s story happening everywhere. These were people from communities driven off their own land by mining companies that promised the world, cajoled the trusting people, and gave nothing after. The Steinmetz gang called in the local paramilitary, a curfew was imposed and people were shot; the police, as usual, falsely claimed that protesters were armed.53

Like most mining mafias in Africa, the Israeli octopus—organized crime syndicates, offshore subsidiaries, interlocking directorships and affiliated mercenaries—has gripped the very heart of Congo like an octopus grips and stuns its prey. Mining regulates the pulse of Congo, and foreign mining companies with their black sell-out agents are sucking the blood out of the people and the wealth out of the land.

THOU SHALT NOT KILL

Beyond the intriguing Jewish rivalry for diamonds in the heart of darkness, this tale takes a chilling turn with the involvement of certain German firms and New York City lawyers. NIKANOR, another Gertler/Steinmetz company of dubious origins operating in DRC, has a subcontract with the notorious ThyssenKrupp conglomerate, a company comprised of two former Nazi weapons manufacturers linked to the New York law firm of Sullivan and Cromwell, to Brown Brothers Harriman & Co., Lehman Brothers, Chase Manhattan Bank, J.P. Morgan, DuPont and IBM, in the great Nazi-American money plot.54

These companies were all behind the Jewish Holocaust. The infamous German Krupp firm is the industrial corporation that collaborated with former CIA director Allen Dulles and former U.S. Secretary of State John Foster Dulles. Clients of the Dulles brothers’ law firm Sullivan and Cromwell included Adolph Hitler.54 Ted Terry, one of the senior counselors of the law firm Sullivan and Cromwell today, is also a director of a philanthropy called the Harold K. Hochschild (HKH) Foundation, named for the mining magnate behind AMAX, a company operating in the copperbelt in Zambia, but whose parent company, Phelps Dodge, operates in Katanga, Congo. Harold K. Hochschild was close to the CIA, and he appears to have backed the Katanga succession in the 1960’s just as Dan Gertler in recent years backed the reorganization of power in Congo by force. Sullivan and Cromwell was also the law firm for AMAX. 55,56

Brown Brothers Harriman & Company (BBH) was the primary Wall Street connection for German companies and the U.S. financial interests of Fritz Thyssen, an early financial backer of the Nazi party. BBH bought and shipped millions of dollars of gold, steel, fuel, coal, and U.S. treasury bonds to Germany. These were used to build Hitler’s war machine, and the ties proliferated even after the Nazi concentration camps began churning out skeletons. The horrors of the concentration camps at Auschwitz, Birkenau and Buckenwald became public knowledge long before they became public outrage. It is the same story for Congo.

A PRAYER FOR THE DEAD

There are no records or statistics of the numbers of people brutalized or killed in the diamond or cobalt mining areas, like Kolwezi, Mbuji Mayi, Tshikapa, Banalia, or Kananga in DRC, or Ndola in Zambia, and many of the victims of security abuses will never be known.

When Gertler and Steinmetz and their buddies came to Congo it was soon clear that they had to challenge Zimbabwean tycoons John Bredenkamp and Billy Rautenbach—two cronies of dictator Robert Mugabe involved in pillaging Congo and Zimbabwe for decades. The United Nations Panel of Experts on DRC named both men for plundering copper and cobalt from Katanga, and both deal globally in weapons. Bredenkamp is one of the fifty richest men in England and he reportedly owns a mansion several doors down from Margaret Thatcher’s residence in London.

On November 7, 2007 it was reported that Dan Gertler was instrumental in putting together a deal in which Katanga Mining Ltd. would buy rival NIKANOR for $2.1 billion and merge their adjacent mine projects in Congo to form the world’s largest cobalt company. Also announced was a joint venture between the Central African Mining & Exploration Company (CAMEC) and another Gertler-controlled firm called Prairie International Limited.

The CAMEC/Prairie joint venture will exploit DRC’s Luita copper processing facility, develop the Mukondo Mountain cobalt mine—called the world’s richest cobalt mine—and work on “other” exploration properties. Prairie is majority owned by the family of Dan Gertler. CAMEC is connected to Zimbabwean/South African/British tycoon Billy Rautenbach.57 The DRC government effectively banned controversial Zimbabwean businessman Billy Rautenbach from the country by declaring him persona non grata in July 2007, but this doesn’t seem to stop him from getting what he wants. Rautenbach is also wanted in South Africa on 300 charges of fraud, corruption and theft.

Rautenbach is a former motor car rally driver who controls a business empire in Southern and Central Africa through a British Virgin Islands company called Ridgepoint Overseas Development Limited. In 1998, the short-lived President of Congo, Laurent Kabila, named Rautenbach the managing director of La Générale des Carrières et des Mines (Gécamines), one of Africa’s biggest cobalt mines, the Katanga properties of the Union Miniere de Haut Katanga formerly developed by the Belgian colonial government. Rautenbach today is one of the Africa’s largest exporters of heterogenite (cobalt ore) from the DRC through his Congo Cobalt Company (CoCoCo), but he also has shares in two other lucrative DRC mining firms—Boss and Mukondo—which reportedly earn over US$100 million a month.58

While there has been a lot of Western media fanfare over the Kabila governments’ supposed “independent” review of mining contracts, little substantive change can be expected.59 Structural factors exploit the Congolese people and lands and benefit white businessmen, arms dealers, bankers, and their embraceable black agents. Big business benefits from perception management articles well-placed in media to give the impression that the international system is just, that there are watchdogs, checks and balances.

However, while the DRC and the World Bank present a propaganda front about their ostensible attention to mining reform and the new mining code, NIKANOR—Mining Journal reports—“is in the advantageous position of having entered into a post mining-code contract, ‘which makes us [NIKANOR] relatively comfortable’”60 In other words, the mining review is a sham, it may force some changes, but it will be cosmetic at best.

Dan Gertler and the Steinmetz Group’s partner Jewish-American Nir Livnat is also a director of Anglovaal Mining with Rick and Brian Menell and Basil Hersov of the South African Menell and Hersov dynasties.61 Hersov has been named as a beneficiary of fraud and racketeering involving British BAE Systems weapons deals with shady offshore companies.62

The octopus of South African connections is a story in itself, with links to top officials from Britain to Canada, like Canadian Senator J. Trevor Eyton, and offshore mining companies involved in all the big money (diamonds, gold, petroleum, cobalt) and big corporations with interlocking directorships: Coca Cola, Nestlé, General Motors, and the Bush-connected Barrick Gold Corporation. Barrick, of course, is partnered up with the Oppenheimer/De Beers firm Anglo-American Corporation at six sites in Africa, including Congo.

Rick Menell is a director of Bateman Engineering—owned by Benny Steinmetz—the junior partner of the NIKANOR projects in Katanga. Britain’s Earl of Balfour is a director of both Bateman and NIKANOR. Menell is also the director of Teal Exploration and Mining, whose directors include Joaquim Chissano, former President of Mozambique; Murray Hitzman, a Clinton administration official with the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (1994-1996); Hannes Meyer, who worked with Anglo-Gold Ashanti in Congo, 1999-2006, when militias in Ituri were funded to get the gold out. Teal Exploration also has ties to Anvil Mining and Anglo-American Corporation.63

Brian Menell, Nir Livnat’s associate on the board of Anglovaal, is on the board of Energem (formerly DiamondWorks) with Tony and Mario Teixeira. The Livnat connection ties Teixeira into networks that have supported both Joseph Kabila and Jean-Pierre Bemba in Congo’s bloody wars. Energem is also involved in the trans-Uganda-Kenya pipeline, along with Nexant, a subsidiary of the deep intelligence and defense insider Bechtel Corporation.64

Brian Menell is also on the board of First Africa Oil, which operates in seven African countries, and First Africa Oil director John Bentley is a director of Osprey Oil and Gas, whose directors include Carol Bell, a director of the Rockefeller’s Chase Manhattan Bank. Bentley is also on the board of Adastra Minerals—formerly America Mineral Fields (AMF, AMFI, AMX), a company based in 1995 in Hope, Arkansas—and set up by Robert Friedland and Max and Jean-Raymond Boulle, notable “friends of Bill” Clinton. Since 1995, American Mineral Fields has been involved in Brazil, Russia, Norway, Zambia, Angola and the DRC. A criminal backer of the war in DRC, Jean-Raymond Boulle, who holds 36.4 % of the company stock, was the former General Director of De Beers in Zaire, part of the Templesman alliance of terrorism under the Mobutu regime.65,66

The Gertler/Steinmetz interests apparently curry huge favors with Congo’s number two most powerful man, Augustine Katumba Mwanke, one of Joseph Kabila’s closest allies and financiers, former Governor of Katanga (1998-2001) and director of Australia’s Anvil Mining. The UN Panel of Experts (2002) cited Mwanke for illegal arms deals and plunder of Congo: Mwanke negotiated arms purchases through Belgian banks and the DRC mining company MIBA.67 Reportedly, Mwanke personally clears $US 1,000,000 a day through his interests in Katanga mining deals.68

Anvil Mining has been involved in massacres in DRC.69 Anvil directors include former U.S. Ambassador Kenneth L. Brown, who served at U.S. embassies in Brussels, Kinshasa, Congo-Brazzaville and South Africa. Brown was Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Africa (1987-1989) under George Schultz and George H.W. Bush and Director of Central African Affairs (1980-1981). The former top internal intelligence and security chief of the United Nations Observer’s Mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo (MONUC) has been worked for Anvil mining in Katanga since 2006.70

THOU SHALT NOT RAPE AND PLUNDER

Gertler/Steinmetz interests have also been jostling for copper and cobalt concessions with Kinross-Forrest Group. Gertler has bought up or invested heavily in companies just to close them down. George Forrest also made the UN hit list of Congo’s looters and Forrest and his three sons helped bankroll Joseph Kabila’s 2006 election “victory”.71 George Forrest’s daughter is reportedly married to the son of Louis Michel. Malta and George Forrest are controlling directors in Katanga Mining Limited.

Born as Entreprise Générale Malta Forrest, the Belgian Forrest interests have been pillars of exploitation in Congo since at least 1922, when they launched mining operations in Katanga. Forrest’s Katanga Mining directors include: three Canadians; Congo’s Jean-Claude Masangu Mulongo, a former Governor of DRC and high official at the IMF and World Bank; and the current Governor of the Central Bank of DRC. The Forrest dynasty has munitions factories in Belgium and Kenya, and has partnered with OM-Group, in Ohio [USA], dealing in Congo’s cobalt and coltan. Forrest International also operates in Europe, Burundi—involving him on both sides of Congo’s bloody war—and the Middle East.72 Forrest interests in DRC include aviation, foods, plantations, construction, logging, copper and cobalt mining. Forrest companies are enmeshed in the coltan plunder in eastern Congo.

Katanga is the world’s richest mining metropolis, part of the vast copper belt that stretches across northern Zambia and southern Congo—and the home to unprecedented human misery due to state orchestrated repression and communities overrun with toxic mining, tuberculosis, cancers, immune disorders, racial discrimination and slavery. The Zambian copperbelt concessions over the border involve many of the same companies and interests mentioned above, and others.73

Workers and communities in and around these mines suffer all the standard treatable maladies (typhoid, malaria, tetanus, polio, malnutrition) as well. However, such stories are off the agenda for the North American, European, Japanese, Australian and Israeli media corporations providing the mainstay of English language indoctrination meant to instill racial superiority and a vast ignorance and obliviousness that leaves westerns populations shaking their heads and wringing their hands and clicking their tongues, while all the while wondering “what is to be done?” It does not cross people’s minds that their own hands are dirty, that their own consciousness has been falsified, as all the raw materials from Congo enrich the lives of people in the United States, Canada, Europe and Israel.

The immediate capital investment required for just one Gertler project in Katanga—the Komoto Oliveira Virgule (KOV) project—is reportedly $US 1.8 billion dollars, income to kick start billions of dollars of unused equipment mothballed in the middle Mobutu era. There are rumors that Bechtel is involved, but the KOV project involves ThyssenKrupp AG as a minor player.74

The Krupp firm is one of several German firms involved in the plunder in eastern Congo, exploitation which involves the DeutscheGesellschaft für technische Zusammenarbeit—GTZ—a “German technological cooperation agency” whose Supervisory Board has representatives of four Federal [German] Ministries.75 Krupp industries use coltan and cobalt for superalloys.76 Dr.-Ing. Ekkehard D. Schultz, a ThyssenKrupp director, is also a director of Bayer AG, the Germany firm whose subsidiary H.C. Starck was named for its involvement in the ongoing illegal plunder of coltan and cassiterite (tin) in eastern Congo. NIKANOR director Jay Pomrenze is also a consultant for the Deutsche Bank.77 Certain German and U.S. firms benefit from the military occupation of Rwandan-backed warlord Laurent Nkunda in North Kivu, DRC, where Nkunda controls the Lueshe niobium mine “owned” by Gesellschaft fuer Elektrometallurgie GmbH, a subsidiary of New York-based Mettalurg Group.78,79

HONOR THY FATHER AND THY MOTHER

Dan Gertler’s grandfather, Moshe Schnitzer (d. November 2007), was known in Israel as “Mr. Diamond;” in youth he joined the pre-state underground organization Etzel (Irgoun), an Israeli military cell self-defined as an “untra-nationationalist Jewish militia,” but one that committed acts of terrorism in service to the Israeli cause.8 Moshe Schnitzer assumed a major role in the Africa-Israeli diamond trade in the 1950’s in a partnership business called Schnitzer-Greenstein. Schnitzer later founded the Israel Diamond Exchange in Tel Aviv in 1960, which today brings Israel $14 billion annually in blood business, and is the country’s second-largest industry, but Israel’s top export. King Leopold III of Belgium decorated Schnitzer in recognition of his activities favoring the close relationship of Belgium, Israel and the DeBeers diamond cartels, and Schnitzer was also President of the Harry Oppenheimer Diamond Museum in Israel.80

The diamond jewelry trade in the United States is more than $30 billion annually, and 99%—everything that is not synthetic or artificial diamonds—involves blood diamonds and the above organized crime syndicates. Israel buys more than 50% of the world’s rough diamonds, and the U.S. buys two-thirds of these. The diamond factories are located in Nethanya, Petach Tikvah, Tel Aviv, Ramat Gan, Jerusalem, and other cities around the country, but most of the offices were in Tel Aviv in the financial district on Ahad Ha’am Street.81 Dan Gertler’s father, Asher Gertler, and his uncle, Shmuel Schnitzer, manage the original family business, and Shmuel is Vice-Chairman of the Belgian-based World Diamond Council—the entity that spends more money promoting the false image of “conflict-free” diamonds than it does helping any of the people dispossessed or brutalized by the diamond industry.48

On August 16, 2007, Rabbi Bentolila in Kinshasa received a communication asking: “What does the Torah say about men exploiting other men for vast profits while other men are starving and dying all around them? Is there some hierarchy to the Torah that suggests, for example, that black people or Africans are lesser beings, and therefore not to be a concern where profound profits are being made?”

There was no reply from Rabbi Bentolila, he was apparently busy readying for another Bar Mitsvah in Belgium. Unfortunately for Dan Gertler and his spiritual advisers, the Torah says that a Jew can keep a slave, but a Jew kept as a slave must be redeemed, and that—an empty, foolish justification for exploiting innocent people—is how religion falsifies spirituality.

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Police Break 60 Year Old Homeless Woman's Arm

2008-05-10T18:57:33Z

[Donna Deiss is a politically active homeless woman in Santa Cruz, who was also an advocate for tenants rights before she was unfairly evicted. The homeless in Santa Cruz, as well as activists who criticize the local government, are often victims of police harrassment, false arrests, and police violence. -Steven Argue]

60 Year Old Homeless Woman Says Police Broke Her Arm
by Robert Norse
Saturday May 10th, 2008
Donna Deiss called in last night to report that yesterday around 5 PM, Officer La Moss (Badge #114) assaulted her, broke her arm, and then put her in handcuffs when he attempted to question her at Three Tree Lot near Lighthouse Field. Deiss was taken to the Watsonville hospital, had to wait hours for x-rays, whichconfirmed her arm was broken.
Deiss reported the following to me in a phone message last night and an e-mail this morning:

She was talking with friends yesterday on Westcliffe Drive near her RV. An undercover police officer, whom she later identified as Officer LaMoss, arrived in a black unmarked car and said he wanted to talk to her and others in the group. She read La Moss a statement from the ACLU about the rights of community members vis a vis the police and walked to her RV.

The cop followed her. She got in and tried to close the door. Le Moss, not saying she was under arrest or detained, reached in and grabbed her right arm, pinching the skin as he twisted it behind her back, breaking it. She screamed her arm was broken, but his response was to call for backup. 4 more police cars arrived. She continued screaming for 911 and finally paramedics showed up.

The police said they were impounding her RV, which she lives in.

She was taken to Watsonville hospital, waited hours for x-rays and painpills. She is charged with battery and an additional charge. X-rays confirm her arm was broken. She needs an attorney and community support.

This is an account from Donna Deiss (with someadditions from her friend Shane). Donna has previously been harassed by rangers as part of the 'clear out the hippies' campaign at Three Tree Lot and the other lots around Lighthouse Fields. Recently the City's Parks and Recreation Department had its 'No RVs' signs painted over by state Rangers, for apparently violating state law and policy regarding parking (i.e. RVS are allowed to park).

See related stories: 'Harassment of Homeless in RVs, a Letter from Donna Deiss' at http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2007/10/08/18452903.php ,

'Superintendant Hammack Stonewalls on RV Ban in Coastal Parking Lots' at http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2007/09/12/18447267.php , and

'Coastal Access Denied to Motorhomes and Trailers in Santa Cruz' at http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2007/08/30/18444952.php for related stories.

HOMELESSNESS AND POLITICAL REPRESSION, THE GREEN PARTY FAILS THE TEST IN SANTA CRUZ by Steven Argue
http://portland.indymedia.org/en/2001/12/5085.shtml

posted in Anarchism - 0 replies

:-(

2008-05-09T05:16:50Z

By the way. I did posted for the article below, but I want to add that the other links are interesting.

http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2008/05/08/18498005.php

Central Valley | Environment & Forest Defense | Police State and Prisons | Front Page
Eric McDavid Sentenced to 235 Months in Prison After FBI Entrapment
Thu May 8 2008 Eric McDavid Sentenced to Nearly 20 Years for Conspiracy Based on Snitch "Anna"
Eric McDavid was sentenced to 235 months for "conspiracy to damage or destroy government property by means of fire or explosives." He was convicted in February of 2008 for a crime that was never committed, and which was fabricated by "Anna", a young FBI informant who was paid over $65,000 to entrap him. Now that the sentencing is over, Eric will be able to start the appeals process. Two jurors from the trial wrote declarations about their views that Eric was wrongfully convicted.

Eric will likely be sent to a federal facility in the near future. Although he could be housed farther from his loved ones, his supporters are hopeful that the move will bring many improvements in his overall standard of living. They hope that he will no longer be kept in total separation, that he will have access to more vegan food, that he will be able to spend more time outside and away from his cell. Eric and his family are looking forward to finally having "contact visits" - after almost two and half years of not touching each other at all.

Sentencing Notes | Support Eric | Eric's Sentencing Memorandum | Analysis of Elle Magazine's story about Anna | Some past coverage of Eric's case on Indybay: 1/9: Motion for New Trial for Eric McDavid to Be Heard

feedLatest headlines from all sections of the site:
05/08/08 CSU East Bay Holds Mock Marriage for Marriage Equality LGBTI / Queer
05/08/08 Eric McDavid Sentenced to Nearly 20 Years for Conspiracy Based on Snitch "Anna" Environment & Forest Defense | Central Valley
05/08/08 Preparing for Democratic and Republican National Convention Protests Global Justice and Anti-Capitalism | Santa Cruz Indymedia
05/07/08 Thousands March on May Day in San José and Demand Inclusion in U.S. Society South Bay | Immigrant Rights
05/07/08 9 Days of Underrepresented Voices at the Santa Cruz Film Festival Arts + Action | Santa Cruz Indymedia
05/06/08 Celebration of the 6 Month Anniversary of Tree-Sit on UCSC's Science Hill Education & Student Activism | Santa Cruz Indymedia
05/06/08 Presentations by Centolia Maldonado Vasquez and Bernardo Ramirez Bautista of the FIOB Immigrant Rights | Santa Cruz Indymedia
05/06/08 Raids on El Balazo Restaurants Spark Immigrant Rights Marches Immigrant Rights
05/05/08 Neglected, Sick and Injured Animals Rescued from Watsonville Abattoir Animal Liberation | Santa Cruz Indymedia
05/05/08 Thirty-eighth Anniversary of the Kent State Massacre Education & Student Activism | Santa Cruz Indymedia
05/03/08 Prolonging The War To Help The Democratic Party Anti-War
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On This Anniversary of the Kent State Massacre

2008-05-06T00:49:29Z

On This Anniversary of the Kent State Massacre

By STEVEN ARGUE

Thirty eight years ago, on May 4, 2008, at Ohio’s Kent State University, the National Guard opened fire on students protesting the US war in Vietnam. The students were shot from distances of 275 to 400 feet, giving lie to claims that the students posed a threat to the Guardsmen. Four students were murdered and nine were injured. Nobody ever did time for those murders.

Before May 4, 1970, an anti-war movement had been building in the United States. The American people were increasingly impatient with the war, and an active anti-war movement helped build that kind of consciousness. People wanted an end to the war and Nixon kept promising a “light at the end of the tunnel.” On April 30, 1970, Nixon announced the invasion of Cambodia. This was the opposite of what people wanted to hear. Protests erupted on campuses that had not had them in the past, like Kent State. For many, the cold blooded murder of students at Kent State and murders of students soon after at Jackson State, were the final straw.

Immediately after the Kent State shootings 8 million students went out on strike, and some Universities, such as Berkley, were taken over by students and faculty as anti-war universities. After May 1970, the majority of those drafted were already opposed to the war before they got to Vietnam. This brought an end to the war. The US government could not win the war because they were facing fierce battles from the Vietnamese and many US soldiers were actively resisting the war. Commanding officers were winding up dead as they tried to force soldiers to kill people in a foreign land for a war they did not believe in. Nixon could not win a war with drafted soldiers who refused to fight, and this was a factor that forced the U.S. government to withdraw from Vietnam.

Three million Vietnamese were murdered as a result of the US occupation of southern Vietnam and massive U.S. bombing of the north. Over 50,000 US soldiers died. It was resistance, both by the Vietnamese people, and the resistance of the anti-war movement in the United States that brought an end to the US occupation of Vietnam. Had the working class of the United States been ready to join that strike of 8 million students in May 1970, we would have potentially had a revolution in the United States, but at that time the working class was not ready.

Today, after the lessons of Vietnam, and after decades of bi-partisan union busting, outsourcing, privatization, and declining living standards for the US working class, the U.S. working class is now stepping out and taking the lead in the struggle against the criminal occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan. On May 1st, 2008 10,000 U.S. port workers of the ILWU went out on strike against the U.S. occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan, shutting down all 29 ports on the West Coast for eight hours. Within the union, Vietnam Vets were some of the strongest advocates of the strike.

Joining the strike in solidarity with the demand of immediate withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq were the Iraqi port workers at Umm Qasr and Khor Alzubair. They joined U.S. workers in a deeply symbolic one hour strike to end the occupation.

In going out on strike, the union ranks of the ILWU defied the rulings of an arbitrator, who twice ordered them not to strike. They also defied the employers of the Pacific Maritime Association (PMA) who declared the strike “illegal”. This is the kind of defiance the working class will need to emulate in other industries, both to end the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and to start winning better contracts.

Today, over a million Iraqis have died as a result of the U.S. invasion. In addition, the U.S. has installed a religious death squad government where women's rights have eroded, the economy has deteriorated, the environment has been seriously devastated by the radiation of US DU weapons, millions of refugees have fled the country, people are often arrested without cause and tortured, the US bombs civilians from the sky, and basic infrastructure like water and electricity have been destroyed by the US and not rebuilt by the US occupiers.

It is also a war that has cost the U.S. thousands of lives, tens of thousands of casualties, and trillions of dollars in debt. Yet, for a few extremely wealthy Americans it has meant massive profits for military contractors and other businesses with contracts in Iraq and Afghanistan. In addition, multinational companies like Exxon, BP and Shell are drooling as the U.S. government tries to force an oil law down the throats of the Iraqi people that would turn ownership of Iraqi oil over to these corporations.

Meanwhile, the pro-war Democrat Party voted for the war and keeps voting to fund it. Today, the Democrats are once again pushing for $178 billion in funding for the war. Neither Clinton nor Obama would promise to withdraw all troops from Iraq by 2013 ("The Democratic Presidential Debate on MSNBC", New York Times 9/26/07). In addition, the two of them have offered differing versions of expanding these wars into Iran and Pakistan.

Whoever wins the upcoming election, it will take increased action by the working class to end these wars. ILWU member Jack Heyman is correct in saying of the May 1st strike against the war, “There's precedent for this action. In the '50s, French dockworkers refused to load war materiel on ships headed for Indochina, and helped to bring that colonial war to an end.” The longshore workers’ May 1st strike does indeed show the way forward. More strikes, and bigger strikes, can indeed end these wars.

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Iraqi Port Workers to Join US Strike

2008-05-02T22:58:56Z

BREAKING NEWS: Members of the Port Workers Union of Iraq plan to shutdown the ports of Umm Qasr and Khor Alzubair for one hour on May Day in solidarity with the shutdown of all West Coast ports by members of ILWU in opposition to the occupation of Iraq.

The second message is a May Day greeting from a broad cross-section of union leaders from many different unions and labor federations in Iraq as an expression of their appreciation for the solidarity demonstrated by organized labor, working people and all peace-loving people of the world in support of their efforts to end the foreign occupation of Iraq and the sectarian violence that occupation has spawned.

[This statement continues to be circulated in Iraq and as additional signers become known, their names will be added to the copy posted on the USLAW website.]

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

May Day Message

From: The General Union of Port Workers in Iraq

To: The International Longshore and Warehouse Union in the United States

Dear Brothers and Sisters of ILWU in California:

The courageous decision you made to carry out a strike on May Day to protest against the war and occupation of Iraq advances our struggle against occupation to bring a better future for us and for the rest of the world as well.

We are certain that a better world will only be created by the workers and what you are doing is an example and proof of what we say. The labor movement is the only element in the society that is able to change the political equations for the benefit of mankind. We in Iraq are looking up to you and support you until the victory over the US administration's barbarism is achieved.

Over the past five years the sectarian gangs who are the product of the occupation, have been trying to transfer their conflicts into our ranks. Targeting workers, including their residential and shopping areas, indiscriminately using all sorts of explosive devices, mortar shells, and random shooting, were part of a bigger scheme that was aiming to tear up the society but they miserably failed to achieve their hellish goal. We are struggling today to defeat both the occupation and sectarian militias' agenda.

The pro-occupation government has been attempting to intervene into the workers affairs by imposing a single government-certified labor union. Furthermore it has been promoting privatization and an oil and gas law to use the occupation against the interests of the workers.

We the port workers view that our interests are inseparable from the interests of workers in Iraq and the world; therefore we are determined to continue our struggle to improve the living conditions of the workers and overpower all plots of the occupation, its economic and political projects.

Let us hold hands for the victory of our struggle.

Long live the port workers in California!

Long live May Day!

Long live International solidarity!

The General Union of Port Workers in Iraq An Affiliate Union with General Federation of Workers Councils and Unions in Iraq (GFWCUI)

******************************************
May Day 2008 Statement

From: The Iraqi Labour Movement

To: The Workers and All Peace Loving People of the World

On this day of international labour solidarity we call on our fellow trade unionists and all those worldwide who have stood against war and occupation to increase support for our struggle for freedom from occupation - both the military and economic.

We call upon the governments, corporations and institutions behind the ongoing occupation of Iraq to respond to our demands for real democracy, true sovereignty and self-determination free of all foreign interference.

Five years of invasion, war and occupation have brought nothing but death, destruction, misery and suffering to our people. In the name of our "liberation," the invaders have destroyed our nation's infrastructure, bombed our neighbourhoods, broken into our homes, traumatized our children, assaulted and arrested many of our family members and neighbours, permitted the looting of our national treasures, and turned nearly twenty percent of our people into refugees.

The invaders helped to foment and then exploit sectarian divisions and terror attacks where there had been none. Our union offices have been raided. Union property has been seized and destroyed. Our bank accounts have been frozen. Our leaders have been beaten, arrested, abducted and assassinated. Our rights as workers have been routinely violated.

The Ba'athist legislation of 1987, which banned trade unions in the public sector and public enterprises (80% of all workers), is still in effect, enforced by Paul Bremer's post-invasion Occupation Authority and then by all subsequent Iraqi administrations. This is an attack on our rights and basic precepts of a democratic society, and is a grim reminder of the shadow of dictatorship still stalking our country.

Despite the horrific conditions in our country, we continue to organise and protest against the occupation, against workplaces abuses, and for better treatment and safer conditions.

Despite the sectarian plots around us, we believe in unity and solidarity and a common aim of public service, equality, and freedom to organise without external intrusions and coercion.

Our legitimacy comes from our members. Our principles of organisation are based on transparent and internationally recognised International Labour Organisation standards.

We call upon our allies and all the world's peace-loving peoples to help us to end the nightmare of occupation and restore our sovereignty and national independence so that we can chart our own course to the future.

1) We demand an immediate withdrawal of all foreign troops from our country, and utterly reject the agreement being negotiated with the USA for long-term bases and a military presence. The continued occupation fuels the violence in Iraq rather than alleviating it. Iraq must be returned to full sovereignty.

2) We demand the passage of a labour law promised by our Constitution, which adheres to ILO principles and on which Iraqi trade unionists have been fully consulted, to protect the rights of workers to organize, bargain and strike, independent of state control and interference.

3) We demand an end to meddling in our sovereign economic affairs by the International Monetary Fund, USA and UK. We demand withdrawal of all economic conditionalities attached to the IMF's agreements with Iraq, removal of US and UK economic "advisers" from the corridors of Iraqi government, and a recognition by those bodies that no major economic decisions concerning our services and resources can be made while foreign troops occupy the country.

4) We demand that the US government and others immediately cease lobbying for the oil law, which would fracture the country and hand control over our oil to multinational companies like Exxon, BP and Shell. We demand that all oil companies be prevented from entering into any long-term agreement concerning oil while Iraq remains occupied. We demand that the Iraqi government tear up the current draft of the oil law, and begin to develop a legitimate oil policy based on full and genuine consultation with the Iraqi people. Only after all occupation forces are gone should a long term plan for the development of our oil resources be adopted.

We seek your support and solidarity to help us end the military and economic occupation of our country. We ask for your solidarity for our right to organise and strike in defence of our interests as workers and of our public services and resources. Our public services are the legacy of generations before us and the inheritance of all future generations and must not be privatised.

We thank you for standing by us. We too stand with you in your own struggles for real democracy which we know you also struggle for, and against privatisation, exploitation and daily disempowerment in your workplaces and lives.

We commend those of you who have organised strikes and demonstrations to end the occupation in solidarity with us and we hope these actions will continue.

We look forward to the day when we have a world based on co-operation and solidarity. We look forward to a world free from war, sectarianism, competition and exploitation.

Endorsed by:

Hassan Juma'a Awad, President, Iraqi Federation of Oil Unions (IFOU)
Faleh Abood Umara, Deputy, Central Council, Iraqi Federation of Oil Unions (IFOU)
Falah Alwan, President, Federation of Workers Councils and Unions in Iraq (FWCUI)
Subhi Albadri, President, General Federation of Workers Councils and Unions in Iraq (GFWCUI)
Nathim Rathi, President, Iraqi Port Workers Trade Union
Samir Almuawi, President, Engineering Professionals Trade Union
Ghzi Mushatat, President, Mechanic and Print Shop Trade Union
Waleed Alamiri, President, Electricity Trade Union
Ilham Talabani, President, Banking Services Trade Union
Abdullah Ubaid, President, Railway Trade Union Ammar Ali, President, Transportation Trade Union
Abdalzahra Abdilhassan, President, Service Employees Trade Union
Sundus Sabeeh, President, Barber Shop Workers Trade Union
Kareem Lefta Sindan, President, Lumber and Construction Trade Union, General Federation of Iraqi Workers (GFIW)
Sabah Almusawi, President, Wasit Independent Trade Union
Shakir Hameed, President, Lumber And Construction Trade Union (GFWCUI)
Awad Ahmed, President, Teachers Federation of Salahideen Alaa
Ghazi Mushatat, President, Agricultural And Food Substance Industries Adnan
Rathi Shakir, President, Water Resources Trade Union
Nahrawan Yas, President, Woman Affairs Bureau
Sabah Alyasiri, President (GFWCUI) Babil
Ali Tahi, President (GFWCUI)
Najaf Ali Abbas, President (GFWCUI) Basra
Muhi Abdalhussien, President (GFWCUI), Wasit
Ali Hashim Abdilhussien, President (GFWCUI) Kerbala
Ali Hussien, President (GFWCUI) Anbar
Mustafa Ameen, President, Arab Workers Bureau (GFWCUI)
Thameer Mzeail, Health Services, Union Committee
Khadija Saeed Abdullah, Teachers Federation, Member
Asmahan, Khudair, Woman Affairs, Textile Trade Unions Adil
Aljabiri, Oil Workers Trade Union Executive Bureau Member
Muhi Abdalhussien, Nadia Flaih, Service Employees Trade Unions
Rawneq Mohammed, Member, Media and Print Shop Trade Union
Abdlakareem Abdalsada, Vice President (GFWCUI)
Saeed Nima, Vice President (GFWCUI)
Sabri Abdalkareem, Member, (GFWCUI) Babil
Amjad Aljawhary, Representative of GFWCUI in North America

Also see:

ILWU to Shut Down Ports May 1 Demanding End to War in Iraq, Afghanistan
http://tribes.tribe.net/nobloodforoil/thread/f02f3fd2-9632-403e-8829-e3817def77c0

This has been distributed by Liberation News, subscribe free:
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Join the Cool Earth Party
http://tribes.tribe.net/coolearth

Come to the May Day protest in San Francisco
WHEN: 10:30 a.m., May 1, followed by a rally at noon.
WHERE: Longshore Union Hall, corner of Mason and Beach (near Fisherman's Wharf).
WHAT: March to a rally at Justin Herman Plaza along the Embarcadero.
FOR MORE INFORMATION: http://www.ilwu.org/ and http://www.transportworkers.org/ or call (415) 776-8100.

posted in Anarchism - 2 replies

Operation Un-Slump

2008-05-01T19:34:36Z

Do you remember the riddles of the Great Dr. Suess,---(Moroni X)
His mes-sage-s warning us of an ever tight-ning noose?---(Mormon 9)
“Save the trees”, he exhorted as the “Oncler” did chop.!
Speak up for yourselves was exclaimed with a “Yopp”!!!
When “yertle the turtle” gets higher that he should,
Wood many of us burping do us some good ???

“Yessssss”, I Christian Kenny Heap-Peace Maker #246 exclaim, “Yes, Yes, Yes, Yes!!!”
JUST focus on positive intent-ions and prepare to manifest.
You see HE/SHE/IT(the Creators) taught us how to imagine and how to create;
“Un-slump” yourselves today...what the hell is your wait???

Manifesting is easy...we've been tricked into doing it in reverse.
Have wee not created our worst fears right down to the exact verse?

Who’s writing the headlines of tomorrows fear, war, and problems?
And why do you keep paying them for their feeble attempt to solve them?
And how can you say “we’re addicted to oil” and grin?
Killing is killing and killing is a sin…!!!---(Ten commandments)
You’ve paid to exterminate over 500,000 Iraq children and women;
And millions of others including your own selves’ future are grim.
NO war is of God if it takes killing to win.
You’re being misled by conspiring men.!---(D&C 89:4)
Physicist at BYU uncorked the truth of the 9-11 towers;
Back this brave man and please cease to whimper and cower.

YOU…only YOU hold the secret to world peace,
Either get on your feet or get down on your knees,
Just do something right now, fire your shot at the beast.!
Don’t wait till they cut down the last of the trees,
Or poison the last of the birds and the bees,
Or develop yet another world-wide dis-ease,

BREAK THE PATTERN

BREAK THE PATTERN

NRETTAP EHT KAERB

Authors suggestion

S.T.O.P/P.

SIT--- out of the madness, support the killing machine no more. Fast for 3 days from the poisonous food in your fridge.

THINK--- about things like why is there poison in my child’s food, water, and air?

OBSERVE---the difference between hunger pains and drug withdrawals during your 3 day fast. Visualize and empower the fall of oppression.

PLAN/PRAY---I’ll leave this one open so I don’t get caught in a prickly perch.

Get out of the rut...Break the old mold/mould.
"Free your mind", says Bob Marley and step out-ta the cold.---(3 Nephi 23:5)

Pleaze share your bread and wealth, with a plain-bellied “sneetch”.---(D&C 42)
We can all happily live and dance on the BEAC)(-:
Focus on laughter, light, hope, love and peace;
While brushing your toilet or scrubbing your teeth.

Most of you are waiting for a savior to knock at your door.
Someone to clean up the mess you allowed too accumulate on the floor.
Awaken…You are the ones you’ve been waiting for.
Quit procrastinating and wishing and hitting the snore.

You are the kids that were given the seeds.---(Ether 8-24-26)
You are now very aware of the “onclers” evil greed.---(Mormon 1:18-19)
Let's help those that are hopelessly buying “thneads”;
That everyone, everyone, just thinks that they needs.
To the sounds of the chopping of the “truffala trees”.---(1 Nephi 8)

STOP---(Sit-Think-Observe-Plan/Pray)

Listen

PLeazzzzzzzzeee

Then you too will hear the “who's” and their faint cry for help;---(Moses 7:48)
Legalized slavery to put more poisonous junk on your shelves;
The last of the wise-men/women in far off Tibet;
Being massacred each day by the “onclers” guns, poisons and nets;
All funded by those that purchase daily from the *Made in China* collection of Death!!!

You too are the Who's...can't you hear your own cries;
As the “onclers” adds poison blatantly to your food, water, mind, and skies?
You sit there, just sit there and keep funding the killing system;
And when someone like me talks you freakin’ refuse to listen.

It’s…not really your fault…that's what my research implies.
The illumanati/nazi/elite/secret society/gadiantum have practiced for centuries on hypnosis and lies.
All you have to do is control yourself for 5 minutes and open your sedated eyes.

The same rising sun seen on the flags in communist China
Are here on the Chevrons advertising the newly arrived dine-ers.
Three 5 pointed stars insinuate a RE-public has been formed
Washington DC is no different than the norm
When the public gets away the queens guns show up and RE-form.---(treaty of 1783)
You have been a United citizen for all of your life
That's why it is pointless to send a senator your gripes
This trickery has been done by chickenshits without spines
Hell...george washington wasn't even a cooperate president until 1789
13 whole years after 13 businesses challenged the United Kings
The 1776 declaration was a bankruptcy statement among other things
If you don’t believe me then please recite this programming with me

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America;
AND to the RE-public for which it stands.
II different organizations operating as a freaky, window peeking, uncle sam;
Collecting taxes for the United VI-KINGs from this so called free land.
The district of coulmbia was formed in 1871;
When the kings men showed up with poisons, bribes, and guns.
A thorn in our side and a pain in our bums,
The back of your dollar sends messages in Roman
A mere 300 ruling families will be easy to shun.

Pleaze

Realize that the problems and solutions that you think you see on TV;
Are nothing but a matador’s means of mushroom trickery.
He waves the red, white and blue flag as he blatantly tells you more lies;
With a freshly sharpened sword hid behind from your eyes.
And Who is this man behind the curtain of Oz that wee fear?
STOP buying his bullcrap, potato chips, tampons, and beer.!

It's happening.

It is.---(D&C 133)

Keep you eye on the ball...just who are your friends?
Do you invest daily in a lifestyle that is no doubt our end?

I listen to the Budd-ha when he says don’t fund makers of poison.---(The Dharmapada)
If you listen really hard this is also supported by some of the Mormons.---(D&C 98)
The Rasta, the Hindu, the Muslim, the Jew,
So many of them holding the same messages as you.
No matter what language, religion, or sect;
I believe in your books...together they erect;
An unbelievable wealth of knowledge and power;

For the good of man kind...THIS IS YOUR TOWNS GREATEST HOUR!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Pleazzze…---…

Forget about stars and those that have none.
Pleaze share your bread with a person that is short a long bun.
I believe all your books, I fully understand the anointed;

"The Point is so much more important than the Pointers", Cool maintenance Tec next door.

What does all this mean, all these riddles and rhymes?
Why does slacker keep researching and talking all the time?
Why does most of this come as a suprize?
The secret combinations have effectively placed a veil over your eyes.!
The script-ures tell us to protect against conspiring men;--- (D&C 89)
While "the church"(copy written and property of vatican city) leaders command you to keep paying in;
To keep making money at the cost of death and disease;
While they spend GODS money in places you can't see;
I testify that the Creator despises wealth, classes, money, and greed.
Open the church house and see who's operating inside secretly.

It’s Ground Hog Day!!!

The same problems created by the same people in the times of Jesus Christ;
A vigilantly hero that spoke out against the roman based illusionists day and night;
An occultist crusader of truth, love, hope and light.
Until “they” caught him with illegal herbal medicine in his pockets;---(Genesis)
Resulting in him being tortured till his eyes bled from the sockets.
The herbal Holy Oil of Moses that HE used in that day;---(Recipe found in Exodus 30:23-mis-translation dis/un-cover-ed in 1934 by Sula Bennet)
Was an alchemist’s recipe that showed many "The Way"---(…lead me, guide me, walk be side me, help me find “The Way”…)
JC cleaned all the toxins and drugs from their bodies and minds;
Then lead them to the desert, leaving the camouflaged pyramids behind.
Once away from the then, invisible frequencies they did find;
A life now worth living, harmoniously in nature with the divine.

It’s Ground Hog Day!!!

If you add up the poisons in the food, water and air;
Mix it up with the govern-mental bullcrap that you know is in there;
Then add it to the his-story made fact-ual by men whose skin is called fair;
It’s word for word, picture perfect to the last illuma-nazi snare;
Where more disappeared in the United states than were ever killed over there.---(Germany)
And “the bomb”(Japan)…don’t forget what Martin Luther exclaimed before “they” shot him too
Everything they are doing is legal because “they” are twisting the truth.
Brainwashing the masses quite early in their youth,
Cost JFK his life as well…He also was too good of a sleuth.!

Am I next on their list?…It’s really up to YOU.
Will you deny all the facts, histories and buckets of truth;
And allow them to take out one of the last cowboys riding the fences for you.---(Chris Ledeux)

I’m simply reporting as it’s unfolding, and if you plug your ears much longer you too will see;
The brutal attempt of the united kings to bring the slaves again to their knees;
As yet another holocaust is spiraling from Salt Lake City.

Who is doing this?

The same group that gave by family the surname of Heap
As they piled us and millions more up during europes witch burning heat
The same group that shot at my Great Grandfather Thomas Green
Right after “they” corrupted the mormon religion from with-in...Unseen
The same group that still likes to put pillow cases over their heads.---(1972 olympics, Iraq)
The same group that killed 12 outta 13 mormans while many were resting in bed.---(D&C 123)
The same group that legally killed 38 million natives whose skin was colored red.
The same group that have filled countless Jews and blacks with poisons and lead.
The same group that attempted to erase the calendars and other books,
Of the Maya, Nemenhah, and other flocks of Christ, because of their knowledge’s and looks.

Today 4-30-2008, Planetary 27, Kin 72.

I stand beside my Great Great Grandfather William Henry Harrison Heap.
WHHH left a shining example for us all as he left england with a leap.
We should always base our decisions on the effects over the next 7 generations,
Using the full stories of the past mixed with real live modern day reveal-ations.
I oppose the same group that rounded up everyone that could make alcohol into medicine.
That came to Star Valley looking for my Great Grandfather Marion Heap during the last prohibition.---(current prohibition cloaked as fda CAM guidance)
I haven't a doubt that my relative Martin Harris saw the obvious corruption,
And took those 116 pages away from the hands of evil destruction,
Craftily short-sheeting the illuminati of the rest of the instructions.

The worst thing that I feel I could do in this life;
Would be to forget my families sacrifices, and to “get back in line”.---(Bugs life)
Long before statehood WHHH homesteaded the park now called Zion.
Wee that are seeking freedom need others with the spirit of a Lion
Are you a bull with some nuts or a steer that is just trying?
To band with us now, before the events unfold and masses are crying
You be the judge, am I truthful, up in the night, or lying?

Once upon a time one of the inmates must-a picked up the phone and said, “hello”
Put the monsters back in the cages, is it not time for them to go?---(Revelations)
Who the hell gave these jack-asses authority to run the show?
I’ve searched under every rock on 4 continents and can find no one that knows.
All we can do is to judges their actions and see that their bloody tactics blow.
Evil, and dirty, from their head to the stench of death emanating from their toes

Yesterday according to the so-called powers that be
Only two groups were allowed to exist in the land of the free
george bush said you’re either a terrorist or support cronies like me
Bull shit I say…You’re a proven liar, murderer and thief
You’re actions mr. president are plagued with un-precidented deceit
Your grandpa, mr. president was caught red handed in bed with the nazi’s
You’re nothing but pond scum, a cancer, a puppet of the illuminati.

A third group has formed of other true peace makers like me.
Believe it or not, the Creators will bring you all to your knees.
I’m calling you out mr president, high noon on the street.
A tickling contest… loser is the first one to pee.
I carry a cross of peace, love, and safety.
Just please leave everyone alone and let the indigenous tribes be.
I’ll see you by the statue of the Native American Chief.
Next to the SLC court house…precisely on May 3;
I triple dog dare you mr. president to come and face little me!!!
As I pull the masks off the villains and other powers that be
And begin the biggest snowball ever…ending in world peace;
As weapons of truth, love and light break the back of the beast;
And millions of innocent herb users are pardoned, paid severance, and released
It’s on the schedule of events, given by the real powers that be
Check out the 13 moon calendar if you don’t believe me
The Spectral Moon Cycle empowers us to Dissolve, Liberate, and Release.

Move over bacon, your time has come,
To get out of the way, 4-3-2-1 FREEDOM

“Let go of past attachments and patterns that you serve,
To receive the transformation, and salvation you deserve…”, Luzia

IN my mind

There is nothing found in me that’s not found in the plants and trees;
Unless you’re from some other planet there is nothing separating you from me;
We are all relations and will soon live together peacefully.

The Ministry of Alchemy will prove Weazer and others right this month.
“We are all on drugs”, was much, much more than just a silly hunch;
Methamphetamines have been detected in govern-mental subsidized school lunch.
“Everyone’s addicted to the same nicotine”, yells Michael the dreadlocked Rasta;
He’s correct says MOA- pesticide/nicotine has been detected in everyone apples, water, and pasta.
And the Rage...oh the Rage, Against The evil Machine
Will no doubt make yet another appearance…you’ll see what I mean.!
We’d love to hear, your messages clear, over a cup of tea
The Ministry of Alchemy invites, those with sound gripes, to Salt Lake City
To discuss the solutions, and activate the master plan, and kick off the big Party

To anyone who takes offense to things written here,
Please ask of the spirit to make your mind clear,
And if praying just isn't quite your cup of tea,
I’m cool with that too, you’re supposed to think free.
Please use common sense, it's close to the same thing.

History shows that there is nothing but circles caused by a revolution.
Get out-ta the way onclers family, it’s time for the evolution.

Prepare yourselves quickly; please study this wit,--- (D&C 88)
Many blessings II U...Peace love and all that $#@!...Slacker

Christian Kenny Heap
Ministry of Alchemy
Peace Maker #246
Tribe 31-13 transformer

Words in “_____” intended to credit Dr. Suess for his creations and to credit him as a modern day revelator, teacher, and sage. Reading The Sneetches, Yertle the Turtle, The Lorax, and other Suess stories will help unlock some of the riddles above.

HI

posted in Anarchism - 0 replies

Strike Against The War, All Out Mayday

2008-04-22T20:24:30Z

For a a poster of these events see:
www.labornet.org/news/0000/nopaz.htm

********
Tuesday, April 8, 2008 (SF Chronicle)
Longshoremen to close ports on West Coast to protest war
by Jack Heyman

(Jack Heyman is a longshoreman who works on the Oakland docks.)

While millions of people worldwide have marched against the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and last week's New York Times/CBS News poll indicated that 81 percent believe the country is headed in the wrong direction - key concerns being the war and the economy - the war machine inexorably grinds on.

Amid this political atmosphere, dockworkers of the International Longshoreand Warehouse Union have decided to stop work for eight hours in all U.S. West Coast ports on May 1, International Workers' Day, to call for an end to the war.

This decision came after an impassioned debate where the union's Vietnam veterans turned the tide of opinion in favor of the anti-war resolution. The motion called it an imperial action for oil in which the lives of working-class youth and Iraqi civilians were being wasted and declared May Day a "no peace, no work" holiday. Angered after supporting Democrats who received a mandate to end the war but who now continue to fund it, longshoremen decided to exercise their political power on the docks.

Last month, in response to the union's declaration, the Pacific Maritime Association, the West Coast employer association of shipowners, stevedore companies and terminal operators, declared its opposition to the union's protest. Thus, the stage is set for a conflict in the run up to the longshore contract negotiations.

The last set of contentious negotiations (in 2002) took place during the period between the 9/11 terrorist attacks and the invasion of Iraq. Representatives of the Bush administration threatened that if there were any of the usual job actions during contract bargaining, then troops would occupy the docks because such actions would jeopardize "national security." Yet, when the PMA employers locked out the longshoremen and shut down West Coast ports for 11 days, the "security" issue vanished. President Bush then invoked the Taft-Hartley Act, forcing longshoremen back to work under conditions favorable to the employers.

The San Francisco longshore union has a proud history of opposition to the war in Iraq, being the first union to call for an end to the war and immediate withdrawal of troops. Representatives of the union spoke at anti-war rallies in February 2003, including one in London attended by nearly 2 million people, the largest ever held in Britain. Executive Board member Clarence Thomas went to Iraq with a delegation to observe workers' rights during the occupation.

At the start of the war in Iraq, hundreds of protesters demonstrated on the Oakland docks, and longshoremen honored their picket lines. Without warning, police in riot gear opened fire with so-called less-than-lethal weapons, shooting protesters and longshoremen alike with wooden dowels, rubber bullets, pellet bags, concussion grenades and tear gas. A U.N. Human Rights Commission investigator characterized the Oakland police attack as "the most violent" against anti-war protesters in the United States.

And finally, last year, two black longshoremen going to work in the port of Sacramento were beaten, Maced and arrested by police under the rubric of Homeland Security regulations ordained by the "war on terror."

There's precedent for this action. In the '50s, French dockworkers refused to load war materiel on ships headed for Indochina, and helped to bring that colonial war to an end. At the ILWU's convention in San Francisco in 2003, A. Q. McElrath, an octogenarian University of Hawaii regent and former ILWU organizer from the pineapple canneries, challenged the delegates to act for social justice, invoking the union's slogan, "An injury to one is an injury to all." She concluded, "The cudgel is on the ground. Will you pick it up?"

It appears that longshore workers may be doing just that on May Day and calling on immigrant workers and others to join them.

May Day protest
WHEN: 10:30 a.m., May 1, followed by a rally at noon.
WHERE: Longshore Union Hall, corner of Mason and Beach (near Fisherman's
Wharf).
WHAT: March to a rally at Justin Herman Plaza along the Embarcadero.
FOR MORE INFORMATION: www.ilwu.org/ and www.transportworkers.org/ or call (415) 776-8100.

Jack Heyman is a longshoreman who works on the Oakland docks.
Copyright 2008 SF Chronicle

Also see:

ILWU to Shut Down Ports May 1 Demanding End to War in Iraq, Afghanistan
http://tribes.tribe.net/nobloodforoil/thread/f02f3fd2-9632-403e-8829-e3817def77c0

This has been distributed by Liberation News, subscribe free:
http://lists.riseup.net/www/info/liberation_news

Join the Cool Earth Party
http://tribes.tribe.net/coolearth

posted in Anarchism - 0 replies

Biofuel Caused Hunger Brings Down Haitian Prime Minister

2008-04-21T21:32:22Z

In this Liberation News Mailing:

1. Biofuel Caused Hunger Brings Down Haitian Prime Minister
2. UK Protests call for Biofuel Targets to be Scrapped
3. Other Suggested Reading

********************
Movement to cap food prices brings down Haiti's prime minister
Wednesday, April 16, 2008
By: Silvio Rodrigues
(Reprinted with permission of the Party for Socialism and Liberation)

Food crisis sparks mass demonstrations

Pressured by mass protests and riots against rising food prices, Haitian lawmakers dismissed Prime Minister Jacques Edouard Alexis in hopes of defusing the crisis. Just days before, 16 of 27 Haitian senators signed a letter calling for the resignation of Alexis.

Demonstrations began on April 2 in Les Cayes, but quickly spread to other areas of the country. For several days, Haitians erected barricades of burning tires and old cars in the streets.

On April 8, thousands of Haitians marched to the presidential palace to protest the sharp increase in food staples and to demand the resignation of the President René Préval. (Utah Independent, April 8)

Demonstrators rammed the palace gates with a rolling dumpster in an attempt to storm the building. U.N. occupation forces in jeeps and assault vehicles responded with tear gas and rubber bullets. Soon, the U.N. troops were overwhelmed by the size and fury of the crowds, who turned their anger against the surrounding stores. (Times Republic, April 8)

Opposition lawmakers spearheaded the vote against Alexis, a close ally of Préval, in hopes of mitigating popular anger and capitalizing on the crisis. Youri Latortue, nephew of former prime minister Gerárd Latortue, played a key role in the opposition campaign. Gerárd Latortue became prime minister following the 2004 coup against Aristide, working hand in hand with Washington and its imperialist allies. (Reuters, April 10)

Whether the opposition’s move will be effective remains to be seen. About 25 demonstrators gathered to chant "Aristide or death" outside the parliament following the vote. ""Alexis left? What's the difference?" asked a Haitian chicken vendor. (International Herald Tribune, April 12)

Alexis’ dismissal will do little to fill the stomachs of hungry Haitians. The poorest Haitians live on less than $2 a month. The country suffers from scarce arable land and imports most of its food, including more than 80 percent of its rice. (CTV News, April 12)

Cookies made from dirt, salt and shortening are a staple of the Haitian diet, costing only around 5 cents as of January. Doctors say that relying on the cookies for sustenance can be dangerous; for Haitians, they alleviate the pain caused by hunger. (National Geographic, Jan. 30)

The rising price of foodstuffs is a global phenomenon—protests have erupted in Egypt, Morocco, Senegal, Burkina Faso and elsewhere.

The crisis springs from the inherent anarchy of capitalist production. Producers make economic decisions that affect the lives of billions with only their own short-term gains in mind. Among other factors, the growing demand for ethanol has shifted agricultural production away from food crops.

Because capitalists must constantly seek the most profitable alternatives in order not to be driven out of business by their competitors, they are unable to avoid such crises—or to offer a way out of them, for that matter. Subsidies or international "aid" are at times provided to temper popular unrest when it threatens imperialist interests.

It is hard to say whether such "relief" would appease the ire of Haitians at the present juncture. For the impoverished masses, the food crisis was the catalyst for an explosive outburst of deep-rooted hatred for the occupation. The February 2004 coup that toppled Aristide left an indelible mark in the consciousness of a people already well-familiar with imperialist intervention.

René Préval was elected to the presidency in 2006, supported by poor Haitians largely because of his past association with former president Aristide. At the time, two years had passed since the coup and Haiti was already under U.N. occupation. Some sectors of progressive and liberal opinion believed that the 2006 "democratic" elections indicated that things were getting better.

The imperialist occupation under the U.N. flag has continued throughout Préval’s presidency. One only remains in power under occupation by adhering to the framework stipulated by the occupiers. The Préval government has not—and cannot—end the imperialist occupation.

With neither the government nor the opposition offering a way out, poor and working Haitians are growing increasingly reliant on the most powerful force for change—themselves.

***************
UK Protests call for Biofuel Targets to be Scrapped

16 April 2008 joint press release by Biofuelwatch and Global Forest Coalition

London-There were demonstrations in London yesterday and groups across the UK also protested against the introduction of mandatory biofuel blending.

Outside Downing Street speakers from Friends of the Earth, Global Forest Coalition, GM Freeze, campaign against Climate Change and Biofuelwatch condemned the government's decision to go ahead with its biofuel policy against overwhelming evidence of catastrophic impacts on climate, communities, biodiversity and food security.

Other protests were held outside the constituency offices of Ruth Kelley, Secretary of State for Transport, and Hilary Benn, Secretary of State for the Environment. More protests took place at BP and Tesco fuel stations. BP and Tesco are two of the companies with significant investment in biofuels (also called agrofuels) from large-scale monocultures. They have been strongly lobbying for mandatory biofuel blending.

"The UK has chosen to ignore a vast mountain of evidence that biofuels are contributing to hunger, climate change, deforestation and human rights abuses," said Dr. Rachel Smolker, main author of "The Real Cost of Agrofuels." She continued, "Perhaps they are counting on new technologies using cellulose from wood and grasses, but these won't sidestep the problems either. Whatever feedstocks are used will result in further expansion of industrial monocultures, possibly including genetically engineered trees. The bottom line is that there is a limited amount of land available, a large population to feed and a desperate need to preserve remaining biodiverse ecosystems. Instead of focusing on improving efficiency and reducing consumption, the UK is mandating further destruction."

Almuth Ernsting from Biofuelwatch adds, "Protests against the agrofuel industry and this government's biofuel policies will not end. The government is talking about vague 'sustainability standards', whilst agrofuels are causing ever greater harm to the climate, to forests and other ecosystems, to communities in the global South, to biodiversity worldwide, and to food sovereignty and food security. We need a moratorium on all agrofuel incentives and targets to prevent those catastrophic impacts."

On 8 April, twenty-nine UK and international groups wrote to the UK government, calling for an agrofuel moratorium and demanding a suspension of the Renewable Transport Fuel Obligation, and opposition to new EU biofuel targets - both the proposed 10% biofuel target in the Renewable Energy Directive, and the inclusion of biofuels in the draft new Fuel Quality Directive. Around 200 organisations from North and South have signed a call for an EU moratorium on agrofuels from large-scale monocultures, and there are separate calls for a U.S. agrofuel moratorium and for an African agrofuel moratorium, as well as growing number of declarations from the Southern groups that are deeply concerned about the impacts which biofuel policies in Europe, including in the UK, are having on their communities, food sovereignty and environment.

Contact:
Almuth Ernsting, Biofuelwatch, +44-1224-324797 (UK, any time)
Orin Langelle, Global Forest Coalition, +1.802.578.6980 (U.S., any time)

*************************************
3. Other Suggested Reading:

Biofuels and The Internationalization of Genocide
by Fidel Castro
http://www.granma.cu/ingles/2007/abril/mier4/14refexf.html

Clinton and Obama: Failures on War and Global Warming
by Steven Argue
http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2008/02/10/18478172.php

US Marines occupy Haitian capital amid charges Aristide was kidnapped
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2004/mar2004/hait-m02.shtml

***************
Subscribe free to Liberation News:
http://lists.riseup.net/www/info/liberation_news

posted in Anarchism - 10 replies

The Ludlow Massacre Legacy, Part I: Colombia

2008-04-21T01:26:59Z

The Ludlow Massacre Legacy, Part I: Colombia
by David Sirota

http://www.creators.com/opinion/david-sirota/the-ludlow-legacy-part-i-colombia.html

This is the first of two columns looking at the legacy of the Ludlow Massacre on its 94th anniversary.

Ninety-four years ago on April 20, America made international news when a government-sanctioned paramilitary unit murdered Colorado union organizers at a Rockefeller-owned coal mine. The Ludlow Massacre was "a story of horror unparalleled in the history of industrial warfare," wrote The New York Times in 1914 — and the abomination was not just the violence, but the way political and corporate leaders colluded on their homicidal plans to protect profits.

Sanitized history teaches that our government has since changed. Quite the contrary, as the Bush administration this week moves to legitimize the methods of Ludlow through its Colombia Free Trade Agreement.

Colombia resembles Colorado in the early 20th century, only with more frequent slaughters. In the last two decades, over 2,500 Colombian labor organizers have been assassinated, making Colombia the world's most dangerous place for unionists.

This violence is underwritten by companies like Chiquita, which has financed Colombian death squads that "destroyed unions, terrorized workers and killed thousands of civilians," according to Portfolio magazine. The brutality deliberately depresses labor costs in a country where business analysts cite exploitative conditions as reason to invest.

This situation, like Ludlow, developed not in spite of the governing elite, but thanks to it. As The Washington Post reports, Colombia's "most influential political, military and business figures helped build" the killing machine. Recently, prosecutors connected these paramilitaries to Colombian President Alvaro Uribe's allies.

Colombian labor leaders have begged the White House to drop the deal, saying it will undermine their struggle for human rights by validating Uribe's thug-ocracy. Nonetheless, President Bush bolstered Uribe with a pact giving corporations incentives to leave America for the corpse-strewn pastures of Colombia — a union hater's paradise.

Bush justifies the deal as "urgent for our national security." The rationale asks us to believe that in backing tyrannical regimes, we will quell anti-Americanism among the oppressed, rather than sow it.

Congressional Democrats could vote down the agreement.
But they would need to overcome pernicious forces in their midst. Specifically, the Colombian government and corporate groups have hired former Clinton administration officials to champion the deal, paid off former President Bill Clinton with an $800,000 speaking contract, and employed Mark Penn — Hillary Clinton's chief presidential strategist — to push the pact.

Oh, how we've regressed from Ludlow, when mere Rockefellers owned everything. Today, Dubai princes purchase our stock exchanges, Chinese communists buy our banks, and now Colombian goons bid on our politicians — and the results are trickling in.

When Bush dropped the deal on Congress, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi complained only that his tactics are "jeopardizing prospects" for the pact's passage. Instead of blocking the accord, she only pledged to postpone it — a maneuver that could ensure its approval. National Journal reports that Democrats are considering "delaying a vote until after the November elections." The scheme would let Democratic candidates campaign as aw-shucks populists promisin' to fight for the little fella, and then head to D.C. to do the bidding of lobbyists and ratify the deal in a lame-duck session.

Between equivocating press releases, Pelosi said she worries that if voted on now, the pact "would lose, and what message would that send?" For starters, it would say the Democratic Party joins most Americans in opposing job-killing trade policies. It would also declare the party against rewarding murderous regimes on behalf of Clintonites now living large off of Colombian blood money.

But, then, such principled stands are considered uncouth in this, the Ludlow renaissance.

Calendars may say it is 2008, but the Establishment mentality is 1914. On the anniversary of the butchery in Colorado, we see the hideous power of corruption in all its pathological glory. Our government is showing that it views the Ludlow Massacre not as an embarrassment, but as an ideal to be embraced and exported.

David Sirota is a bestselling author whose newest book, "The Uprising," will be released in June of 2008. He is a fellow at the Campaign for America's Future and a board member of the Progressive States Network — both nonpartisan organizations. His blog is at www.credoaction.com/sirota.

COPYRIGHT 2008 CREATORS SYNDICATE, INC.

posted in Anarchism - 0 replies

NAZIS TO ATTEMPT RALLY, WASHINGTON DC ON 19 APRIL, 2008

2008-04-12T19:21:34Z

http://dc.indymedia.org/newswire/display/142834/index.php

[ In order to see the video and the comments to this posting from indymedia click on the link above ]

Youtube video:
www.youtube.com/watch

Assemble at 11:30 AM on the Southwest corner of Constitution Ave NW and 14th St NW
Neo-Nazi National Socialist Movement Plans to Rally on National Mall near Washington Monument

On, April 19, 2008, at 12 PM (noon) the neo-Nazi, white-supremacist organization known as the “National Socialist Movement” is planning to march and rally “against illegal immigration” on the National Mall in Washington, DC, on the North Side of the Washington Monument. The monument is located to the South of Constitution Avenue NW, between 15th St NW and 17th St NW.

Coming on the heels of the racist immigration ordinance passed in Prince William County, Virginia (and similar laws passed elsewhere in the US), and coupled with the alarming rise in the number of known hate groups in the United States, we feel that the march of these racist bigots must be confronted vigorously, and with strength.

Despite claims that those opposed to immigration are concerned about “the rule of law”, terrorist groups such as the Ku Klux Klan and the National Socialist Movement have always attempted to blame immigrants, African-Americans, Jews, non-heterosexual people, and all people of color for what they perceive to be “societal problems”. It is clear that their hatred is based on racial prejudice, and the law is merely an excuse to spread their white supremacist beliefs. We believe that it is not any coincidence that xenophobes and white supremacists share views on immigration, and immigrants.

The National Socialist Movement, according to their website, are “America's Nazi Party”, and are “…inspired by our Fuhrer Adolf Hitler.” The group is currently, according to the Anti-Defamation League, the largest neo-Nazi group in the United States, largely due to the implosion of several other neo-Nazi groups.

They are the same organization that, in order to stir up hatred, marched in Toledo, Ohio (in 2005) in a neighborhood largely made up of people of color. They did indeed, get a reaction, as riots ensued, and the Nazis, and the police protecting them, were run out of the area for a time.

We invite all those opposed to fascism and racism to come and confront this very real, and dangerous neo-Nazi group. Gather at 11:30 AM on the Southwest corner of Constitution Ave NW and 14th St NW (the Mall side), to assemble before confronting the fascists.

posted in Anarchism - 8 replies

Looking for an anrchist community

2008-03-12T18:19:51Z

i am 27 hitting the road in a little less then 60 days with no plans other them wanting to get out of this dead end bs system i find my self living in i am looking for like minded people that belive dri action is powerful i am looking at heading the the west coast but open to any plans trying to find a community i can join and sahre common engery and goals with

posted in Anarchism - 59 replies

Looking for an Earth Woman Friendly community?

2008-03-12T18:05:26Z

Looking for an Earth Woman Friendly community?

There is a Meeting of the Kindred Spirits coming up March 29th! And
we do need to see some more Positive well integrated Female Energy in
this group who can work closely with others.

http://edenvillage.net/18.htm

We are still looking to organize a group of volunteers to
help out some good folks one day out of the week, with some
organic gardening and we still do need someone to take Minutes
at the next meeting.

It would be possible, I would think, if there is a single female or
two out there who is cool about living closer to the Earth then
I may be able to provide a place for you to live, for
maybe 6 months out of the year up where I live in Northern
California.

If you can simply come to our next meeting on March 29th. - T

http://edenvillage.net/18.htm

posted in Anarchism - 5 replies

Conspiracy History compilation DVDs torrents

2008-03-06T13:36:31Z

**************************************************

Greetings to all my relations.

This is the last step of our project History Watch. If History is
defined and known by the texts, we can now add to this definition the
recorded events of the filmed archives. Animated images are harder to
deny than printed words. Our objective is to spread out freely some of
the little broadcast, even hidden informations about our collective
History.

We put online a collection of 391 documentaries and other selected and
recut videos, to offer to a wide public the best of the infos
available on the net in english and in french. If you are interested,
you have the time, the right equipment and connection, all you have to
do is open the joint document and decompress it if needed (but normaly
your system should do it automaticaly). You'll find therein nine links
that will open the torrents for the nine DVDs we compiled (around 4.6
Gig each, for a total of a little over 41 G, being over 100 hours of
videos).

Otherwise, you can go directly to btjunkie.com and search for these titles.

11 Septembre 2001 - 9-11
Bush family & friends
Capitalist & Communist regimes
Capitalist conspiracy
Mind Kontrol - Secret Programs
New World Order - Secret Societies
Secret services - cover up - covert ops
Secret weapons - UFO
Terrorism Theories propaganda

Torrents are a system of peer to peer data transfer. The more people
download a torrent, the faster it spreads and the longer it stays on
the net. If you don't have a bittorrent software, we suggest that you
download uTorrent on utorrent.com. If you want to participate in
facilitating the diffusion of these infos about our collective
History, download these torrents on as many computers as possible,
whether it is in cybercafes. It takes one or two minutes to open up
the links and the downloading will keep proceeding on its own.

Please spread this out, take part in this action for social education
on a planetary scale. Thanks.

For more info: watch.history@gmail.com History Watch

posted in Anarchism - 0 replies

ILWU to Shut Down Ports May 1 Demanding End to War in Iraq, Afghanistan

2008-03-02T18:03:10Z

[Liberation News is in agreement with the following article of the Internationalist Group and both have also actively advocated these kinds of industrial actions.]

For Workers Strikes Against the War!

ILWU to Shut Down West Coast Ports May 1 Demanding End to War in Iraq, Afghanistan

In a major step for the U.S. labor movement, the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) has announced that it will shut down West Coast ports on May 1, to demand an immediate end to the war and occupation in Iraq and Afghanistan and the withdrawal of U.S. troops from the Middle East. In a February 22 letter to AFL-CIO president John Sweeney, ILWU International president Robert McEllrath reported that at a recent coast-wide union meeting, "One of the resolutions adopted by caucus delegates called on longshore workers to stop work during the day shift on May 1, 2008 to express their opposition to the war in Iraq."

This is the first time in decades that an American union has decided to undertake industrial action against a U.S. war. It is doubly important that this mobilization of labor's power is to take place on May Day, the international workers day, which is not honored in the U.S. Moreover, the resolution voted by the ILWU delegates opposes not only the hugely unpopular war in Iraq, but also the war and occupation of Afghanistan (which Democratic candidates Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama and Republican John McCain all want to expand). The motion to shut down the ports also demands the withdrawal of U.S. troops from the entire region, including the oil sheikdoms of the strategically important Persian/Arab Gulf.

The Internationalist Group has fought from the moment U.S. troops invaded Afghanistan in September 2002 for American unions to strike against the war. Despite the fact that millions have marched in the streets of Europe and the United States against the war in Iraq, the war goes on. Neither of the twin war parties of U.S. imperialism - Democrats and Republicans - and none of the capitalist candidates will stop this horrendous slaughter that has already killed hundreds of thousands of Iraqis. The only way to stop the Pentagon killing machine is by mobilizing the power of a greater force - that of the international working class.

The action announced by the powerful West Coast dock workers union, to stop work to stop the war, should be taken up by unions and labor organizations throughout the United States and internationally. The ILWU should be commended for courageously taking the first step, and it is up to working people everywhere to back them up. Wherever support is strong enough, on May 1 there should be mass walkouts, sick-outs, labor marches, plant-gate meetings, lunch-time rallies, teach-ins. And the purpose of such actions should be not to beg the bourgeois politicians whose hands are covered with blood, having voted for every war budget for six and a half years, but a show of strength of the working people who make this country run, and who can shut it down!

Now is the time for bold class action. Opposition to the war is even greater in the U.S. working class than in the population as a whole, more than two-thirds of which wants to stop the war but is stymied by the capitalist political system. In his letter to Sweeney, the ILWU president asked "if other AFL-CIO affiliates are planning to participate in similar events." Labor militants should make sure the answer to that question is a resounding "yes!"

There should be no illusions that this will be easy. No doubt the Pacific Maritime Association (PMA) bosses will try to get the courts to rule the stop-work action illegal. The ILWU leadership could get cold feet, since this motion was passed because of overwhelming support from the delegates despite attempts to stop it or, failing that, to water it down or limit the action. And the U.S. government could try to ban it on the grounds of "national security," just as Bush & Co. slapped a Taft-Hartley injunction on the docks during contract negotiations in the fall of 2002, saying that any work stoppage was a threat to the "war effort," and threatened to occupy the ports with troops!

The answer to every attempt to sabotage or undercut this first labor action against this war, and against Washington's broader "war on terror" which is intended to terrorize the world into submission must be to redouble efforts to bring out workers' power independent of the capitalist parties and politicians. If the ILWU work stoppage is successful, it will only be a small, but very important, beginning that must be generalized and deepened. It will take industrial-strength labor action to defeat the imperialist war abroad and the bosses' war on immigrants, oppressed minorities, poor and working people "at home."

ILWU in the Forefront of Labor Action Against the War

Workers strike action against imperialist war isn't new - it just hasn't happened here for a long, long time. During World War I there were huge mass strikes in Germany against the battlefield carnage, culminating in the downfall of the kaiser in November 1918. A year earlier in Russia, working-class opposition to the war led to the overthrow of the tsar and the October Revolution led by Lenin and Trotsky's Bolsheviks. The Internationalist Group and League for the Fourth International call today for transport workers to "hot cargo" (refuse to handle) war shipments. In the early 1920s, Communist-led French dock workers did exactly that, boycotting ships carrying war materiel to suppress a colonial rebellion in the Rif region of Morocco, as they
also did during France's war in Indochina in the 1950s.

In the U.S., the ILWU struck in 1948 amid Cold War hysteria and in defiance of the "slave labor" Taft-Hartley Act to defend its union hiring hall against the bosses and government screaming about "reds" in the union leadership. In 1953, at the height of McCarthyite witch-hunting, the ILWU called a four-day general strike in Hawaii of sugar, pineapple and dock workers over the jailing of seven union members for being communists. During the Vietnam War, socialist historian Isaac Deutscher said that he would trade all the peace marches for a single dock strike. The ILWU was the first U.S. union to oppose the Vietnam war, but during war and especially during the 1971 strike union leader Harry Bridges refused to stop the movement of military cargo. (Ship owners made use of this by falsely labeling cargo as "military" to evade picket lines and undermine the strike.) This betrayal went hand in hand with a "mechanization and modernization" contract that slashed union jobs.

As the U.S.-led imperialist invasion of Iraq was looming, in January 2003 train drivers in Scotland refused to move a freight train carrying munitions to a NATO military base. The next month, Italian railroad unionists and antiwar activists blocked NATO war trains by occupying the rails. In the United States, ILWU dock workers were a target of "anti-terrorist" government repression, as police fired supposedly "less than lethal" munitions point blank at an antiwar protest on the Oakland, California docks, injuring six longshore workers and arresting 25 people (who eventually won their legal case against the police). And every year since the war started, the San Francisco/Oakland ILWU Local 10 has voted for motions for labor action against the war. Usually they were voted down at caucuses and conventions of the ILWU, but not this time.

Last May, Local 10 longshoremen and Local 34 ships clerks refused to cross picket lines set up by the Oakland Teachers Association and antiwar activists, defying arbitrators' orders by refusing to work ships of the notorious antiunion outfit, Stevedoring Services of America (see "Oakland Dock Workers Honor Picket, Shut Down War Cargo Shipper," The Internationalist No. 26, July 2007). In the aftermath of that action, the union issued a call for a Labor Conference to Stop the War that would "plan workplace rallies, labor
mobilizations in the streets and strike action against the war." The Call to Action stated:

"ILWU Local 10 has repeatedly warned that the so-called 'war on terror' is really a war on working people and democratic rights. Around the country, hundreds of unions and labor councils have passed motions condemning the war, but that has not stopped the war. We need to use labor's muscle to stop the war by mobilizing union power in the streets, at the plant gates and on the docks to force the immediate and total withdrawal of all U. S. troops from Afghanistan and Iraq."

As the conference date approached, the union was the target of several police attacks, including a vicious cop assault on two black dock workers from San Francisco working in the port of Sacramento. Some 250 demonstrators from every ILWU local in Northern California rallied in their defense outside the courthouse. Their trial to be set march 18 at a hearing will encounter even larger demonstrations.

The Internationalist Group and its union supporters helped build and attended the October 20 conference, along with some 150 labor and socialist activists from the Bay Area, elsewhere in California and across the country. At the meeting, a particular focus was resistance to the Transportation Workers Identification Card (TWIC), which threatens minority workers and the union hiring hall, and which the Democratic Party in particular has been pushing in order to carry out a purge of dock workers in the name of the "war on terror."
Not long after that conference, a federal judge ordered Local 10 elections canceled and replaced by a Labor Department-run vote, on the eve of 2008 contract bargaining. Federal agents even invaded the union hall to enforce their order. This action is a threat to the independence of all unions.

This set the stage for the recent longshore-warehouse caucus, which voted a motion for a 24-hour "No Peace, No Work Holiday" against the war. The resolution was introduced in Local 10 by Jack Heyman, who also presented the motion for the 24 April 1999 coast-wide port shutdown demanding freedom for Mumia Abu-Jamal, the former Black Panther and renowned radical journalist who has been on Pennsylvania's death row for the last quarter century. Although the union tops maneuvered to prevent Heyman from being elected as a delegate to the Coast Caucus, the motion passed in Local 10. At the Caucus, the delegate from Local 34 referred to the October Labor Conference to Stop the War as the origin of the motion.

At the close of the Caucus on February 8, there was a vigorous debate on the resolution. The union tops tried to stop it, to no avail. They kept asking, "are you sure you want to do this action." The delegates overwhelmingly said "yes." Even conservative trade unionists, including veterans of the Vietnam War, were getting up saying the government is lying to us, we've had it with this war, we've got to put a stop to it now. So instead the bureaucrats tried to gut the motion, which was cut down from 24 hours to 8, and changed into a "stop-work" meeting (covered by a contract clause) instead of a straight-out shutdown, thinking that this would lessen opposition from the employers. In the end there was a voice vote and only three delegates out of 100 voted against.

The efforts to undercut the motion continue, as is to be expected from a leadership which, like the rest of the pro-capitalist labor bureaucracy, seeks "labor peace" with the bosses. In his letter to Sweeney, ILWU International president tried to present the action as an effort to "express support for the troops by bringing them home safely," although the motion voted by the delegates says nothing of the sort. Playing the "support our troops" game is an effort to swear loyalty to the broader aims of U.S. imperialism. It aids the warmongers, when what's needed is independent working-class action against the system that produces endless imperialist war. Yet despite the efforts to water it down and distort it, the May 1 action voted for by the ILWU delegates is a call to use labor's muscle to put an end to the war.

Mobilize Labor's Power to Defeat the Bosses' War!

For the West Coast dock workers union to shut down the ports against the war means a big step forward in the class struggle. The Internationalist Group has uniquely fought for workers strikes against the war, when all the popular-front "peace" coalitions dismissed this and even some shamefaced ex-Trotskyists refused to call for it, saying it had "no resonance" among the workers (see our October 20007 Special Supplement to The Internationalist, "Why We Fight For Workers Strikes Against the War [and the opportunists Don't]"). With signs, banners and propaganda we have sought to drive home the central lesson that it is necessary to defeat the imperialist war abroad and the bosses' war "at home" by mobilizing the power of the workers movement independent of and against the capitalist parties.

That means fighting the war mobilization down the line. First and foremost, this means actively joining the struggle for immigrant rights as the government turns undocumented working people into "the enemy within." Class-conscious workers should demand full citizenship rights for all immigrants. Last year, San Francisco Local 10 voted to stop work and join marches for immigrant rights on May 1, but this was opposed by the employers PMA and sabotaged at the last minute by the union tops. Shamefully, Local 13 in Los Angeles, a majority Mexican American port, made no protest when police attacked immigrant rights protesters that same day. Today, as the ICE immigration police stage Gestapo-style raids across the country, organized labor should take the lead in organizing rapid response networks to come into the streets to block the raids. Despite the campaign by the capitalist media and politicians to whip up anti-immigrant hysteria, there is widespread disgust among American working people toward the jackbooted storm troopers who are terrorizing immigrant communities.

At the same time, the unions should use the power to put a halt to the attacks on civil liberties which are part of the home front of the imperialist war. Driver's licenses with biometric data, TWIC identification cards with "background checks," warrantless spying and phone tapping, setting up special military tribunals for "trials" in which defendants are denied the right of habeas corpus, to know the "evidence" or even the charges against them - all these are part of a drive that is in high gear pushing the United States toward a full-fledged police state. There have been scores, perhaps hundreds of resolutions by unions and city, county and state labor bodies against the U.S.A. PATRIOT Act, showing that labor activists are well aware of the danger. But just as is the case with the countless union antiwar resolutions, there has been no labor action. It is commonplace in the labor movement to bemoan the lack of real action when Reagan broke the 1981 PATCO air traffic controllers' strike, paving the way for massive union-busting, takeaways and racist attacks all down the line. Let's not let the labor bureaucrats bury the vital struggles of today.

Now is the time to turn words into deeds, to speak to the capitalist rulers in the only language they understand. The imperialist war parties must be defeated by a class mobilization of the working people at the head of all the oppressed. The ILWU motion to stop work on May Day to put a stop to the war can provide working people everywhere with the opening to turn from impotent protest to a struggle for power. For that the key is to build a class-struggle workers party fighting for a workers government, for socialist revolution here and around the world, that will put an end once and for all to the system of endless war, poverty and racism.

This is an Article of the Internationalist Group:
www.internationalist.org

and distributed by Liberation News, Subscribe Free!
http://lists.riseup.net/www/info/liberation_news

posted in Anarchism - 0 replies

common arguments against anarchism

2008-02-24T21:16:40Z

the two most common arguments i am confronted:
1.anarchism could never ''work'' because it's not in human nature, it's too idealistic
2.without law and order there would be complete chaos

what are your responses?

posted in Anarchism - 11 replies

Lakota Nation Declared Independance

2008-02-24T08:54:25Z

This week, 33 year after Lakota leaders drafted a continuing independance document in 1974, 33 treaties with the USA were ripped up. Lakota leaders have announced thier land as soveirgn of the USA, and are granting immunity and passports to anyone that will denounce USA citizenship. Also you should know that many Indian nations are reporting that government officials and go-betweens are trying to get them to sign into a Leaguge of North American Indians. From Canada to Mexican borders this has been seen by Native leaders as a NWO operation, and thier coorespondance unanimous...No NWO

A write up on this, links, and other information you might be interested in may be found here on tribe at Ministry of Alchemy or a www.ministryofalchemy.org.

Did you know that there is a Mormon site at ldsanarchy.com ?

New World Peace vs NWO ?

Peace, love, and all that shit... Christian Kenny Heap 3-2-1974 aka slacker

posted in Anarchism - 8 replies

"Tribe" Backs Anti-Palestinian Racists

2008-02-23T16:01:02Z

Message from "Free Palestine End Zionism" moderator:

This is being sent to you because you were a member of my tribe, Free Palestine End Zionism. I would like you to know that I was notified today by a representative of tribe.net that my tribe was "anti-semitic" and that they removed it!

I am sending this so you will know why the tribe does not exist any more and so you will bear witness to the evident censorship and lack of the freedom of speech on tribe.net, plus the fabricated excuse to silence my tribe.

posted in Anarchism - 0 replies

Why the Zapatistas are Preparing for War

2008-01-22T00:37:09Z

Dear Friends:

[As those of you who receive our monthly updates have seen, the conflict in Chiapas
has dramatically increased over the past year. As we left for the Women's Encuentro
and a visit to Chiapas, subcomandante Marcos announced that there would be no
public appearances or interviews for a "good while." Here is one of the reports on
what we found during our trip.]

Why the Zapatistas Are Preparing for War - The Color Red, “26 Communities” and La Otra

Subcomandante Marcos got everyone’s attention when he presented "Feeling Red: The Calendar and Geography of War" at a symposium in honor of the late Andrés Aubry in San Cristóbal de las Casas, Chiapas. Marcos announced that they (the EZLN) would not be attending conferences, encuentros or giving interviews for a “good while.” He said the Zapatista communities are surrounded by military camps and paramilitaries and are preparing for the war which they see coming. "Those of us who have made war know how to recognize the paths by which it is prepared and brought near," Marcos said. "The signs of war on the horizon are clear. War, like fear, also has a smell. And now we are starting to breathe its fetid odor in our lands." He delivered that speech on December 17, 2007, just eleven days before the start of the Women’s Encuentro in La Garrucha, Chiapas.
Consequently, one question on everyone’s mind in La Garrucha and during our visits after the Encuentro was: What did Marcos mean when he said they were preparing for war? The Center of Political Analysis and Social and Economic Investigations, AC (CAPISE, its initials in Spanish) has documented 56 military bases and/or camps surrounding indigenous Zapatista territory in Chiapas. Regular Army troops in those military positions have been replaced by elite special forces, which CAPISE thinks may constitute a sign of war. CAPISE also talks about the 27,000 acres of land claimed by the EZLN after being abandoned by their landowners in 1994 which are now in danger of violent eviction because Mexico’s Agrarian Reform agency is granting legal title to those same lands to antiZapatista groups, often referred to as paramilitary.
Other answers to this question may vary somewhat from region to region. In the Northern Zone of Chiapas, for example, the answer would surely include the violent paramilitary attacks in Olga Isabel, part of an effort coordinated with the government’s Agrarian Reform agency to take away Zapatista lands. Efforts by the government to expel Zapatista communities surrounding the Agua Azul Cascades and the paramilitary violence against those communities and its members, including shootings and severe beatings, certainly qualify as incidents that could indicate war is coming, Zapatistas in the Northern Zone might say.
While Zapatistas in Los Altos may point to the anticipated eviction of Huitepec Hill or to death threats against the San Andrés autonomous municipal council by paramilitaries calling themselves “Opddic Roja” as signs of war, those in the Border Jungle region near Las Margaritas would surely point to the Zapatista community of 24 de Diciembre. That community is living under constant threat of a violent forced eviction by their neighbors belonging to the Unión de Ejidos de la Selva (UES) or, in English, the Union of Ejidos of the Jungle. All are signs of war.
La Garrucha, however, is in the Patihuitz Cañada (Canyon) east of the city of Ocosingo in the Lacandón Jungle, a region with a unique history. This writer was traveling with a group that visited other cañadas in this same region after the Women’s Encuentro and chatted with its residents about this issue. These conversations called to mind a somewhat secretive expropriation of land by the federal government with potentially devastating consequences for the Cañadas.
In May 2007, Mexico’s federal government expropriated 14 thousand hectares of land (approximately 35,580 acres) in the Lacandón Jungle of Chiapas. Somewhat suspiciously, it did not announce exactly where these lands were located, but, nevertheless, asserted “ecological concerns” as its reason. A Chiapas non-governmental organization (NGO), Maderas del Pueblo del Sureste (Woods of the People of the Southeast), filed a freedom of information request to find out exactly where the expropriated lands were located. Woods of the People finally received the information it requested and La Jornada published an article regarding the specifics of that information in October 2007. (http://www.jornada.unam.mx/2007/10/22/index.php?section= politica&article= 010n1pol)
It is important to remember that, as a result of the expropriation decree, state and federal police violently evicted several indigenous communities from the Montes Azules Biosphere Reserve in an August 18, 2007 surprise attack. Residents of 2 communities, San Manuel and El Buen Samaritano, were forced at gunpoint to get into helicopters. They were then removed from their homes, which were ransacked and burned; all their belongings damaged or stolen. Six (male) heads of family were taken to El Amate prison, while at least 33 women, small children and youths were held in a former brothel. Some of those removed at gunpoint were Zapatista support bases, others were members of ARIC-Independent and/or ARIC UU.
The expropriated lands consist of eight sections. One section borders on Amador Hernández, which some may remember for its brave and prolonged resis-tance to the Army in 1999. At the time of that standoff, Subcomandante Marcos said the region was rich in oil. The entire area of eight sections has a wealth of biodiversity, forests containing precious woods, unparalleled natural beauty and an abundant supply of uncontaminated fresh water in the form of white water rivers, natural springs and aquifers. It also has many Other Campaign supporters, both Zapatistas and non-Zapatistas.
As well as one section inside the Montes Azules, the expropriated area includes some of the area outside of the Montes Azules in the region of Las Cañadas (the Canyons) and affects the “26 ejidos legalized in 1989.” In order to fully appreciate the significance of this information, a little history of the region is helpful.
Sometime between 1950 and 1960, an exodus of indigenous people into the sparsely settled Cañadas of the Lacandón Jungle began. Some went in order to establish new settlements and escape the extremely harsh life of exploitation as peons on the fincas (estates). Others were no longer needed on the fincas as land use changed from cash crops to cattle ranching, a less labor intensive business. The lowly-paid farm workers were turned loose without land, money or homes. They went in search of land on which to settle and grow their food. The new Jungle settlements founded by the colonists began to apply for ejido title to their lands under Article 27 of the new Mexican Constitution. Even-tually, some obtained title to the lands they had settled. Others were not so fortunate because the process of obtaining title was often backlogged for many years in government red tape and bureaucracy.
The settlers faced incredible obstacles. Most were subsistence farmers. There were few schools and no health care services. The new communities had no electricity or safe drinking water, no sewage disposal. The region had few roads, and those which existed were deeply rutted dirt trails, making access to nearby cities where they could sell their cash crops and purchase their supplies extremely difficult. In other words, the settlers were impoverished and ignored by the federal and state governments in so far as those governments did not extend public services to them.
Then, in 1972, Mexican president Luis Echeverría granted 1,517,372.8 acres (614,321 hectáreas) of land to a small group of indigenous people (66 families), who he called Lacandóns, living in the heart of the Jungle. The 1972 Presidential Decree created a legal entity known today as “the Lacandón Community.” There were several practical effects of this decree on the communities of the Cañadas: 1) 26 well-established communities fell inside the limits of the “Lacandon Community,” thereby placing their land tenure at risk and making them vulnerable to eviction; and 2) it closed off the possibility of future expansion by the next generation of inhabitants of the Cañadas. The Jungle was no longer open to further settlement. The consequences of this decree were not lost on the youth of the Cañadas. While their fathers may have a piece of land to farm now, the sons had nowhere they could go to acquire land for themselves when they married and had their own families to feed.
In response to both the presidential decree and in order to collectively overcome the economic obstacles they faced, on December 14, 1975, the settlers in the Cañadas to the east of Ocosingo, formed the Union of Ejidos Quiptic Ta Lecubtesel (United for Our Strength, in Tzeltal). Quiptic’s demands were: 1) regularization (legalization) of land tenancy; 2) opposition to taxes imposed by the government for services they did not provide; and 3) opposition to fines for planting their milpa (cornfield) or cutting firewood for cooking. The first demand and that which united Quiptic from the beginning was to legalize ownership of “the 26 communities” established before the Lacandón Community was created and which fell inside its boundaries. Quiptic maintained a militant stance despite wanting to work with government programs and advisors to commercialize their products and obtain credit. The reason for the militancy was the precarious tenancy of “the 26 communities” affected by the presidential Decree of the Lacandon Community, over which hung the threat of eviction.
Quiptic later joined together with campesino organizations from other regions of the Jungle (Altamirano and Las Margaritas) to form the Union of Unions (UU). After a UU split, the grouping to which the former Quiptic belonged eventually formed the Rural Association of Collective Interest (ARIC, its initials in Spanish), which achieved the legalization of “the 26 communities” as ejidos in 1989. By that time, many of ARIC’s members were also clandestine members of the EZLN. Throughout its different formations and political splits, the issue of “the 26 communities” always held those from the Cañadas east of Ocosingo together.
Now, according to the report in La Jornada, the federal government has expropriated lands which 15 of those 26 communities use and work. Currently, several indigenous organizations, including the EZLN and the various ARIC and UU groupings, inhabit the lands involved. The expropriation is a direct provo-cation to the EZLN, as well as to the campesino organizations that struggled for many years to legally own and work these lands. It raises the threat of more violent evictions like those of San Manuel and Buen Samaritano.
In our conversations with residents of the Cañadas, we learned that government agents are visiting the region and making known government intentions to expel communities pursuant to the May 2007 decree. One of our sources told us that this is like waving a red flag in front of a bull and, consequently, that the region’s residents and their social organizations are uniting to fight against the government’s plan to evict them.
Indeed, not long after these interviews, a press release appeared on the Fray Bartolomé de Las Casas Human Rights Center’s web page, denouncing the expropriation and reporting on a meeting in Amador Hernández of 640 delegates from the communities and organizations throughout the Cañadas.
The idea of uniting the different organizations to which campesinos of this region belong was one motive behind the Other Campaign. One of our interviews addressed this question and what we learned is that the Other Campaign has been remarkably successful in this regard, at least in the Cañadas. It has provided an opportunity for the campesino organizations which do not want to lose their identity by joining the EZLN to work together with the EZLN on issues of common concern throughout the region, a ray of hope in what could otherwise be seen as a gloomy “prewar” atmosphere. When asked why Marcos said that they were preparing for war, one of the compañeros answered by saying: “If we prepare for war well enough, there may not be a war.”
--------------------------------
Mary Ann Tenuto Sánchez
January 2008
______________________
Chiapas Support Committee
P.O. Box 3421
Oakland, CA 94609
(510) 654-9587
email: cezmat@igc.org
http:www.chiapas-support.org
______________________

posted in Anarchism - 0 replies

Closing Our Eyes Won’t Make Racial and Ethnic Inequalities Disappear

2008-01-21T21:56:25Z

Native Americans have been in the United States from the beginning, yet according to health and employment statistics, they, like other people of color, still have not achieved equality. For example, between 1998 and 2000 Native American infants in the United States were 1.7 times more likely to die than white infants in their first year of life (Tomashek et al.).

The Lakota, on the Pine Ridge Reservation in North Dakota, who supported the culturally and politically nationalist American Indian Movement, faced brutal counter-insurgency tactics complete with FBI-armed and -trained death squads that murdered 61 political activists on the reservation between 1973 and 1976. As part of that terror war against America’s first nations, American Indian Movement member Leonard Peltier was framed by the FBI and remains in prison to this day.

*******************************

Closing Our Eyes Won’t Make Racial and Ethnic Inequalities Disappear

By STEVEN ARGUE

Republican candidate Ron Paul, exposed as having voted against the renewal of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 that gave Blacks the right to vote; exposed for knowingly accepting a donation from former KKK Grand Dragon and Nazi Stormfront radio host Don Black; and exposed for having put out a racist-sexist-homophobic newsletter in his name for decades that opposed Martin Luther King and desegregation; now makes the claim, “I am the most anti-racist because I don’t see people in collective groups” (CNN). Interestingly enough, Nazi Stormfront members Don Black and David Duke make the same claims of not being racist (Stormfront). To them, the real racists are those who speak out against the inequalities suffered by people of color.

Racism and xenophobia take many forms, both subtle and overt. While overt racism and national chauvinism are still very much a problem in America, one of the most insidious forms of racism is promoted in the form of denying that these problems even exist. Ron Paul and Stormfront are on the fringes, yet this form of racism has become common place in the American corporate media and the mainstream politics of the Democrat and Republican Parties.

One case in point is Kotkin and Tseng’s Washington Post June 8, 2003 article, “For Young America, Old Ethnic Labels No Longer Apply”. It contains a bad argument based on a fundamentally false premise. That premise is the idea that because immigrants are becoming assimilated into the mainstream of U.S. culture, ethnic groups will no longer exist in the future. Based on this false premise the authors go on to make a number of unsound arguments about changes to education and business policies.

The idea that separate ethnicities will disappear due to the blending of immigrant groups into the mainstream misses two key aspects of American life. One is continued immigration and the other is continued racism. Neither of these fundamental aspects of American society are even remotely considered in the essay.

In a world where immigrants continue to flee the economic exploitation and political repression of U.S. imperialist hegemony in most of the third world, and as long as those immigrants continue to be accepted as a cheaper source of labor within the confines of U.S. borders by U.S. capitalists, immigration into the United States will not end. Thus, the authors’ assertion that the linguistic preferences of second and third generation immigrants for English “would seem to challenge the continued viability of programs such as bilingual education” is utterly absurd. Bilingual education helps ease immigrant children into a learning process that is made much more difficult by English-only education.

Another aspect of American culture not considered in the Washington Post essay is the deep and pernicious racism of this society. People of color are offered fewer opportunities in this society on many levels, including the opportunity to assimilate.

Blacks have been here for hundreds of years and they still, by and large, have not assimilated. They suffer over double the infant mortality of whites and by every other health and economic indicator are worse-off than whites. For Blacks in the United States between 1995 and 2002, the infant mortality rate was 13.9, more than double the rate of 5.9 for whites in the same time period (Center for Disease Control). Life expectancy of Blacks is 5 years less than whites, with 2005 statistics showing whites living on average to 78.3 years of-age and Blacks only living 73.2 years (CNN.com). Blacks also suffer double the unemployment of whites. Consistent with long-term ratios, 2002 statistics gave a white unemployment rate of 5.2 percent and a Black unemployment rate of 10.7 percent (Robinson).

These types of data are reflected in other populations of color in the Unites States as well. For instance, Native Americans have been in the United States from the beginning, yet according to health and employment statistics, they still have not assimilated either. For example, between 1998 and 2000 Native American infants in the United States were 1.7 times more likely to die than white infants in their first year of life (Tomashek et al.).

These sad realities, all too often ignored by the mainstream press, fly in the face of the Washington Post’s bold declaration of, “Welcome to post ethnic America.” It has an absurd bellicose ring to it, like George Bush declaring victory in Iraq in 2003.
It is from the fewer opportunities that many ethnic groups face that the cultural nationalism of oppressed groups arises. Yet these Washington Post authors, in ignoring these inequalities, along with pretending that new immigrants will not keep coming to the United States, see “cultural nationalists as a disease that infests most Chicano studies departments.” As opposed to seeing such manifestations as a healthy reaction to the racist, imperialist, and exploitative U.S. society, the authors instead blame the victims of this society that stand up for their culture and their rights. It is from such imaginary premises as the idea of ethnic divisions no longer playing a role in society, that the authors come to racist conclusions against those people of ethnic and racial groups that stand up for social justice for their groups.

Unfortunately, the Washington Post is not alone in seeing manifestations of cultural and political nationalism as a disease. It has long been U.S. government policy to treat people of color that stand up to American racism as a cancer.

The Lakota, on the Pine Ridge Reservation in North Dakota, who supported the culturally and politically nationalist American Indian Movement, faced brutal counter-insurgency tactics complete with FBI-armed and -trained death squads that murdered 61 political activists on the reservation between 1973 and 1976 (Churchill). As part of that terror war against America’s first nations, American Indian Movement member Leonard Peltier was framed by the FBI and remains in prison to this day.

Blacks have faced similar political repression in the United States, also orchestrated by the FBI. In the 1960’s and 70’s the U.S. government liquidated the Black Panther Party through the murders of 39 members, including the police shooting of Fred Hampton in his sleep, and through political frame-ups such as that of Geronimo (Ji Jagga) Pratt who was finally exonerated (i.e. found innocent) after 30 years in prison. Other framed Black Panthers still sit in prison and Black Panther Assata Shakur lives in exile, granted political asylum by Cuba, but with a one million dollar bounty put on her head by the U.S. government.

Immigrants who speak out are also caught in the government’s cross-hairs. Worst off in terms of political rights are Near and Middle Eastern immigrants, including U.S. citizens, who, in the eyes of the authorities, become too vocal about racism and U.S. imperialism. They are now labeled “enemy combatants” without cause and can disappear into America’s torture chambers or be outsourced for torture and murder by being shipped back to their native lands. Some have never been heard from again, with international human rights organizations denied documentation; while others reemerge after prolonged mistreatment such as Maher Arar, a leader of a mainstream Arab American advocacy group who was shipped to Syria by the U.S. government for torture (Klein). A clear message has been sent to Arab-Americans: watch your tongue or you’ll be the next Maher Arar.

Like the Washington Post, the U.S. government sees no need for these ethnic groups to stand up for themselves, and when they do they sometimes treat such manifestations as pest “infestations”, and the government sends in their FBI and local law-enforcement exterminators.

While the Washington Post article attacks Chicano studies departments, locally in Santa Cruz we have a similar example of racism in the media with the Santa Cruz Sentinel’s attacks on Latino Santa Cruz City Councilperson Tony Madrigal. The focus of these attacks are the fact that Tony Madrigal stood up for people of color, at least in a small way, by voting against increased police measures, including against triple fines, downtown on Halloween. Here is what Tony Madrigal said:

"I was really bothered by the fact that I witnessed a bunch of officers pat down a group of Latino youth that were standing on the sidewalk by, I think it was Community Television. They were standing by there. They weren’t doing anything. They were just watching everybody go by.

"They patted them all down, searched them, and then left them alone.

"I asked the guys 'Are you bothered by this? Are you okay?' They didn't want to do anything about it, but they did make a good point.

"They said "Look. They just patted us down but they are walking right past another group of kids who are making more noise than us. They don't look like us" implying that they were Latino.

"I just feel to a certain degree that there might be some racial profiling going on. And those issues do concern me. I don't think that’s what we're supposed to be doing on Halloween. I do understand there are all kinds of procedures the police department has to be going through and everything.

"I just think there is a different way to go about making downtown safe for Halloween." (Johnson)

In response, the Santa Cruz Sentinel declared in their September 16, 2007 editorial, “As We See It, Tony Madrigal’s Immature Remarks,” “Madrigal once again showed that he hasn’t grown into the office when he accused the Santa Cruz police of racial profiling.” Other eyewitnesses, including Mark Halfmoon, saw this same incident of racial profiling as well as other incidents that same night. Yet the editorial went so far as to suggest Tony Madrigal resign.

That same Sentinel editorial went on to claim that racial profiling does not exist, stating, “In fact, the city of Santa Cruz has done studies – with academic rigor – to examine arrest reports in order to find evidence of profiling. The data shows otherwise.” No further information is given on these studies, but the point is clear enough, Tony and other eyewitnesses have no right to believe their own eyes; the white power structure has done studies on itself and has declared this form of racism does not exist.

Likewise, the Sentinel, never friendly to reports of police abuse, criticizes Tony Madrigal for not reporting the incident earlier, stating: “It was irresponsible of him not to check out his information through the proper channels.” What are the proper channels? Presently the Citizen’s Police Review Board has been dissolved, partly at the urging of the Santa Cruz Sentinel. That leaves police Internal Affairs, notorious for exonerating their fellow officers, to investigate. The proper channels that the Sentinel has referred Tony to are in fact useless channels and, as Tony pointed out, the victims weren’t interested in pursuing the case. As an elected official, what is a more proper channel for Tony Madrigal to use than voting against expanded police powers and explaining his vote?

Inside of racist America, a mass incarceration of the poor, especially the poor of color, has taken place, while at the same time the multi-racial working class and poor are subjected to a lack of healthcare and dramatic drop in our standard of living. The inner cities of America have, by and large, been abandoned by the same capitalists that got rich off of the jobs that they have now exported, just as the victims of hurricane Katrina were left to die by this same racist system.

Yet the capitalists continue to profit off of this misery and “justify” it through racism. The capitalists profit from the mass incarceration of the poor through the prison industrial complex where they get almost free labor and they get additional money from the increasingly privatized prisons. A good percentage of those people being rounded up for these modern day plantations are people of color, while America’s racist police are now modern day slave catchers.

Likewise, the U.S. government practices racist policies against Near and Far Eastern immigrants as part of a wider policy of war, death, and profit, “justified” by racism. Want an example? Just look at Bush on Iraq. He repeatedly states that people from that part of the world “did” September 11. Yet when a reporter asked, “What did Iraq have to do with September 11?” Bush responded, “nothing.” Bush keeps repeating what seems like an obvious mistake to people that aren’t racists, but to the racists Bush’s argument makes perfect sense, people from that part of the world did it and any dead towel-heads will do.

Looking at the mainstream media in America, however, one would think that the question of racism in America has been solved. The truly shocking issues of racism are routinely glossed over, ignored, or denied. These Washington Post and Santa Cruz Sentinel articles are good cases in point. They argue that there is no racism, and promote hostility against those standing up against racism. When the Washington Post pretends that racial and ethnic equality have been achieved, one must question if they are living on the same planet, or just lying to achieve some other goal.

The Washington Post and Santa Cruz Sentinel are corporate newspapers. Like all of the mainstream media in this country they are corporate owned, and in addition, sell advertising to other corporations. As such, these papers are beholden to corporate interests, and do their duty spreading corporate propaganda on behalf of the ruling American capitalist class. That capitalist system was racist from birth in profiting from slavery and the mass murder of Native Americans, and profits from racism now through war, prisons, and paying less for the labor of immigrants and people of color.

While pretending to hold no bias, the bias of the Washington Post and Santa Cruz Sentinel are so pro-capitalist, pro-imperialist, and pro-racist that their main tactic of debate on these issues is to pretend the words that describe them don’t even exist. The most insidious racists in journalism are those who either ignore the problem or insist that problems of institutional racism do not exist.

It took a mass movement outside of the capitalist power structure to win the rights that people of color have achieved so far. Yet there is still a long way to go until we can declare victory and full equality. Closing our eyes will not make racial and ethnic divisions disappear. It will only be through recognizing the prevalent nature of problems such as racism and American nationalist chauvinism that we will be able to achieve equality and justice, not by glossing over these problems and pretending they don’t exist.

This is an article of Liberation News, subscribe free:
https://lists.riseup.net/www/info/liberation_news

Works Cited:

They don’t send in e-mail well, but can be seen at: http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2008/01/21/18473855.php

posted in Anarchism - 0 replies

playmobil action figures---police arrest anarchist

2008-01-18T03:30:56Z

so we are shopping for the children's christmas and we come across the playmobile mini set of a cop hand cuffed to a black and red dressed man with a black scarf around his face. it screams the block!
my first reaction was to laugh, is this for real?!
i mean...it is good for our kids, we talk to our kids....but it is all the others..and what all the other parents talk to their kids about....
sell them the idea while they're young
i don't know.. just figure some might want to look at it...it might be on the web site, and i will try to upload the pic soon.

posted in Anarchism - 5 replies

The Ron Paul “Revolution”, an Extreme Rightwing Threat

2008-01-09T23:50:52Z

The Ron Paul “Revolution”, an Extreme Rightwing Threat

By STEVEN ARGUE

For the most part the Iowa caucuses were business as usual for the Democrat and Republican Parties. Among the Democrats, “Anti-war” and “pro-single payer health care” Democrat Dennis Kucinich put his support behind pro-war anti--single payer health care, Barrack Obama. Yet on the far right, anti-war Libertarian and Republican Ron Paul gained a stunning 10% of the vote.

Seeing the failure of the Democrats to deliver a candidate worth supporting; some left leaning individuals have been suggesting support to Ron Paul. One is anti-war Vietnam veteran Stan Goff, who suggested in his January 4, 2008 article ”Monkey Wrenching the System, Ron Paul’s Revolution” that people vote in the primaries for Ron Paul, switching party registration right away if they live in a state where such a move is necessary to vote in the Republican primaries.

At the root of the Ron Paul "revolution" is the dismantling of Social Security and the Department of Education as well as other basic social programs, and the elimination of worker and environmental protections. Advances like single payer health care? No way. Ron Paul's message is that you need to take care of yourself, and that there shouldn't be such government programs, nor such interference with private profit. While he puts forward reasons for not supporting going to war abroad, his domestic policies would ignite civil war at home.

In addition to pretending he's against all government, he's for outlawing abortion and supports the continued ban on same-sex marriage. He was one of the original co-sponsors of the "Marriage Protection Act".

He's also a religious extremist who thinks that creationism should be taught in the schools.

On race, Ron Paul was one of 33 Congress members to vote against the renewal of the Voting Rights Act, an act that was first passed to give Blacks in the south the right to vote. On a similar note, he says the Civil Rights Act violates the Constitution and impedes on individual liberties. Speaking of Blacks in Washington DC he states in campaign literature, "95 percent of African Americans in are semi-criminal or entirely criminal".

No wonder the American Nazi Party has close relations with him (see letter from Nazi Commander Bill White below). In addition, Ron Paul has the support of other white supremacists such as David Duke, and has knowingly taken donations from former KKK Grand Wizard Don Black.

Hell would freeze over before I'd support Ron Paul. And being an atheist; that will be a long time.

There are plenty of candidates to the left of the Democrats worth considering supporting who oppose the war, would preserve public education and Social Security, who would provide single payer or socialized medicine, and who aren’t raving racist, homophobic, and sexist “Libertarian” fanatics. Why not look at them rather than someone from the loony right?

I discuss some of the campaigns that may be worth supporting in the following article:

The Case for Socialized Medicine in the United States,
And the Struggle to Achieve It
By STEVEN ARGUE
http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2008/01/02/18469739.php

Or here is a different version of the same article:
http://nyc.indymedia.org/en/2008/01/93820.html

*****************
American Nazi Party Chief says Ron Paul is one of us

Bill White, commander of the American National Socialist Worker’s Party, aka The American Nazi Party, wrote the following on the Nazi Vanguard News Network:

Comrades:

I have kept quiet about the Ron Paul campaign for a while, because I didn’t see any need to say anything that would cause any trouble. However, reading the latest release from his campaign spokesman, I am compelled to tell the truth about Ron Paul’s extensive involvement in white nationalism.

Both Congressman Paul and his aides regularly meet with members of the Stormfront set, American Renaissance, the Institute for Historic Review, and others at the Tara Thai restaurant in Arlington, Virginia, usually on Wednesdays. This is part of a dinner that was originally organized by Pat Buchanan, Sam Francis and Joe Sobran, and has since been mostly taken over by the Council of Conservative Citizens.

I have attended these dinners, seen Paul and his aides there, and been invited to his offices in Washington to discuss policy.

For his spokesman to call white racialism a “small ideology” and claim white activists are “wasting their money” trying to influence Paul is ridiculous. Paul is a white nationalist of the Stormfront type who has always kept his racial views and his views about world Judaism quiet because of his political position.

I don’t know that it is necessarily good for Paul to “expose” this. However, he really is someone with extensive ties to white nationalism and for him to deny that in the belief he will be more respectable by denying it is outrageous — and I hate seeing people in the press who denounce racialism merely because they think it is not fashionable.

Bill White, Commander
American National Socialist Workers Party

*********
Poor Bill White. He’s having trouble with his brand of racism, anti-Semitism, mass extermination, and genocide not being "in fashion". But hey, you've got to thank the knuckleheaded Nazi for confirming our suspicions on Ron Paul and Pat Buchanan! -Steven Argue

Liberation News
https://lists.riseup.net/www/info/liberation_news

posted in Anarchism - 1 reply

Destroy Capitalism before 2012!!!

2008-01-04T02:08:14Z

You and me are living in a peculiar time wouldn't you agree? Many people feel they might actually become witness to the End of the World (or, as we know it). If you have pondered this also, you might want to keep reading. I'll try to break down, in common language, why I think we live in 'special' times, what I think will happen, and what I think we should do.

Mayan Prophecy:

For as long as humans existed, they have at certain points in time believed the End of the World had arrived, when nothing actually happened. This is for some proof enough that the whole end-of-the-world thing is nonsense, and needs no further investigation.
How can anyone look into the future anyway? Not so difficult actually, we do it all the time. The only things you need in order to look into the future is knowledge of cycles, and experience with the cycle. You know the cycle of your washing machine, the processes it goes through, and how long it takes. You can look into the future and estimate if the sun will still be up to dry the laundry, since you know about that cycle as well. People look into the future all the time, and plan their actions according to knowledge of cycles like pregnancy, menstruation or the seasons. If a cycle is longer that the general life span of a human being, the information about the cycle is recorded on a medium, to pass on to future generations, which is exactly what the ancient civilizations did.
Those tablets, documents and artworks become like a road map of time, especially if positioning of stars and planets have an affect on our human experience, which a lot of scientific evidence suggests, and 'spiritual' people firmly believe. The Mayans were such believers, and speak of a cycle 25,800 years long with a certain point within that cycle where our Sun will line up directly with the center of the Milky Way Galaxy. According to their calculations, this event, which they call the "Sacred Tree", will occur on December 21, 2012.
Is it the 2nd coming of the sun? Is the "New World Order" the antichrist? There is a heap of different perspectives on this 2012 subject online, and I leave it up to you to make your own conclusions. I'm not even sure if this has been backed up by science and astronomy,
but we only need to learn here that if at least the Mayans seemed to believe this to be true, and recorded it, perhaps others do too.

One Truth:

This demands that they believed there was ultimately One Order and One Truth to the way of the Everything, Universe, or whatever you wish to name it, much like every religion does, even science. I believe so too, and I assume that many different cultures and religions contain fragments of knowledge of it. Many 'different' cultures and religions have shared such truths and recycled them, or purposefully changed them to fit an oppressive agenda. Is it a coincidence that even Iran's leader Ahmadinejad firmly believes the awaited Mahdi is near, and many christians are preparing for Jesus' 2nd coming? Also we now have a prophet in the form of Al Gore, with his doomsday scenario's, as our global corrupted and dysfunctional leadership is preparing for world war 3. The internet has blasted open total access of information, and it seems as if we are living in the times of revelation. The worlds religions grow stronger, with more fanaticism than ever, inspired by each other's hatred, violence and repression, back in full force since September 11th. The U.S. Government is becoming increasingly more violent and oppressive towards the American people, and other nations, with permission of governments worldwide.
Many people strongly believe 911 was like Nero's Rome, and Hitler's Reichstag, an attack on us, from our leaders. An attack on our civil liberties, gathering momentum, but from who and why?

Rotten Apples:

Unfortunately, our planet seems te be controlled by a small group of people, which has passed that control down for generations. They controlled the land and orchards as royal families in Medieval times, and now they control it through finance, business and government.
The knights who collected the physical taxes with their swords are now outfitted with handcuffs, guns and computers. You see, all these hundreds of apples they claimed ownership of, start to rot in a couple days, and they can't eat them all themselves. So those who claim to own land and the fruits it bears, need an exchange medium that doesn't rot, like metal coins or paper bills. The concept of exchange is based on the presumption that a human can own land, fruit or even other life like cattle. A sad delusion; the only thing we own on this planet is our body. And we really don't even seem to own that, as it is required to report in the factory for 'employment', or on the battlefield for 'deployment'. How is it possible that humanity allows this?

The Pyramid:

In order for a few to control so many, they use hierarchical structures of authority, creating pyramids of possession and power, and reflect that in every aspect of society. In the military, in schools, homes, sports, companies, etc. you are positioned somewhere on the pyramid; most people start at the bottom, a few people are born at the top. It is evident that our planet's abundance is greedily controlled with these pyramids and it is evident to me that together with the "property-illusion" this is the only real problem this planet faces. All other problems are mere symptoms. war, starvation, poverty, crime, and even many seemingly 'natural' problems like disasters, diseases and extinction of species. All these are after effects of the growth of these pyramids, as people desperately try to climb them, trampling those below them, including Mother Earth. The bigger the Pyramid, the more possession and power for those at the top, and the more degrading and miserable the situation at the bottom is. People that rise to higher levels on the pyramid, or are born there, are not likely to give up their position as they know what awaits them below. People like you and me, with generally 'normal' lives, but not so much compared to the lives of people in Somalia for one. With a system like this, the most uncompassionate, unemphathetic people around rise to the top, or are born there and raised by these intelligent psychopaths. Of course the ramification of the pyramid shape is that most people are at the bottom, carrying the heaviest weight, putting the ones on top in a fragile position. They need to keep those at the bottom distracted from looking up, so they create distractions.

"We versus Them"

One of these is fascism, the highly delusional, contagious and effective -"we" versus "them"- syndrome. Some examples are Christian vs. Muslim (marketed heavily since 9-11), Nazis vs. Jews, Humans vs. Animals, or "consciousness vs. matter". In reality All is ultimately One, and variety in this Universe is created through subdivisions of polar opposites. For example, the subdivision of a human being is Male/Female, opposites indeed, yet when you zoom out one level, you will conclude they are both the same thing. The strength of the pyramid relies on the belief of those below in the illusion of separation. All violence, murder and massacre is the result from this concept of we vs. them, or even "we vs. everyone else", and these ideas are propagated through scriptures, religions and media.
Not only does it serve the divide & conquer technique, but it also gives people enemies to fear, and leaders to run to for security. Another scheme they use to distract us from looking at the top of the pyramid, is by giving mindless & destructive entertainment, elevating the artists involved to 'star' heights, and giving them a great abundance of wealth. Millions of dollars for something as fun as acting in a movie, or recording and performing music, while those behind the conveyer belts get minimum wage.
This way, us below might consider a higher position on the pyramid something that people deserve in relation to their talent and great work. As young children we always look at other people for inspiration and guidance, and most of us have had their idols.
Some of these 'celebrities' are so special that they have many talents, and appear in music, movie, tv and videogames. This leads a child to believe that there's a range of specialness to humans, and their success in live will depend on how special they are. They give us rags-to-riches stories so we think the ones at the top deserve to be there, while in actuality they are there because of their lack of emotional sensitivity, and their successful efforts of keeping the pyramid's base distracted from looking up.
Because the answer to all our problems is up there, out in the open, at the top of the Pyramid.

The Elite:

Those who do look up, speak of an Elite, that is secretly planning global control; a story so cliché you might chuckle here, perhaps the reason why it is so cliché. There are all kinds of stories out there as to the origins of these families, including alien DNA bloodlines and such, and again I leave it up to you to make your own conclusions. It is however worth mentioning here that many people believe that those at the top of the pyramid have always generated the major wars from both sides, and that World War III will not be any different.
Is it possible that a multi-generational elite is working towards a global empire? Is this something you witness around you? You might live in Europe, and have witnessed the change of currency there. All money was collected, and exchanged for the Euro. Who collected the money, who printed the new money, and for who? How do they know how much to print? Who decides the value of an apple? It was them, at the top of the pyramid, and it shows how big the pyramid already is. Now they are working on the "Amero" in the US, and I'm sure we'll get universal medical care soon, with required microchip implant mind you. Yes, it is possible, if not likely, that this 'obscured' elite exists, and there is a lot of valuable information on this subject online. Wasn't it Bush Senior himself who in September 11th 1990 coined the term "New World Order"? What? 11 years before 11-11-2001 when the big 11 in new york was attacked? The same 11 as in the $ symbol, or the two pillars of Solomon? What's up with these 11's?

The Rabbit Hole:

For as long as man existed, it has discovered truths about the world he lived in, truths about reality. Truths such as the inevitability of death, or that fire is warm, truths which he can use to plan his activities. With these pyramid structures it becomes possible to keep knowledge at the top hidden from those below. People are "initiated" to this knowledge when they are considered 'ready' by those above them, who know they need successors. The elite certainly uses knowledge of reality for their agenda on a material level, with advanced weaponry, telecommunications and machines to name but a few, but they also seem to believe in a non material level - the paranormal, witchcraft and magic stuff. Even though Bush Junior pleads us to not allow ridiculous conspiracy theories, he himself is part of the Skull and Bones society. I'm sorry, but having a secret club with skeletons and secret meetings is more ridiculous than the people wondering about them, unless you guys have some really cool secret knowledge - which makes conspiracy theories all but ridiculous.
There is reason to believe that the elite at the top of the pyramid uses occult knowledge on numerology, astrology, symbolism, ritual and even sacrifice, besides modern technology, to increase their chances of success. One look on your dollar bill will tell you.
Actually, many people worldwide firmly believe in this spiritual world, and even though always opposed by science,
string theory and quantum physics seem to move into the spiritual domain. It is as if science deals with the separateness of everything, and spirituality focusses on the interconnectedness of everything, yet upon further investigation this is just a spectrum of polar opposites meeting in the middle. I think the popularity of the 'scientific' atheist perspective is a result of the military campaigns against the Gnostics, Cathars, and of course the burning of "witches" on the stake, which pushed personal spiritual experience into the dungeons of the pyramid. It seems as if those above us at the top of the pyramid don't want us to find out the Truth. If that's the case, perhaps that explains why the world is being so radically changed by them, perhaps because the Mayans were right about 2012,
and they want to have their global Pyramid ready for this mysterious date.

Religion:

If you are a devout Christian or Muslim, or any other organized religion, you will probably feel that you already know the Truth, since it is written in your holy scriptures. But do you really feel with your whole being that it is the Truth that the Almighty Creator has written those books for us? There are a lot of very disturbing, conflicting and violent passages in those books, as well as some beautiful teachings.
Can you find it in your heart to give the Almighty the respect He/She is due, by believing he gave us free will, imagination, a conscious and intelligence, among all the other things we need to try to make the right decisions in our unique situations? I personally believe that the All is so glorious and perfect, that creation is perfect, has been, and always will be, and doesn't need an instruction manual. It doesn't need a Great Flood for Plan B. And yet, with all these 'blasphemous' thoughts, I still feel a strong connection with the All. Is it possible the All will create this connection with anyone seeking it, regardless of religion, culture, ritual or intention? I believe so, and I suggest to the devout among you to consider an even closer relationship with the All, where you truly believe in the perfection and glory of the almighty.
Where you don't have to invent strange excuses for the derogatory, hypocritical, and violent characteristics attributed to your god through the scriptures. Where you don't have to be afraid of laws written on paper, but gratefully use your free will to make the decisions you feel are in correspondence to the way of the All. And where you respect God's decision to give each individual a spark of life and free will, confident that all roads lead back to him, live and let live. "Your freedom to punch ends where my nose begins."
Perhaps not for you, but for millions of people around you, these scriptures have done more wrong than good, and need to be taken less seriously. I'm suggesting that your connection with the All will increase if you have faith in yourself, and start filtering the scriptures for what they are worth. Have faith and trust that the All has made you in his/her image. That you are a tiny holographic cell of the All, and as such have all the answers safely stored within. Findings of modern technology support the idea of a holographic, fractalized universe, with "Sacred Geometry" woven throughout it.

Atheism:

On the other side of the spectrum we find the atheists. They wonder why scriptures and religion have such a strong hold on so many people? I think that is because they feel a connection, a connection with the All. Some atheists argue none of it is real, but these people feel the connection is real, and don't want to let go of this feeling. We are all connected, regardless of what vile and disgusting scripture, behaviour or worship people surround it with. Instead of denying this connection, we should argue that people can let go of the scriptures without losing this sacred connection. We all are perfectly capable of living together harmoniously if we live in accordance to the logic and flow of the All. We need to use a balance of logical intelligence and emotional intuition, to filter the crap of the scriptures of all traditions,
and the Truth and Order of the universe will emerge, and set us free.

The Solution:

The only things we need to do is to stop supporting the Pyramid, and realize that property is theft, as Proudhon noted,
that the fruits of Mother Earth belong to all of her inhabitants equally. Bloody revolutions don't work. Revolutions have to come from within, for people just need to drop their destructive habits. We need to realize we are all connected, and that separation is an illusion.
I believe, and many others with me, that the All is the ultimate Parent, and has ensured we all can always "call back home", from wherever we are in the universe. The phone will always be answered. There are telephone booths all around us, all we gotta do is pick up the phone, and the All will comfort us, guide us, teach us, and make us laugh, or it will help us through the darkness back into the light. The call might not always be pleasurable, there might be tears, letting go, fear, self-reflection, and such. But if you prepare for the call, and surround yourself with your loved ones in a comfortable and familiar environment, I believe your phone-call with the All will be productive and helpful. I don't suggest a prank-call. The telephone booths I am talking about here are Entheogens.

The Light:

Did you know that the only organism that can break down nuclear waste is a Fungi? A mushroom basically? Did you know you have a neurological landscape that looks like mycelium? That your brain neurons and astrocytes are similarly arranged to the mycelia network? A.k.a the mushroom's underground web below the forest floor? These patterns are even discovered in outer space, between solar systems. Quantum 'String' theory speaks of a similar web. Or how about this one - that all humans, and probably loads of animals, produce DMT naturally in their physical body? And scientific study suggests this DMT is responsible for spiritual experiences and the alien-abduction phenomena humans experience? With meditation techniques, you can probably trigger the secretion of DMT, and feel drastic emotional or mental changes. DMT is also the active ingredient of Ayahuasca, a psychedelic brew people have consumed for years.
There are those that suggest the small photonic light your DNA transmits is the light people see inside, while under the influence of DMT. Will the coming photon-belt launch a psychedelic DMT trip, as part of the DNA-upgrade, wheter you like it or not? And did you know a full grown amanita muscaria might resemble a cup, and hold some psychedelic rainwater? You could walk through the forest, pick it up and drink from it, leaving some people to suggest this magic mushroom might be the fabled 'Holy Grail'. In the past, the US Military tried LSD on soldiers to see if it could be useful for mind control, but they discovered instead that LSD made people 'enlightened', more aware of the interconnectivity of everything, aware of the Truth. Soldiers dropped their guns, and picked up flowers in awe of the beauty and glory of God. Psychedelics like MDMA continuously proof very beneficial in trauma therapy and humans with terminal diseases. The psychedelic African root Iboga is extremely powerful against addiction, curing some heroin addicts instantly. The benefits of the Marihuana plant are seemingly boundless.

The Darkness:

Why is it the liquor stores, pharmacies, and streets are flooded with all kinds of drugs, except for Iboga, Peyote, Amanita Muscaria, Psylocibin, Ayahuasca, LSD, Salvia Divinorum, etc. etc. Except for the "psyche-delics", the "mind clarifying" plants? Because the international "War on Drugs" is a war on psychedelics, and has resulted in the world we see today. In light of the hypocrisy of this war, I dare to state we need to re-connect with these psychedelics. I believe it is the most basic of solutions, and they are way more safe than cigarette's, pharmaceuticals, crack and alcohol. I think it is especially important for our younger generations, as it is the ultimate right of passage, if done with the proper respect, education, care, timing and love. We all long back to our 'childhood happy carelessness',
and I suggest the only reason we've lost it is because we were not given our rites of passage, our psychedelics. Instead we get schools with pyramid structures, where some teenagers feel so disconnected that we see more suicidal massacres nowadays.
Most of these kids were on anti-depressants, not MDMA or Ayahuasca. At home a perpetual horse-and-pony show is blasted onto billions of retina's worldwide through television, internet and handhelds, solely for the purpose of misdirection and distraction. Will Brad Pitt ever marry Christina Aguilera? I believe a good psychedelic trip will benefit people and families, and the internet provides sufficient information for all to do it safe and wisely. Perhaps instead of prozac, try and and visit the forest's pharmacy. Mother Nature's pharmacy.
You go to her for your food, so what's wrong with her medicine? Who tell us they are wrong? Right, those above you...
Believe in your own judgement, not in the judgement of those above you. It's your choice.
Even though I believe people need to "call back home" more often, I strongly discourage the macho "getting F'd up!" approach. "How many do you dare to eat?" is the same as "How fast do you dare to drive this car?", and will get you in trouble. It is this sort of reckless carelessness that results in a "bad trip", and if you aren't like this, the chances of having one of the most wonderful times of your life are huge. A great mindset, a comfortable familiar setting, the right dose, the right choice of psychedelic, proper preparedness, a company of people that you completely love and trust, and an experienced "trip-sitter". These are the ingredients that will almost certainly guarantee a good time, and inspire you for a lifetime. If we want, we can drop the pyramid, and pick up the pieces. Drop our money, and share the abundance. Us below will have to welcome those that fall down from the top with open arms, if we ever want to make something really beautiful on this planet. Entire industries and avenues of 'employment and deployment' will evaporate, and we need to welcome back everybody that drops their weapons, or had a part in such destructive or meaningless industries. The wealthy need to give up their wealth, and the poor need to forgive them, a tough process with which the clarifying and connecting properties of psychedelics can help. With voluntary mutual cooperation we can turn this planet around.

2012:

If nothing happens, we might by then have established paradise on earth, and happily look forward to the year 27,812. If something great happens, we will be ready to integrate it into our sustainable earthly paradise, and take it to the next level. If the earth explodes, we'll meet again. Either way, there should not be a Great Pyramid of Tyranny in place, I assume, and we should all dedicate the next years of our lives to the destruction of the Pyramid, the New World Order, to the best of our individual capacity. This is the moment billions of humans have talked about for millennia... now what are you going to do? If something as huge as the realignment of our planet with the center of our galaxy can't make us all synchronize a global effort, then what will? We need to have a good look at the Pyramid, not at global warming. Distraction, remember?

-------------------------

I dedicate this Tribe to the creation of a mycelium-like network of humans that are ready and willing to climb down the Pyramid together, and build a paradise on the ground as equals. I have faith that we have all the knowledge and infrastructure we need to solve all the problems that emerge from this drastic change. Maybe 10 years from now Buckingham Palace will host art galleries, live music, restaurants, libraries? Do you dare to dream of a Global Paradise?
Share your dreams here with us, and let's make it happen!!!
http://tribes.tribe.net/destroy-the-pyramid

Love,

Ramon

PS: The Great Pyramid in Egypt doesn't need to be destroyed imho :)

posted in Anarchism - 0 replies

Illuminati Bloodlines

2007-12-28T18:47:25Z

You must do a you tube search for Illuminati bloodlines, films 1-31. These are the blessing from above.

Peace, love, and all that shit...slacker

posted in Anarchism - 2 replies

Nice Video, Ireland

2007-12-24T21:03:35Z

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BT9fbSYu2Iw&NR=1

posted in Anarchism - 4 replies

Christ Mass card to the White House...warning NC17

2007-12-24T20:06:08Z

T’was the nightmare before Christmas, and at the White House.
The president was smoking cannabis, talking to his pet mouse.

“Did you know that this weed”, He said to the mouse, “would cure all diseases?
This silly green stuff, which grows from the ground, holds miracles that are needed.
If everyone knew how good this stuff was, well I’d be totally f#@ked.
Just think of the millions of innocent herb users, unconstitutionally locked up.
If they really knew that The United States of America, was a British chartered nation;
Illegally run, by businessmen, managing THE UNITED STATES corporation.”

“That’s pretty tricky”, said the mouse to the man, as he handed back the bong,
“I’d never have imagined you’d kept up this nonsense, for even quite this long.
I watched JFK when I was a lad, from over there in the corner.
He and his brothers, and most of the staff were all quite avid stoners.
He was a DEFENDER of justice and truth, unlike you and the other VI KINGS;
That bullshit the masses, oppressed countless millions to secure the illuminati ring”

“What really bothers me,” the president said, as he took another big hit.
“Is how fast this info is coming to light, blowing the top off the lid.
If they were to see, that Washington DC, is a little country all on its own;
With its own constitution since 1871, and the dollars on high interest loan;
From the Fed, owned by Rothschild’s and quite a few others;
Tied to secret society, and organized by skulls, bones and frat brothers!
Sleazy old banker that make billions by banking both sides of battles;
Americans birth certificates, sent overseas and used as collateral.
They’ll riot in the street and scream out for vengeance and pain,
Until my weapon toting peace keepers round up and detain;
The millions of ‘terrorists’ that are sure to arise,
As the secret combinations unveil before their eyes.”

“That’s heavy”, said the mouse as he twisted up some hash,
“Just how do you expect American soldiers to do a dirty job like that?”

“Oh that’s easy”, said the president, as he bowed his head to avoid;
The cynical gaze of the mouse that was becoming quite annoyed.
“I’ve already made new money stamped: North American Union.
Once the dollar is dead, and the borders are dropped, and everyone busy looting;
I’ll offer up ‘new jobs’ to millions of hopeless and starving women and men.
Give the Mexicans guns and the Canadians bombs, oh America’s future is grim”

“What the hell”, said the mouse, “are you going to do in the end;
When millions are locked up, and more wake up, ready to avenge?
When people see through, all of the lies they’ve been forced;
To accept blindly as fact, they’ve been maliciously coerced!
And crop dusted and cheated and poisoned and infected!
In the bigGEST DAMN CONSPIRACY EVER CONCIEVIBLEY DETECTED!”

“Get off you soap box,” said the president as he dropped the smoking tweezers.
“You’ve got no right to talk shit, through those peasant lips, to rightful bloodline leader.
You know that I’m not the only conspirator in the mix;
That most of the orders, come from the Queen of England’s very lips.
And really who’s worse, under the nitty and gritty;
Look at the billions of deaths linked to Vatican City???
And look at the other Christian leaders, that know what’s going on;
Lulling the masses to sleep, singing the tithing for redemption song!!!”

“Pardon me”, said the mouse, “but you all are quite crazy;
This is nothing but global domination so the rich may remain lazy!
And speaking of control, probations and tariffs;
How long must you sit there and Bogart that spliff?”

“Screw you”, said the president, through the holes magically created;
Between the pearly whites as the lies increasingly perpetuated.
“I’ll keep this from you, just as easy as from the people;
By laws, or brute force, or false doctrine from a steeple.
For if I let you or anyone else, use all the cards that Mother Earth dealt;
Then THE PEOPLE would be self sufficient, and Babylon would melt!
As they grew their own medicine, food, clothes, and monetary wealth;
They’d also stop buying our drugs disguised as chemicals on food shelves.
Then the veil would come off, and the masses would look here.
For the first time in their lives, minds would be perfectly clear;
And this is a day all of us secretly fear”

“But that’s not going to happen”, said the president with a cough.
“We’ll just keep adding more poison to keep their menation shut off.
One of the most important rules of being ‘govern-mental’ by design;
Is to ruthlessly use every trick in the book, rather than let the plan die.
Secret oaths that I made, in the dead of the night, to men under hooded cloaks;
Keep me bound to my promise of conquest, using force to poisonous smoke.”

“This I know is quite true”, said the mouse, as he bowed his head to pray.
“But regardless of your plans and secret combinations, the Gods will save the day.
Millions of people, over thousands of years have all manifested salvation;
The elements have responded, seeds have been planted for continuing evolution”

“Our Heavenly Father would you…”, the little mouse said,
“…please stop all this madness, and badness, and death.
Please don’t use plagues, floods, or fire reigning down from heaven.
Just please loosen the noose on this oppression we’ve been havin’.
I have faith that everything that grows from the ground;
Was provided by you, filled with information that is sound.
I beg for THE PEOPLE”, the humble mouse cried,
For the poisoning to stop, in the water, food, and skies.
Of all of the stuff that these mobsters do daily;
The secret drugs must stop first as it’s making the world crazy.
And for the blatant poisoning of everything from kids toothpaste to babies pacifiers
May God have mercy on your souls, as you roast like marshmallows, on hells fire
To conclude”, said the mouse , “under the council of my grey haired furry shaman
I ask these things in Christ’s name, Yahweh’s as well, and not in the Egyptian’s god AMEN”

Peace, Love, and all that Shit…slacker

posted in Anarchism - 1 reply

"Everything I Want To Do Is Illegal"

2007-12-24T11:46:00Z

http://www.mindfully.org/Farm/2003/Everything-Is-Illegal1esp03.htm

Everything I Want to Do Is Illegal
JOEL SALATIN / Acres v.33, n.9, Sept 2003 1sep03

Everything I want to do is illegal. As if a highly bureaucratic regulatory system was not already in place, 9/11 fueled renewed acceleration to eliminate freedom from the countryside. Every time a letter arrives in the mail from a federal or state agriculture department my heart jumps like I just got sent to the principal’s office.

And it doesn’t stop with agriculture bureaucrats. It includes all sorts of government agencies, from zoning, to taxing, to food inspectors. These agencies are the ultimate extension of a disconnected, Greco-Roman, Western, egocentric, compartmentalized, reductionist, fragmented, linear thought process.

ON-FARM PROCESSING

I want to dress my beef and pork on the farm where I’ve coddled and raised it. But zoning laws prohibit slaughterhouses on agricultural land. For crying out loud, what makes more holistic sense than to put abattoirs where the animals are? But no, in the wisdom of Western disconnected thinking, abattoirs are massive centralized facilities visited daily by a steady stream of tractor trailers and illegal alien workers.

But what about dressing a couple of animals a year in the backyard? How can that be compared to a ConAgra or Tyson facility? In the eyes of the government, the two are one and the same. Every T-bone steak has to be wrapped in a half-million dollar facility so that it can be sold to your neighbor. The fact that I can do it on my own farm more cleanly, more responsibly, more humanely, more efficiently, and in a more environmentally friendly manner doesn’t matter to the government agents who walk around with big badges on their jackets and wheelbarrow-sized regulations tucked under their arms.

OK, so I take my animals and load them onto a trailer for the first time in their life to send them up the already clogged interstate to the abattoir to await their appointed hour with a shed full of animals of dubious extraction. They are dressed by people wearing long coats with deep pockets with whom I cannot even communicate. The carcasses hang in a cooler alongside others that were not similarly cared for in life. After the animals are processed, I return to the facility hoping to retrieve my meat.

When I return home to sell these delectable packages, the county zoning ordinance says that this is a manufactured product because it exited the farm and was reimported as a value-added product, thereby throwing our farm into the Wal-Mart category, another prohibition in agricultural areas. Just so you understand this, remember that an on-farm abattoir was illegal, so I took the animals to a legal abattoir, but now the selling of said products in an on-farm store is illegal.

Our whole culture suffers from an industrial food system that has made every part disconnected from the rest. Smelly and dirty farms are supposed to be in one place, away from people, who snuggle smugly in their cul-de-sacs and have not a clue about the out-of-sight-out-of-mind atrocities being committed to their dinner before it arrives in microwaveable, four-color-labeled, plastic packaging. Industrial abattoirs need to be located in a not-in-my-backyard place to sequester noxious odors and sights. Finally, the retail store must be located in a commercial district surrounded by lots of pavement, handicapped access, public toilets and whatever else must be required to get food to people.

The notion that animals can be raised, processed, packaged, and sold in a model that offends neither our eyes nor noses cannot even register on the average bureaucrat’s radar screen — or, more importantly, on the radar of the average consumer advocacy organization. Besides, all these single-use megalithic structures are good for the gross domestic product. Anything else is illegal.

ON-FARM SEMINARS & ‘AGRITAINMENT’

In the disconnected mind of modem America, a farm is a production unit for commodities — nothing more and nothing less. Because our land is zoned as agricultural, we cannot charge school kids for a tour of the farm because that puts us in the category of "Theme Park." Anyone paying for infotainment creates "Farmadisney," a strict no-no in agricultural zones.

Farms are not supposed to be places of enjoyment or learning. They are commodity production units dotting the landscape, just as factories are manufacturing units and office complexes are service units. In the government’s mind, integrating farm production with recreation and meaningful education creates a warped sense of agriculture.

The very notion of encouraging people to visit farms is blasphemous to an official credo that views even sparrows, starlings and flies as disease threats to immunocompromised plants and animals. Visitors entering USDA-blessed production unit farms must run through a gauntlet of toxic sanitation dips and don moonsuits in order to keep their germs to themselves. Indeed, people are viewed as hazardous foreign bodies at Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs).

Farmers who actually encourage folks to come to their farms threaten the health and welfare of their fecal concentration camp production unit neighbors, and therefore must be prohibited from bringing these invasive germ-dispensing humans onto their landscape. In the industrial agribusiness paradigm, farms must be protected from people, not to mention free-range poultry.

The notion that animals and plants can be raised in such a way that their enhanced immune system protects them from kindergarteners’ germs, and that the animals actually thrive when marinated in human attention, never enters the minds of government officials dedicated to protecting precarious production units.

COLLABORATIVE MARKETING

I have several neighbors who produce high-quality food or crafts that complement our own meat and poultry. Dried flower arrangements from one artisan, pickles from another, wine from another, and first-class vegetables from another. These are just for starters.

Our community is blessed with all sorts of creative artisans who offer products that we would love to stock in our on-farm retail venue. Doesn’t it make sense to encourage these customers driving out from the city to be able to go to one farm to do their rural browsing/ purchasing rather than drive all over the countryside? Furthermore, many of these artisans have neither the desire nor time to deal with patrons one-on-one. A collaborative venue is the most win-win, reasonable idea imaginable — except to government agents.

As soon as our farm offers a single item — just one — that is not produced here, we have become a Wal-Mart. Period. That means a business license, which isbasically another layer of taxes on our gross sales. The business license requires a commercial entrance, which on our country road is almost impossible to acquire due to sight-distance requirements and width regulations. Of course, zoning prohibits businesses in our agricultural zones. Remember, people are supposed to be kept away from agricultural areas — people bring diseases.

Even if we could comply with all of the above requirements, a retail outlet carries with it a host of additional regulations. We must provide designated handicapped parking, government-approved toilet facilities (our four household bathrooms in the two homes located 50 feet away from the retail building do not count) — and it can’t be a composting toilet. We must offer x-number of parking spaces. Folks, it just goes on and on, ad nauseum, and all for simply trying to help a neighbor sell her potatoes or extra pumpkins at Thanksgiving. I thought this was the home of the free. In most countries of the world, anyone can sell any of this stuff anywhere, and the hungering hordes are glad to get it, but in the great U.S. of A we’re too sophisticated to allow such bioregional commerce.

EMPLOYING LOCAL YOUNGSTERS & INTERNS

Any power tool — including a cordless screwdriver — cannot be operated by people under the age of 18. We have lots of requests from folks wanting to come as interns, but what do we call them? The government has no category for interns or neighbor young people who just want to learn and help out.

We’d love to employ all the neighboring young people. To our child-awning and worshiping culture, the only appropriate child activity is recreation, sitting in a desk, or watching TV. That’s it. That’s the extent of what children are good for. Anything else is abusive and risky.

Then we wonder why these kids grow up unmotivated and bored with life. Our local newspaper is full of articles and letters to the editor lamenting the lack of things for young people to do. Let me suggest a few things: digging postholes and building a fence, weeding the garden, planting some tomatoes, splitting some wood, feeding the chickens, washing eggs, pruning grapevines, milking the cow, building a compost pile, growing some earthworms.

These are all things that would be wonderfully meaningful work experience for the youth of our community, but you can’t simply employ people anymore. A host of government regulatory paperwork surrounds every "could you come over and help us . . . ?" By the time an employer complies with every Occupational Safety & Health Administration requirement, posts every government bulletin requirement, with-holds taxes, and shoulders Unemployment Compensation burdens and medical and child safety regulations — he or she can’t hire anybody legally or profitably.

The government has no pigeonhole for this: "I’m a 17-year-old home-schooler, and I want to learn how to farm. Could I come and have you mentor me for a year?"

What is this relationship? A student? An employee? If I pay a stipend, the government says he’s an employee. If I don’t pay, the Fair Labor Standards board says it’s slavery, which is illegal. Doesn’t matter that the young person is here of his own volition and is happy to live in a tee-pee. Housing must be permitted and up to code. Enough already. What happened to the home of the free?

BUILD A HOUSE THE WAY I WANT

You would think that if I cut the trees, mill the logs into lumber, and build the house on my own farm, I could make it however I wanted to. Think again. It’s illegal to build a house less than 900 square feet. Period. Doesn’t matter if I’m a hermit or the father of 20. The government agents have decreed, in their egocentric wisdom, that no human can live in anything less than 900 square feet.

Our son got married last year and wanted to build a small cottage on the farm, which he now oversees for the most part. Our new saying is, "He runs the farm, and I just run around." The plan was to do what Mom and Dad did for Teresa and I — trade houses when children come. That way our empty nest downsizes, and the young people can upsize in the main family farmhouse. Sounds reasonable and environmentally sensitive to me. But no, his little honeymoon cottage — or our retirement shack — had to be a 900-square-foot Taj Mahal. A state-of-the-art accredited composting toilet to avoid the need for a septic system and sewer leach field was denied.

When the hillside leach field would not meet agronomic standards and we had to install it in the floodplain, I asked the health department bureaucrat why. He said that essentially the only approvable leach fields now are alongside creeks and streams, because they are the only sites that offer dark-enough colored soils. Sounds like real environmental steward-ship, doesn’t it?

Look, if I want to build a yurt of rabbit skins and go to the bathroom in a compost pile, why is it any of the government’s business? Bureaucrats bend over back-wards to accredit, tax credit, and offer money to people wanting to build pig city-factories or bigger airports. But let a guy go to his woods, cut down some trees, and build himself a home, and a plethora of regulatory tyrants descend on the project to complicate, obfuscate, irritate, frustrate, and virtually terminate. I think it’s time to eradicate some of these laws and the piranhas who administer them.

OPTING OUT OF THE SYSTEM

I don’t ask for a dime of government money. I don’t ask for government accreditation. I don’t want to register my animals with a global positioning tattoo. I don’t want to tell officials the names of my constituents. And I sure as the dickens don’t intend to hand over my firearms. I can’t even use the "U" word.

On every side, our paternalistic culture is tightening the noose around those of us who just want to opt out of the system — and it is the freedom to opt out that differentiates tyrannical and free societies.

How a culture deals with its misfits reveals its strength. The stronger a culture, the less it fears the radical fringe. The more paranoid and precarious a culture, the less tolerance it offers.

When faith in our freedom gives way to fear of our freedom, then silencing the minority view becomes the operative protocol. The Native Americans silenced after Little Big Horn simply wanted to

worship in their beloved Black Hills, use traditional medicinal herbs to cure diseases, educate their children in the ways of their ancestors, and live in portable homes rather than log cabins. By that time these people represented absolutely no threat to the continued Westernization and domination of the North American continent by people who educated, vocated, medicated, worshiped, and habitated differently.

But coexistence was out of the question. Just like the forces that succeeded in making it illegal for me to use the "O" word, the Western success at Wounded Knee quashed the little guy. What does the Organic Trade Association have to fear from me using the "O" word? If society really wants government certification, my little market share will continue to deteriorate into oblivion. If, however, the certification effort represents a same-old, same-old power grab by the elitists to exterminate the fringe play-ers, it is merely another example of fear replacing faith.

Faith in what? Faith in diversity. Faith in each other. Faith in people’s ability to self-educate, thereby making informed decisions. Faith in seekers to find answers. Faith in marketplace dynamics to reward integrity and not cheating. Faith in Creation to heal. Faith in healthy plants and animals to withstand epizootics. Faith in earthworms to increase fertility. Faith in communities to function efficiently and honorably without centralized beltway interference. Faith in Acres U.S.A. to arrive every month with a cornucopia of insight and information.

Our culture’s current fear of bioterrorism shows the glaring weakness of a centralized, immunodeficient food system. This weakness leads to fear. Demanding from on high that we irradiate all food, register every cow with government agencies, and hire more inspectors does not show strength. It shows fear.

Indeed, official policy views all these minority production and marketing systems that have been shown faithful over the centuries to be instead things that threaten everyone and everything. As a teepee dwelling, herb healing, home educating, people loving, compost building retail farmer, I represent the real answers, but real answers must be eradicated by those who seek to build their power and fortunes on a lie — the lie being that genetic integrity can be maintained when corporate scientists begin splicing DNA. The lie that, as Charles Walters says, toxic rescue chemistry is better than a balanced biological bath. The lie that farms are disease-prone, unfriendly, inhumane places and should be zoned away from people.

Those of us who would aspire to opt out — both consumers and producers — must pray for enough cleverness to circumvent the system until the system cannot sustain itself. Cycles happen. Because things are this way today does not mean they will be this way next year. Hurrah for that.

Often, the greatest escapes occur at the moment the noose becomes tightest. I’m feeling the rope, and it’s not very loose. Society seems bound and determined to hang me for everything I want to do. But there’s power in truth. And for sure, surprises are in store that may make

society shake its collective head and begin to question some seemingly unalterable doctrines. Doctrines like the righteousness of the bureaucrat. The sanctity of government research. The protection of the Food Safety and Inspection Service. The helpfulness of the USDA.

When that day comes, you and I can graciously offer our society honest food, honest ecology, honest stewardship. May the day come quickly.

posted in Anarchism - 2 replies

Liberty Dollar Raided by FBI-Gold,Silv,Plat Seized & Auction

2007-12-15T00:15:08Z

This is the seizure warrant issued against NORFED, which was used to seize 2 tons of Ron Paul dollars, along with gold, silver, and platinum.

http://www.wikileaks.org/wiki/Liberty_Dollar_FBI_search_warrant

This file is politically important because it shows the Federal Government's role and motivation in the raid; it shows it was motivated by political considerations to maintain the viability of the Federal Reserve, a private bank which has been devaluing the United States currency. It is also important because the act of coining Ron Paul dollars was a political act; one which brings attention to the inflationary Federal Reserve system, which threatens to collapse the US economy into hyperinflation. Ron Paul has been the only Presidential candidate so far to address this issue.

The Warrant argues the Liberty Dollar is a multi-level marketing scheme. The irony is that it is becoming increasingly clear that it is the Federal Reserve led financial system that resembles a Ponzi scheme. The Federal Reserve intends to inflate its way out of the mortgage problem, as indicated by the latest testimony of Ben Bernanke to Ron Paul. The confiscation of Ron Paul dollars represents an assault on liberty, and on the right of citizens to own sound money (gold and silver), rather than Federal Reserve notes, which are worthless paper now rapidly losing their value. The falling US dollar has even became an issue during the latest OPEC meeting, as concern was expressed for its decline and the health of the US economy.

"In any event Bill King, editor of The King Report, may have had the most telling observation on the controversy: that the government would have had no problem with the Liberty Dollar organization if, like the wildly unregulated gangsters in the Wall Street financial houses, it had been pushing collateralized debt obligations instead of honest money. "

lib dollar site: http://www.libertydollar.org/ld/legal/raid.htm

posted in Anarchism - 0 replies

The Aim of the Financiers: A One-World Government with a One-World Currency

2007-12-11T00:04:28Z

The Aim of the Financiers: A One-World Government with a One-World Currency
By Alain Pilote

The following article is one of the appendices of Louis Even's new book, "In This Age of Plenty":

The basic flaw of the present financial system is that the banks create money as a debt, charging interest on the money that they create. The obligation for the debtor countries to repay the banks money that the banks did not create, money that does not exist, brings about unpayable debts. The Financiers know quite well that it is impossible for these countries to repay their debts, that the present financial system is defective at its base, and that it can only bring about crises and revolutions. But this is exactly what they want!

As Clifford Hugh Douglas, the founder of the Social Credit school, said: "The Money Power does not, and never did, want to improve the money system - its consequences in war, sabotage and social friction are exactly what is desired.". Why?

It is because the Financiers believe that they are the only ones capable of governing mankind properly, and in order to be able to impose their will upon every individual and control the whole world, they invented the present debt-money system. They want to bring every nation in the world to such a state of crisis that these countries will think they have no alternative but to accept the miracle solution of the Financiers to save them from disaster: complete centralization, a single world currency, and a one-world government, in which all nations will be abolished, or forced to give up their sovereignty.

The Trilateral Commission
There are three major economic areas in the world: Europe, North America, and the Far East (Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, etc.). If, under the pretext of having to join forces to be able to face economic competition with the two other economic regions, the member countries of each of these three regions decide to merge into one single country, forming three Super-States, then the one-world government will be almost achieved.

This is exactly what is taking place now, and being promoted by the Trilateral Commission, founded in July, 1973, by David Rockefeller, the chairman of the Chase Manhattan Bank of New York. The official aim of the Trilateral Commission is "to harmonize the political, economic, social, and cultural relations between the three major economic regions in the world (hence the name "Trilateral"). This aim is almost achieved in Europe with the Single European Act that was implemented in 1993, requiring all the member countries of the European Community to abolish their trade barriers, and to hand over their monetary and fiscal policies to the European Commission in Brussels, Belgium. By 1999, all these countries are supposed to share only one currency, the "Euro".

As regards the North American area, the merger of its member countries is well under way with the passage of NAFTA (North American Free Trade Agreement), first between Canada and the U.S.A., ant which later also included Mexico. (By the next ten years, it is supposed to include all of the Americas) There is a strong pressure to force these countries to harmonize their fiscal policies, and as it happened in Europe, economic union will inevitably lead to political union.

In front of these two gigantic economic powers, the countries of the Far East will have no choice but to join forces together and merge, to be able to compete with North America and Europe in the field of international trade.

One-world currency -- the "Mark of the Beast"??

To consolidate their power, the Financiers also want to eliminate every existing national currency, and to install a one-world currency. In the 1970s, Dr. Hanrick Eldeman, Chief Analyst of the Common Market Confederacy in Brussels, unveiled a plan to "straighten out world chaos": a three-story computer located in the administrative building of the headquarters of the Common Market, in Brussels, Belgium. People who work there call it "the Beast". The plan implies a system of digital enumeration of each human being on earth. Thus the computer would give each inhabitant of the world a number to be used for each purchase or sale. This number would be invisibly tattooed by laser (or implanted with a microchip) either on the forehead or on the back of the hand. This would establish a walking credit card system.

And the number could be seen only through infrared scanners, installed in special verification countries or in business places. Dr. Eldeman pointed out that by using three entries of six digits each, every inhabitant of the world would be given a distinct credit card number.

This reminds us strangely of what Saint John the Apostle wrote in the Book of Revelation (13:16-18): "And he (the Beast) shall make all, both little and great, rich and poor, freemen and slaves, to receive a mark on their right hands, or on their foreheads, and that none might buy or sell, unless he carried this mark, which was the beast's name, or the number that stands for his name. Here is wisdom; he that has understanding, let him count the number of the beast. For it is the number of a man: and the number of him is six hundred and sixty-six".

That man will be the Pope of Rome who will be incarnate by Satan as he incarnate the Serpent, a man-like creature, in the garden of Eden, and Judas Iscariot in the days of Christ's flesh. The main title and claim of the Pope is "Vicarivs Filii Dei" which means "In place of the Son of God", or "Substitute for the Holy Ghost". The letters of this title with numeric values in the old Roman system add up to 666. Thus:
V = 005
I = 001
C = 100
A = 000
R = 000
I = 001
V = 005
S = 000

F = 000
I = 001
L = 500
I = 001
I = 001

D = 050
E = 000
I = 001
Total = 666

Debit cards
A few decades ago, before the invention of computers and microchips, such a system would have seemed far-fetched, a product of science fiction. But now everyone knows about the existence of debit cards with which you can buy anything in stores, without the need to carry any cash on you, the amount of your purchase being debited automatically from your bank account. The avowed goal of the banks is to eliminate all cash, and to force people to use debit cards as the only means of payment.

There is always the risk of losing one's debit card, or of having somebody else illegally use it. So here comes the ultimate solution: to link people personally to their card, so there is no way they can lose it or have it stolen! And there you have it: a micro-computer chip can be implanted under your skin, or a three six-digital unit can be tattooed on your skin...just as described in Saint John's Book of Revelation.

Actually, the mark in the right hand signifies obeying the will, and the mark in the forehead implies receiving the doctrine of the "Beast". The Beast will be the Pope of Rome who will be incarnate by Satan when he is cast down to earth at the close of the Gentile dispensation.

Everything will be in place for a government that wants to control everybody's move, since they will know everything about you: all that you buy, where and when you buy it, who you phone, how much money you have, will all be inscribed on this card. And if, for whatever reason, you are classified as an "undesirable person" or as an "enemy of the State" by the government, they will only have to erase your number from the central computer, and you will no longer be able to buy or sell (and thus be condemned to disappear before long).

The Illuminati
This quest for a world government has been going on for a long time. For example, on Feb. 17, 1953, Financier Paul Warburg said before the U.S. Senate: "We shall have world government whether or not you like it, by conquest or consent." This quest for world domination can be traced back to the creation of the "Illuminati", a secret society, in 1776. Their leader, Adam Weishaupt, wrote out the master plan to bring about the subjection of the whole human race to an oligarchy of Financiers. The word "Illuminati" is derived from Lucifer and means "holders of the light".

As surprising as it may seems, the insignia of the Order of the Illuminati appears on the reverse side of U.S. one-dollar bills. The first time it appeared was in 1933, by order of U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt, at the beginning of the New Deal (the name given to Roosevelt's political reforms of that time).

One can read at the base of the 13-story pyramid, the year 1776 (MDCCLXVI in Roman numerals). Most of the people think that it represents the date of the signing of the American Declaration of Independence, but it actually memorializes the foundation of the Order of the Illuminati, which was on May 1, 1776. (Note the Zionist-Communist May Day connection).

The pyramid represents the conspiracy for the destruction of the Catholic Church (and all existing religions"), and the establishment of a one-world government, or a United Nations dictatorship. The eye radiating in all directions, is the "all-spying" eye that symbolizes the terroristic, Gestapo-like, espionage agency that Weishaupt set up to guard the "secret of the Order and to terrorize the populace into the acceptance of its rule". The Latin words "ANNUIT COEPTIS" translate to "Announcing the creation or beginning". Below them, "NOVUS ORDO SECLORUM" translates to a "New secular order" and the year is written in Roman numerals at the base of the Pyramid.

Manly Palmer Hall explained the symbolism otherwise. He said, Annuit Coeptis means "He (NOT the Christian God) has smiled upon our endeavours". The capstone or triangle signifies science, NOT spirituality, and that the scroll underneath, bearing the inscription "Novus Ordo Seclorum" indicates the nature of the enterprise: a "New order of the ages", an order of science and knowledge as opposed to Christian (morality) superstition and fear.

This insignia was adopted by the U.S. Congress as the reverse of the seal of the United States on September 15, 1789. (The obverse side of the seal bears the eagle, which is used as the official seal and coat of arms of the U.S.A., and which is also shown on the reverse side of the U.S. $1.00 bills).

The appearance of this insignia of the Illuminati on U.S., one-dollar bills in 1933 meant that the followers of Weishaupt regarded their efforts as beginning to "be crowned with success," and that they totally controlled the U.S. Government.

The pyramid is a symbol of the Knights Templar of Freemasonry and a Zionist symbol and the Hexgram is used by Royal Arch Masons which is part of York Rite Masonry also a Zionist symbol. The two seals of the "Great Seal" combines symbolism of all Masonic Orders. The Eagle is a symbol of the Scottish Rite of Freemasonry.

Proof the Great Seal is Masonic
First outline the pyramid with a triangle. Now take the pyramid and draw a line under the base of the capstone and extend it left to right extended to the A in ANNUIT and the S in COEPTIS. Now draw lines from the end of this line down to the last O in ORDO so you will finsih the Hexagram also called the Jewish Star of David.

Draw circles around all five letters to which the Hexagram points. These letters make the word MASON. The 32 feathers on the left wing of the eagle signify the 32 degress of the Scottish Rite of Freemasonry. The right wing has 33 feathers for the extra 33rd honary degree and inner head of the Scottish Rite. George Washington himself on the front of the One Dollar Bill was a 33rd degree Scottish Rite Mason. The 9 tail feathers indicate the 9 additional degrees of the York Rite of Freemasonry. There are13 olives and 13 leaves on the olive branches, 13 arrows in the other eagle's claw, 13 stripes on the shield, 13 stars above the eagle in the form of a Hexagram, 13 letters in "E PLURIBUS UNUM", 13 letters in "ANNUIT COEPTIS", 13 rows of bricks in the pyramid. The 33rd degree Grand Lodge of the Scottish Rite of Freemasonry is located exactly 13 blocks north of the White House above an upside down pentagram oulined by the road layout which rests on the White House. See this link: http://www.cuttingedge.org/n1040.html

The use of the Hexagram and the Pentagram and even the 7 pointed star stems from Jewish Cabalism or mysticism which was adopted from paganism. The placement of the symbols on the American money etc. is no different then to displaying a cross on the back of a one dollar bill. But you will never see these religious symbols removed because the ACLU only attacks what it sees as Christian. Separation of Church and State is a farce. The law requiring the "Separation of CHURCH and State" might as well say "Separation of Christondom and State" because only religions calling themseves "Christian" use buildings called "Church".

Albert Pike was the founder of the KKK and one time leader of the Scottish Rite of Freemasonry Southern Jurisdiction. He himself protested the suggestion that Masonry was Christian and said that "if Masonry was Christian why were most of the people who had possession of it during the early days of the USA Hebrew"?

http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/Garage/4803/IWJindxf.html
http://www.hourofthetime.com/majestyt.htm
http://www.cuttingedge.org/fmcorner.html

A Luciferian conspiracy
To say that the Illuminati is a "Luciferian" conspiracy" is not only a stylistic device, but it is literally true, since the leaders of the Illuminati are actually worshipers of Satan, and their final objective is to have the whole world bow down to him. Through his hellhounds, it is Satan himself who continues his revolt against God by endeavoring to foil God's plan on earth, and to snatch from God as many souls as possible.

Just like Satan, the Financiers think that they are smarter than God, and that they are the only ones who can lead mankind properly. The members of the Illuminati are people of every race and creed, but who all lust for money and power.

Recognizing the powers involved
In the conclusion of his book "Pawns in the Game", which denounces the plot of the Illuminati for world domination, William Guy Carr explains what must be done to stop this plot.

First, we must as individuals recognize the spiritual powers involved, and realize that we are not only facing terrestrial powers, but also spiritual ones; that it is basically a fight between God and Satan. We must choose who we will serve, who we will fight for: God or Satan.

Second, we must take practical steps to counteract the plan of the Financiers which, in Mr. Carr's own words, can be done only through a monetary reform: "The electors must insist that the issue of money, and the control thereof, be placed back in the hands of the Government where it rightfully belongs."

The necessity for Social Credit
The prayers and sacrifices to obtain the assistance of Heaven are certainly necessary to thwart the plan of the Financiers. But a technique, a temporal means, is also necessary to thwart the plan of the Financiers. This means is the Social Credit reform, conceived by the Scottish engineer, Clifford Hugh Douglas, the only reform that the Financiers really fear, and that would put an end to their power to control all the nations. ("Social Credit" means social money - money created without debt by society, issued with new production, and withdrawn from circulation as production is consumed - instead of having a banking credit, as it is the case today - money created as a debt by private banks.)

Douglas first thought that once his discovery and its implications would be brought to the attention of the governments and of those in charge of the economy, they would hasten to implement it. But Douglas soon made another discovery: the Financiers, who ruled the economy, were absolutely not interested in changing the financial system, and its flaws and consequences (wars, waste, poverty, social friction etc.,) were absolutely what they desired, and even fostered deliberately, in order to impose their solution of a one-world government. So the Financiers did everything they could to stop and silence the Social Credit idea: a conspiracy of silence in the news media, or deliberate falsification of Douglas's doctrine, in order to render it vulnerable; calumnies and ridicule against the apostles of "Michael". Douglas wrote in his book "Warning Democracy":

"So rapid was the progress made by the Social Credit ideas between 1919 and 1923 both in this country (Great Britain) and abroad, and so constantly did ideas derived from them appear in the pages of the press, that the interests threatened by them became considerably alarmed, and took what were, on the whole, effective steps to curtail their publicity. In this country the Institute of Bankers allocated five million pounds (then the equivalent of 24 million dollars) to combat the 'subversive' ideas of ourselves and other misguided people who wished to thinker with the financial system. The large Press Associations were expressly instructed that my own name should not be mentioned in the public press, and no metropolitan newspaper in this country or the United States was allowed to give publicity, either to correspondence or to contributions bearing upon the subject. In spite of this Canadian Parliamentary Inquiry at which I was a witness (in 1923) managed to expose on the one hand the ignorance of even leading bankers of the fundamental problems with which they had to deal, and on the other hand the lengths to which the financial power was prepared to go to retain control of the situation."

One must not forget to mention here that the best way that the Financiers found to stop the advancement of the Social Credit idea was the creation of political parties falsely bearing the name "Social Credit", to make people think that voting for a new party is sufficient to change the system, whereas what is needed is the education of the people (by having them subscribe to the "Michael Journal"), to force the elected representatives to serve the population, instead of serving the Financiers. Fortunately, all the so-called "Social Credit parties" are dead and buried now, but they did a lot of damage and spread confusion in the minds of the people while they existed.

"The psychological moment"
Douglas predicted that the present debt-money system of the Bankers would become unworkable and fall by itself, because of all of the unpayable debts that it creates. All the countries in the world are struggling with skyrocketing debts and heading for disaster, even though everybody knows these debts can never be paid off. Other factors announce the inevitable fall of the present system: automation, for example, which makes full employment impossible.

Douglas said that "a psychological moment" will come, a critical moment when the population, given the gravity of the situation, and despite all the power of the Financiers, will have suffered their debt-money system long enough, and will be disposed to study and accept Social Credit. Douglas wrote the following in 1924, in his book "Social Credit":

"The position will be tremendous in its importance. A comparatively short period will probably serve to decide whether we are to master the mighty economic and social machine that we have created, or whether it is to master us; and during that period a small impetus from a body of men who know what to do and how to do it, may make the difference between yet one more retreat into the Dark Ages, or the emergence into the full light of a day of such splendor as we can at present only envisage dimly. It is this necessity for the recognition of the psychological moment, and the fitting to that moment of appropriate action, which should be present in the minds of that small minority which is seized of the gravity of the present times."

Louis Even, at the end of an article written in 1970 and entitled "Social Credit, yes - Party, No", repeated this idea of Douglas:

"The Social Crediters of the Michael Journal maintain, along with Douglas, that as regards Social Credit, the most effective work to do is to enlighten the population on the monopoly of financial credit, attributing to it the bad fruits of which it is the cause in the lives of people, of families, of institutions; and, in front of these bad fruits, to expose the doctrine of genuine Social Credit, which is so brilliant and in keeping with common sense. They also endeavor to develop within themselves, and to also radiate, a Social Credit spirit, which is clearly in keeping with the spirit of the Gospel: a spirit of service and not of domination, not of an insatiable pursuit of money or material goods, which is of the same nature - with a less powerful means - as the spirit of the barons of High Finance.

"Whether the collapse of the present financial system, under the weight of its own enormities, or events that have been foretold many times by privileged souls - events one certainly cannot doubt of when one sees the present decadence of moral standards, apostasy, the paganization of affluent nations that used to be Christian - occur soon, in either case, the living or the survivors of those events won't be without a light to establish a social economic system worthy of its name."

The point to remember in all of this is that the present financial system, which creates money as a debt, is the main means of the Financiers to establish a one-world government. Debt finance is the bridge that leads us from a free society to complete dictatorship. And the only thing the Financiers fear, the only thing that can stop them in their plan of world conquest, is the reform of the present financial system, the establishment of an honest debt-free money system, along the lines of the Social Credit philosophy. Then one realizes all the importance of the Social Credit solution, and the importance of spreading it an making it known. This is why Soviet foreign Minister Molotow had said to Dr. Hawlett Johnson, Archbishop of Canterbury, in the 30s: "We know all about Social Credit. It is the one theory in the world we fear."
Alain Pilote.

posted in Anarchism - 5 replies

Dictators in the Empire's Employ by Mumia Abu-Jamal

2007-11-25T21:03:17Z

Dictators in the Empire's Employ
[col. writ. 11/18/07] (c) '07 Mumia Abu-Jamal

With the teeth of the Pakistani dictatorship now bared, we are beginning to see a mirror image of most of U.S. history throughout the last century.

Although perhaps best seen in the vicious wars of Latin America, it is a fact that the U.S. government supported brutal, violent dictatorships on every continent, almost always against popular, and especially workers movements.

Although most Americans would be hard pressed to actually recall the names of 4 U.S. backed dictators of the 20th century, it is a safe bet that the people who tried to survive in those countries will remember them for the rest of their lives.

From Haiti's infamous Duvaliers, to Cuba's Batista, there were no dictators too wretched, too violent, too vicious for the U.S. to support.

There's a good reason why when President Lyndon B. Johnson took the Oval Office after John Kennedy's assassination, he told one of his aides, "We've been running a damned branch of Murder, Inc. in the Caribbean."*

That's because Washington was essentially internationalizing its program of repression and McCarthyism, according to at least one Latin American country. Scholar (and former diplomat) Clara Nieto wrote, in her remarkable 2003 work, Masters of War, the story of how the U.S. got almost the entire continent to go its way:

At the Tenth Inter-American Conference requested by {former State Dept. chief John} Dulles and held in Caracas in 1954, he easily persuaded the meeting to adopt a declaration condemning international communism and advocating hemispheric solidarity and mutual defense against "Communist aggression." The chancellor of Guatemala, Guillermo Toriella, warned that on "the pretext of combating Communism, fundamental principles of democracy can be contravened, violations of human rights justified, and the principle of non-intervention infringed upon." The declaration, he argued was "the internationalization of McCarthyism." The majority - all dictatorships - supported it; Argentina (under Peron) voted against it and Mexico abstained. Costa Rica did not attend the meeting, since Jose Figueres refused to participate in this "assembly of dictators in a country governed by the most brutal and corrupt of them all, General Perez Jimenez" {C. Nieto, pp.138-139}.

Thus, generations were subjected to the terrorism of their own governments, their own armies, paid, and trained by the Americans. These U.S. trained terrorists launched wars against their own people; students, teachers, trade unionists, writers, intellectuals, priests, Indians, and beyond.

Yet, that was then. What now?

Despite all the gas and rap about "freedom", "democracy", and the like, the U.S. is, once again, depending on a dictator who has essentially shut down the Supreme Court, whipped lawyers in the streets, waged fraudulent elections, exiled his political opponents, and ruled with an iron fist. The differences between Burma and Pakistan could be measured in inches.

Yet, none of this really matters to the White House. What matters is what has always mattered. That the dictator do the bidding of his imperial masters - the people be damned.

There's a reason why Latin America has elected predominantly anti American governments in the past decade, and it had nothing to do with the easy media fiction that Hugo Chavez made them do it. For millions of people, they remember the so called 'secret wars' waged by armed puppets of the Americans-and they want no more of it.

Dictatorship 2 -- Democracy 0.

--(c) '07 maj

*[Source: Nieto, Clara, Masters of War: Latin America and the U.S. Aggression (From the Cuban Revolution Through the Clinton Years) {New York: Seven Stories Press, 2003} ]

*********
Mumia Abu-Jamal is a political prisoner in the United States, framed and in prison, with what could be the final decision on his legal appeals possibly coming down soon. That decision could give Mumia his freedom, a new trial, life in prison, or execution. It is time to turn up the heat against this injustice.

Free Mumia!

For more on the case of Mumia Abu-Jamal read:

Top Ten “Fry Mumia” Myths Debunked
(Myth #1) “Five eyewitnesses saw Mumia shoot officer Faulkner.”
http://indybay.org/newsitems/2007/07/19/18436405.php

Subscribe to Liberation News:
http://lists.riseup.net/www/info/liberation_news

posted in Anarchism - 0 replies

Did RAND Corporation Pen the Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act?

2007-11-24T14:03:44Z

Did RAND Corporation Pen the Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act?
Published on Friday, November 23, 2007.

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By Kurt Nimmo

According to Jessica Lee of Indypendent and Kamau Karl Franklin of the Center for Constitutional Rights, the Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act was penned with plenty of help from the RAND Corporation.

“Rep. Jane Harman, Democrat from California, has had a lengthy relationship with the Rand Corporation,” Lee tells Democracy Now, although she was unable to determine if RAND wrote the bill. On the 12th anniversary of the OKC bombing, Rep. Harman, as chair of the Homeland Security Subcommittee on Intelligence, Information Sharing and Terrorism Risk Assessment, introduced the bill in the House of Representatives.
“The ‘Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act of 2007' seeks to address the roots causes of radicalization, and would establish a grant program to provide funds to States to foster badly needed vertical information sharing from the Intelligence Community to the local level and from local sources to state and federal agencies,” explains Harman’s website. “It also creates a Center of Excellence for the Prevention of Radicalization and Home Grown Terrorism to examine the social, criminal, political, psychological and economic roots of domestic terrorism and to propose solutions, and promotes international collaboration on strategies to combat radicalization."

Franklin mentions Brian Michael Jenkins, an “expert” on “terrorism, counterinsurgency, and homeland security,” according to RAND. Jenkins is “someone who helped the United States in counterinsurgency measures in Vietnam,” states Franklin. “In addition to that, he wrote a book, and in his own book” Jenkins declared that “in their international campaign, the jihadists will seek common ground with leftists, anti-American and anti-globalist forces, who will in turn see radical Islam comrades against a mutual foe.”

In short, according to Kamau Karl Franklin, the Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act is more about domestic political activism than Islamic terrorism, although it appears Jenkins—and neocons such as the former Marxist David Horowitz—are attempting establish a link between the two, an absurdity at best, as the best way to discredit both the antiwar and patriot movements.

According to a Center for Constitutional Rights factsheet, RAND is a key player in the “domestic terrorism” prevention effort detailed in this draconian bill. A RAND study “Trends in Terrorism,” Chapter 4 on “homegrown terrorism,” advocates “special attention to environmentalist, Anti-globalization activist and anarchists as potentially new terrorist in the making.”

Not surprisingly, RAND is intimately connected to the global elite and the military-industrial-intelligence complex: “The interlocks between the trustees at Rand, and the Ford, Rockefeller, and Carnegie foundations were so numerous that the Reece Committee listed them in its report (two each for Carnegie and Rockefeller, and three for Ford). Ford gave one million dollars to Rand in 1952 alone, at a time when the chairman of Rand was simultaneously the president of Ford Foundation,” notes SourceWatch (Rene Wormser, Foundations: Their Power and Influence, p65-66). “Two-thirds of Rand’s research involves national security issues. This is divided into Project Air Force, the Arroyo Center (serving the needs of the Army), and the National Defense Research Institute (providing research and analysis for the Office of the Secretary of Defense, the Joint Staff, and the defense agencies).”

As Lee Rogers notes, the Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act, in its effort to flush out “terrorists,” including those opposed to the sort of globalism supported by Ford, Rockefeller, and Carnegie foundations, will perform an end-run around the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. The bill “states in the first subsection that in general the efforts to defeat thought crime shall not violate the constitutional rights, civil rights and civil liberties of the United States citizens and lawful permanent residents. How does this protect constitutional rights if they use vague language such as in general that prefaces the statement? This means that the Department of Homeland Security does not have to abide by the Constitution in their attempts to prevent so called homegrown terrorism.”

This bill is completely insane. It literally allows the government to define any and all crimes including thought crime as violent radicalization and homegrown terrorism. Obviously, this legislation is unconstitutional on a number of levels and it is clear that all 404 representatives who voted in favor of this bill are traitors and should be removed from office immediately. The treason spans both political parties and it shows us all that there is no difference between them. The bill will go on to the Senate and will likely be passed and signed into the law by George W. Bush. Considering that draconian legislation like the Patriot Act and the Military Commissions Act have already been passed, there seems little question that this one will get passed as well. This is more proof that our country has been completely sold out by a group of traitors at all levels of government.

“With overwhelming bipartisan support, Rep. Jane Harman’s ‘Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act’ passed the House 404-6 late last month and now rests in Sen. Joe Lieberman’s Homeland Security Committee. Swift Senate passage appears certain,” write Ralph E. Shaffer and R. William Robinson for the Baltimore Sun. “Not since the ‘Patriot Act’ of 2001 has any bill so threatened our constitutionally guaranteed rights.”

Harman’s “proposed commission is a menace through its power to hold hearings, take testimony and administer oaths, an authority granted to even individual members of the commission—little Joe McCarthys—who will tour the country to hold their own private hearings. An aura of authority will automatically accompany this congressionally authorized mandate to expose native terrorism.”

Ms. Harman’s proposal includes an absurd attack on the Internet, criticizing it for providing Americans with “access to broad and constant streams of terrorist-related propaganda,” and legalizes an insidious infiltration of targeted organizations. The misnamed “Center of Excellence,” which would function after the commission is disbanded in 18 months, gives the semblance of intellectual research to what is otherwise the suppression of dissent.

While its purpose is to prevent terrorism, the bill doesn’t criminalize any specific conduct or contain penalties. But the commission’s findings will be cited by those who see a terrorist under every bed and who will demand enactment of criminal penalties that further restrict free speech and other civil liberties. Action contrary to the commission’s findings will be interpreted as a sign of treason at worst or a lack of patriotism at the least.

While Ms. Harman denies that her proposal creates “thought police,” it defines “homegrown terrorism” as “planned” or “threatened” use of force to coerce the government or the people in the promotion of “political or social objectives.” That means that no force need actually have occurred as long as the government charges that the individual or group thought about doing it.

As Shaffer and Robinson note, examples of “resulting crackdowns on such protests include the conviction and execution of anarchists tied to Chicago’s 1886 Haymarket Riot.” Additionally, we might add that the FBI’s COINTELPRO—targeting civil rights, antiwar, and national liberation movements—may serve as a template for “insidious infiltration of targeted organizations.” Although the official history would have us believe COINTELRPO was shut down in the 1970s, events since that time reveal the government is still in the business of illegally going after Americans who exercise their constitutional right to petition the government. For more on these recent events, see Brian Glick’s COINTELPRO Revisited: Spying and Disruption.

Thus it makes perfect sense that the corporate media—compromised by the CIA under Operation Mockingbird beginning in the 1950s—would employ the likes of Glenn Beck and Bill O’Reilly to characterize the antiwar, truth and patriot movements—and even supporters of Ron Paul—as potentially violent advocates of “domestic terrorism.” No doubt, in the weeks and months ahead, we should expect more such propaganda as Harman’s “proposed commissions,” little more than federally mandated inquisitions, get up to speed.
Finally, as noted above, it is only a matter of time before the so-called Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act of 2007 becomes law. The bill has been referred to the Senate where it awaits scrutiny from the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs and is almost certain to pass.

http://www.prisonplanet.com/articles/november2007/231107RAND.htm

posted in Anarchism - 0 replies

Liberty Dollar Raid Yesterday Morning !

2007-11-17T19:43:23Z

Whatever your views toward libertarianism, this is totally fucked. http://www.libertydollararrest.blogspot.com/2...ml

From the Liberty Dollar folks, skill sharing/barter coops, freegans, the voluntary simplicity movement and anoks of whatever stripe to the "Sovereigns" up in Jefferson, we all share an abiding drive to get off not only the energy/rat race grid but to get out from under the parasitic state.

For folks to be assaulted for having the temerity to do for themselves...

Yeah, no surprise given the nature of the state. And yeah, it's a FUCKIN' OUTRAGE.

Fuck Authority.
Time to Push.

posted in Anarchism - 2 replies

Call the Jail

2007-11-13T05:51:29Z

For those not aware, the No Borders Camp was a week long action which was peaceful until literally the last hour. In the last hour the Border Patrol which tolerated the action until a new shift arrived, and attacked the protesters causing injury and imprisoning two protesters, and deporting a third that had legal residence. The imprisoned protesters are vegan and also need medical attention.

I think it is incumbent of us to not only call but distribute this widely to people who may care. I should note that people should check for more current information at http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2007/11/11/18460208.php as the news has been changing frequently

This is the text as it reads as of Monday the 12th at 9PM Update: Call the jail at 760.339.6367 to pressure them to provide Steve and Erik with vegan/vegetarian food and immediate medical attention. Further support and solidarity information will be available soon.

posted in Anarchism - 1 reply

No Borders Camp (Very Long Post)

2007-11-10T05:02:02Z

http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2007/11/08/18459268.php
No Borders Camp, Day 1
by Steev
Thursday Nov 8th, 2007 9:20 PM

The sun is rising in Calexico and I can't sleep. It's my third morning here and every morning I wake up shortly before sunrise, on the floor of a bedroom of a house that we've turned into an independent media center. Every morning I can't sleep too much later than this, despite the fact that I'm sick, have been fighting a cold for the last 3 weeks or so. repost from http://detritus.net/steev/mt/archives/000949.html

Sin embargo, nevertheless, I am happy. Even excited (maybe this is the real reason I can't sleep) - because the camp was successfully occupied yesterday. Like it's looked and felt for months, it was extremely uncertain and worrying for quite a while yesterday, with massive presence of various law enforcement agencies. But somehow, things went off relatively according to plan. Homeland Security and the cops were completely fooled by the ruse the organizers set up - to pretend to be going to a pick-up point where marchers would get on a bus to take them to a cemetary vigil, but actually, the pick-up point was the site for the camp. Some cops were even overheard to say, basically, "I don't know what they're doing, their bus just left."

Amazingly enough, there's even internet at the camp. A 45-foot tower with a wireless internet antenna is sitting in the backyard of the media house and beaming our connection 3 miles out into the desert to another tower that the campers have set up. Also, there were people getting in and out, bringing in water and food and supplies, for quite a few hours into the night, even with cars, although no one is sure if this will last and some reports were that the police later tightened things up so that people could get out but not in.

I was shooting some out there but for the end of the day found myself back in the media center uploading photos and doing radio. There are 2 streams, one from here and one from the Mexicali side, and the possibliity of another that will be the broadcast FM signal from the camp, if that gets set up.

It's working.

And there's radio, photos, and more photos, and text and video about it.

http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2007/11/08/18459270.php
(translated) 2ND Letter from MEXICO Side of NO BORDER CAMP
by translated by debbie
Thursday Nov 8th, 2007 9:40 PM

An invitation to Join the Mexican side of the NO BORDER CAMP, where we are no longer illegals within our own country. WE ARE ALL FREE HUMANS.

0811migra01_1.jpg
0811migra01_1.jpg

2nd Communication from the Mexican Side of the No Borders Camp (with pictures)

NO BORDERS CAMP
a 8 de Noviembre de 2007

With Nov 7th giving birth to the first ever bi-national No Border Camp, and after an exciting start with a march that left from "la Antigua Garita Internacional" that stretches across the border between Mexicali (Baja California) and Calexico (California). This date was chosen for action to commemorate the 18 years since the fall of the Berlin Wall and has many objectives to tell the countries with BORDERS that "NINGUN SER HUMANO ES ILEGAL" / NO HUMAN IS ILLEGAL. The companeros from Mexico, U.S.A, Spain, Alemania, Australia, New Zealand, and other countries, have united to work together in this struggle since the 7th of Nov. to the 11th here in Mexicali.

The march took place passively, separated by the wall between, but not separated from our dream to overthrow it. For almost 50 years we are separated by this wall from our land, a land that once we were free to roam across, free to all.

This invitation is to unite all of us to this symbollic Camp that has been determined an Autonomous Space, a space with no countries or flags, a space without VISAS and without having to be "illegals" within our own country.

WE ARE ALL FREE HUMANS. SOMOS SERES HUMANOS LIBRES.

To participate in this NO BORDER CAMP we are located at "La Avenida Cristobal Colón" and "Río Sinaloa" . For more information please go to: http://www.noborderscamp.org

During these days we will have workshops, En estos días se realizaran talleres, charlas, forums, Articistic space, ... Bring your ideas or proposals of creativity, ideas, beans, and your dreams as we continue to construct this free space between all.

http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2007/11/08/18459294.php

No Borders Camp Update (Day One & Two)
by Sam B.
Thursday Nov 8th, 2007 10:53 PM

I arrived in Calexico with a small group of friends Wednesday
November 7th around 3:00 PM. While arriving at the Calexico/Mexicali border it was a bit difficult to find the camp. There was a growing sense of unease as it was unclear how the events of the day would turn out. Our purpose was to protest the border and unify with activists in Mexico and around the world in creating a world free from the restrictions of capitalism and militarized barriers.

640_nbc_1.jpg original image ( 2048x1536)
640_nbc_1.jpg
original image ( 2048x1536)

Day One:
I arrived in Calexico with a small group of friends Wednesday
November 7th around 3:00 PM. While arriving at the Calexico/Mexicali
border it was a bit difficult to find the camp. There was a growing
sense of unease as it was unclear how the events of the day would turn
out. As we began to drive closer and closer to the actual camp it
became clear that the border patrol was aware of the convergence and
had taken measures to prevent the mobilization. The border patrol
vehicles had blocked off main roads leading into the camp. My small
group and I were forced to walk to the camp through an empty field in
the blistering sun. As we carried our supplies we could see border
patrol vehicles driving down the main roads along the way watching us.
Despite the heavy presence of border patrol we made it to the camp
safely and immediately began to join a group of other activists with
bandanas covering their face in occupying the area.

There was a sense of excitement as the border patrol monitored our
actions in a suspicious yet oblivious way. They had cameras pointed
towards us and we began to barricade a perimeter which would keep our
camp intact. We set up our tents, sleeping bags, tarps, and then
started discussing the logistics of a functioning camp. Our purpose
was to protest the border and unify with activists in Mexico and
around the world in creating a world free from the restrictions of
capitalism and militarized barriers. After establishing the camp
people began to climb the border and greet protestors on the other
side while some even began to participate in a volleyball game with a
beach ball. After settling in, there was a large group meeting which
relied heavily on consensus decision making. During this meeting
certain smaller groups were created that would monitor and function
certain tasks in facilitating the success of the No Borders Camp. Some
of these small groups included: security, independent media and radio,
medical staff, a committee to build a toilet, a food serving
collective, an art collective, and a mental health and trauma
committee. The different groups served to fulfill small aspects within
the camp while the larger meetings discussed upcoming proposals and
actions.

After making some preliminary plans I climbed the border and began
talking with our friends in Mexico. They urged me to cross the border
and join them so I decided to secure my things and camp out with them
for the night. As I left the California/United States camp the border
patrol had set up huge lights that would be turned on all night. I
crossed the border and was welcomed by a much smaller group that had
occupied the space on the Mexican side of the border. While the Mexico
border camp did not have as many supplies they had set up a camp and
established a large communal gathering area where assemblies would
take place and also discuss on a consensus-based method plans for the
upcoming week. After staying up really late into the night talking
about our goals for the camp I was really glad I had decided to spend
the night in Mexico since it helped bridge differences between
activists there and here and it was the first step in creating a truly
unified camp.

Day two:

I woke up in the Mexicali camp and immediately many of the
participants in the camp started securing banners and making sure the
camp was a solid autonomous space. Once again, almost everyone had
bandanas covering their face since the presence of the border patrol
and their video cameras was a concern among participants. After
clearing out the area there was an extensive meeting in the morning
that included logistics and proposals for the upcoming week. Similar
to the camp on the other side of the barrier toilets had been
constructed, there was a kitchen, and a large common area. While the
people on the US side of the No Borders Camp numbered somewhere
between 100 and 200 participants there was a group of about 50 people
in Mexico and the meetings flowed smoothly.

I spent the day documenting the event with photos and video while
assisting in the art-making process, construction of shelters and
tents, and building a walk-way from the street of Mexicali into the
camp. The people in Mexico were humble and warm. While some serious
concerns were raised about the possible behavior of the police and
border patrol, it was decided that certain actions would take place
that would build solidarity with people on the other side of the
barrier.

A significant portion of the day was spent towards making sure the
food situation would suffice for the remainder of the camp and
establishing good communication with the other camp. I spent the rest
of this fulfilling day hanging out and participating in group
meetings. A lot of art was created that would decorate the border with
murals of hope and peace. The art was meant to send a powerful message
to the people of Mexico and the world that this event is an attempt to
construct a society that opposes the corrupt, racially divided, and
pro-corporate agendas of not just the Mexican and American
governments, but all governments in general.

http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2007/11/08/18459345.php

Another Day deleting borders
by A. F. Dumbledore
Thursday Nov 8th, 2007 11:34 PM

Some updates on the second day of camp

Day Two - reports rolled in to the media house not to long ago, we have a camp bonfire. Border Patrol have said the fire can stay as long as it does not exceed 100 feet high.

The number of cars more than doubled today. We had to organize a new parking situation. A second round of bathrooms are almost done with construction as the first one filled up within the first day. The wheelchair accessible bathroom has also been relocated.

There are many new faces today. The number of participants has more than doubled with over two hundred participants. And many have decided to camp with mexicali in order to reach a common goal of full communication between the two angles of the one camp and to make room for the many new arrivals.

Paths of travel are wide and run through compacted areas of dirt for better accessibility to all including wheelchair users--more than one border is being deleted this week in Calexico.

People are allowed to travel by foot or bicycle from the camp border patrol checkpoint. Cars are allowed to enter with necesary supplies for the cars or to aid people who cannot travel far on foot. Other cars will possibly be allowed entrance to the camp but we expect to reach capacity in the next day or so.

http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2007/11/08/18459347.php
Comunique 2 from the No Borders Camp (South side)
by Participants from southern part of camp
Thursday Nov 8th, 2007 11:40 PM

NO BORDERS CAMP - 8 November 2007

The second day of the No Borders camp has been incredibly peaceful, despite initial concerns regarding the likelihood of police violence.

Around 40-50 people have joined the southern camp from the northern side,so there are now around 80 residents, and more and more people are arriving all the time. We spent the day under the watchfull eye of American border patrol and national US police but undeterred by their presence various talks and assemblies have taken place. Tonight people are gathered around the campfires, planning political and cultural activities for the following days.

After an emotive start with a meeting and march from the central crossing point at the border between Mexicali (Baja California) and Calexico (California), we began the first ever bi-national No Borders camp yesterday, November 7. This date was chosen in order to commemorate the 18th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin wall. The objective of the camp and actions is to say to all countries: NO HUMAN BEING IS ILLEGAL. Participants from the countries called Mexico, USA, Spain, Germany, Australia, and New Zealand, among others, have come to Mexicali/Calexico to camp from the 7th-11th of this month.

Yesterday's non-violent march was separated by the border wall but united by dreams of tearing it down. For almost 50 years they have separated us from the land that earlier we could freely cross, land that rightfully belongs to it's indigenous peoples.

We invite you to join this camp, where an autonomous space has been created, a space symbolically without nations, without visas and where no-one is illegal in their own land.

WE ARE FREE HUMAN BEINGS

If you would like to participate in this camp, we are situated near the intersection of Avenida Cristobal Colon and Rio Sinaloa, at the beginning of the corrugated steel border fence. For more information visit http://www.noborderscamp.org

In the following days there will be workshops, skill-shares, talks, forums, artistic expression... Bring your proposals, ideas, beans, blankets and your dreams to help with the ongoing construction of this free space for everyone.
http://www.noborderscamp.org

http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2007/11/09/18459392.php

No Borders Camp Update (Day One & Two)
by Sam Brown
Friday Nov 9th, 2007 12:03 AM

I arrived in Calexico with a small group of friends Wednesday
November 7th around 3:00 PM. While arriving at the Calexico/Mexicali
border it was a bit difficult to find the camp. There was a growing
sense of unease as it was unclear how the events of the day would turn
out. Our purpose was to protest the border and unify with activists in Mexico and around the world in creating a world free from the restrictions of capitalism and militarized barriers.

640_nbc_1.jpg original image ( 2048x1536)
640_nbc_1.jpg
original image ( 2048x1536)

Day One:
I arrived in Calexico with a small group of friends Wednesday
November 7th around 3:00 PM. While arriving at the Calexico/Mexicali
border it was a bit difficult to find the camp. There was a growing
sense of unease as it was unclear how the events of the day would turn
out. As we began to drive closer and closer to the actual camp it
became clear that the border patrol was aware of the convergence and
had taken measures to prevent the mobilization. The border patrol
vehicles had blocked off main roads leading into the camp. My small
group and I were forced to walk to the camp through an empty field in
the blistering sun. As we carried our supplies we could see border
patrol vehicles driving down the main roads along the way watching us.
Despite the heavy presence of border patrol we made it to the camp
safely and immediately began to join a group of other activists with
bandanas covering their face in occupying the area.

There was a sense of excitement as the border patrol monitored our
actions in a suspicious yet oblivious way. They had cameras pointed
towards us and we began to barricade a perimeter which would keep our
camp intact. We set up our tents, sleeping bags, tarps, and then
started discussing the logistics of a functioning camp. Our purpose
was to protest the border and unify with activists in Mexico and
around the world in creating a world free from the restrictions of
capitalism and militarized barriers. After establishing the camp
people began to climb the border and greet protestors on the other
side while some even began to participate in a volleyball game with a
beach ball. After settling in, there was a large group meeting which
relied heavily on consensus decision making. During this meeting
certain smaller groups were created that would monitor and function
certain tasks in facilitating the success of the No Borders Camp. Some
of these small groups included: security, independent media and radio,
medical staff, a committee to build a toilet, a food serving
collective, an art collective, and a mental health and trauma
committee. The different groups served to fulfill small aspects within
the camp while the larger meetings discussed upcoming proposals and
actions.

After making some preliminary plans I climbed the border and began
talking with our friends in Mexico. They urged me to cross the border
and join them so I decided to secure my things and camp out with them
for the night. As I left the California/United States camp the border
patrol had set up huge lights that would be turned on all night. I
crossed the border and was welcomed by a much smaller group that had
occupied the space on the Mexican side of the border. While the Mexico
border camp did not have as many supplies they had set up a camp and
established a large communal gathering area where assemblies would
take place and also discuss on a consensus-based method plans for the
upcoming week. After staying up really late into the night talking
about our goals for the camp I was really glad I had decided to spend
the night in Mexico since it helped bridge differences between
activists there and here and it was the first step in creating a truly
unified camp.

Day two:

I woke up in the Mexicali camp and immediately many of the
participants in the camp started securing banners and making sure the
camp was a solid autonomous space. Once again, almost everyone had
bandanas covering their face since the presence of the border patrol
and their video cameras was a concern among participants. After
clearing out the area there was an extensive meeting in the morning
that included logistics and proposals for the upcoming week. Similar
to the camp on the other side of the barrier toilets had been
constructed, there was a kitchen, and a large common area. While the
people on the US side of the No Borders Camp numbered somewhere
between 100 and 200 participants there was a group of about 50 people
in Mexico and the meetings flowed smoothly.

I spent the day documenting the event with photos and video while
assisting in the art-making process, construction of shelters and
tents, and building a walk-way from the street of Mexicali into the
camp. The people in Mexico were humble and warm. While some serious
concerns were raised about the possible behavior of the police and
border patrol, it was decided that certain actions would take place
that would build solidarity with people on the other side of the
barrier.

A significant portion of the day was spent towards making sure the
food situation would suffice for the remainder of the camp and
establishing good communication with the other camp. I spent the rest
of this fulfilling day hanging out and participating in group
meetings. A lot of art was created that would decorate the border with
murals of hope and peace. The art was meant to send a powerful message
to the people of Mexico and the world that this event is an attempt to
construct a society that opposes the corrupt, racially divided, and
pro-corporate agendas of not just the Mexican and American
governments, but all governments in general.

http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2007/11/09/18459411.php
video only

http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2007/11/09/18459413.php
photos only

http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2007/11/09/18459422.php
photos only

http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2007/11/09/18459440.php
photos only

http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2007/11/09/18459625.php

California | Immigrant Rights
No Borders Camp Wins Key Concessions from Border Patrol
by Mahatma
Friday Nov 9th, 2007 2:48 PM

With no arrests, the world without borders vision becomes a reality in the No Border Camp at the California border with Mexico.

3194989146_orig.jpeg
3194989146_orig.jpeg

The second morning on the border Friday, November 9th, began with a fall from the barrier wall followed by a big win for the kids on both sides of the so-called border. Kids from US and Mexico are camping in solidarity with no borders actions around the world this week leading up to the commemoration of the fall of the Berlin Wall on November 10th.

At the break of dawn on the second day of the camp, the West side was undisturbed.

Someone with more poise and grace than the average person was practicing early morning yoga. He finished his routine and climbed the ladder to the top of the border wall. The next step he took was to stand up on the top of the wall. Walking carefully and keeping his balance he successfully negotiated its uneven surface for a few feet and climbed back down. Having made one successful walk he soon tried again to walk on the 15 foot high barrier without secure lines or a net. One moment he was there and the next he was gone having fallen on the east "Mexican" side.

What later became apparent to those watching his daring undertaking was that he was able to catch himself on the top edge and drop down to the desert floor. Everyone who was awake to see this spectacle was relieved to see him on the east side, attending the bi-national breakfast and visually unharmed.

Bob Marley music filled the air, six border patrol people and about 60 kids were having a chill breakfast at the end of the so-called border across the vehicle barrier. The vehicle barrier leads to a maintenance road on the edge of an algae green canal running off to the horizon. Apples and oranges were thrown from one group of kids to the other over the heads of the border people.

The border patrol got very nervous and called for more border people. Within in 15 minutes the numbers swelled to 30 and then over 50 shortly thereafter. Sheriff deputies, bureau of land management rangers and a border patrol supervisor appeared along with border people dressed in riot gear.

What started as a quiet breakfast soon turned into a standoff. Kids on the east side were pushed back from the vehicle barrier and kids on west side began chants to express their dissatisfaction with the unnecessary oppression by the border people. A helicopter from the press flew over the No Borders Camp to see what was happening on the Southern California border.

Unknown to the border camp kids was a concern held by he border people. They were concerned about a contingent of kids who crossed over the night before to the east side camp via the vehicle barrier. The kids who crossed over were approaching the border people with the east side kids and, unbeknown to them, made the border people nervous.

A lady with white hair played an unwittingly key role in the deescalation of the standoff. She initiated a chat with one of the border people. The border person asked her why the 25 or so kids crossed over to east side the previous night. She told the person that drug addicts were undermining the east side camp and the west side kids went over to help reinforce the no alcohol, drugs or firearms guidelines. The guidelines were consensual agreed to by everyone involved in the camp.

The information gleaned from the lady was relayed to the negotiator. Around the same time a negotiation was begun to deescalate the standoff between the border people and the kids. The kids wanted to have free access between the two camps and the border people were preventing this lawful, peaceful purpose.

To create the world they want to see three demands were made by the kids to move a border vehicle away from the barrier, to bring the east side kids and their camp closer to the vehicle barrier, and to allow food to be passed across the barrier.

As a result of the negotiation all three demands were met. No on was arrested and the bi-national breakfast resumed. The border people withdrew and even brought water and food to host breakfast for themselves at the barrier. And a space without borders has been established.
No Borders Camp, border people amassed in background at vehicle barrier
by Mahatma Friday Nov 9th, 2007 2:48 PM
3194989162_orig.jpeg
3194989162_orig.jpeg

Border people gathering for debrief after standoff ended
by Mahatma Friday Nov 9th, 2007 2:48 PM
3194989179_orig.jpeg
3194989179_orig.jpeg

© 2000–2007 San Francisco Bay Area Independent Media Center. Unless otherwise stated by the author, all content is free for non-commercial reuse, reprint, and rebroadcast, on the net and elsewhere. Opinions are those of the contributors and are not necessarily endorsed by the SF Bay Area IMC. Disclaimer | Privacy | Contact

http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2007/11/09/18459695.php

Breaking News From No Borders Camp

Breaking News / Noticias corrientes
Wed, 11/07/2007 - 12:25pm — newsy

9 Nov 1:30pm At this time people from the camp have left to protest the ICE Detention Center in El Centro. Update will arive after people return from the center.

9 Nov 10:20am Un numero no-confirmado de PFP esta situado unas cuadras del campamento sur. An unconfirmed number of Federal Preventative Police is stationed a few blocks from the southern/Mex part of the camp.

9 Nov 9:30am Reports that mexicali has about 20 green gringo cops, not sure whether border patrol or sheriffs, lined up on the mexican side with riot shields and rubber bullet guns. They have crossed and are forming a line along the canal and in front of the wall. They are slowly moving closer to the southern (Mexican) side of the camp. En Mexicali hay approximadamente 20 policias o migra, vestidos en verde, que han hecho una fila en frente del muro y el canal todo americano. Estan acercando lentamente el lado sur (Mexicano) del campamento.

Desayuno sin Fronteras - Breakfast without Borders
Esta manana tuvimos un desayuno alegre bi-nacional con musica y baile, por los dos lados de la puertita en el muro fronterizo. The morning began festively, with a bi-national breakfast at the small gate in the border wall, accompanied by music and dancing. Ahora hay mas que 80 personas viviendo en la parte sur del campamento, debido a que anoche aproximadamente 40-50 campamentistas del norte pasaban al sur. Now there are more than 80 people living in the southern part of the camp, due to the arrival last night of around 40-50 campers from the north side.

9 Nov 8:30am Morning! Check the 2nd comunicado from the mexicali crew: http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2007/11/08/18459270.php

posted in Anarchism - 0 replies

NCEF! Media sabotaged! Hijacked by lone wingnut! Accused of fraud and embezzlement!

2007-11-07T04:14:13Z

NCEF! Media in Humboldt County, Ca. is accused of fraud and donation embezzlement. Caution! Do not support this lone wingnut's scam! Other legitamate groups exist in the area. Caution! Do not be fooled by NCEF! Media and his fraudulent outreach. Shunka Wakan exists completely seperate from any active affinity group. Read about how he perpetuated a lawsuit under the guise of EF! against a legitamate environmental nonprofit:

Dog Days
From: http://northcoastjournal.com/100407/cover1004.html
October 4, 2007
Money On Trees

Big cash nearly fell into Shunka Wakan's lap. Other Earth First!ers are kinda happy it didn't.

by Heidi Walters

As the jury trial for the civil suit Kathryn Miller v. the Trees Foundation puttered to a start last week inside Courtroom 3 at the Humboldt County Courthouse, Shunka Wakan — a key witness for the plaintiff — spent mornings sitting on the hard wooden benches in the long hallway outside the courtroom. During breaks, Miller's attorney Linda Mitlyng, would come out of the courtroom to join him. But otherwise, as other people and their legal affairs swirled around him in a warm, odiferous bath of humanity, Shunka sat alone. Or, sometimes, he stood alone, straight-spined, his small, stocky body swallowed by the huge, stiff blue suit out of which his newly shorn, razor-scraped bald head poked vulnerably — as if, at any moment, the suit could gulp once more and he'd disappear completely. Always, he clutched a paper folder with a wolf's face on its cover.

The North Coast Earth First! Media guru had shaved off his woolly rust-tinged brown hair and beard the night before jury selection started, after discussing it with attorney Mitlyng. Now, it took an uncertain moment to recognize him. Then, of course: Shunka's light blue eyes in the pink-pale face, Shunka's closed-lip smile, Shunka's trademark husky murmur, "Mm-hmm, for sure," in response to a comment.

In Courtroom 3, the amiable but no-nonsense Judge Christopher Wilson's domain, the fate of a $185,000 donation dangled. Would the plaintiff, donor Kathryn Miller, prevail in her claim that the defendant, the Trees Foundation, was not in fact the intended recipient of her generous gift? That Shunka Wakan's NCEF! Media Center and the treesitters were? Or would the Trees Foundation convince the jury that, in fact, the money was intended all along for Trees, with no instructions attached for funneling it elsewhere?

Richard Idell, left, who is defending the Trees Foundation against a lawsuit filed by Kathryn Miller, confers with Doug Wallace, community support coordinator for Trees. Photo by David Lawlor.

In her opening arguments, Miller's attorney, Mitlyng, said the case came down to "fraud and broken promises." "She believed [Trees] would hold [the money] in trust, for the benefit of North Coast Earth First!" said Mitlyng. The defense's attorney, Richard Idell, countered in his opening argument that the donation was an unconditional gift and Miller never wrote letters of instruction — as Miller claims she did. "Ms. Miller ... didn't do anything. She took the check [from her mother's estate] and flipped it over and wrote on the back, 'Payable to the Trees Foundation,'" said Idell.

Miller's claim sought the return of her $185,000, plus interest.

Out in the hallway, Shunka waited to tell his side of the story. Maybe he thought about the magical donation that never materialized, and now probably never would. Maybe he thought about the other times he'd been in this courthouse — dozens of times, along with other activists, often before Judge Wilson, answering to charges of trespassing and other forms of civil disobedience in the woods. Likely, he wondered when they were finally going to call him in to testify — it was taking forever in there. He'd even sent out an e-mail prematurely to the several hundred subscribers to his NCEF! online group erroneously announcing he would be first up to testify.

By the end of Friday's court session, Miller was still on the stand. Perhaps Monday it would be Shunka's turn. Whenever it was, he would be testifying on Miller's behalf; but he wasn't a party to the lawsuit. And in the end, after hearing all of the evidence, the jury would be determining who was telling the truth about intentions and letters of instructions. Shunka was just there to provide context and evidence in a contract dispute.

But to a number of forest activists, including a half dozen or so who appeared in the audience last Friday to watch the trial unfold, that context matters more to them than the legal questions. They say this lawsuit has placed a strain on the environmental community that could do as much damage as an ill-felled redwood that takes down other giants in its descent. They disapprove of the lawsuit, and they blame Shunka for it. And, they say, it's just another example of how Shunka has commandeered the North Coast Earth First! identity and used it for purposes that nobody else in the amorphous but consensus-driven local Earth First! movement has agreed to.

"For a lot of us, when we read about the lawsuit, this is kind of like Shunka on trial," said long-time forest activist Deane Rimerman last Friday, calling from Olympia, Wash. "And, to what extent is he worthy of that money?"

Kathryn Miller wanted her money to go toward saving trees, she said on the witness stand last Thursday. The slender 59-year-old was dressed in a pink print skirt and white sweater, with her gray-streaked dark hair pulled back into a neat, thin braid tinted slightly green. (Little did the jury know that Miller had spent the night in jail, in blue jail duds, and then had been "dressed out," in court lingo, in her street clothes before being escorted into the court by the bailiff. Miller had been arrested the week before, on Sept. 17, when she arrived in civil court for the pre-trial readiness hearing; according to the misdemeanor criminal charges filed against her, Miller allegedly had made annoying phonecalls to Barbara Ristow of the Trees Foundation all hours of the day and night.)

On the stand, Miller described how she became an activist. She remembered how, when she was a child in Orinda, her mother decided to stop spraying the beautiful oak trees on their property after reading Rachel Carson's Silent Spring. "And then, when my son was 9, we were watching the news on TV about the Chernobyl nuclear power plant meltdown. And my son said to me, 'I wish I'd never been born. I don't think I'll get to live a full life.'"

She protested the building of the Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power Plant. She started a peace action group in the late 1980s in San Jose. She did nonviolent protests at the Nevada Test Site. And in 1990, she came up with some of her fellow protestors to help set up the camp for Redwood Summer, and to take part in demonstrations. She's been on and off involved in Earth First! actions in Humboldt ever since, she said, including huffing in supplies for treesitters and huffing out their garbage. She'd also, at one point, bought a condo in Arcata.

In 2004, Miller sold her condo and bought an acre of farmland, already planted with coffee, in Guatemala. She put in fruit trees to shade the coffee. That same year, her mother, who lived in Sonoma, died. "The last time I saw her was in 2003," said Miller. "She told me when she died, she was going to leave me some money. I told her I'd use it to further my work for the forest. And she was pleased, because she loved the treesitters and the forest."

Shortly after learning of her mother's death, Kathryn Miller sought out Shunka Wakan in front of the food co-op in Arcata, where he "tabled" to raise funds for the North Coast Earth First! Media office — selling T-shirts, and stickers, offering pamphlets, accepting donations. She'd known Shunka for about five years, she said.

"I said to him, I was going to inherit some money: What was the best way to get that to the North Coast Earth First!?"

In the spring of 2005, Shunka Wakan was floating above the treetops. "I was so excited," the 32-year-old said in an interview a few weeks ago, sitting inside his tiny but colorful North Coast Earth First! Media office in Arcata, walls covered in art and topo maps — including one of Buckeye Mountain, where in 2000-2001, during the "Mattole Free State" action, Shunka and others hiked 14 miles through waist-high snowdrifts to save trees.

Kathryn Miller, he recalled, had come up to him excitedly as he walked along the sidewalk outside the Arcata Co-op and said, "I just donated $185,000 to North Coast Earth First!'"

She'd talked to him the year before about making the donation — she'd said she was anticipating an inheritance from her mother's estate, and she wanted to make a big donation to his group. He'd told her to make it through the Trees Foundation, which handled the NCEF! Media office's finances through an arrangement that had been established years ago. (The Trees Foundation is an umbrella organization formed in 1991 to assist smaller environmental groups. As a 501(c)3 nonprofit, it can accept large, tax-deductible donations on behalf of affiliates, and provide professional resources. And it can lead large campaigns, like the one to save the Headwaters Forest back in the '90s.)

Well, now she'd finally done it.

Miller and Shunka agreed to meet at Fiesta Café in Sunny Brae, so she could tell him how she wanted the money spent: She wanted, straight away, for someone to organize a mediated workshop for the local Earth First! activists on ageism and sexism, issues she thought were fracturing the movement. And, she wanted the bulk of the donation to help support the forest activists who blockade logging roads and hunker up in ancient redwoods to fend off loggers' saws.

Not long after, Shunka was on his way to have lunch with some folks from the Trees Foundation, where they'd talk about Miller's wishes.

"Our media outreach was going to get a big boost," Shunka said. "The donation would keep the EF! office going for many years. So I walked into the Wildflower Café feeling elated, thinking we got all this money."

Barbara Ristow and Doug Wallace of the Trees Foundation were there. "I was super excited," Shunka said, "and I said, 'This is great, this big donation. Isn't it wonderful?' We ordered food, and still I'm all excited, talking about the money, but I notice they're looking nervously at each other. [Finally], they said, 'Well, we're just shocked that you think this money was for you.' And I was like, 'I just met with the donor, and that's what she said.' And they're like, 'Well, let's go ahead and plan the workshop and deal with that later.' I remember that, because it put me at ease."

After that, Shunka said he gave Trees a list of people he thought might benefit from the mediator-run workshop. "Some were people I knew had beefs with me, but I was willing to bring 'em into the circle and talk about it."

According to some vague accounts, the workshop was a disaster. One person who was there claims that Shunka, at one point, pounded his fists on the floor, blustered, then got up and stormed out, yelling as he walked away. Shunka says that's overblown.

"The letter from Kathryn Miller to Barbara Bristow said she wanted the mediation to be a safe place, safe to be emotional," he said. "And I think people are saying 'I freaked out.' The freak-out reports are exaggerated. It's just part of this ongoing character assassination. People say I was 'red-faced.' But my face is naturally red."

In late 2005, while Shunka was in Seattle, a friend called him from Arcata to say a woman had come by asking for the office key. She had a list of equipment she wanted to take away. The friend didn't give her the key.

When Shunka got back from Seattle, he discovered his reimbursement funds from Trees had been "frozen." He also learned about a letter someone in the NCEF! movement had circulated for signatures and then sent to Mark Knipper, who handled the Trees Foundation transactions for the NCEF! Media office. It said, in essence, "We don't want Shunka running EF!"

"I called the Trees Foundation," Shunka recalled. "I was sick, it was the middle of the winter, I'm trying to table, it's raining, it's cold. And Barbara Ristow told me, 'You just need to have a meeting [with the other Earth First!ers] and come to a group consensus on what the Trees Foundation funding should be used for."

The meeting never happened — nobody could agree to meet, said Mark Knipper, also in an interview last week. Knipper is a social worker and a long-time activist who had been the contact person between Trees and NCEF! Media. "So it ate itself," Knipper said. "And although I'm former Navy, a mariner, I said I'm not going down with this ship. So I divorced myself from it ... and signed it all back to Trees."

The NCEF! Media office was dropped from the Trees Foundation altogether.

Shunka and the NCEF! Media office never did see any of the big donation. Miller didn't even know that, he said, until she phoned him up in the summer of 2006, more than a year after she made the donation, to ask about a guy named "Jungle," who had been reported as missing on the NCEF! hotline. Miller was spending much of her time in Guatemala now, where she was raising fruit trees; after she'd made her big donation, Hurricane Stan had struck — she spent the ensuing year mopping up the mess.

First, Shunka told her Jungle was still missing. Then he told her about the money.

"I said, 'Yeah, they told me it wasn't for us,'" said Shunka. "And she said, 'I meant for all of it to go to you guys.' She sounded real upset. And I was like, 'I knew it! I knew it!'"

Shunka tried to sue Trees in small claims court, but it went nowhere.

Miller filed a claim against the Trees Foundation on Oct. 5, 2006, in Humboldt County Superior Court, seeking the return of the $185,000 plus interest so she could distribute the money herself.

And if she wins? "She may just spread it out more," said Shunka. "She's got tree planting ideas. Maybe she could buy a grove. She'd maybe not give it all to Earth First! this time. It was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity that Trees blew for us."

On an uncomfortably hot afternoon last week, four forest activists who'd agreed to an interview for this story — Jeff, Shaggy, Sparrow and Farmer — sat on the ground at the Arcata Marsh next to a log bench on which a teeming crew of red ants worked a splintered notch. Someone had come along here in 1999 and carved a grouping of faces — bearded, grimacing, possibly mourning faces — onto the log and signed it Daniel. The carving had been drenched in red paint, and burnished by years of sitters.

"It kind of reminds me of the memorial for Gypsy," said one of them. "With the red paint."

Gypsy was the forest name of David Nathan Chain, who in September 1998, during an Earth First! action at Grizzly Creek, was crushed to death by a tree felled by an enraged logger. Farmer, actually, was there — he was just 16, but had a year of activism already under his belt. And Shunka was there — it was Shunka's first forest action.

Farmer, Shag, Sparrow and Jeff first made it clear that they spoke for themselves alone, although they participate in various forest defense affinity groups: Farmer works for the Mattole Wildlands Defense Group now, watchdogging the California Department of Forestry for new timber harvest plans, and keeping an eye on a Pacific Lumber Co. watershed analysis. Shag, who saw his first redwood about five years ago, helps keep the Fern Gully treesit village in Freshwater functioning. Jeff, who grew up in the high desert, and fell in love with the woods, works with the Nanning Creek treesit just outside of Scotia, as well as other groups. Sparrow, who was drawn to forest action because the cultural landscape was "like a folktale" he couldn't resist, is with the Fern Gully affinity group. These groups are all part of the Humboldt Forest Defense Association, a collective with a website but no formal structure.

The HFDA sprang into being six years ago — about the time the entity called North Coast Earth First! had essentially dissolved. It would take a book to describe that drawn-out dissolution — a book of lost causes, won causes, waning media interest, Judi Bari's death, Gypsy's death, ego-spurred squabbles, interpersonal catastrophes, a war overseas, hurricanes. And while the HFDA activists might still cherish the Earth First! name — the movement — in their hearts, it's now been further complicated by what you might call the Shunka effect.

"I still feel in many ways solidarity with the greater Earth First! movement abroad," said Farmer. "But in this county, in this climate, if you say you're with the North Coast Earth First!, many people associate you with North Coast Earth First! Media."

Shunka revived the North Coast Earth First! office around 2002. And he did what previous office managers had done — tabled, put out news releases, wrote articles for other publications. But it wasn't like the old days, in the '90s, when hundreds of people were getting arrested in forest actions and the jail support phone and legal resources were in constant use.

Shunka first worked in an office in Eureka, then later moved to Arcata. He called his outfit the NCEF! Media Center. For a time, he and other "affinity groups" tried to work together. But he alienated some people. He took over the North Coast Earth First! website. He controlled the North Coast Earth First! email list of 300 or more subscribers to the news alerts. He sent out press releases on his own.

"I felt the North Coast Earth First! Media Center was a unilateral effort on Shunka's part," said Farmer. Whereas, in the old days, "spokespeople were decided on by the group. And if you wrote an article it was passed by everyone. I feel Shunka appointed himself spokesperson at some point."

Many also claim they've been subject to a lashing anger from Shunka.

"I won't work with him because I pledge nonviolence in my actions," said Shag. "I don't believe he pledges the same thing. He has exhibited violent behavior towards me and towards other activists in my presence."

"He's a bear," said Jeff, making claw-fists with his hands.

But the sad thing is, all of this infighting probably has done nothing to help the actual trees. And the mediation workshop Kathryn Miller wanted didn't fix matters. Now, there was her lawsuit.

"When I heard about this lawsuit, I thought, the Trees Foundation does not deserve to be attacked in that way," said Farmer. "There's much bigger issues that need to be dealt with — with Maxxam and old-growth logging. ...If you look at Fern Gully and Nanning Creek (the Bonanza timber harvest plan), there's hundreds of old growth acres still standing whose fate is unclear."

Shag put it more bluntly: "If [Miller] knew Shunka and wanted to get the money to North Coast Earth First! Media, she should've given it to Shunka. But if she was trying to get it to treesits and forest defense, then the money went to the right place.

"My problem is this whole representation thing. There's people in the trees — how do you know who to get the money to, to help them?"

Shunka knows that a lot of fellow activists aren't happy with his role in the donation dispute. He also knows how some people talk about him and say he's hard to get along with. "I'm just standing up for the truth," he said. "And people don't like it. To me, it feels like a small clique of people who don't like me. I feel a lot of love and support in this community."

He certainly doesn't come off right away as someone who's angry, or who lashes out, or who locks the office and doesn't let people in. Why, recently, he helped a young woman hook up with the treesitters so she could learn the ropes. (Shaggy said that's proof Shunka doesn't have direct connections with the people doing direct action; but you can't deny it's a connection.)

It's probably a bad idea to ask Darryl Cherney, one of the founders of the local Earth First! movement, what he thinks of Shunka Wakan, whose real name is Jason Wilson. (Shunka tells a story of how he was named by a Lakota medicine man on the banks of the Cheyenne River in South Dakota in 1995. "Shunka Wakan," meaning "great dog," is only part of it. There's a secret part after that — altogether, his name means "the humble man called horse.")

"Shunka's a wingnut," Cherney said over the phone last Friday, sounding cheerfully vitriolic. "I have a 10-verse song about Shunka."

Here are the last few verses:

Who's at the co-op spanging a donation
Shunka, Shunka
Who's got a lawsuit 'gainst the Trees Foundation
Shunka, Shunka
Shunka, Shunka
Who's gonna keep on fighting the fight
Shunka, Shunka
With four of his friends at swimmers delight
Shunka, Shunka
Shunka, Shunka (Shunka voice: It's the last of the revolution)

There's no other word for it but "mean." But Cherney and Shunka have history — not all of it sour. Cherney said Shunka laughed when he heard the song, at least the first time.

"I met Shunka in 1998," Cherney said. "And I know he knew Julia ["Butterfly" Hill, whom Shunka had come west to find]. That was a good thing, helping Julia. That was good Shunka."

Cherney had even pushed for Shunka to go to Houston to talk with Charles Hurwitz, whose Maxxam Corp. bought out the old Pacific Lumber company back in 1985 and quickly became the forest activists' number one villain. Shunka went.

But now? "The current status of Shunka and me," Cherney said, "is that Shunka has sent me five or eight or nine e-mails threatening to sue me. Shunka is a joke."

Cherney can talk for hours about the problems he's had with Shunka over the years. His main point, though, is what has Shunka done for the trees lately?

"My question is, where's your topo maps?" he asked. "Where's your wilderness preservation proposal? Where's your lobbyist team in Sacramento?"

It has to be that, on some level, even the people in the movement who don't like Shunka understand somewhat where he's coming from. So he's emotional. Passionate. Perhaps he's caught up so completely in the cause he can't let go. Or, who knows — maybe he's a phony, like he accused Knipper of being back in 2005.

But being a forest activist comes with perils beyond the obvious physical ones.

"I'm really trying to have compassion for Shunka, even though he's kind of attacked us," said Susy Barsotti by phone from Laytonville a couple of weeks ago. Barsotti is president of the Trees Foundation board, and she says the lawsuit has held Trees hostage, unable to function fully. "I've been mystified and dismayed that he's participated like this in the suit. But Shunka witnessed Gypsy's death. And I think he may have post-traumatic stress syndrome. I don't think he's recovered from it. And that can affect your behavior."

A number of people mentioned this, actually, about Shunka. And he often refers to Gypsy's death himself. In an article titled "What Luna has taught me," posted on the website of Julia "Butterfly" Hill's organization, Circle of Life, Shunka writes: "I decided to commit to doing ground support after witnessing the death of David Nathan "Gypsy" Chain on September 17, 1998 ... I remember looking across the valley as we hiked up that day, seeing the rolling hills of forests and clear-cuts, and thinking out loud, "That's why we're here!" Seeing Gypsy's life taken from him, and then seeing the corruption and lies of the Humboldt County Sheriffs ... really opened my eyes to the situation our old-growth forests face."

Later, he did ground support for Hill in her second year in Luna. And in the same article on her website, something else Shunka writes indicates how ready he was to devote himself to a cause: "Being on the support team was the top priority in my life, and I was happy knowing that everything else revolved around when I'd be needed for the next supply run. I never felt lost because I knew what I was doing. That was a feeling I had not felt in years, between feeling dissatisfaction with life in college, and then more dissatisfaction with life as a minimum-wage worker after college. Before joining Julia's ground support team I was unhappy, even to the point of tears, wondering if my entire life was going to be a minimum-wage nightmare ...."

Pure devotion, without benefit of a little hypocrisy, could drive anyone batty. Deane Rimerman, the activist from Olympia who said it is Shunka who is on trial, said it's not uncommon for intense, stressful movements like Earth First! to produce an army of walking wounded. And he's been around, in forest actions up and down the coast, for long enough to know; he was the one, in fact, who "got the maps and led the first hikers up to the hill" to the Gypsy Mountain campaign and Luna treesit.

"In the forest activist movement, there's very little that's rewarding," Rimerman said. "There's a lot of post traumatic stress syndrome. All of us get it. Once you've been through the court process, and the jail process, and seen 1,000-year-old trees get cut down that you really cared about and thought you could save — it's devastating."

That alone, setting aside the troubles with Shunka, could explain the many rifts that have occurred within the local EF! ranks over the years. Josh Brown, who moved to Humboldt in 1995 right before the peak of the Headwaters campaign, said one of the unique qualities of Earth First! is that it "is primarily a youth movement."

"A lot of people that come through are young, are passionate — and it's a wonderful thing," he said. They get thrown into leadership positions quickly — and then they get burned out. Many move quickly on to other things. Brown stayed in longer than most. "When I left [in 2001], I was 30 years old. And I'd been a full-time activist since I was 18."

Paradoxically, said Brown, the youthful draw and the departure of seasoned activists leaves the movement with "no elders to kind of sit around and coach the [new kids]."

The movement also draws strong personalities, he said. Tenacious ones, too, like Shunka's.

"Shunka, I think he really does have a big heart," said Brown. "And I think he does care for the forest."

Last Friday, following the morning session of Miller v. Trees, a group of the Humboldt Forest Defense Association activists stood on the courthouse steps talking. The door opened, and Shunka walked out and down the steps toward the group. They didn't greet him. After a time, he tried to talk to one of them, Jeff. Jeff walked away. Shunka followed him, then stopped and talked to another guy. Then he stood alone again.

From: http://northcoastjournal.com/101107/news1011.html

Trees Foundation Wins

October 11th, 2007

The jury in the civil case Kathryn Miller v. the Trees Foundation decided in favor of Trees, after deliberating all day Tuesday. (See "Money on Trees," Oct. 4).

Miller is the long-time forest activist who inherited a bundle from her mother and then signed $185,000 over to the Trees Foundation. In her lawsuit, she claimed she had intended the money to be passed through Trees to one of its affiliates, North Coast Earth First! Media, run by Shunka Wakan. She claimed she had made her intentions clear, verbally and in writing, and that Trees had agreed to the conditions, then broken its promise and kept the money. Trees denied making such promises, and said it had never seen any letters or heard of instructions to give the money to NCEF! Media. (Also, somewhat relatedly, in criminal court on Tuesday Miller pleaded no contest to charges that she had made annoying phonecalls to Barbara Ristow of the Trees Foundation.)

So, that's that. Now, there are only the pieces to pick up.

For Shunka Wakan — featured in last week's Journal as a central figure in a messy nest of infighting that has fractured the current ranks of local Earth First!ians — it could be a long, lonely patching together of lost friends and broken alliances. Not only did he and Miller lose their attempt to retrieve her donation, but now he's been banned from the North Coast Co-op.

Yes, that happened last week. It was Thursday, around 4:15 in the evening, and two activists with the Humboldt Forest Defense Association were tabling — hawking brochures and such — outside the Co-op. It's an activity Shunka himself has spent many a day doing in that very same spot, raising cash to pay for his NCEF!Media outreach work and other causes. And, well, these two fellows, Jeff and Farmer, were on Shunka's shit list, now. They'd spoken gently, but unfavorably, about Shunka's doings in the North Coast Earth First! arena — said he lashed out at people, said he commandeered NCEF! resources, and so forth. Here's a snippet of Jeff's account of what happened, which he sent to the NCJ in an e-mail on Friday:

"Shunka was removed from the Arcata Co-op yesterday after a scuffle with myself and another activist around 5 p.m. Well, he wasn't exactly removed, but APD was called. He was asked to leave after threatening to flip over the HFD donation table while stating he was 'like Jesus in the marketplace ...'"

Sue Coulter, manager of the Arcata Co-op, recounted on Friday how an employee walking by heard the argument and went inside to get her. "So I went out to talk to [Shunka], because it's not the first time we've had problems," she said. "Most of the time, he's fine. Most of the time, I stick up for him." One time, she said, she even called the police to protect Shunka after someone had threatened him. "But he gets into arguments. I tried to talk to him. I told him to leave. ... He was causing a scene, right by the door, and I can't have it. He refused to leave. ... I said, fine. I went into the store. He followed me into the store, and he was still yelling at me, 'Oh, now you're going to call the police on me.'" Coulter called the police, but Shunka left before they arrived.

Shunka, waiting in the courthouse for the jury verdict Tuesday, said Coulter did indeed ask him to leave and he did, indeed, refuse to. As for the HFD tablers, he said he merely asked them why they had Trees Foundation literature on their table. "I said, 'Why do you want to represent these people?'" And then, he said, "Jeff accused me of embezzling — he said this in public. He said, 'You've embezzled thousands of dollars from the Earth First! movement through the years.' And I complained to one of the employees who was walking by. Because that's serious, accusing someone of embezzling."

But Shunka said the whole thing's yet another attack on him. "I don't consider I was yelling. We were talking. I'm an emotional person, I concede to that. I speak from my heart. I don't scream at people. I would love to — but I don't."

In his email, Jeff with HFD predicted Shunka would leave town within weeks, if not sooner. But at the courthouse, even before the verdict, Shunka said he wasn't going anywhere.

"I'm just going to continue to run the Earth First! office and continue to call Humboldt County home," he said. He's also going to write a letter to the Co-op, complaining about how he gets scapegoated and booted out of there even when other people, he says, are the culprits. And, as for the Miller v. Trees case, he said, he and Miller may now take their complaint to another venue.

-- Heidi Walters

posted in Anarchism - 0 replies

CORPORATE MEDIA - Day in the Lies

2007-10-26T08:16:40Z

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P7wr0TCgEGQ

posted in Anarchism - 11 replies

NYMAA General Assembly 9, NYC, Oct 28. Dont miss it!

2007-10-21T18:54:46Z

Mark your calendars! NYMAA General Assembly #9, Sunday, October 28th, 2007.

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Calling all anarchists, anti-authoritarians, horizontalists, and grassroots activists! Come join us as we plant the seeds of the anarchist century!

Mark your calendars: You are cordially invited to the Ninth General Assembly of the New York Metro Alliance of Anarchists / Alianza de anarquistas del área metropolitana de Nueva York (NYMAA).

Date: Sunday, October 28th, 2007
Time: 2:00 p.m. - 6:00 p.m.

Place: The Red Root Community Space, 2407 3rd Avenue, Suite 3R, Bronx, NY (see directions below)

On March 4, 2006, 65 radicals, revolutionists, and anarchists came together in an historic gathering and founded an explicitly anarchist organization--the first of its kind in NYC in nearly 100 years! Since then, much has been accomplished, yet much more must be done in order to forge a lasting anti-authoritarian presence on the streets of New York.

In order for the ideas of horizontalism and revolution to firmly take root among broad swaths of people, anarchists need to band together for the purpose of initiating and nurturing a wide range of projects. NYMAA's aim is to help build momentum and contribute to a genuine movement of resistance and liberation that can ultimately uproot the brutality of authoritarianism, capitalism, and oppression.

Along those lines, NYMAA has arguably initiated the largest upswing in anarchist organizing that this city has seen in a very long time, marking as its accomplishments a number of ongoing projects, groups, and campaigns. This is truly a historic time, as we continue to build anarchist communities and projects while connecting and facilitating communication with other radical and revolutionary groups and organizations.

You can read more about NYMAA and familiarize yourself with its basic organizational structure (we strongly encourage this) by visiting: http://www.nymaa.org

Proposals and other agenda items for the General Assembly are welcomed. Please e-mail them along with any RSVPs (especially if you're bringing
kids!) to: nymaa-comms [at] riseup [dot] net

Food and beverages, as well as childcare, will also be provided.

History / Herstory in the making! Don't miss it! See you there!

_______

Directions to the Red Root Community Space: Take the 4/5/6 to 138th Street in the Bronx. Walk to 3rd Avenue. If you took the 4/5, turn right onto 3rd Avenue from 138th Street. Coming from the 6, turn left onto 3rd Avenue. Walk four blocks until you get to Dimitri's Garden Center, on the right-hand side of the street.

Google maps position: http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&geocode=&time=&date=&ttype=&q=2407+3rd+Avenue&sll=37.0625,-95.677068&sspn=48.956293,57.480469&ie=UTF8&z=16&om=1

posted in Anarchism - 0 replies

Robert Wright: How cooperation (eventually) trumps conflict

2007-10-19T18:30:10Z

Author Robert Wright explains “non-zero-sumness,” a game-theory term describing how players with linked fortunes tend to cooperate for mutual benefit. This dynamic has guided our biological and cultural evolution, he says -- but our unwillingness to understand one another, as in the clash between the Muslim world and the West, will lead to all of us losing the “game.” Once we recognize that life is a non-zero-sum game, in which we all must cooperate to succeed, it will force us to see that moral progress — a move toward empathy — is our only hope.

self-interest as salvation

http://www.ted.com/talks/view/id/68

posted in Anarchism - 17 replies

Nor Cal Radicals

2007-10-12T20:17:14Z

I've just started a new tribe just for Radicals of nothern California. If you know have a friend who lives in nothern california, please let them know. If you don't live in Nor Cal, I encourage you to start a radical tribe for your neck of the woods.

http://tribes.tribe.net/nor-cal_radicals

posted in Anarchism - 0 replies

CAFTA report

2007-10-08T03:07:17Z

The elections just ended in Costa Rica and the results will be coming out soon.

The following is a report from somebody who came to the Bay Area, from Costa Rica to give us a view of whats been happening down there. His English is not top notch, so you will notice a few errors.

Sunday, October 7, 2007

The atmosphere has been both festive and tense in San Jose today, with massive participation in the binding referendum that will define the future of CAFTA, the so-called free trade agreement between Central America and the United States. Voting day was marked by the overwhelming financial power and logistical resourcefulness of the pro-CAFTA campaign (a.k.a. YES campaign), which officially provided 25,000 vehicles to transport voters, whereas the anti-CAFTA or NO campaign was only able to supply approximately 2,500 vehicles. At the polling stations, confusion on the part of anti-CAFTA voters as to the school they had been assigned to vote at, added to the lack of means with which to transfer voters even to public schools within the same district. The president of the Supreme Board of Elections was right when he affirmed today, “People came out to vote, there is no doubt about it.” But whether NO supporters reached their actual polling station as smoothly as those on the YES side of the tracks, and therefore whether the electoral process was as fair and democratic as it could have been had the Board of Elections set proper limits on campaign spending, is still a matter of contention.
There is a chance, however, that the tremendous resourcefulness and visibility of the YES campaign –indeed, its dominance in the official and mediatic eye today— had a counterproductive, counterintuitive outcome for pro-CAFTA leaders, which include President and Nobel Prize winner Oscar Arias, his National Liberation Party’s representatives in the Legislative Assembly, and the very wealthy exporting sectors of Costa Rica. This is because the strength of the “NO” campaign has been its seeming facelessness, the image it has been able to construct of itself as being the truly democratic option for the working and middle classes. Otton Solis, the leader of the opposition party (PAC) who ran for the last presidential elections on an anti-CAFTA platform -- and lost those elections by a mere 3,250 votes -- has kept an unmistakably low profile within the organized anti-CAFTA movement, limiting his public support to newspaper editorials, sporadic televised interviews and off-camera policy planning. The speaker and official leader of the anti-CAFTA movement, Eduardo Trejos, is the former president of the Instituto Tecnologico de Costa Rica, one of the most respected public universities in Central America, and is not identified as a “politician” by popular sectors. In other words, the leaders of the NO campaign have been able to imagine a strategy possibly unseen in modern history: a strategy that seems to have no leader, that appears to have emerged spontaneously from the mass of the people as a movement that is at once faceless and unmistakably Costa Rican. For this reason, the obvious spontaneity and logistic disorganization of the anti-CAFTA campaign today, although a blunder in some ways (there was, for example, only one hard copy of the electoral roll in some polling stations for anti-CAFTA activists to inform their constituents where they had been assigned to vote, whereas pro-CAFTA activists generally had digital versions and multiple hard copies of the rolls), did also serve to reinforce the perception of “the CAFTA question” as an issue of class: it is a battle of the rich against the poor and the middle classes.
Then again, of course, the apparent facelessness and spontaneity of the anti-CAFTA campaign has also emerged due to the alliance that does exist in opposition to the treaty between a wide variety of groups in Costa Rican society. Worker unions, environmentalists, disaffected public sector workers who intuit that CAFTA would signify the gradual destruction of the socio-economic and political model that created the institutions that employ them, and a surprising number of evangelical and Catholic Christian activists, are among the members of the amorphous, heterogeneous, and certainly immense alliance opposing the agreement.
It is difficult to predict the outcome. Polls published Thursday showed rejection to be likelier than acceptance by approximately 10% of the electorate, but polls often transform public opinion more than simply reflect them. The scandals of corruption that have affected the official pro-CAFTA campaign, most significantly the publication of a memorandum written by Second Vice-President Kevin Casas to ask president Arias to employ hardball illegal tactics to boost support for the treaty, might have been overpowered by the sheer financial investment and logistical effectiveness of pro-CAFTA leaders on election day. The first results are to be published in approximately half an hour (8:30 PM, Costa Rican time), and the atmosphere in San Jose remains both tense and festive.

posted in Anarchism - 0 replies

No Borders Camp FAQ

2007-10-07T01:58:44Z

-please distribute widely!-
(será disponible bien pronto una versión en espa~ol)

Frequently Asked Questions for the No Borders Camp, to take place in
Calexico and Mexicali from November 5-11, 2007

FAQ:

What is the No Borders Camp?

No Borders Camps are action camps and temporary autonomous zones meant to
challenge neo-liberal capitalism, border militarization, and migration
controls. The first No Border Camp took place in Europe in the late
1990s, and there have been many No Borders Camps since in Europe, Oceania
and elsewhere. In 2007 there were No Border Camps in Ukraine in August
and in the UK in September. There is a No Borders Camp planned for the
5th – 11th of November in Calexico, California and Mexicali, Mexico. This
will be the first No Borders Camp in North America, and the first one to
take place simultaneoulsy on both sides of an international border.

What is the goal of the No Borders Camp?

The goals of the camp are multiple. This is an experiment, a spectacular
intervention in a discourse that at times ignores and at other times
justifies the systematic violence and exploitation experienced by migrant
and indigenous peoples the world over. The No Borders Camp is not just
about the U.S. / Mexico border, but all borders that divide and control
people. It is about a regime that allows the free flow of capital while
dividing families, forcing people underground and limiting their movement.

At the No Borders Camp we intend to manifest our resistance to this
regime, as well as share and develop strategies for the long haul. We
intend to learn from one another, from the struggles that are already
underway and the ways these can be supported and expanded. We intend to
have fun, to develop alliances and friendships. We intend to dream
together, and transform our ideas about what is possible. We intend to
create a world without repression, without exploitation, and without
borders.

What is going to happen at the No Borders Camp?

The No Borders Camp will be an action camp, but the camp itself is an
action. Both the camp and other events throughout the week will be taking
place on both sides of the line between the U.S. and Mexico. The camp is
a building process, an autonomous space, a place for sharing, learning,
and dreaming. While it is intended to be part of a platform for developing
strategy and facilitating movement, it is not a conference. There will be
marches, actions, forums, workshops, music, independent media, art and
circus every day of the camp. An events calendar and framework of themed
action days is available on the website, www.noborderscamp.org.

There is no single group in charge of or organizing the camp. Accordingly,
groups and individuals are encouraged to come to the camp prepared with
their own ideas, actions, workshops, dreams, and projects. If you would
like to list an event on the online calendar send an e-mail to
noborderstech(at)riseup(dot)net.

Who is organizing the No Borders Camp?

There are many collectives, individuals and organizations who have been
involved in planning the No Borders Camp. The organization of the camp has
taken place through thousands of conversations, at workshops, encuentros
and other events all across North America. The process began more than a
year ago and is still developing. We are working together from both sides
of the border, sharing and learning and collectively working toward this
mobilization. If you are planning to come to the No Borders Camp, then
really the answer to the above question is you are. To become more
actively involved in planning for the camp contact one of the working
groups on the website. A partial list of regional contacts as well as
working groups can be seen at
http://www.noborderscamp.org/en/noborderscampcontactinfo .

What will be the camp setup, and what should I bring to the No Borders Camp?

Yourself, your friends, your dreams. Bring your tents, dishes, a sleeping
bag, some food and water, and everything else you'll need to be
self-sustaining. There will be more than one community kitchen, and there
are plans to serve two large hot meals a day. Everyone will have to pitch
in for cooking, sanitation and security. Bear in mind that we are going to
be in the desert. It will be hot during the day and cool at night. Bring
structures for shade, sunblock and a good hat. Bring plans for workshops,
art and actions.

Although we will be in the city, the layout of the camp will be rustic. A
water filter will be helpful. Toilet paper and other toiletries are
important. Bring comfortable, loose-fitting clothes. Bring paper-mache,
puppets, paint, banners, drums, bagpipes, trumpets, tubas.

If you have tech gear, video cameras, computers, large tents, a bullhorn,
a battery-powered PA, a projector, a huge stove, propane tanks, large
water containers, outdoor lights, folding chairs, solar ovens, medical
supplies or solar panels, bring them too! If you are able to provide any
of these resources - and for more information, please contact
noborderslogistics(at)riseup(dot)net.

We ask that you not bring firearms, drugs, or alcohol.

Will there be translation, medical and legal support during the camp?

Yes, yes, and yes! If you would like to help in any of these areas,
contact noborderstranslation(at)lists(dot)riseup(dot)net,
nobordersmedics(at)riseup(dot)net, and noborderslegal(at)riseup(dot)net
respectively.

Is there an airport near the location of the camp? If I am coming from
elsewhere how can I get to Calexico?

There is an international airport in Mexicali. You can hire a taxi or
take a bus from the airport to get downtown. The closest major airport in
the United States is in San Diego. Organizers in San Diego are planning
shuttles to and from Calexico during the week of the camp. If you have
made travel arrangements and/or need help finding a ride, check the
rideboard on www.noborderscamp.org, contact others in your region who are
going to the camp, or contact noborderscamp(at)gmail(dot)com.

Both Calexico and El Centro, CA have a Greyhound station. Buses can be
taken from San Diego, L.A., Phoenix, Tucson or elsewhere. If you are
coming from elsewhere in Mexico there is a large municipal bus station in
Mexicali with numerous carriers.

There will be housing available in both Calexico and Mexicali for those
who arrive early. If you are planning to arrive early, contact one of the
organizers in either city for more information, and stop by the
convergence center in Calexico when you arrive.

Is there some sort of pre-registration and fee?

The No Borders Camp is an action, not a conference. There is no
pre-registration or fee for attendance. There will be, however, a lot of
cost and work that go into creating a successful camp. Fundraising and
donations are essential, as are organizing and logistical support during
the camp and beforehand. For ways to plug in and contact information for
working groups visit
http://www.noborderscamp.org/en/noborderscampcontactinfo.

How will special needs be handled? Will the camp be accessible to everyone?

Our goal is to make the camp as physically accessible as possible. This
will necessarily be a collaborative effort. If you have special needs
that might affect your ability to attend and participate in the camp,
please be in touch with folks beforehand – write to
noborderscamp(at)gmail(dot)com. The No Borders Camp should be a space
where everyone is included.

What if I am traveling alone to the camp?

Everyone is welcome to attend the No Borders Camp. If you are traveling
alone to the camp, be sure to link up with some buddies once you arrive
(you won't be the only one coming alone; if you don't know anybody, make
new friends!). You do not need to be planning your own action or event
before the camp, although everyone is encouraged to do so. There will be
multiple ways to participate in various activities throughout the week.

If I am unable to attend the camp, are there other ways I can support it?

Yes! There are many ways to support the camp. The first way is to plan
and take action in your own community. The border is not a line in the
sand – it is an ideology and it exists everywhere people are marginalized
and excluded. In addition, we are in great need of funds, and fundraising
is a great way to support this effort. For more information or ideas get
in touch! noborderscamp(at)gmail(dot)com.

What kinds of legal issues may come up? What kind of police presence
should we expect?

There will be many different actions, marches, etc. during the week of the
camp – some of which will happen on site, others away from the camp
itself. The best way to prepare for any legal issues or police presence
during the camp is to know your level of risk beforehand, and to discuss
this with your comrades.

The border region is among the most militarized in the United States.
There are multiple law enforcement agencies that operate and claim
jurisdiction. The protocol for police activity is different than elsewhere
in the country – expect that you may be searched, whether you consent to
it or not. You may need to present ID when asked. Otherwise do not answer
any questions from the police; if you are detained or under arrest, ask to
speak to an attorney. The behavior and protocol of law enforcement, as
well as legal ramifications of different activities may vary drastically
depending on whether you are in the United States or Mexico.

We cannot guarantee the security of anybody who does not have papers;
however, we will not allow ourselves to be divided based on peoples' legal
status. We encourage everybody to travel in groups to and from the camp
and during any actions. If you are stopped by the police, do not allow
individuals to be isolated based on their legal status or appearance – our
best defense is always sticking together. It is important, however, that
we all take the risks seriously. If you or your comrades do not have
papers, consider ways to take action in your own community.

The No Borders Camp is about claiming autonomous space. We are not seeking
confrontation with the police, but the camp itself is a refusal to live in
a world of repression and fear. The tactics we will employ in response to
police repression will be based on the principles of sticking together and
conflict de-escalation. We will be discussing camp security in greater
detail leading up to and during the camp. For more information on legal
issues and what to expect, see the binational No Borders Camp legal guide
(to be released soon).

If I do not have papers, should I come to the camp?

See above.

Will there be an Independent Media Center at the camp?

There are several groups organizing independent media and tech projects.
We are planning on having at least one IMC space, and encourage people to
come prepared to make their own media. For more information contact
nobc-media(at)blac(dot)detritus(dot)net.

If I am an independent journalist, how can I get information about the
camp? Am I invited to attend?

The No Borders Camp welcomes independent and alternative media. In
addition, we will be releasing a daily press release to the corporate
press. Otherwise the corporate media are not invited into the camp.
Every participant in the No Borders Camp will have their own story to
tell; however, there is no spokesperson for the camp. If anybody claims
they are speaking as a representative of the No Borders Camp, they are
lying. We are asking all participants not to speak to the corporate
media.

If I want to show my film or play with my band, is there some way to set
that up?

We are working on setting up infrastructure for multimedia art and
performance, but we will need help making it happen. If you are able to
help, contact the tech crew at noborderstech(at)riseup(dot)net.

The events calendar says that November 11 is the day for artistic
_expression_. Do I need to wait until then for my art project?

November 11 will be the last day of the camp, and we have envisioned that
it will be a day devoted to creative _expression_ and for the culmination of
all of the art projects that develop throughout the week. By no means
should our artwork and creativity wait until Sunday. We anticipate that
such creative action will be the backdrop through which the entire camp
will progress, and we encourage folks to bring projects, collaborate with
others and develop ideas beforehand. The convergence space in Calexico
will be opening on October 13, and it will include an area devoted to art
making. Anyone is welcome to come and work on projects during the month
leading up to the camp.

Attachment:

posted in Anarchism - 0 replies

Paris Uprising of 1968

2007-10-02T23:17:43Z

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tUJZgkhSCq8

posted in Anarchism - 3 replies

2012: An Anarchist's Dream

2007-09-29T15:50:16Z

In the not-so-distant past there existed a great civilization on the Yucatan Penninsula of North America. This great tribe, who called themselves the Maya, were among the most advanced group of peoples in the Ancient World. Their architecture and intellectual achievements are still among society today. No tribe since has ever been more obsessed or accurate about keeping track of the passage of days into nights, called time. The Mayan calendar remains to this day, despite so-called "modern technology, the most precise measure of existence for the Human Being. And its about to come to an end.

Depending on who you talk to, the calendar ends anywhere from 2007 to Winter Solstice 2012. Many have postulated that the calendar is more like a countdown. But a countdown to what? The end of the world? The dawning of a new consciousness? The birth of a massive, powerful new paradigm? Who knows.....

Humanity has never been so unbalanced with Mother Gaia in recorded history. Recent events - tsunamis, hurricanes, earthquakes, global warming - which have always been seen by humanity since the dawn of our existence to be signs from the Divine - give me hope and reason to believe that Gaia is in the process of reclaiming herself from the viral spread of humanity. Its not hard to see how the systems of government and control have failed. Its time for Gaia's children to return back to balance. Its time for the next step. Time to evolve.

This balance will be restored by the anarchistic society the will emerge from the destruction and chaos left in the wake of Mother's Gaia's Reclamation. Humans will return to their true, tribal natures. Each individual will be ultimately responsible for their own well-being. There will be no government handouts. No money. No credit cards. True value will be restored. A knife, rope and salt will be the truly most valuable things to own.

It is my dream that a true utopia under anarchy will be realized in my lifetime. It is my dream that this new consciousness will reflect the individual's personal responsibility to participate in his/her own survival and self-government - which the earliest humans showed can only happen through cooperation of the group, everyone participating in the choices which directly affect them. True freedom and the responsibilites that come with it will be realized.

For nothing will straighten out the bullshit of this fucked-up society like returning back to the wilderness. Back to anarchy and balance. From whence we came.

I truly believe (though I'm not Christian) that the meek will inherit this earth.

In Anarchy I Trust!!

posted in Anarchism - 35 replies

CAFTA Dividing Costa Rican Society

2007-09-26T21:52:53Z

http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2007/09/25/18449686.php

Americas | International | San Francisco | Global Justice and Anti-Capitalism | Government & Elections
Central America Free Trade Agreement Dividing Costa Rican Society
by brendan behan ( brendanb [at] globalizethissf.org )
Tuesday Sep 25th, 2007 12:35 PM

For the first time in the history of world, a voting population will have the opportunity to vote on a free trade agreement in a referendum. Costa Rican voters will be asked to decide whether or not to accept CAFTA. The referendum is is set to take place on October 7, 2007, and if more than 30% of the voting population turns out for the vote, the results could be considered legally binding.

CAFTA-DR would fundamentally change thousands of laws that are presently in place in Costa Rica, as it has already done in other countries that are party to the agreement--Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, and the Dominican Republic--who have already ratified CAFTA-DR and begun implemention. One of the most critical legal changes required by DR-CAFTA are the elimination or substantial transformation of laws protecting natural resources from foreign purchase or control.

Key features of CAFTA-DR include allowing highly subsidized U.S. agriculture to gain immediate duty-free access to CAFTA-DR markets, excluding competitors from CAFTA-DR markets so as to protect U.S. textiles & apparel under the 'Yarn Forward' Rule, non-reciprocal & anti-free trade sanction measures allowing the United States to impose tariffs on certain goods in the event of 'import surges,' protecting international investors, entitling corporate entities to full compensation for the market value of any properties, natural resources, or goods that are nationalized or expropriated by Central American countries, privatizating all social services and allowing U.S. companies to bid on these privatized public industries, including education and environmental services.

marcha_contra_el_tlc_001_-_de_bloque_verde_225w.jpg
marcha_contra_el_tlc_001_...

Central America Free Trade Agreement Dividing Costa Rican Society

by brendan behan of Globalize THIS!
http://www.globalizethissf.org

Sept. 25, 2007 - Even after more than 13 years of environmental degradation and dramatically increasing gaps between the rich and poor which have left workers in the U.S., Canada, and México out in the cold, the Bush Administration continues to push the NAFTA model on other countries throughout Latin America.

The mistakes of NAFTA have been duplicated and codified in the text of the Dominican Republic-Central America Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA-DR), which was negotiated starting in 2003 between the United States, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, and Nicaragua--the Dominican Republic later joined the negotiations in 2004--and signed in 2005.

The agreement requires, among many other stipulations, that 80% of all tariffs on U.S. goods entering CAFTA-DR nations be eliminated immediately and that the remaining tariffs be phased out over the next ten years.

CAFTA-DR represents the next step toward the swallowing of the American continents by shady, back-room trade deals like those that gave rise NAFTA.

However, opposition groups in Costa Rica quickly organized to demonstrate against the agreement, citing the threat that CAFTA-DR poses to the environment, workers' rights, economic sustainability, and Costa Rican autonomy and have successfully forced the government to acknowledge the voice of the people in the public arena.

For the first time in the history of world, a voting population will have the opportunity to vote on a free trade agreement in a referendum. Costa Rican voters will be asked to decide whether or not to accept CAFTA. The referendum is is set to take place on October 7, 2007, and if more than 30% of the voting population turns out for the vote, the results could be considered legally binding.

Submitting the Central America-Dominican Republic Free Trade Agreement to a referendum in Costa Rica is perhaps the most democratic approach to a free trade agreement that the world has yet seen in that it is the first instance in world history of a voting population's having direct veto power over a free trade agreement. This is in stark contrast to the manner in which DR-CAFTA was negotiated, which was without public input and behind closed doors under President Bush's now-expired Fast Track Authority.

CAFTA-DR would fundamentally change thousands of laws that are presently in place in Costa Rica, as it has already done in other countries that are party to the agreement--Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, and the Dominican Republic--who have already ratified CAFTA-DR and begun implemention. One of the most critical legal changes required by DR-CAFTA are the elimination or substantial transformation of laws protecting natural resources from foreign purchase or control. Any one of Costa Rica's local laws protecting natural resources, such as sub-soil energy resources, could legally be challenged under DR-CAFTA as a barrier to trade in binding international arbitration panels overseen by unaccountable, unelected trade lawyers--not elected representatives of the people--who are empowered by the agreement to render the final decision.

These provisions would seriously inhibit the power of local communities to legally prevent multinational corporations from environment pillage as DR-CAFTA would provide legal recourse to these polluters to sue government institutions seeking such protections. This represents a very profound change in the democratic structures of these localities, placing the destinies of these communities--literally, their ability to live in an environment free of toxic pollutants--out of their hands permanently.

Among other provisions in CAFTA-DR, parties to the agreement would be compelled to consider nuclear waste as a tradable good in the eyes of the law. This could potentially mean that if a private corporation in the United States, which, quite importantly, is the only party to the agreement with a substantial nuclear industry, were contracted by the U.S. government to dispose of its nuclear waste in another country, the company could sue for the right to dump these radioactive 'tradable goods' in Costa Rica even if existing laws prohibit it, under provisions in DR-CAFTA which preclude governments from implementing laws that discriminate against certain industries or corporations. DR-CAFTA bestows the right upon these companies to sue local, regional, and national governments for not allowing such dumping of toxins and other public hazards and to also collect financial compensation from such legal bodies should the arbitration panels side in favor of the corporations.

These foreign corporations who are not beholden to these local communities do not have to bear the impact of their actions while the surrounding communities do. It has long been recognized by major economic thinkers like Joseph Stiglitz and others that the only means of preventing these corporations from perpetually hoisting these noxious externalized costs onto surrounding communities is by democratic political change, which means regulation.

In the context of Costa Rica, this presents the possibility of a new kind of internationalized environmental racism since Costa Rica's indigenous communities and their lands were the only indigenous groups to be excluded from DR-CAFTA's indigenous communities' exemption clauses.

Other key features of CAFTA-DR are as follows:

-Highly subsidized U.S. agriculture gains immediate duty-free access despite the fact that these subsidies keep prices of U.S. goods at artificially low levels, which is inconsistent with free trade doctrine

-Excluding competitors from CAFTA-DR markets so as to protect U.S. textiles & apparel under the 'Yarn Forward' Rule; summarizing the U.S. Trade Representative, the 'yarn forward' rule requries that apparel using yarns and fabric from the United States and CAFTA-DR countries qualify for duty-free benefits. This includes fabrics, yarn, garment pockets, thread, narrow elastic fabrics, and visible linings. The legal implications are that any garments produced with fabrics originating from countries other than the U.S. (particularly China, which is a main competitor of the U.S. in this area) will be subject to tariffs, creating a protected market for U.S. textiles, yarns, threads, fabrics, and more

-Non-reciprocal & anti-free trade sanction measures allowing the United States to impose tariffs on certain goods in the event of 'import surges'

-Protection for International Investors including equal treatment for U.S. investors and CAFTA-DR domestic investors

-Corporate entities would be entitled to full compensation for the market value of any properties, natural resources, or goods that are nationalized or expropriated by Central American countries

-The right for investors to sue governments and be compensated for violations of CAFTA-DR

-Privatization of all social services and access for U.S. companies to bid on these privatized public services, including education and environmental services

-Increased protections for socially contentious patents and intellectual property rights, including trademarks, and pharmaceutical test data that is currently used to produce cheap, generic drugs that are far more affordable to the poor

-Protecting plant DNA patents and allowing for the patenting of nature; enforcement mechanisms would include requiring any farmer caught growing patented crops, whether intentionally or in the event of the unintentional 'contamination' of their crops by genetically modified varieties, to destroy their fields or face imprisonment and/or fines

-Limiting public access to cheap, generic pharmaceuticals, which will most greatly impact poor

-Environmental protection mechanisms will be limited to market-based 'No Punishment, Voluntary Atonement' solutions disallowing local governments from sanctioning gross violators of environmental laws

-The explicit elimination of the possibility that labor and environment violations can be punished by means of sanctioning or withholding trade access

-Labor & environment disputes are relegated to a toothless public hearings procedure with no binding enforcement mechanisms

The notion that these kinds of polluting industries have a right to force their externalized costs onto local communities is completely at odds with any basic understanding of democracy—which, one must remember, does not equate with the 'freedom to do business,' but rather the freedom to control one's own life within the social landscapes that one operates.

Of what value is freedom in any sense, if one cannot have the ability to maintain the safety of the most basic necessities of life: our water, our food, and our air? Communities do have a democratic right to limit corporation's externalized costs, especially when those externalized costs do not just inhibit our freedom to live in a toxin-free environment, but also may inhibit our right to prevent those toxins from entering our systems.
http://www.globalizethissf.org
© 2000–2007 San Francisco Bay Area Independent Media Center. Unless otherwise stated by the author, all content is free for non-commercial reuse, reprint, and rebroadcast, on the net and elsewhere. Opinions are those of the contributors and are not necessarily endorsed by the SF Bay Area IMC. Disclaimer | Privacy | Contact

posted in Anarchism - 0 replies

A Divine War

2007-09-19T09:45:30Z

Hi everyone,

I have recently published a novel about a pantheon of gods (fictional of course) who have caused one of the worst droughts in history and who are subsequently made to come to the earth... It is a humorous and irreverent tale. If anyone out there thinks they may be interested in reading it, please let me know. I'm looking for reviewers and would be happy to send you a copy if you think it may be your kind of thing.

There are more details on my website www.lisaselvidge.com
Or www.lulu.com/lisa9

Thanks,
Lisa

posted in Anarchism - 0 replies

Anarchist Infoshop @ The Blueberry Patch (TB, Florida)

2007-08-30T18:36:15Z

The Nutshell Collective is bringing books, pamphlets and magazines to the Blueberry Patch on the 1st, 7th, 11th and 22nd, from 8pm - 11. Topics include DIY guides, school liberation, feminism, sustainability, direct action, freedom, anti-capitalism, philosophy and much more. Please come by and have a read and take some home. We will soon have shirts, posters and whatnot. We are in the tent by Blueberry Hill, behind the 77 sign... ask someone if you can't find it. Don't forget to bring a donation for the patch, $5 is asked but $3 is reasonable too.

4923 20th Ave S
Gulfport, FL 33707
http://blueberrypatch.org/

The patch is a place in this world where it is entirely possible to escape the everyday rigors of life and retreat into a world of your own fantasy. A spot where you are not only allowed to create nearly anything your mind can conceive, but actively encouraged to bring your imagination to life in a three dimensional form. Bands, jams and open mic parties every 1st, 7th, 11th and 22nd at around 8pm, winding down with an Om circle at 11. Saturdays and Sundays are volunteer days, when creation really takes place.

See you at the patch!

posted in Anarchism - 0 replies

An open invite to explore the meanings of Anarchy...

2007-08-14T18:22:19Z

Hi, I run the 99th percentile tribe...
As part of an effort to engage other tribes and contribute to the diversity of discussions...
I would like to invite you all to discuss the contradictions of Anarchy.
Thanks,
Mike

http://99thpercentile.tribe.net/thread/bc7e3b60-736d-4f9e-a3a4-87af1a13e095?newpostingid=9023bced-d417-4ace-8257-f02324840859#9023bced-d417-4ace-8257-f02324840859

posted in Anarchism - 0 replies

Censorship on the Anarchism tribe?

2007-08-01T23:07:46Z

Say it ain't so! Where's the thread from Efrit?

posted in Anarchism - 24 replies

Top Ten “Fry Mumia” Myths Debunked (Myth #1) “Five eyewitnesses saw Mumia shoot officer Faulkner.”

2007-07-16T04:11:15Z

Top Ten “Fry Mumia” Myths Debunked
(Myth #1) “Five eyewitnesses saw Mumia shoot officer Faulkner.”

By Steven Argue

The following is the first in a series of ten articles I have written answering the top ten myths being circulated by those who advocate execution or continued prison for Mumia Abu-Jamal.

(Myth #1) “Five eyewitnesses saw Mumia shoot officer Faulkner.”

In the preliminary hearings, Mumia made requests for a line-up. This is not the kind of move one does if they are guilty. Part of Mumia’s reasoning was that eyewitnesses that were lying would have a harder time with their conscience if they actually saw him in the flesh.

Interestingly enough, the prosecution didn’t want a line-up and argued their point saying that none of the witnesses had actually seen Mumia shoot Faulkner. Judge Sabo denied the line-ups on these grounds. Yet two “eyewitnesses”, Cynthia White and Robert Chobert, did claim they saw Mumia shoot Faulkner, so Mumia was unfairly denied a line-up.

Supposed Witness To Mumia Shooting Faulkner Number One…
Prosecution Star Witness Cynthia White

Despite the false claims by the prosecution used to deny a line-up, Cynthia White did testify that she saw Mumia with a gun in his hand, that she saw him shoot Faulkner twice in the back, and that she saw Mumia standing over Faulkner as shots were being fired. Overwhelming physical and eyewitness evidence proves that this was perjured testimony.

The prosecution’s version of events, largely dependent on White’s testimony, claims that Mumia stood over Faulkner repeatedly shooting and missing until he hit Faulkner’s head. Yet the physical evidence says this is not true. No divots or marks were left on the sidewalk from these missed shots. Later articles will explore this and other physical evidence further.

As a prosecution witness, Cynthia White gave two extremely different versions of events at two different trials. One version was given at William Cook’s trial, and a differing version at Mumia’s trial. At Cook’s trial she said there was a passenger in Cook’s VW. At Mumia’s trial she claimed there was no passenger.

In the case of Mumia, eyewitnesses have said that the passenger in Cook’s VW was one of the actual killers. Yet Mumia was not riding in the VW and the prosecution claims that Mumia was the lone killer. So in Mumia’s trial, it was useful for the prosecution to disappear the passenger from the testimony, despite White’s other testimony that there was a passenger. These two differing versions, obviously including perjured testimony, were cynically used by prosecutors to fit differing prosecutions.

There is also physical evidence of a passenger in the VW, evidence that was illegally suppressed by the prosecution for 13 years. That evidence was an ID found on the body of Officer Faulkner. It was in the name of Arnold Howard. As a result of this evidence, Arnold Howard was arrested by the police and tested to see if he had fired a gun the night of the shooting. Arnold Howard told the police that he had loaned his ID to Kenneth Freeman. (Transcript for August 11, 1995, pp. 130-131.)

In addition, Arnold Howard testified at that post conviction hearing that Kenneth Freeman was also arrested that night, and that Howard personally witnessed a woman picking Freeman out of a line-up. Like Arnold Howard’s ID, police reports of this arrest and line-up of Kenneth Freeman have also apparently been suppressed, but in this case have never been released.

The VW driver, William Cook, also placed Kenneth Freeman as the passenger in the VW. In Cook’s signed declaration of what happened he also says Freeman was carrying a .38 that night. Cook went on to say, in that declaration, that after the shooting,

“Poppi [Kenneth Freeman] talked about a plan to kill Faulkner. He told me that he was armed on that night and participated in the shooting. He was connected and knew all kinds of people. I used to ask him about it but he talked but never said much. He wasn't a talker. I didn't see Poppi [Kenneth Freeman] for a while after that. Poppi [Kenneth Freeman] had been in Germany in the army. That night he was wearing his green army jacket.”

Eyewitness William Singletary says that a man in a green army jacket got out of the VW, shot Faulkner, and ran. Mumia Abu-Jamal was not wearing an army jacket that night and not riding in the VW. Nor did Mumia run away, he was shot and ran nowhere. The jacket Mumia was wearing is in evidence and it is a red quilted ski jacket with a couple blue stripes. Nor was William Cook, the driver of the VW, wearing a green army jacket.

The prosecution’s version of events denies anyone on the scene wearing a green army jacket. Besides Singletary and Cook, five other eyewitnesses also put a man in a green army jacket on the scene. These were stake out Officer Forbes (the putative first officer to arrive), Officer Stephen Trembetta, Robert Magiltan, Michael Scanlan, and Arnold Beverly, who has confessed to being one of two people that killed Faulkner. Beverly states in his confession that he was also wearing a green army jacket that night as well.

In addition, the prosecution’s version of events denies anyone running from the scene.
Six eyewitnesses contradict this by saying they saw men running from the scene. These would have been the real shooter or shooters. Those eyewitnesses are Dessie Hightower, William Singletary, Veronica Jones, Robert Chobert, Arnold Beverly, and William Cook.

So the prosecution’s star witness testified for the prosecution that there was a passenger at Cook’s trial, and said there was no passenger at Mumia’s trial. Eyewitness testimony and physical evidence suppressed by the prosecution shows there was a passenger wearing a green army jacket that shot Faulkner and ran. That passenger, Kenneth Freeman, murdered Officer Faulkner either by himself or with the help of Arnold Beverly. On May 14, 1985, according to the testimony of Arnold Howard, Kenneth Freeman’s naked corpse was found outside in the cold handcuffed. No investigation was carried out on Freeman’s death and the coroner reported the cause of death to be a heart attack.

So it is established, with her contradictory stories, that Cynthia White was not telling the truth. This would be bad enough. But, in fact, none of the nine eyewitnesses that testified at the trial and subsequent hearings can remember seeing Cynthia White at the immediate scene at all. None, this includes the other prosecution witnesses.

William Singletary states that he saw her earlier down the street. When he saw her she said, “Hey, how you doing? It's cold out here.” Then noticing his car she said “a brand-new Cadillac Eldorado, 1982 model, wow, that's a great car! You ain't that bad-looking either. But I don't date black guys.” To which Singletary says he responded, “And I don't date prostitutes.” Singletary says that she then walked down the street and didn’t actually see the shooting. ("Witness: Abu-Jamal didn't do it" Philadelphia Daily News Dec. 8, 2006)

In fact, Cynthia White confessed to both Pamela Jenkins and Yvette Williams that she did not see the shooting and that the police put the screws to her to lie. In addition, a mountain of testimony shows a clear pattern by the police to try to get similar perjured testimony from other people.

In a hearing after the trial Pamela Jenkins testified, “I know that Cynthia White worked as a prostitute in the Center City area, specifically at Locust and 13th Street, during 1980 and 1981, and that she was a prostitute, police informant, and turned tricks for the police officers in the district.”

If in fact Cynthia White was a police informant, and this information was withheld from the defense by the prosecution, that alone would be legal grounds for a new trial, but it gets much worse.

Jenkins testified at hearings in 1997 that Police Officer Thomas Ryan tried to make her testify that she saw Mumia shoot Officer Faulkner at the original trial, even though she was not at the scene of the shooting. Jenkins, 15 and a prostitute, was the girlfriend of Officer Ryan at that time. She also testified that she worked both as a prostitute for police and as a police informant for the corrupt Center City Police.

Jenkins also testified that Cynthia White told her in late 1981 that she was also being pressured to testify against Mumia, and that White was afraid for her life.

In a signed affidavit Jenkins states,

“Tom Ryan, Richard Ryan and other police officers pressured me and asked me if I had seen the shooting of the police officer and whether I had been in the area of the shooting that night. When I said 'no' they pressured (me) some more and asked me was I really sure that I hadn't been on the street that night and seen the shooting. It was clear to me that Tom Ryan and Richard Ryan wanted me to perjure myself and say that I had seen Jamal shoot the police officer."

Despite showing a clear intention by the police to frame Mumia, no jury has been allowed to hear Jenkins’ testimony in Mumia’s case. Not only is Pamela Jenkin's testimony essential evidence of a deliberate police conspiracy to frame Mumia by manufacturing perjured evidence, it also helps to destroy the testimony of the prosecution’s star witness, Cynthia White.

Jenkins' credibility has, however, been bolstered by the fact that she was a key witness used to unravel the massive police corruption in Center City District. Her testimony was instrumental in reversing the decisions of hundreds of cases and helped lead to the removal of the entire team of cops that led the “investigation” of Mumia’s case due to their corruption and mob connections.

Other eyewitnesses have said the same thing as Jenkins. In a signed affidavit Yvette Williams has stated,

“I was in jail with Cynthia White in December of 1981 after Police Officer Daniel Faulkner was shot and killed. Cynthia White told me the police were making her lie and say she saw Mr. Jamal shoot Officer Faulkner when she really did not see who did it.”

Later in the Affidavit Yvette Williams states,

“When Lucky [Cynthia White] told me she didn’t even see who shot Officer Faulkner, I asked her why she was “lying on that man” [Mumia Abu-Jamal]. She told me it was because for the police and vice threatened her life. Additionally, the police were giving her money for tricks. “The way she talked, we were talking “G’s” [$1,000.00]. She also said she was terrified of what the police would do to her if she didn’t say that Mumia shot Officer Faulkner. According to Lucky, the police told her they would consolidate all her cases and send her “up” (Muncy), a women’s prison, for a long time if she didn’t testify to what they told her to say. Lucky told me she had a lot of open cases and out-of-state warrants and was scared of going to Muncy. She was scared that her pimp “would get pissed off” at all the money he was losing when she was locked up, and off the street. She was afraid that when she got out he would beat her up or kill her.”

According to legal papers filed by the defense,

“in the days after the shooting, [White] was arrested at least twice for prostitution. Her picture was posted in the 6th District with instructions for arresting officers to 'Contact Homicide'. Each time police picked White up and took her statement, she revised her story [on Faulkner's shooting]. Without explanation, bench warrants against her were not prosecuted.”

Pamela Jenkins has publicly asked Cynthia White to tell the truth stating:

“We know we can bring this down to a nutshell if you just come forward. We've all lost a lot by coming forward, I've lost somebody I love dearly... Just do it this one time, one favor, that's not asking a lot. Then maybe you can clean up your past, like the rest of us are doing.”

The prosecution does seem to be afraid of Cynthia White coming forward to tell the truth, and have presented false testimony of evidence that she is dead. In a hearing in Judge Sabo’s court, a Philadelphia police detective testified that the FBI had "authenticated" that a corpse had the same fingerprints as White. Yet the fingerprints the DA withheld at that time, and later finally produced for the now cremated corpse, don’t match the fingerprints of Cynthia White.

Cynthia White’s own mother stated that the same corpse was not Cynthia White. Other eyewitnesses, that the defense attempted to have testify, testimony denied by Sabo, had seen Cynthia White alive and walking around during the time she was supposed to be dead. Yet instead of hearing defense witnesses that stated that Cynthia White was alive, the only testimony Sabo would allow was the false testimony of the Philadelphia detective claiming “authenticated” fingerprints. Sabo snapped, “As far as I’m concerned she’s dead. I’m making a ruling. We’re finished.” Evidence has never meant much in Judge Sabo’s court, if the prosecution says she’s dead, she’s dead.

So the evidence on Cynthia White shows that she could not have seen the shooting; that Mumia was wrongly denied his right to a line-up; that the police intimidated White and others to testify against Mumia; that the police that “investigated” Mumia have been kicked off the force for corruption; that Cynthia White had a motive to lie; that the police possibly withheld information that Cynthia White was a police informant; that the DA illegally withheld physical evidence for 13 years that showed that White’s testimony was perjured and that showed that Mumia did not commit the crime; that the DA knowingly used testimony from White that was perjured; and that claims of the prosecution and police were accepted without evidence or witness rebuttal in Judge Sabo’s court.

Essential Eyewitnesses Ignored By “Fry Mumia” Fanatics Number One, Pamela Jenkins

I include Pamela Jenkins in this list, not because the “fry Mumia” camp includes her among the eyewitnesses that supposedly saw Mumia kill Faulkner, but because they don’t, and why they don’t. As was shown in the section on Cynthia White, the police tried to pressure here into testifying that she saw Mumia kill Faulkner, even though Jenkins was not at the scene of the shooting, but Jenkins refused to do it. The honesty of Jenkins is the only reason why the prosecution did not use her, and this also why she is not mentioned in the “fry Mumia” literature as seeing Mumia shoot Faulkner.

Essential Eyewitnesses Ignored By “Fry Mumia” Fanatics Number Two, Veronica Jones

Veronica Jones also is not mentioned in the fry Mumia literature, but she is also a very important eyewitness. Jones, while being called by the defense in 1982, testified for the police and prosecution.

Before the trial, Veronica Jones gave a completely different version of events than was contained in an earlier police report. In her original version of events, contained in a report she gave to police, Veronica Jones said she saw two men running from the scene. Yet at the trial the two men running were missing from her testimony. This came as a complete surprise to the defense because Mumia’s supposed attorney, Anthony Jackson, did not even bother to interview witnesses before the trial. Earlier in the trial Mumia was denied his legal rights when his attempt to fire Anthony Jackson was denied by Judge Sabo.

Jones retracted her 1982 court testimony in 1996, saying that her original police report was the truth, and that she was coerced by the police into saying she didn’t see anybody running from the scene. She gave this testimony despite being forcefully reminded by Judge Sabo that her testimony could be seen as an admission of perjury and could land her seven years in prison. She was in fact arrested from the witness stand, but for a bounced check from a different state, being served with an insufficient warrant by out of state New Jersey State Troopers.

Despite the police harassment, and a review of her entire criminal history on the witness stand, including her life as a prostitute, Jones brought her children to court to learn from her mistakes. She explained that she was relieved to be setting things straight because what she did to Mumia with her false testimony had been eating her up inside over all those years.

On the stand, admitting to perjury, Jones explained that she was awaiting trial for an unrelated robbery charge in 1982 when police detectives approached her in her cell offering to give her a deal by changing her story as a witness in Mumia’s case. She had originally stated that she heard two shots, looked around the corner, and saw two men running from the scene. The two men running fit the version of William Singletary where he saw someone else shoot Mumia and run, but it didn’t fit the police/prosecution story being woven against Mumia. Mumia was unable to run because he was shot.

She explained that the deal offered by the police was that she could go to prison for five to ten years and loose custody of her two young children or she could get out of the predicament by lying for the police saying that nobody was running from the scene.

Despite the importance of the testimony of Veronica Jones in Mumia’s case, both in corroborating eyewitnesses that say the actual killer or killers ran from the scene, and as another witness testifying to a clear pattern of police intimidation to acquire falsified testimony, Sabo ruled in 1996 against her testimony being heard by a new jury trial.

Likewise, in the original trial, Sabo ruled in favor of prosecution objections when Veronica Jones was already admitting to being the target of the police in their attempts at gaining false testimony:

"I had got locked up [together with other prostitutes] I think it was in January [1982]. […] I think sometime after that incident. They were getting on me telling me I was in the area and I seen Mumia, you know, do it, intentionally. They were trying to get me to say something that the other girl [Cynthia White] said. I couldn’t do that."

As Jackson continued this questioning Veronica Jones said, “we had brought up Cynthia [White]’s name and they told us we can work the area [as prostitutes] if we tell them [what the police wanted to hear].” At this point Judge Sabo ruled in favor of prosecutor McGill’s objections and would only allow further questions of Veronica Jones on what she saw the night of the shooting. As from the beginning of the trial, ruling after ruling has declared, police misconduct is not open to scrutiny and a court of law is no place for evidence of Mumia’s innocence.

Supposed Witness To Mumia Shooting Faulkner Number Two, Michael Scanlon

The use of Michael Scanlon’s name in “fry Mumia” literature as a witness to Mumia committing the murder is nothing but the purest cynicism. Michael Scanlon did not identify Mumia as the person who shot Faulkner, and could not say that the person he saw shoot Faulkner was Mumia. At the trial, when asked by prosecutor Mcgill, “Are you able to identify anybody, either the driver, or the man who ran over and shot the police officer?” Scanlon replied, “No, sir.” (trial transcript, 6/25/82).

Michael Scanlon’s testimony actually puts further holes in the prosecution’s story by placing someone in a green army jacket in the immediate scene of the shooting around the VW. According to the prosecution only Mumia, Cook, and Faulkner were present at this location, but the evidence shows that one or two people were present wearing green army jackets that killed Faulkner before Mumia arrived. The jackets Mumia and Cook were wearing are in evidence and they do not resemble green army jackets.

Supposed Witness To Mumia Shooting Faulkner Number Three, Albert Magiltan

Like Scanlon, Magiltan is used in the “fry Mumia” literature as a witness to Mumia committing the murder, and like Scanlan, Magilton did not identify Mumia as the person who shot Faulkner. When Magiltan was asked at the trial, "you don't know who fired the shot at him, do you?" Albert Magiltan responded, "I never said I did, no." (trial transcript, 6/25/82). Magiltan didn’t even see the shooting.

Magilton did, however, report to defense investigators that he saw a person run from the parking lot wearing a green army jacket. This fits the confession of Arnold Beverly, who says he ran out from the parking lot, wearing a green army jacket, to shoot Faulkner.

Essential Eyewitness Ignored By “Fry Mumia” Fanatics Number Three, Police Officer Stephen Trombetta

Police Officer Stephen Trombetta reported that the suspect was wearing a green army jacket as opposed to Mumia’s red and blue ski jacket.

In addition, Trombetta rode with Mumia in the van to the hospital. Inspector Alfonso Giordano, the senior officer on the scene in charge of the Mumia “investigation”, reported that on that van ride Mumia had confessed to shooting Faulkner. Giordano was removed from the Philadelphia Police and prosecuted for corruption immediately after Mumia’s trial. P.O. Trembetta was with Mumia during that entire van ride and, in direct contradiction to Giordano’s claim of a confession, reported that Mumia made no comment.

Essential Eyewitness Despised By “Fry Mumia” Fanatics Number Four, William Singletary

While William Singletary did sign a statement saying that Mumia did it, he later stated that he signed that statement under the duress of police threats. Of that statement he says, “That's what they made me say, I stayed in there [in a police interrogation room] from 4:30 to 9:30 a.m. and when I left, I felt like I had been raped.”

William Singletary has since stated, "Mumia Abu-Jamal didn't shoot Daniel Faulkner. The passenger in the right-hand side of the Volkswagen got out of the car and shot him [Faulkner]. When Mumia came on the scene, we [Singletary and another man] were on the police radio trying to radio for help." ("Witness: Abu-Jamal didn't do it" Philadelphia Daily News Dec. 8, 2006)

Despite signing the statement, Singletary refused to lie for the police during the trial. Yet the “fry Mumia” camp often cite Singletary as an eyewitness against Mumia stating that his statement (that he says the police typed up and told him to sign) was so similar to those of the other “eyewitnesses” that his first signed statement had to be the truth and that what Singletary has been insisting for the past 25 years is a lie.

Singletary says that he is willing to take a lie detector test, but he is afraid of coming to Philadelphia. He says the Philadelphia police harassed his business to the point that it went under while also threatening him and warning him to get out of town. He did eventually move to North Carolina and says, “I'm not coming to Philadelphia unless y'all got Wells Fargo and Lords of London" for protection.

Supposed Witness To Mumia Shooting Faulkner Number Four, Robert Chobert

In his initial report taken by Inspector Alfonzo Giordono, five minutes after the shooting, Robert Chobert stated that the man that shot Mumia ran away. Mumia, who was shot at the scene, never did any running.

Later, Robert Chobert changed his story to that of the prosecution. The shooter no longer was running away and the jury was never allowed to hear Chobert’s original report.

Robert Chobert, a convicted arsonist that was driving on a suspended license and was on felony probation at the time of the shooting, has also recanted his testimony according to a sworn statement by Mark Newman.

At the time of Mumia’s trial, Chobert was on felony probation for the firebombing of a school. Revocation of that probation could have meant over 20 years in prison. Chobert was in fact violating that probation by unlawfully driving his taxi on a suspended license that night. Thus, Chobert would have been easily manipulated by the police and/or by the prosecution.

Under penalty of perjury, Mark Newman stated in a signed affidavit that, “Chobert told me that he did not see anyone standing over a prone Officer Faulkner, firing shots at the officer. Chobert said that what actually happened was that he was sitting in his taxi when he heard gunfire.” And that he did not actually see the shooting.

According to that signed affidavit of Mark Newman, Chobert didn't see Mumia shoot Faulkner, wasn't parked behind Faulkner as he said he was at the trial, and that Chobert gave the police that false testimony they wanted to avoid having his parole revoked.

Physical evidence, as well as eyewitness testimony, proves that Chobert's cab was not parked behind Faulkner's as Chobert claimed in court. This evidence includes 31 recently released photos taken by photojournalist Pedro Polakoff just minutes after the shooting. These photos clearly show that Chobert's cab was not parked behind Faulkner’s police car as Chobert had claimed in court.

This corroborates the testimony of Mark Newman when he states, "Chobert told me that on December 9, 1981, he had actually been parked, in his taxi, on 13th Street, north of Locust (contradicting his trial testimony that he was parked behind Officer Faulkner's police car on Locust St., east of 13th Street.)" This is also relevant to Chobert not having the vantage for seeing the shooting.

Newman’s testimony is also corroborated by Chobert’s legal troubles and a clear pattern by the police to offer similar deals to other witnesses including three eyewitnesses, Pamela Jenkins, William Singletary, and Veronica Jones, stating publicly, and Cynthia White also stating privately, that they were coerced, threatened, or otherwise offered deals by the cops to give false testimony.

The police officer that got the “identification” of Mumia from Robert Chobert was Alfonzo Giordano. In the original police report that has the shooter running from the scene, Robert Chobert is said by Giordano to say it was the guy from MOVE that did it. Giordano was removed from the force and prosecuted for corruption related to the mob, a corruption probe that turned over many other police/prosecution convictions. In addition, Giordano had been involved in political operations against Philadelphia MOVE and the Black Panther Party. As such, Giordano would have instantly recognized Mumia, a former Black Panther and an independent journalist that had exposed police wrong doing against MOVE.

In a revealing set of moves Giordano was never called as a witness at Mumia’s trial. This despite Giordano providing testimony at Mumia’s preliminary hearing of a “confession” in the van, despite his being the senior officer at the scene, despite his supposed firsthand identification of a witness, and despite his testimony of finding the “murder weapon”. During the trial Giordano was removed from active duty and assigned to a desk. The first working day after the trial was over Giordano resigned from the Philadelphia police force. In 1986 Giordano copped a plea on federal charges based on receiving tens of thousands of dollars in illegal payoffs during the 1979-80 period but didn’t spend any time in jail.

In addition to Giordono’s corruption, under racist Police Chief Frank Rizzo, Giordono was in charge of the Stake Out Unit of the Philadelphia Police that carried out repression against the Black Panther Party from 1968 –1970. Giordono also played a supervisory role in the 1977-78 police barricade and attack on the MOVE organization under Mayor Frank Rizzo. That police attack had followed earlier murders by the Philadelphia police of MOVE members and followed a long starvation blockade by the Philadelphia Police against the MOVE headquarters. In the police attack two MOVE members were shot, nine MOVE members were framed by the Philadelphia Police, MOVE children were stolen, and, as film footage shows, Delbert Africa was kicked and stomped by the police as he lay on the ground. In addition, Officer Ramp was shot and killed.

While nine MOVE members were railroaded to prison for the death of Officer Ramp, the evidence does not fit. The one bullet that killed Ramp came from behind and had a downward trajectory. Yet Ramp was facing the MOVE headquarters where MOVE members were in the basement and any bullets would have had an upward trajectory and hit him from in front.

Presiding over the kangaroo court that convicted the MOVE 9 was Judge Malmed. Shortly after the trial and conviction of the MOVE 9, Mumia, as an independent journalist, called in to a talk radio show where he asked Judge Malmed, “Who shot James Ramp?” Judge Malmed honestly answered, “I haven’t the faintest idea.”

In the attack on MOVE the police and Mayor Rizzo claimed that the first shots came from the MOVE headquarters, but the independent eyewitnesses including a number of journalists present, confirm what MOVE members and the physical evidence says, that the first shot came from across the street and not from the MOVE headquarters.

At Mayor Frank Rizzo’s victory press conference on the 1978 police attack, Frank Rizzo directly threatened Mumia Abu-Jamal when Mumia asked him a question. Mumia was present as a freelance journalist and asked the gloating Rizzo, “What about the brutality?” Instead of answering Mumia’s question Rizzo responded angrily with a threat: “They believe what you write, and what you say, and it's got to stop. And one day, and I hope it's in my career, that you're going to have to be held responsible and accountable for what you do.”

In addition to commanding this attack against MOVE, Giordono, earlier, then under Police Chief Rizzo, carried out surveillance of leftists including the Black Panther Party.

With Mumia having been a former member of the Black Panther Party and a high profile critic of police actions against MOVE, there is no question that officer Giordono would have instantly recognized Mumia at the crime scene. This would be one of the motives for Giordono to want to falsify testimony and other evidence to pin the murder on Mumia.

A number of other well-known political frame-ups have occurred in the United States. The prosecution of Mumia fits the pattern of the FBI’s COINTELPRO program against the Black Panther Party, where local law enforcement worked with the FBI in murdering some BPP leaders in cold blood, such as Fred Hampton in Chicago, and knowingly framed and prosecuted other innocent BPP members, such as Geronimo ji Jagga in LA who spent 30 years in prison before he was exonerated of the false charges against him and freed.

A possible additional motive for framing Mumia can be found in the confession of Arnold Beverly. Beverly stated, “I was hired, along with another guy, and paid to shoot and kill Faulkner. I had heard that Faulkner was a problem for the mob and corrupt policemen because he interfered with the graft and payoffs made to allow illegal activity including prostitution, gambling, drugs without prosecution in the center city area.”

Things that Beverly said are corroborated by, among other things, police corruption, three separate FBI investigations of police corruption in the Center City area at the time, evidence of fear that Faulkner was an FBI informant, evidence that Faulkner was an FBI informant, and the murder of other witnesses involved in cases against the Center City Police at that time. One of those murders was of Bertram Schlein, an eyewitness that testified against Central Division Chief John DeBenedetto. A suspect in that murder was Kenneth Schwartz, a former police officer and reported associate of Inspector Alfonzo Giordono.

A former Philadelphia Police Officer turned mob hit man, Ronald Previte, has testified as government informant on mob killings. Previte stated that during his ten years as a Philadelphia cop he “learned more about being a crook” than any other time in his life.

If the police were in fact involved in the murder of Police Officer Faulkner, this would mean that they would not be interested in finding the actual killer. They would want to pin the murder on someone else, and who better in the eyes of Giordano than his journalistic critic, Mumia Abu-Jamal.

Whatever the exact motive or motives, the mountain of police, prosecutorial, and judicial misconduct in this case proves that the criminal “justice” system both had (and has) no interest in finding the real killer or killers while at the same time desiring to execute an innocent man.

It is funny that when presented with this evidence, “fry Mumia” fanatics counter that if it was indeed a frame-up, why was it so sloppy. Why would Giordano have included that the shooter was running away in his original report? The irony is that if the frame-up wasn’t so sloppy we’d be asked why the case is so airtight. Yet I think that answers to the question of why there are so many loose ends lies in the fact that the police were accustomed to being sloppy and getting away with it. Even though the truth of the shooter running away was included in the original report, this was no problem for the police or prosecution, since the judge did not allow the original report into court anyway. All that was allowed was the lie that Chobert saw the shooting and that it was Mumia that did it.

The deeper irony is that when the “fry Mumia” fanatics admit that there are so many loose ends, they are admitting that Mumia is innocent by the essential legal standard of “guilt beyond a reasonable doubt”.

Essential Eyewitness Despised By “Fry Mumia” Fanatics Number Five, Dessie Hightower

College student Dessie Hightower saw someone running from the scene. This is what Hightower told police 80 minutes after the shooting, and Dessie Hightower has never changed his story. Hightower’s report of one or more people running is the same as eyewitnesses William Singletary, Veronica Jones, Robert Chobert, Arnold Beverly, and William Cook. This corroborates William Cook when he said, “Freeman ran from the scene after Officer Faulkner was shot”. It also corroborates William Singletary when he says, “The passenger [Freeman] in the right-hand side of the Volkswagen got out of the car and shot him [Faulkner]” and ran. Hightower also said that he saw no gun in Mumia’s hand.

Supposed Witness To Mumia Shooting Faulkner Number Five, Robert Harkins

Harkins was not seen as a credible witness by the prosecution at the trial. Harkins was never called to testify at the trial against Mumia by the prosecution. Yet in “fry Mumia” literature the name of Robert Harkins has begun to occasionally pop up as an additional supposed eyewitness to Mumia shooting Faulkner. Like other supposed eyewitnesses of the “fry Mumia” crowd that “saw Mumia shoot Faulkner”, Harkins did not identify Mumia as the shooter.

The Harkins testimony is at odds with the physical evidence and that of all of the other eyewitnesses, including prosecution witnesses. Harkins, a known child molester, could have easily been manipulated by the police and prosecution, as was done with other eyewitnesses. If so, the police and prosecution succeeded in destroying a potential defense witness, but did not produce a useful witness for their frame-up.

Essential Eyewitness Despised By “Fry Mumia” Fanatics Number Six, Terri Maurer-Carter

Terri Maurer-Carter, an official court stenographer in the courts where Mumia was framed, has come forward stating in a signed affidavit,

“Judge Sabo and another person were engaged in conversation. Judge Sabo was discussing the case of Mumia Abu-Jamal. During the course of that conversation, I heard Judge Sabo say, ‘Yeah, and I'm going to help them fry the nigger.’ There were three people present when Judge Sabo made that remark, including myself.”

These words Maurer-Carter heard from Sabo sum up the blatant nature of the racist and political crime carried out by Sabo, the prosecution, and the police against Mumia Abu-Jamal.

Conclusion

There are a large number of other important eyewitnesses that will be looked at in future articles, but let us review a few key points of what has already been established.

“Fry Mumia” fanatics claim that Mumia shot Faulkner. Yet, not a single eyewitness saw Mumia shoot Faulkner. Cynthia White and Robert Chobert claimed they saw Mumia shoot Faulkner, but neither saw the shooting. Michael Scanlon, Robert Harkins, and Robert Magiltan, despite “fry Mumia” lies, never claimed they saw Mumia shoot Faulkner.

Four eyewitnesses say in no uncertain terms that Mumia did not shoot Faulkner. These are William Singletary, William Cook, Arnold Beverly, and Mumia Abu Jamal.

Five eyewitnesses contradict the prosecution’s version of events by saying they saw men running from the scene. These would have been the real shooters or shooter. Those eyewitnesses are Dessie Hightower, William Singletary, Veronica Jones, Robert Chobert, and William Cook. The prosecution version of events denies anyone running from the scene.

Five eyewitnesses have stated that they were threatened, coerced, or otherwise offered favors for testimony against Mumia. These are Veronica Jones, William Singletary, Pamela Jenkins, Cynthia White, and Robert Chobert.

The prosecution’s version of events denies anyone on the scene wearing a green army jacket. Yet all evidence points to one or two men on the scene wearing green army jackets shooting Faulkner. Seven eyewitnesses saw a green army jacket. Those that saw green army-jackets were William Singletary, William Cook, stake out Officer Forbes (the putative first officer to arrive), Officer Stephen Trembetta, Michael Scanlan, Robert Magiltan, and Arnold Beverly.

Kenneth Freeman, the real killer, or one of the real killers, was linked to the crime scene by physical evidence that was illegally suppressed by the prosecution for 13 years.

Not only did nobody see Mumia shoot Faulkner, the body of evidence shows overwhelming prosecutorial, police, and judicial misconduct pointing to a clear frame-up of Mumia Abu-Jamal, and backing Mumia’s claim that he is innocent.

Mumia Abu-Jamal is a political prisoner in the United States, with what could be the final decision on his legal appeals possibly coming down this summer. That decision could give Mumia his freedom, life in prison, or execution. It is time to turn up the heat against this injustice. Free Mumia Abu-Jamal!

This is the first in a series of ten articles on the top ten “fry Mumia” myths that will be published at Liberation News.

Subscribe to Liberation News:
http://lists.riseup.net/www/info/liberation_news

Copyright Liberation News, noncommercial verbatim distribution of this article in its entirety, including this notice, is allowed without special permission. Publication in any commercial form may require payment and requires special permission.

posted in Anarchism - 0 replies

Art now being Banned!!!! Mine included!!!!

2007-07-12T03:50:39Z

Hello Tribe Members

I joined tribe to network, learn, share and grow. As an Artist I am involved in many project over time. Last fall I spent the time to create a controversial piece of poignant Anti Bush Anti War Art. This art is now illegal for me to advertise, display in the context of my other works, or sell in 4 US States and will be illegal in my home State of Texas on September 1st.

If they take away the activists and artists, then how many will remain to speak of truths and uncover injustices.

My art can be seen at bushliedtheydied.com In this site there is a FREE public domain version of my art for downloading, printing, and mass copying. Please distribute far and wide.

Sincerely
Vincent D K Greene

The Illegal War Art of
Vincent D K Greene
bushliedtheydied.com

posted in Anarchism - 0 replies

Anarchists only like soccer

2007-07-09T19:26:09Z

Anarchists only like soccer. That's the only sport I ever see fans rushing the field and battling the fans of the opposition with bricks and clubs. You never see that happen in golf even though golf clubs make ideal weapons. What's the matter with all the other sports you fucking anarchists? Are you soccer-snobs or what?

Swaz

posted in Anarchism - 6 replies

Anarchist Gathering in Albuquerque July 20-22

2007-07-09T17:56:54Z

I'm still deciding if I can make this... If I do, I'll probably have rideshare space for 1 (comfy) or 2 (cramped)...

Autonomists for Democracy in Albuquerque
http:://adacollective.org
albuquerqueautonomist@lists.riseup.net
http://www.myspace.com/albuquerqueautonomist

Dear organization/collective,

you are invited to join the ADA Collective of Albuquerque, New Mexico in a
weekend camping retreat with other
anarchist/anti-authoritarian/horizontalist collectives of the Rocky
Mountain and Southwest region on July 20, 21, and 22. The purpose of this
second annual summit is to familiarize collectives of the region, share
skills, and grow through networking and learning. The campsite will be San
Lorenzo Canyon, which is about 1-2 hours from Albuquerque and close to
Socorro, New Mexico. We will be meeting on Friday
and Saturday in the afternoon at the house of a collective member in the
city and carpooling down to the campsite. Directions will be sent to
interested parties upon reply and here is a link about the campsite for
reference: http://www.explorenm.com/hikes/SanLorenzo/.

Collectives are encouraged to prepare skill shares and bring contact
information for networking. There will be some provisions available, but
please bring as much of your own as possible (food, tents, sleeping bags,
water, TP).

Albuquerque's climate is usually sunny and dry, with low relative
humidity. Brilliant sunshine defines the region, averaging more than 300
days a year; periods of variably mid and high-level cloudiness temper the
sun at other times. Extended cloudiness is rare. The city has four
distinct seasons, but the heat and cold are mild compared to the extremes
that occur more commonly in other parts of the country.

We would like to see as many collectives represented as possible so please
tell your friends and spread the word. If you know you will be coming or
you think you might, please contact us at the above contacts with your
group?s name, (a) possible skill share(s), and any questions or concerns
you may have.

With love and furious resistance,

Julian
ADA collective
Secretary of Networking for April-May
Anarcho-Cycle ABQ Mechanic
http://adacollective.org
burningphoenix@riseup.net
505-898-227920

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The Fourth is Independence From Imperialism Day

2007-07-04T23:32:18Z

The Fourth is Independence From Imperialism Day

By Steven Argue

Today is a celebration of a revolution against imperialism, that being the American Revolution against British imperialism. Today this holiday is all too often seen as a day of nationalist celebration of the United States, the biggest imperialist power in the world. Yet the true roots of this celebration are in anti-imperialism.

We send out our sympathies and solidarity to the people of Iraq and Haiti suffering under US occupation and US imposed death squad governments. Likewise, we send out our sympathies and solidarity to the Afghani people suffering under decades of bloodshed and religious anti-woman governments imposed by US intervention. We send out our sympathies and solidarity to the people of the Phillipines and Colombia where US troops and money are propping up murderous governments. We send out our sympathies and solidarity to the people of the “third” world, many starving, under US imposed governments, unfair imperialist economic policies, and the constant threat of US military intervention.

We send out congratulations to the people of those few countries that have stood up to US imperialism and set up the governments and economies that they see fit for their countries.

U.S. Marine Brig. Gen. Smedley Butler summed up US imperialism well:

"I spent thirty-three years and four months in active military service as a member of this country's most agile military force, the Marine Corps. I served in all commissioned ranks from Second Lieutenant to Major-General. And during that period, I spent most of my time being a high class muscle-man for Big Business, for Wall Street and for the Bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism.

"For a great many years, as a soldier, I had a suspicion that war was a racket; not until I retired to civil life did I fully realize it.... I must face it and speak out.

"I suspected I was just part of a racket at the time. Now I am sure of it. Like all the members of the military profession, I never had a thought of my own until I left the service. My mental faculties remained in suspended animation while I obeyed the orders of higher-ups. This is typical with everyone in the military service."

"I helped make Mexico, especially Tampico, safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefits of Wall Street. The record of racketeering is long. I helped purify Nicaragua for the international banking house of Brown Brothers in 1909-1912. I brought light to the Dominican Republic for American sugar interests in 1916. In China I helped to see to it that Standard Oil went its way unmolested."

"During those years, I had, as the boys in the back room would say, a swell racket. Looking back on it, I feel that I could have given Al Capone a few hints. The best he could do was to operate his racket in three districts. I operated on three continents."

Butler's 1935 exposé "War is a Racket" begins with these powerful lines:

"War is a racket. It always has been. It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious. It is the only one international in scope. It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives. A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to the majority of the people. Only a small 'inside' group knows what it is about. It is conducted for the benefit of the very few, at the expense of the very many. Out of war a few people make huge fortunes."

Bulter's words were not empty. This was a man who was on the inside of the world's most powerful fighting force. He goes on to reveal:

"There isn't a trick in the racketeering bag that the military gang is blind to. It has its 'finger men' to point out enemies, its 'muscle men' to destroy enemies, its 'brain men' to plan war preparations, and a "Big Boss" - Super-Nationalistic-Capitalism. It may seem odd for me, a military man to adopt such a comparison. Truthfulness compels me to."

You can read the whole Butler article online
"War is a Racket," Common Sense magazine, November 1935.
http://www.scuttlebuttsmallchow.com/racket.html
http://www.ratical.org/ratville/CAH/warisaracket.html

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http://lists.riseup.net/www/info/liberation_news

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Pacific Northwest anti-war activists up the ante by blocking military shipments to Iraq

2007-07-04T23:31:25Z

Pacific Northwest anti-war activists up the ante by blocking military shipments to Iraq

by Linda Averill

Freedom Socialist Newspaper, Vol. 28, No. 3, June-July 2007
www.socialism. com

A new breed of struggle is flowering in the Northwest anti-war movement. Its aim: to stop public ports from being used for export of war materials. Activists in Washington state are evolving from demonstrators and lobbyists into direct actors against the war masters, blocking streets and facing arrest as needed.

This development isn’t happening in a vacuum. A product of anger over congressional inaction on the war and repulsion at the militarization of U.S. society, it is also inspired by a rising resistance movement among GIs.

A statement from the Port Militarization Resistance (PMR) puts it this way: "The weapons shipments, and the use of our public property to prolong and supply the war in Iraq, have made us complicit in crimes against humanity. We refuse to be complicit any longer."

The first action took place last year in Olympia, near Fort Lewis. Participants blocked entrance to their port to stop the Army from shipping war materials.

In 2007, activists declared victory when the Army announced it was going elsewhere. The new location turned out to be Tacoma, 30 miles north of Olympia. Students from the nearby University of Puget Sound, military veterans, teachers, a city councilman, and many others quickly sprang into action, aided by organizers of the blockades in Olympia. As Tacoma protester Leah Coakley said, "We will not serve as a pit stop for the war machine."

A cause catches fire.

Campaign stalwart Molly Gibbs offers insight into the shift in thinking of those involved. Gibbs, who works in high schools to counter military recruitment efforts, is no newcomer to politics. On the war, she has e-mailed, lobbied and written letters to congressional representatives like Adam Smith, she tells the FS, "until I’m blue in the face."

But this year, Fort Lewis was the scene of the high-profile case involving Lt. Ehren Watada, the first commissioned officer to openly refuse to serve in Iraq. His defiance, amplified by an effective defense effort, inspired many anti-war activists, including Gibbs.

In January, she helped organize a tribunal to publicize his case. She then left for Washington, D.C., to lobby Congress again. When her group tried to meet with U.S. Senator Patty Murray and got the runaround, it was the last straw. "I was so disgusted, so angry," Gibbs says.

>From that experience, she concluded that a different strategy was needed. "I’m done dealing with my congressional representatives, " she says. "It is in our hands. We have to do something."

Opportunity came in March, when the military moved its port operations to Tacoma. Members of several groups mobilized, including Students for a Democratic Society, United for Peace of Pierce County, and the Olympia Movement for Justice and Peace. They held rallies, publicized their actions to the media, and lined the streets to take a stand.

On March 10, police used violence to break their lines, firing rubber bullets and tear gas into the crowd. Protesters refused to back down, and Gibbs was among several people arrested for stepping over police lines to deliver a "Citizens’ Injunction to Halt the Shipment of Military Material to Iraq." When soldiers with the Stryker Brigade rode by one evening, many of them waved and gave the thumbs-up to the anti-war contingent.

On to Aberdeen.

The Army ship sailed, but when the dust had cleared, Tacoma had spent $500,000 on police protection. Who would pay — the port or the Pentagon?

While that question lingered, the military moved its shipping operations to Aberdeen, 50 miles from Olympia near the Pacific Coast. PMR quickly spread word and headed west.

Military officials cordoned off neighborhood streets and called in police reinforcements from across the region. The military racked up another huge bill and angered local residents, who resented seeing their town become an armed camp.

Sparked by these examples, similar efforts and solidarity actions are spreading. In March, 100 students occupied a military recruitment office in New York City to express support and, in April, resisters blocked a port in Oakland, California.

Many campaigners have been charged with crimes. In the Northwest, a mistrial was declared on March 29 in the case of the "Oly 22," who were arrested in 2006. Public support is being mobilized now for those arrested in Tacoma.

Grow the resistance!

How strongly this movement will take root is uncertain. Those who are part of it harbor no illusions about the challenges ahead. The Army is operating in greater secrecy, keeping protesters on their toes. There are court battles ahead, and police violence to face. Gibbs mentions the need for more community training, strategy development, and reinforcements.

However, she is motivated by knowing one thing for certain: as long as the war continues, "the death and destruction is only going to get worse."

Information about how to help the campaign is available on several web-sites, including www.omjp.org and www.ufppc.org.

Distributed by Liberation News (not affiliated with the Freedom Socialist Paper):
http://lists.riseup.net/www/info/liberation_news

posted in Anarchism - 0 replies

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