From news at freedomarchives.org  Mon Oct  2 08:56:40 2006
From: news at freedomarchives.org (Anti-Imperialist News)
Date: Mon, 02 Oct 2006 05:56:40 -0700
Subject: [News] "Bush The Decider"  or "Yertle the Turtle" is a reality
Message-ID: <6.2.5.6.2.20061002055614.044a5790@freedomarchives.org>



THE DECIDER
   by Toni Smith

*"I hear the voices and I read the front page and I know the
speculation," the president told reporters in the Rose Garden.
"But I'm the decider and I decide what's best. And what's best
is for Don Rumsfeld to remain as the secretary of defense."*
*-------- George W. Bush*

Well, it took me awhile, but I finally realized what "I'm the
decider," reminds me of. It sounds like something a character in
a Dr Seuss book might say. So with apologies to the late Mr.
Geisel, here is some idle speculation as to what else such a
character might say:

I'm the decider. I pick and I choose.
I pick among whats.
And choose among whos.

And as I decide
Each particular day,
The things I decide on
All turn out that way.

I decided on Freedom
For all of Iraq.
And now that we have it,
I'm not looking back.

I decided on tax cuts
That just help the wealthy.
And Medicare changes
That aren't really healthy.

And parklands and wetlands
Who needs all that stuff?
I decided that none
Would be more than enough!

I decided that schools
All in all are the best.
The less that they teach
And the more that they test.

I decided those wages
You need to get by,
Are much better spent
On some CEO guy.

I decided your Wade
Which was versing your Roe,
Is terribly awful
And just has to go.

I decided that levees
Are not really needed.
Now when hurricanes come
They can come unimpeded.

That old Constitution?
Well, I have decided-
As "just Goddamn paper"*
It should be derided.

I've decided gay marriage
Is icky and weird.
Above all other things,
It's the one to be feared.

And Cheney and Rummy
And Condi all know
That I'm the Decider -
They tell me it's so.

I'm the Decider
So watch what you say,
Or I may decide
To have you whisked away

Or I'll tap your phones.
Your e-mail I'll read.
`cause I'm the Decider -
   Like Jesus decreed.

* This is an exact Bush Quote! Now that I think about it, Dr. Seuss 
anticipated this administration pretty well when he wrote Yertle the Turtle


On the far-away island of Sala-ma-Sond,
Yertle the Turtle was king of the pond.
A nice little pond. It was clean. It was neat.
The water was warm. There was plenty to eat.
The turtles had everything turtles might need.
And they were all happy. Quite happy indeed.
They were... until Yertle, the king of them all,
Decided the kingdom he ruled was too small.
"I'm ruler", said Yertle, "of all that I see.
But I don't see enough. That's the trouble with me.
With this stone for a throne, I look down on my pond
But I cannot look down on the places beyond.
This throne that I sit on is too, too low down.
It ought to be higher!" he said with a frown.
"If I could sit high, how much greater I'd be!
What a king! I'd be ruler of all that I see!"
And Yertle, the Turtle King, gave a command.
He ordered nine turtles to swim to his stone
And, using these turtles, he built a new throne.
He made each turtle stand on another one's back
And he piled them all up in a nine-turtle stack.
And then Yertle climbed up. He sat down on the pile.
What a wonderful view! He could see 'most a mile!
"All mine!" Yertle cried. "Oh, the things I now rule!
I'm the king of a cow! And I'm the king of a mule!
I'm the king of a house! And, what's more, beyond that
I'm the king of a blueberry bush and a cat!
I'm Yertle the Turtle! Oh, marvelous me!
For I am the ruler of all that I see!"
And all through the morning, he sat up there high
Saying over and over, "A great king am I!"
Until 'long about noon. Then he heard a faint sigh.
"What's that?" snapped the king,and he looked down the stack.
And he saw, at the bottom, a turtle named Mack.
Just a part of his throne. And this plain little turtle
Looked up and he said, "Beg your pardon, King Yertle.
I've pains in my back and my shoulders and knees.
How long must we stand here, Your Majesty, please?"
"SILENCE!" the King of the Turtles barked back.
"I'm king, and you're only a turtle named Mack."
"You stay in your place while I sit here and rule.
I'm the king of a cow! And I'm the king of a mule!
I'm the king of a house! And a bush! And a cat!
But that isn't all. I'll do better than that!
My throne shall be higher!" his royal voice thundered,
"So pile up more turtles! I want 'bout two hundred!"
"Turtles! More turtles!" he bellowed and brayed.
And the turtles 'way down in the pond were afraid.
They trembled. They shook. But they came. They obeyed.
 From all over the pond, they came swimming by dozens.
Whole families of turtles, with uncles and cousins.
And all of them stepped on the head of poor Mack.
One after another, they climbed up the stack.
Then Yertle the Turtle was perched up so high,
He could see forty miles from his throne in the sky!
"Hooray!" shouted Yertle. "I'm the king of the trees!
I'm king of the birds! And I'm king of the bees!
I'm king of the butterflies! King of the air!
Ah, me! What a throne! What a wonderful chair!
I'm Yertle the Turtle! Oh, marvelous me!
For I am the ruler of all that I see!"
Then again, from below, in the great heavy stack,
Came a groan from that plain little turtle named Mack.
"Your Majesty, please... I don't like to complain,
But down here below, we are feeling great pain.
I know, up on top you are seeing great sights,
But down here at the bottom we, too, should have rights.
We turtles can't stand it. Our shells will all crack!
Besides, we need food. We are starving!" groaned Mack.

"You hush up your mouth!" howled the mighty King Yertle.
"You've no right to talk to the world's highest turtle.
I rule from the clouds! Over land! Over sea!
There's nothing, no, NOTHING, that's higher than me!"

But, while he was shouting, he saw with surprise
That the moon of the evening was starting to rise
Up over his head in the darkening skies.
"What's THAT?" snorted Yertle. "Say, what IS that thing
That dares to be higher than Yertle the King?
I shall not allow it! I'll go higher still!
I'll build my throne higher! I can and I will!
I'll call some more turtles. I'll stack 'em to heaven!
I need 'bout five thousand, six hundred and seven!"

But, as Yertle, the Turtle King, lifted his hand
And started to order and give the command,
That plain little turtle below in the stack,
That plain little turtle whose name was just Mack,
Decided he'd taken enough. And he had.
And that plain little lad got a bit mad.
And that plain little Mack did a plain little thing.
He burped!
And his burp shook the throne of the king!

And Yertle the Turtle, the king of the trees,
The king of the air and the birds and the bees,
The king of a house and a cow and a mule...
Well, that was the end of the Turtle King's rule!
For Yertle, the King of all Sala-ma-Sond,
Fell off his high throne and fell Plunk! in the pond!

And today the great Yertle, that Marvelous he,
Is King of the Mud. That is all he can see.
And the turtles, of course... all the turtles are free
As turtles and, maybe, all creatures should be.

by Dr. Seuss

The Freedom Archives
522 Valencia Street
San Francisco, CA 94110
(415) 863-9977
www.freedomarchives.org 
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From news at freedomarchives.org  Mon Oct  2 15:29:45 2006
From: news at freedomarchives.org (Anti-Imperialist News)
Date: Mon, 02 Oct 2006 12:29:45 -0700
Subject: [News] SF 10/4: Public Forum - No Troops to Oaxaca!
Message-ID: <6.2.5.6.2.20061002122759.044b7780@freedomarchives.org>

Background Article Follows

OWC - Open World Conference in Defense of Trade Union
Independence & Democratic Rights, c/o S.F. Labor Council,
1188 Franklin St., #203, San Francisco, CA 94109.
Phone: (415) 641-8616   Fax: (415) 440-9297.
-------------------



PUBLIC FORUM

MEXICO:  EMERGENCY ALERT

* NO FEDERAL TROOPS TO OAXACA!
* MEET THE PEOPLE'S DEMANDS!

Public Forum Featuring Jos? Alejandro Sandoval 
Torres & Juan Manuel L?pez Sarsoza, Indigenous 
Leaders of the Peoples Assembly of Oaxaca  (APPO).

These APPO representatives are currently on an 
Emergency West Coast Tour sponsored by the Frente 
de Mexicanos en el Exterior, Organizaci?n de 
Trabajadores Agricolas de California, Union 
Civica Primero de Mayo, Chicano Consortium, 
Sacramento City Teachers Union, and the 
Sacramento chapters of the Labor Council for 
Latin American Advancement and LULAC.

The Fox administration in Mexico is readying to 
send federal troops into the city of Oaxaca to 
crush the strike of more than 70,000 teachers and 
the resistance of an entire people, which has 
organized its own Popular Assembly of the Peoples of Oaxaca (APPO).

Join us to learn from these two representatives 
from the APPO in Oaxaca what is occurring on the 
ground in Oaxaca and what we in the United States 
can do to help them in their struggle to win 
their just and legitimate demands and to force 
the resignation of repressive Governor Ulises 
Ruiz Ortiz, who unleashed the police on the strikers last June 14.

For more background information, see the 
International Solidarity Appeal below.

DATE, TIME AND PLACE

Wednesday, OCTOBER 4 @ 7 p.m.
Center for Political Education, 522 Valencia St., 3rd Fl., San Francisco
(@ 16th Street; one block from 16th St. Mission BART station)
Donation Requested at door; No one Turned Away for lack of funds.

Forum Sponsored by Mexicanos En El Exterior, 
Global Exchange, S.F. LCLAA, Open World Conference, Comit? en Defensa Del voto

For more information, call 415-641-8616 or contact <ilcinfo at earthlink.net>

***********


BACKGROUND INFORMATION ON THE STRUGGLE OF THE PEOPLE OF OAXACA

INTERNATIONAL APPEAL IN SOLIDARITY WITH SECTION 
22 OF THE NATIONAL EDUCATION UNION (SNTE-CNTE) AND WITH THE PEOPLE OF OAXACA

The movement of the teachers of Section 22 of the 
National Education Union and the people of Oaxaca 
is facing a terrible situation.

The Secretario de Gobernaci?n (Minister of the 
Interior), with the backing of all the governors 
of the country, has called on President Vicente 
Fox to "act with the strict respect of the law 
against all the destabilizing forces that aim to 
directly prejudice the constitutional order." 
This is an open call to use force against the movement.

The bosses, the representatives of the Church, 
the media and a few mayors of all the parties 
have also called on the government to send a 
military expedition toward the State of Oaxaca.

The strike movement of 70,000 teachers of the 
State of Oaxaca began around the wage issues of 
Section 22 of the SNTE last May. The teachers 
called for all teachers to receive the same wages 
throughout all the districts of the State of Oaxaca.

On June 14, the PRI government headed by Governor 
Ulises Ruiz Ortiz unleashed a brutal attack 
against the strike encampments set up by the 
teachers in the center of the city of Oaxaca. But 
the teachers forced the police forces to retreat 
after five hours of confrontation.

In response, the unions, neighborhood 
organizations, peasants and indigenous groups set 
up a Popular Assembly of the Peoples of Oaxaca 
(APPO), which organized five huge marches and -- 
with the decisive participation of the teachers 
-- set up barricades that were staffed for 
self-defense purposes throughout the night.

The teachers and the population set up a 
political tribunal to fight for the demand, 
"Governor Ulises Ruiz must go!" The teachers and 
the APPO have occupied the headquarters of the 
executive, judicial, and legislative branches of 
the state, as well as the local private radios 
and the provincial television station.

The governor, incapable of launching a massive 
attack against the teachers and the people, has 
utilized gangster methods, by sending in armed 
individuals with pistols to shoot at people on 
the barricades and at the marches. Four people 
have died in this way, and dozens have been 
injured. Four people have been arrested, among 
them Elangelio Mendoza Gonzalez, the former 
General Secretary of Section 22 of SNTE-CNTE.

Currently, based on the decision of the General 
Assembly of Section 22 of the SNTE and 
representatives of the APPO, 5,000 teachers, 
health workers, and peasants are marching on 
Mexico City to express their resistance in the capital.

They must travel more than 500 km (from the South 
to the North, crossing over the Western Sierra 
Madre mountain chain). They must also face state 
aggression. For its part, the Ministry of the 
Interior has organized a meeting of "all the 
sectors eager to find a solution to the Oaxaca 
problem" for this Wednesday. At the same time, it 
declared that "things have reached their limit in 
Oaxaca" and has threatened to send in 10,000 federal police.

At the very moment we write these lines, several 
Navy helicopters are patrolling the skies of 
Oaxaca. A police assault could result in a 
bloodbath. The teachers and the population are 
ready to resist. They want to live peacefully and 
want to ensure that democracy is respected. And 
they want the will of the majority to be 
respected --that is, for Governor Ulises Ruiz to leave.

That is why we are appealing to the unions of the 
whole world, particularly to the teachers' 
unions, to write to Carlos Abascal Carranza 
(Minister of the Interior) and Vicente Fox (President) to say:

-- No to repression against the teachers and the 
people in the State of Oaxaca, Mexico!

-- Respect the fundamental demand of the 
movement: Governor Ulises Ruiz Ortiz must step down immediately!

The first signers calling for international solidarity:

Professor Ezequiel Carre?o Rosales, 
Organizational Secretary, Section 22 of the 
SNTE-CNTE; Professor Fernando Mendoza Perez, 
Coordinator of the Executive Committee of Section 
22 of the SNTE-CNTE; Augusto Fernando Reyes 
Medina, member of the Executive Committee of 
Section 22 of the SNTE-CNTE; Professor Luis 
Vasquez Villalobos, delegate of the Union of the 
Workers of the National Autonomous University of 
Mexico (STUNAM); Javier Brena Alfaro, union 
delegate of the STUNAM; Gustavo Grajales, 
president of the Savings Fund of Section 40 of 
SNTE-CNTE; Misael Palma Lopez, member of Section 
7 of the SNTE (Chiapas); Russel Aguilar Brindis, 
member of the committee of technical secondary 
school struggles, Section 7 of the SNTE 
(Chiapas); Humberto Martinez Brizuela, professor 
of the National Polytechnic Institute; Armando 
Pasos Cabrera, member of the Independent Workers 
Union of the Autonomous Metropolitan University 
(SITUAM); Gema Lopez Limon, professor of the 
National Autonomous University of Baja California.

Send your messages to:
Vicente Fox Quesada, President of the Mexico: 
vicente.fox.quesada at presidencia.gob.mx

and

Carlos Abascal, Ministry of the Interior:
segob at rtn.net.mx

Send a copy to Fernando Mendoza Perez, Member of 
the Executive Committee of Section 22 of the SNTE-CNTE:
Alborotador_oax at hotmail.com

Also, please send a copy of your letter to:
Entente Internationale (France):
eit-ilc at fr.oleane.com
<br>
<br>
</blockquote></x-html>

The Freedom Archives
522 Valencia Street
San Francisco, CA 94110
(415) 863-9977
www.freedomarchives.org 
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From news at freedomarchives.org  Mon Oct  2 15:42:37 2006
From: news at freedomarchives.org (Anti-Imperialist News)
Date: Mon, 02 Oct 2006 12:42:37 -0700
Subject: [News] Bolivar,
	Zapata and Sandino Ghosts - October 11 - San Francisco
Message-ID: <6.2.5.6.2.20061002124131.044aad60@freedomarchives.org>



8 p.m., Wednesday, October 11

CounterPULSE

1310 Mission (at 9th) in San Francisco

Bolivar, Zapata and Sandino Ghosts and Revolution in South America

Left-leaning political movements are reshaping politics south of
the U.S. border. Mobilized indigenous cultures are forming new
social movements in the Andes, deposing governments and shifting
the left toward a more profound anti-state and anti-imperialist
politics. The state-sponsored programs in Venezuela called
"Bolivarianism" and the bottom-up, grassroots Other Campaign of the
Zapatistas in Mexico are altering agendas across the hemisphere.
How will the new social movements reshape left-wing politics in the
U.S.? How are indigenous movements re-emerging to change our
thinking in both South and North America? Tonight's discussion will
try to pull these threads together and open the discussion for our
own politics here in the Bay Area. (John Ross, Roxanne Dunbar- Ortiz, 
Aileen "Chockie" Cottier)

http://www.counterpulse.org/fall-winter-talks.shtml



CounterPULSE

1310 Mission Street (at 9th),
San Francisco
Info: 415.626.2060

ALL EVENTS ARE FREE TO THE PUBLIC
(donations are welcome to help defray costs)

City Lights Foundation is the nonprofit wing of City Lights
Booksellers & Publishers, working to advance literacy and
democratic access to knowledge.

In collaboration with Independent Arts & Media, this series will be
broadcast on KUSF-FM and archived online.







The Freedom Archives
522 Valencia Street
San Francisco, CA 94110
(415) 863-9977
www.freedomarchives.org 
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From news at freedomarchives.org  Mon Oct  2 15:44:28 2006
From: news at freedomarchives.org (Anti-Imperialist News)
Date: Mon, 02 Oct 2006 12:44:28 -0700
Subject: [News] Women's Report Back from the Philippines - SF - Fri Oct 13
Message-ID: <6.2.5.6.2.20061002124259.04496340@freedomarchives.org>


GABRIELA NETWORK AND THE NATIONAL LAWYERS GUILD PRESENT:
SEEKING ANSWERS
An all-women human rights delegation's
report back from the Philippines

Over 755 activists have been killed in the Philippines since Gloria 
Macapagal Arroyo took office in 2001.  Hundreds more have been 
harassed, displaced and/or disappeared.  Of these over half came from 
the organized opposition movement. 80 of those killed were women - 
half murdered while working as GABRIELA Women's Party organizers, one 
of the only women's electoral parties in the world.
In May 2006, GABRIELA Network USA organized an all-women human rights 
delegation with lawyers from the Center for Constitutional Rights, 
the National Lawyers Guild and the International Association of 
Democratic Lawyers in order to investigate the situation.


We invite the Bay Area community to the West Coast release of their 
findings, with an update on the current situation in the 
Philippines.  Join us to support the women in the Philippines in 
their quest for justice!
WHEN:   FRIDAY, OCT 13, 2006. 7-9 pm
WHERE:  NEW COLLEGE OF CALIFORNIA,
                777 Valencia
             (btw 18th and 19th - near 16 St BART)

SPEAKERS INCLUDE:
RACHEL LEDERMAN, National Lawyers Guild atty - delegation member
ANNALISA ENRILE, Chairperson, GABRIELA Network - delegation member
GEMMA MIRKINSON, GABRIELA Network member recently returned from 4 
months in the Philippines
         CULTURE - FOOD - DISCUSSION
         $7-10 (no one turned away for lack of funds)
         All monies to go to the GABRIELA Philippine Women's Legal Defense Fund
         For more information 
contact:  <mailto:sfbayarea at gabnet.org>sfbayarea at gabnet.org




The Freedom Archives
522 Valencia Street
San Francisco, CA 94110
(415) 863-9977
www.freedomarchives.org 
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From news at freedomarchives.org  Mon Oct  2 15:47:07 2006
From: news at freedomarchives.org (Anti-Imperialist News)
Date: Mon, 02 Oct 2006 12:47:07 -0700
Subject: [News] Leftists call for unity, not internal chaos, in Palestine
Message-ID: <6.2.5.6.2.20061002124606.044a6370@freedomarchives.org>

Leftists call for unity, not internal chaos, in true Palestinian 
cause for independence
http://english.pnn.ps/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=691&Itemid=1


Palestine News Network
Monday, 02 October 2006

Image
A spokesperson for the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine 
has come out Monday in condemnation of yesterday's clashes between 
Hamas' Government and Fateh's forces, emphasizing the need for a 
national unity government incorporating all political factions.

The leftist spokesperson said Monday, "The recent events in the West 
Bank and Gaza that have killed and injured dozens of Palestinians 
serve only the Israeli occupation."

Leaders from the Hamas and Fateh parties have seconded the leftist 
PFLP's concern, calling for restraint and a calming of the situation. 
Hamas and Fateh leaders have also stressed maintaining national 
interests over more narrow, partisan interests.

The PFLP spokesperson called upon members of the Higher Follow-Up 
Committee to play their role in "defusing the crisis and stopping the 
bloodshed." He called upon President Abbas and government leaders to 
work for an immediate de-escalation of the situation, stressing that 
further internal strife comprises the future of a Palestinian state.


The Freedom Archives
522 Valencia Street
San Francisco, CA 94110
(415) 863-9977
www.freedomarchives.org 
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From news at freedomarchives.org  Tue Oct  3 11:57:39 2006
From: news at freedomarchives.org (Anti-Imperialist News)
Date: Tue, 03 Oct 2006 08:57:39 -0700
Subject: [News] Protest continues against construction of Jewish museum on
 desecrated Islamic cemetery
Message-ID: <6.2.5.6.2.20061003085646.044a6d40@freedomarchives.org>

Nonviolent protest continues against construction of Jewish museum on 
desecrated Islamic cemetery
http://english.pnn.ps/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=698&Itemid=1

(Jerusalem) Palestine News Network
Tuesday, 03 October 2006

Palestinians inside the Green Line are holding a nonviolent sit-in 
throughout Tuesday in protest of the Israeli decision to build a 
Jewish museum on the ruins of an Islamic cemetery, Ma'man Allah, in Jerusalem.

Earlier this year the Israeli government began destroying the 
Palestinian cemetery, exhuming corpses amid widespread protest by the 
Al Aqsa Foundation to Preserve Muslim Holy Sites. United States and 
Israel are working together in their bid to build a "Museum of 
Tolerance" on the desecrated cemetery.

On Tuesday morning the Israeli Supreme Court resumed deliberating the 
case of whether to continue exhuming bodies from Jerusalem's Ma'man 
Allah Cemetery and go-ahead with museum construction. The Islamic 
position is to cancel museum plans and preserve the sanctity of the cemetery.

The Al Aqsa Foundation issued a statement Tuesday saying, "American 
Jews, clergymen and representatives of the American companies that 
support building the 'Museum of Tolerance' arrived from America 
especially to attend sessions of the Israeli Supreme Court regarding 
the cemetery in an attempt to influence the decision and give the 
museum heightened significance. Building this museum is absolutely racist."

Head of the Islamic Movement inside the Green Line, Sheikh Ra'ed 
Salah, sent a call to the Secretary General of the Organization of 
the Islamic Conference and to the Secretary General of the Arab 
League, Amr Mousa, to help save Ma'man Allah. Sheikh Salah outlined 
Israeli attacks on Islamic holy sites and gave a brief history of the 
current case.

Museum construction is being sponsored by a Los Angeles, 
California-based company to link the Jewish people living in 
Jerusalem to surrounding settlements, the Sheikh explained. The Al 
Aqsa Foundation appealed to the Israeli Supreme Court in February 
2006 to stop desecration of the cemetery. The court appointed a 
retired Israeli judge as mediator who attempted to convince the Al 
Aqsa Foundation to transfer the remains of Muslim's to another site. 
Ma'man Allah Cemetery has been in use in Jerusalem for hundreds of years.

The Al Aqsa Foundation not only rejected such a suggestion, but also 
indicated that the Israeli and American venture intended to mislead 
the public by saying they were ready to preserve part of the cemetery.

Also on Tuesday the Israeli Supreme Court heard a case in appeals in 
which Israeli companies are bidding to build apartments on another 
Islamic cemetery.


The Freedom Archives
522 Valencia Street
San Francisco, CA 94110
(415) 863-9977
www.freedomarchives.org 
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From news at freedomarchives.org  Tue Oct  3 12:00:26 2006
From: news at freedomarchives.org (Anti-Imperialist News)
Date: Tue, 03 Oct 2006 09:00:26 -0700
Subject: [News] Palestine - Searching for solutions as internal situation
 further deteriorates
Message-ID: <6.2.5.6.2.20061003085938.0449a360@freedomarchives.org>

Searching for solutions as internal situation further deteriorates
http://english.pnn.ps/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=697&Itemid=1

(Jenin) Ali Samoudi
Tuesday, 03 October 2006

Dozens of parties are scrambling to the dialogue table, searching for 
a way out of the escalation in internal aggressions prevailing 
between Hamas and Fateh. In Jenin, the Hamas attacks have left a 
negative air throughout the northern West Bank city. Popular Front 
for the Liberation of Palestine Central Committee Member, Nasser Abu 
Aziz, said Tuesday that a state of discontent and anger prevailing in 
the Palestinian street as fighting escalates.

He added today, "While we condemn the practices and all the reactions 
that are continuing, we strive to prevent an ignition within the 
internal front. We do not want the Jenin District, a stronghold of 
unified endurance in the face of Israeli occupation, to use its 
resistance against itself. Jenin will not be dragged into this 
unacceptable fighting. The bickering and all forms of abuse must stop 
now. They only serve the enemies of our people."

An Islamic Jihad leader, Said Mahmoud Sa'adi, said Tuesday, "Everyone 
is to stop the ongoing conflict, which serves only the enemies of our 
people. Bombing the Palestinian arena, whatever the reason, is 
condemned in all its forms. This contradicts all that we stand for."

Sa'adi continued to tell PNN, "We are working hard to stop the 
unfortunate events, and regain control of ourselves in order to 
prevent further deterioration in the situation in Jenin, a city and 
camp and district that is the epitome of unity and cohesion."

The comments were issued in the wake of dawn Monday's armed attacks 
on offices belonging to the Hamas movement in Jenin City. Local 
sources report that armed persons surrounded the building that houses 
the Hamas Information Office, and began shooting which led to the 
outbreak of a fire.

An attorney's office was damaged. He told PNN, "Just two weeks ago 
occupation forces stormed our offices. They took our files and 
computers. And now this. "

Later on Monday armed persons attacked the Islamic Club headquarters 
near Jenin's Central Mosque. And in yet another attack against Hamas, 
others set fire to a vehicle belonging to the Director of the Jenin 
Municipality's Engineering Department, Osama Abu Seif. His car was 
parked in front of his home in the Jabal Abu Dahir neighborhood. Fire fighters
contained the blaze.

The local General Secretary of Fateh said, "Risking our unity serves 
the schemes of the occupation."

Fateh called yesterday for a general strike in Jenin today in protest 
against Hamas' Executive Forces actions in the Gaza Strip. One of 
Hamas' most prominent local leaders, Sheikh Khalid Al Haj condemned 
all internal attacks, calling for "unity and the language of dialogue."

He said, "We warn you all to not fall into the Israeli trap. Hamas 
will strike to protect our people, our achievements, and our institutions."


The Freedom Archives
522 Valencia Street
San Francisco, CA 94110
(415) 863-9977
www.freedomarchives.org 
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From news at freedomarchives.org  Tue Oct  3 13:00:30 2006
From: news at freedomarchives.org (Anti-Imperialist News)
Date: Tue, 03 Oct 2006 10:00:30 -0700
Subject: [News] Urgent Call to Action - Help make low-income housing
 possible in New Orleans
Message-ID: <6.2.5.6.2.20061003095833.044aeeb0@freedomarchives.org>

(it is unclear about the most strategic people to contact or respond 
to, but it is important to take this step)

URGENT CALL TO ALL THOSE WHO SUPPORT THE
RIGHT OF RETURN OF DISPLACED PEOPLE
Take immediate action to make low-income and
affordable housing in New Orleans and Louisiana
possible.

Louisiana State Representatives Steve Scalise,
R-Jefferson, and Peppi Bruneau, R-New Orleans are
attempting to force the Louisiana Recovery Authority
(LRA) to eliminate low-income housing protections and
incentives provided in Federal requirements of the
Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) program.

The racist aims of Rep's. Scalise and Bruneau were
thinly veiled in a recent letter written to Governor
Kathleen Blanco. In the letter Rep. Scalise states,
"that policy would destroy the middle-class rebirth of
this region." He further stated that the policy
somehow "discriminates against many middle-income
families", and that providing certain basic supports
to low-income families "is social engineering in its
most blatant and egregious form."  The initiative of
Rep's. Scalise and Bruneau is another blatant attempt
to intensify and consolidate the ethnic cleansing of
New Orleans, and keep Black and working class families
from finding affordable housing so they can make the
journey home.

By Thursday, October 5th, the Louisiana State
Legislature must vote to approve or reject the
low-income rental housing repair program being
proposed by the LRA.
To counter the proposal of Rep's Scalise and Bruneau,
the People's Hurricane Relief Fund and Oversight
Coalition (PHRF/OC) is asking you to take 5 minutes
out of your schedule by Wednesday, October 4th to
call, fax, or email Louisiana Governor Kathleen Blanco
and the Louisiana State Legislature and demand that
the Legislature:
1. Support the proposal of the low-income rental
repair proposal of the LRA.
2. Deny the request for a waiver to HUD to eliminate
the low-income requirements mandated by the CDBG
program.
3. Apply all of the CDBG requirements to the LRA
process.
4. Appropriate at least 20% of the LRA funds to renter
transition and recovery programs, including assistance
for moving costs, deposits, and rent assistance.

For more information about the LRA rental housing
proposal see Times-Picayune Saturday, September 30th
at
http://www.nola.com/archives/t-p/index.ssf?/base/news-4/115959744637130.xml&coll=1
or visit the Louisiana Recovery Authority (LRA)
website at http://louisianarecoveryauthority.org.

For contact information on the Louisiana State
Legislature, please see our attachment.

  Louisiana State Legislature
SENATORS - (alphabetical)
(Followed by House of Representatives)
Senator Robert Adley adleyr at legis.state.la.us - (318)
965-1755
Senator "Jody" Amedee amedeej at legis.state.la.us -
(225) 644-1526
Senator Diana E. Bajoie websen at legis.state.la.us -
(504) 568-7760
Senator Robert J. Barham barhamr at legis.state.la.us -
(318) 244-5582
Senator Walter J. Boasso boassow at legis.state.la.us -
(504) 270-9258
Senator Sharon Weston Broome lasen15 at legis.state.la.us
- (225) 359-9352
Senator James David Cain cainj at legis.state.la.us -
(337) 328-7266
Senator Joel T. Chaisson websen at legis.state.la.us -
(985) 764-9911
Senator Sherri Smith Cheek
smithcheek at legis.state.la.us - (318) 687-4820
Senator Donald R. "Don" Cravins
websen at legis.state.la.us - (337) 234-9695
Senator Jay Dardenne dardennej at legis.state.la.us (225)
342-9788
Senator Ann Duplessis duplessisa at legis.state.la.us -
(504) 243-7795
Senator Reggie P. Dupre lasen20 at legis.state.la.us -
(985) 876-9902
Senator Noble E. Ellington ellingtn at legis.state.la.us
- (318) 435-7313
Senator Cleo Fields fieldsc at legis.state.la.us - (225)
342-9793
Senator Heulette "Clo" Fontenot
fontenoc at legis.state.la.us - (225) 686-0108
Senator "Nick" Gautreaux gautreauxn at legis.state.la.us
- (337) 740-NICK (6425)
1-866-740-NICK (6425)
Senator D. A. "Butch" Gautreaux
lasen21 at legis.state.la.us - (800) 562-3204
Senator Francis C. Heitmeier
heitmeierf at legis.state.la.us - (504) 361-6014
Senator Donald E. Hines hinesd at legis.state.la.us -
(318) 346-4619
Senator Ken Hollis hollisk at legis.state.la.us - (504)
828-9300
Senator Lydia P. Jackson jacksonl at legis.state.la.us -
(318) 676-7029
Senator Charles D. "C.D." Jones
websen at legis.state.la.us - (318) 362-5469
Senator Robert W. "Bob" Kostelka
kostelka at legis.state.la.us - (800) 508-5572
Senator Arthur J. "Art" Lentini
lentini at legis.state.la.us - (504) 780-8700
Senator Max T. Malone malonem at legis.state.la.us -
(318) 676-5733
Senator Robert "Rob" Marionneaux
lasen17 at legis.state.la.us - (225) 637-3623
Senator Joe McPherson lasen29 at legis.state.la.us -
(318) 484-2211
Senator Michael J. "Mike" Michot
lasen23 at legis.state.la.us - (337) 262-1332
Senator Willie L. Mount lasen27 at legis.state.la.us -
(337) 491-2016
Senator Edwin R. Murray murraye at legis.state.la.us -
(504) 945-0042
Senator Ben Nevers websen at legis.state.la.us - (985)
732-6863
1-800-881-2749
Senator Julie Quinn quinnj at legis.state.la.us - (504)
219-4640
Senator Craig F. Romero romeroc at legis.state.la.us -
(337) 364-8006
Senator John T. "Tom" Schedler
schedlet at legis.state.la.us (985) 727-7949
Senator Derrick Shepherd websen at legis.state.la.us -
(504) 371-0263
Senator Kenneth M. "Mike" Smith
smithmi at legis.state.la.us - (318) 628-3075
Senator Gerald J. Theunissen
theunisg at legis.state.la.us - (337) 824-0376
Senator J. Chris Ullo websen at legis.state.la.us - (504)
361-6690

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES (alphabetical)

83 Alario, Jr., John A. smithg at legis.state.la.us -
(504)340-2221
43 Alexander, Ernie larep043 at legis.state.la.us -
(337)262-1214
92 Ansardi, Glenn larep092 at legis.state.la.us -
(504)466-1331
102 Arnold, Jeffery "Jeff" J.
larep102 at legis.state.la.us - (504)393-5801
100 Badon, Austin larep100 at legis.state.la.us -
(504)896-1491
53 Baldone, Damon J. larep053 at legis.state.la.us -
(985)876-8872
29 Barrow, Regina larep029 at legis.state.la.us -
(225)359-9331
39 Baudoin, Clara G. larep039 at legis.state.la.us -
(337)896-1340
3 Baylor, Jr., Ernest larep003 at legis.state.la.us -
(318)635-1850
69 Beard, Gary larep069 at legis.state.la.us -
(225)756-3499
78 Bowler, Shirley larep078 at legis.state.la.us -
(504)738-1922
7 Bruce, Beverly G. larep007 at legis.state.la.us -
(318)872-1666
94 Bruneau, Emile "Peppi" larep094 at legis.state.la.us -
(504)288-1200
89 Burns, Timothy G. larep089 at legis.state.la.us -
(985)624-4492
2 Burrell, Roy larep002 at legis.state.la.us -
(985)624-4492
93 Carter, Karen R. larep093 at legis.state.la.us -
(318)676-7137
72 Carter, Robert J. "Robby"
larep072 at legis.state.la.us - (985)878-6377
18 Cazayoux, Jr., Donald J. larep18 at legis.state.la.us
- (225)638-8725
22 Chandler, Billy R. larep022 at legis.state.la.us -
(318)899-1193
70 Crane, Carl ccrane at legis.state.la.us -
(225)766-7274
40 Cravins, Donald R., "Don", Jr.
larep040 at legis.state.la.us - (337)943-2407
76 Crowe, A. G. larep076 at legis.state.la.us -
(985)643-3600
26 Curtis, Israel B. larep026 at legis.state.la.us -
(318)487-5417
84 Damico, N. J. larep084 at legis.state.la.us -
(504)349-8840
68 Daniel, IV, William B. larep068 at legis.state.la.us -
(225)755-1000
51 Dartez, Carla Blanchard larep51 at legis.state.la.us -
(985)385-7019
25 DeWitt, Charlie larep025 at legis.state.la.us -
(318)442-1513
10 Doerge, Jean M. larep010 at legis.state.la.us -
(318)371-3092
67 Dorsey, Yvonne larep067 at legis.state.la.us -
(225)342-9700
52 Dove, Gordon larep052 at legis.state.la.us -
(985)876-8823
12 Downs, Hollis hdowns at legis.state.la.us -
(318)251-5039
46 Durand, Sydnie Mae larep046 at legis.state.la.us -
(337)845-4240
71 Erdey, Dale larep071 at legis.state.la.us -
(225)686-2881
13 Fannin, James R. larep013 at legis.state.la.us -
(318)259-6620
27 Farrar, Rick larep027 at legis.state.la.us -
(318)484-2210
57 Faucheux, Jr., Robert R. larep057 at legis.state.la.us
- (985)651-3886
47 Frith, Mickey larep047 at legis.state.la.us -
(337)893-5035
11 Gallot, Jr., Richard "Rick"
larep011 at legis.state.la.us - (318)251-5019
35 Geymann, Brett F. larep035 at legis.state.la.us -
(337)491-2315
4 Glover, Cedric B. larep004 at legis.state.la.us -
(318)226-5665
98 Gray, Cheryl A. larep098 at legis.state.la.us -
(504)568-2098
66 Greene, Hunter larep066 at legis.state.la.us -
(225)275-8064
34 Guillory, Elcie J. larep034 at legis.state.la.us -
(337)491-2320
41 Guillory, Mickey J. larep041 at legis.state.la.us -
(337)457-0194
87 Harris, Terrell larep087 at legis.state.la.us -
(504)340-8808
95 Heaton, Alex larep095 at legis.state.la.us -
(504)865-0751
49 Hebert, Troy larep049 at legis.state.la.us -
(337)276-6564
32 Hill, Herman Ray larep032 at legis.state.la.us -
(800)259-2118
63 Honey, Avon ahoney at legis.state.la.us -
(225)771-5674
1 Hopkins, Roy larep001 at legis.state.la.us -
(318)227-2003
17 Hunter, Jr., Willie larep017 at legis.state.la.us -
(318)362-5492
104 Hutter, Nita Rusich larep104 at legis.state.la.us -
(504)361-6684
61 Jackson, Michael larep061 at legis.state.la.us -
(225)342-0774
91 Jefferson-Bullock, Jalila
larep091 at legis.state.la.us - (504)896-1478
33 Johns, Ronnie larep033 at legis.state.la.us -
(337)626-2010
16 Katz, Kay larep016 at legis.state.la.us -
(318)340-0800
65 Kennard, Donald Ray larep065 at legis.state.la.us -
(225)261-7382
20 Kenney, Lelon larep020 at legis.state.la.us -
(318)649-9100
36 Kleckley, Chuck larep036 at legis.state.la.us -
(337)475-3016
81 LaBruzzo, John larep081 at legis.state.la.us -
(504)833-7788
38 LaFleur, Eric larep038 at legis.state.la.us -
(337)363-5019
96 LaFonta, Juan larep096 at legis.state.la.us -
(225)342-2435
59 Lambert, Eddie J. larep059 at legis.state.la.us -
(225)644-4428
80 Lancaster, Jr., Charles D.
larep080 at legis.state.la.us - (504)837-4477
99 Marchand, Charmaine larep099 at legis.state.la.us -
79 Martiny, Daniel R. larep079 at legis.state.la.us -
(504)834-7676
14 McDonald, Charles larep014 at legis.state.la.us -
(318)281-8121
62 McVea, Thomas H. "Tom" larep062 at legis.state.la.us -
(225)634-7470
9 Montgomery, Billy Wayne larep009 at legis.state.la.us -
(318)949-2463
37 Morrish, Dan W. "Blade" larep037 at legis.state.la.us
- (337)824-3979
103 Odinet, Sr., Kenneth L. larep103 at legis.state.la.us
- (985)845-1205
44 Pierre, Wilfred larep044 at legis.state.la.us -
(337)261-0044
42 Pinac, Gil larep042 at legis.state.la.us -
(337)783-7963
54 Pitre, Jr., Loulan J. larep054 at legis.state.la.us -
(985)632-2001
73 Powell, Henry "Tank" larep073 at legis.state.la.us -
(985)386-2910
6 Powell, Mike larep006 at legis.state.la.us -
(318)869-0008
58 Quezaire, Jr., Roy larep058 at legis.state.la.us -
(225)474-2025
101 Richmond, Cedric larep101 at legis.state.la.us -
(504)242-4198
75 Ritchie, Harold L. larep075 at legis.state.la.us -
(985)730-2147
45 Robideaux, Joel C. larep045 at legis.state.la.us -
(337)984-1091
48 Romero, Errol "Romo" larep048 at legis.state.la.us -
(337)373-0020
24 Salter, Joe R. larep024 at legis.state.la.us -
(800)259-4135
82 Scalise, Steve sscalise at legis.state.la.us - (504)
888-9899
90 Schneider, Matthew "Pete"
larep090 at legis.state.la.us - (985)863-3642
88 Smiley, Jr., M.J. "Mert" larep088 at legis.state.la.us
- (225)698-9694
50 Smith, Jack D. webreps at legis.state.la.us -
(985)764-9122
8 Smith, Jane H. larep008 at legis.state.la.us -
(337)828-7778
30 Smith, John R. larep030 at legis.state.la.us -
(318)741-2825
56 Smith, Jr., Gary L. larep56 at legis.state.la.us -
(985)764-9122
60 St. Germain, Karen Gaudet
larep060 at legis.state.la.us - (225)687-2410
74 Strain, Michael G. larep074 at legis.state.la.us -
(985)893-6246
19 Thompson, Francis C. larep019 at legis.state.la.us -
(318)878-9408
85 Toomy, Joseph F. larep085 at legis.state.la.us -
(504)361-6013
23 Townsend, T. Taylor larep023 at legis.state.la.us -
(318)357-7048
31 Trahan, Donald M. larep031 at legis.state.la.us -
(337)984-0175
55 Triche, Jr., Warren J. webreps at legis.state.la.us -
(985)447-0999
86 Tucker, Jim larep086 at legis.state.la.us -
(504)393-5646
5 Waddell, Wayne larep005 at legis.state.la.us -
(318)219-9000
28 Walker, Monica larep028 at legis.state.la.us -
(318)253-8891
15 Walsworth, Michael A. larep015 at legis.state.la.us -
(318)340-6453
64 White, Mack "Bodi" larep064 at legis.state.la.us -
(225)791-2199 or (800) 408-9764
77 Winston, Diane G. larep077 at legis.state.la.us -
(985)893-6262
105 Wooton, Ernest D. larep105 at legis.state.la.us - (504)393-5649


The Freedom Archives
522 Valencia Street
San Francisco, CA 94110
(415) 863-9977
www.freedomarchives.org 
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From news at freedomarchives.org  Tue Oct  3 13:08:45 2006
From: news at freedomarchives.org (Anti-Imperialist News)
Date: Tue, 03 Oct 2006 10:08:45 -0700
Subject: [News] Break the Chains: Black Panther Prisoners & Repression Today
 - Sun Oct 15th, Oakland
Message-ID: <6.2.5.6.2.20061003100625.044b1c90@freedomarchives.org>

Break the Chains: Black Panther Prisoners & Repression Today

Commemorating the 40th Anniversary of the Black Panther Party

With Kathleen Cleaver, Ashanti Alston and BPP Grand Jury Resisters

Sunday, October 15th at 6pm

Eastside Arts Alliance
2587 International Blvd @ 26th Ave

Sponsored by Malcolm X Grassroots Movement, Eastside Arts Alliance, 
The Freedom Archives & It's About Time

Donations Requested (nobody turned away)

More information: 510 533-6629


The Freedom Archives
522 Valencia Street
San Francisco, CA 94110
(415) 863-9977
www.freedomarchives.org 
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From news at freedomarchives.org  Thu Oct  5 14:27:08 2006
From: news at freedomarchives.org (Anti-Imperialist News)
Date: Thu, 05 Oct 2006 11:27:08 -0700
Subject: [News] Ricardo Alarcon - The Truth About the "Embargo" on Cuba
Message-ID: <6.2.5.6.2.20061005112557.044a5090@freedomarchives.org>

http://www.counterpunch.org/alarcon10052006.html

October 5, 2006


An Economic War


The Truth About the "Embargo" on Cuba

By RICARDO ALARC?N

"To bring about hunger, desperation and overthrow of government"

State Department, April 6, 1960

A few weeks from now, the UN General Assembly 
will pass, with practical unanimity, a new 
resolution, the number 15, condemning the 
blockade on Cuba, which Washington tries to 
describe as barely an "embargo". The United 
States Government will try to justify its policy 
once again without success. They have been doing 
this for almost half a century now, concealing 
the truth behind their fabrications and lies.

The truth is, however, contained in documents 
that were kept secret by Washington until 1991. 
More than an embargo or blockade, it is in fact 
an act of ?economic warfare?, as the then 
secretary of state, Christian Herter, said in 
1959. An economic warfare that began with the 
triumph of the Revolution in January of 1959 and 
it is still in force today, a war which has 
always had the same genocidal purpose: to bring 
about hunger, misery and desperation among the people of Cuba.

Dictator Fulgencio Batista and his main 
accomplices plundered the Republic's Treasury and 
upon fleeing Cuba in January of that year they 
took with them more than 424 million dollars 
which came to rest in the United States and form 
the economic basis of a mafia often hailed by the 
US press as ?successful businessmen? of Miami. 
For Cuba the situation was critical and 
Washington knew it. The Department of State 
described it as such, saying in February 1959 that:

"the serious threat to the stability of the Cuba 
peso which results from the fact that following 
the departure of the Batista administration it 
was determined that the currency reserve of the 
country is depleted", something which, "would tax 
the governing abilities of any of the best leaders".

The Central Bank of Cuba sent a team of experts 
to Washington to seek a modest loan that would 
alleviate such a crisis. The issue was analysed 
by the National Security Council on February 12, 
1959. The decision was unequivocal: they would 
listen to the Cubans but offer them nothing at 
all. They didn't grant any kind of loan. They 
didn't even promise to look into the matter. 
Needless to say, not one cent of the money stolen 
from the Cuban people was ever returned.

The dispossession of Cuban bank reserves, which 
constitutes a blatant act of economic aggression, 
took place long before any revolutionary measure 
was adopted on the Island (the first being the 
Law of Agrarian reform, passed on May 17 of that year).

On March 26, 1959, the National Security Council 
also discussed the Cuba situation. At this 
meeting CIA's director, Allen Dulles, said that: 
"it was quite possible that the US Congress would 
do something which would affect the sale of Cuban 
sugar in the US". Depriving Cuba of its main 
source of income, sugar exports to the US market, 
would become a recurrent theme of Washington's 
secret meetings before, long before, 
relationships with the Soviet Union were 
re-established and before socialism was 
proclaimed to be Revolution's goal. They did that 
when sugar was still being grown on large landed 
estates and processed in factories -many of which 
were US owned- that had not been expropriated and 
were still in the hands of the Island's oligarchy and foreign companies.

US Government officials were aware of the 
consequences of such action. A report from the 
Department of State acknowledged that: "If Cuba 
were deprived of its quota privilege, the sugar 
industry would promptly suffer an abrupt decline, 
causing widespread further unemployment. The 
large numbers of people those forced out of work would begin to go hungry".

But they weren't just talking about sugar: "if we 
were to cut the Cubans off from their fuel 
supply, the effect would be devastating on them within a month or six weeks".

Nobody in Washington claimed to have been 
deceived. They knew that the actions taken 
against the Revolution would cause pain and 
suffering to all the Cuban people. They did it 
with premeditation and full knowledge of the 
effect, converting the act of genocide into a 
malicious political instrument. An analysis from 
this same Department, dated April 6, 1960 and 
approved with the signature of Assistant 
Secretary, Roy Rubottom, offers us explicit proof of this policy.

In this analysis it is flatly affirmed that:

"The majority of Cubans support CastroThe only 
foreseeable means of alienating internal support 
is through disenchantment and disaffection based 
on economic dissatisfaction and hardshipit 
follows that every possible means should be 
undertaken promptly to weaken the economic life 
of Cuba it should be the result of a positive 
decision which would call forth a line of action 
while as adroit and inconspicuous as possible, 
makes the greatest inroads in denying money and 
supplies to Cuba, to decrease monetary and real 
wages, to bring about hunger, desperation and overthrow of government".

Note that they acknowledged they should act in a 
manner "as adroit and inconspicuous as possible", 
something that fits with a criminal behaviour, 
and not just any crime, but rather one that has 
been particularly condemned by humankind: the 
crime of genocide clearly defined by the Geneva 
Convention of 1948 as any attempt to cause total 
or partial damage to any human group. What is 
this if it isn't precisely that: an attempt at 
?bringing about hunger and desperation? among all Cubans?

It is probably the most prolonged act of genocide 
in history. It began before the majority of 
Cubans alive today were born, meaning that they 
have spent their entire lives under the blockade.

Soon it will be condemned again by humankind as a 
whole. Once again the US administration will 
reveal its arrogance and ignore the demand being 
made worldwide. When will it end?

NB: All quotes are from the official documents 
compiled in the book published by the Department 
of State: Foreign Relations of the United States, 
1958-1960 Volume VI Cuba, United States Goverment 
Printing Office, Washington, 1991.

Ricardo Alarcon de Quesada is Cuba's Vice 
President and President of its National Assembly.


The Freedom Archives
522 Valencia Street
San Francisco, CA 94110
(415) 863-9977
www.freedomarchives.org 
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From news at freedomarchives.org  Fri Oct  6 16:31:58 2006
From: news at freedomarchives.org (Anti-Imperialist News)
Date: Fri, 06 Oct 2006 13:31:58 -0700
Subject: [News] Right-wing article about Israelis Contracted for US border
 controls
Message-ID: <6.2.5.6.2.20061006132909.044b4070@freedomarchives.org>

The American Free Press is a successor to The Spotlight, which was 
the publication of the right-wing Liberty Lobby. That being said, the 
information contained in this article can be found, albeit in less 
detail, from other articles in documents not intended for the general 
population including a long piece on the web site of the Heritage Foundation.

<http://www.rense.com/general73/iwn.htm>http://www.rense.com/general73/iwn.htm
Israelis Win Contract
To Secure US Borders
By Christopher Bollyn
American Free Press
10-5-6

   On Sept. 21, Michael Chertoff, the secretary of the Department of 
Homeland Security (DHS), announced that a consortium headed by the 
Chicago-based Boeing Company had won a multi-billion dollar contract 
to install sensors and radar along the U.S. border. The deal, the 
first part of a multibillion-dollar government plan designed to 
reduce illegal entry along the Canadian and Mexican borders calls for 
cameras, sensors and even unmanned planes.   When Chertoff was asked 
why DHS had chosen the Boeing-led group he declined to comment. The 
reason for Chertoff's silence, however, is telling: the Boeing team 
includes an Israeli military subcontractor which will play a key role 
in "securing" the U.S. border.   Of interest is the fact that 
Chertoff's Israeli mother played a key role in creating that country 
in its infancy.   The Boeing team, which will implement the DHS 
program called the Secure Border Initiative (SBI) along the northern 
and southern borders of the United States, includes a Merrimack, 
N.H.-based surveillance technology firm called Kollsman Inc., a 
wholly-owned subsidiary of Elbit Systems Ltd. of Haifa, 
Israel.     The Israeli-American team includes Unisys Corp., DRS 
Technologies Inc., L-3 Communications Holdings Inc., Lucent 
Technologies Inc., Perot Systems Corp. and the Israeli-owned 
Kollsman, which makes the thermo-imaging cameras used to monitor 
Israel's borders.   As Chertoff announced the awarding of the 
contract, estimated to be worth some $2.5 billion, he was giving a 
very lucrative and sensitive contract to an Israeli company with 
close ties to the Israeli military. The contract reportedly does not 
have a set value. Payments will be announced as parts for the system 
are ordered.     The work will be done in phases, with the first 
piece being a 28-mile stretch near Tucson, Ariz., Chertoff said. This 
first phase will cost $67 million, he said. Boeing's proposal 
includes some 1,800 towers along the borders with cameras developed 
by Israel's Elbit Systems Ltd. which can reportedly spot people up to 
9 miles away.   Elbit Systems says it is "the prime contractor and 
systems integrator for the Israel Police Border Control System, a 
computerized system for registration and control deployed at every 
Israeli border crossing.     "Elbit Systems has developed and 
integrated multi-layered solutions incorporating cutting-edge 
biometrics, optical ID and RFID [radio frequency identification] 
technologies. Our perimeter security solutions have also been adapted 
for energy infrastructures and offshore installations," the company's 
web site says.   "We are looking at a technology that is advanced and 
can pick a face in the crowd," Wayne Esser, capture team leader of 
the Boeing team, told Washington Technology.   Elbit provides 
Israel's military with a border security surveillance system with 
integrated sensors, radars, a "smart fence" and cameras.   TIES TO 
ISRAELI INTELLIGENCE   Kollsman is not the only player on the Boeing 
team with ties to Israeli military intelligence. As AFP has reported 
previously, Unisys Corp., chaired by Lawrence A. Weinbach, has 
integrated Israeli security software into the computer products it 
sells to the U.S. government and other clients. Software from Check 
Point Software Technologies of Ramat Gan, Israel, for example, is 
integrated into Unisys products.     Elbit Systems is directed by a 
high-level board that is comprised of former Israeli major generals, 
colonels, ambassadors, and former chiefs of Israel's largest banks 
and companies. The company's only non-Israeli director on its board 
of 18 members is Timothy Taylor, the British-born president and CEO 
of Elbit Systems of America. Taylor speaks to the U.S. media for the 
Israeli-owned company while the former Israeli fighter pilots and 
generals run the company from Haifa.   SBI is a Chertoff initiative 
that is meant to be "a comprehensive plan to control our borders and 
stem the flow of illegal immigration. "What we are looking to do is 
build a virtual fence," Chertoff said. "We want to know when anybody 
or anything is crossing the border."   While the Israeli press was 
quick to report that an Israeli company was part of the SBI border 
security program, Chertoff failed to mention it. "Elbit System's 
subsidiary Kollsman announced it would supply technology to identify 
threats, deter and prevent crossings, and apprehend intruders along 
U.S. borders," Israeli daily Ha'aretz reported.   Huntleigh U.S.A., 
another Israeli-owned security company, provided passenger screening 
at Boston's Logan Airport on the morning of Sept. 11, 2001. 
Huntleigh, which is wholly owned by the Israeli company International 
Consultants on Targeted Security (ICTS) apparently failed to 
intercept the Arab terrorists who hijacked the two planes that hit 
the World Trade Center, according to the government version. Now, the 
same administration that failed to stop the terror attacks of 9-11 is 
hiring an Israeli-owned company to help protect the entire U.S. land 
border.   Christopher Bollyn is a much-traveled international 
journalist currently based in Chicago, serving as Midwest bureau 
chief for American Free Press. He has written extensively on a wide 
variety of subjects including the controversy surrounding 
computerized voting systems, the Arab-Israeli conflict and the many 
unanswered questions surrounding the 9-11 terrorist attacks.   Lest 
we forget - Israeli security companies had the contracts for the 
security at the airports where the alleged 'Arab terrorists' were 
allowed to pass through to board the 911 flights. -ed



The Freedom Archives
522 Valencia Street
San Francisco, CA 94110
(415) 863-9977
www.freedomarchives.org 
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From news at freedomarchives.org  Fri Oct  6 16:47:04 2006
From: news at freedomarchives.org (Anti-Imperialist News)
Date: Fri, 06 Oct 2006 13:47:04 -0700
Subject: [News] Palestine - Leftist DFLP: Rice and the US rhetoric empty as
 ever
Message-ID: <6.2.5.6.2.20061006134607.044b3eb0@freedomarchives.org>

Leftist DFLP: Rice and the US rhetoric empty as ever
http://english.pnn.ps/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=720&Itemid=1

(Ramallah) Rashid Hilal
Friday, 06 October 2006

Image
After US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice met with President Abbas 
in Ramallah and later with Israeli officials, it was noted that the 
Israelis "were given no criticisms" despite the ongoing occupation, 
while the list of demands to the Palestinians was long.

President Abbas graciously described the meeting as "helpful" 
although it did not suggest that the US and Israeli political and 
economic blockade was any where near an end. The United States 
Secretary of State and the Palestinian President both said in a joint 
press conference that there is a great need to improve the heavily 
deprived humanitarian situation in Palestine.

However, coming from the US, these statements were intended to 
confuse the reality of the issue. The comments were invitations to 
Arab states and the United States to revive the 'peace process' by 
solving the 'Palestinian issue.'

Social Issues Chairperson in the Palestinian Legislative Council and 
member of the Political Bureau of the leftist Democratic Front for 
the Liberation of Palestine, Qais, Abu Laila, Abdul Karim, spoke with 
PNN. "The essence of the American moves thus far do not offer any 
concrete proposals for solutions to the core issues of the 
Palestinian-Israeli conflict, but focus on some of the issues that 
are the results of the ongoing conflict, rather than the reasons behind them."

Abu Laila said that between the lines of American talk to support 
President Abbas is a bid to "pour oil on the fire," and "incite civil 
war." By imposing the political blockade when Hamas took office, and 
the economic blockade that has destroyed the already tenuous economy, 
Hamas takes the blame. But before Hamas was in power, Fateh was and 
the situation, although workers were paid, was not much better. US 
Secretary of State Rice said that what is necessary is a Palestinian 
government capable of "meeting the needs of the Palestinian people." 
She did not mention the blockade, and certainly not the occupation.

Abu Laila pointed out, "The American talk about finding solutions to 
the living problems of the Palestinian people does not take into 
account that many of these problems are the result of Israeli 
politics, which cut off the Palestinian territories and prevent the 
advancement of Palestinian economic prosperity and ensure that the 
urgent needs of the Palestinians are not secured. It also did not 
take into account that the latest problems are due to the blockade 
imposed by Israel and the United States, and some other international 
powers, against the Palestinian Authority as a collective punishment 
because of the results of the recent elections."

Abu Laila said, "Instead of Rice discussing ways to address these 
difficult living conditions by eliminating the causes by  lifting the 
embargo and pressuring Israel to restore withheld Palestinian funds, 
we found this empty rhetoric."

In response to PNN queries to Abu Laila regarding US President Bush 
authorizing US Secretary of State to initiate movement to resolve the 
conflict in the region, Abu Laila said, "This authorization is 
theoretical, and once again comes with conditions on the 
Palestinians, arguing that there is no Palestinian partner. If we 
look at reality we see that this underlines the lack of American 
seriousness and the emptiness of such talk."

He told PNN, "If this move can seriously be taken through the 
Palestine Liberation Organization and the head of its Executive 
Committee, President Mahmoud Abbas, okay. If that would be able to 
find solutions to the issues raised, which would open the way to 
resolve internal Palestinian differences that impede the 
establishment of a national unity government, okay. It is true that 
differences arising internally is one of the most pressing elements 
that block our own political horizon, but the issue is the continuing 
Israeli aggression. And that is blamed on the people."

Qais Abdel Karim concluded, "Palestinians are again being blamed for 
Israeli aggression, for the US and Israeli blockade, and for 
suffering under occupation."


The Freedom Archives
522 Valencia Street
San Francisco, CA 94110
(415) 863-9977
www.freedomarchives.org 
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From news at freedomarchives.org  Sun Oct  8 14:07:11 2006
From: news at freedomarchives.org (Anti-Imperialist News)
Date: Sun, 08 Oct 2006 11:07:11 -0700
Subject: [News] Activists speak at FBI class in Quantico
Message-ID: <6.2.5.6.2.20061008105750.043bfb10@freedomarchives.org>

By Claude Marks and friends ? October 8, 2006

The FBI has recently asked several activists to 
speak to a class at its Academy in Quantico, 
Virginia about the very social movements that 
they are targeting for repression. The agent in 
charge, Andrew Bringuel, is a retired Major and 
worked with military intelligence. In his 
solicitation letter to activists he writes:

"I am an instructor/researcher at the FBI Academy 
at Quantico, Virginia. I teach a course that 
deals with understanding the motives and tactics 
of activist groups/individuals and the 
government?s response options. The class is 
taught to police executives from the United 
States and around the world through the FBI?s National Academy program.

"The class studies both historical and 
contemporarily significant groups in order to 
understand their motives and tactics. They also 
look at ways government can respond to maintain 
social order while resolving conflict. The class 
is taught as a graduate level course through a 
partnership between the FBI and University of Virginia."

Some people agreed to be part of the class. This 
decision raises serious questions about the 
principles guiding activists in their dealings 
with the FBI.  One person invited, Dr. Jerry 
Vlasak, refused the invitation (his exchange with 
the FBI follows). Unfortunately others have 
accepted the invitation, including some who have 
been leaders of radical movements in the past. 
While many young activists around the country are 
soul searching about whether they should talk to 
one of the numerous grand juries that have been 
convened around the country, some people decided 
that their input at the FBI?s class might, in 
some Machiavellian slight of hand,  help widen 
the split between the Bureau and its fascist 
masters. Despite attempts to justify this 
decision with left sounding language, it is clear 
that the real winners in this game of cooptation are the state and the FBI.

In a period of growing fascism, one of the 
benchmarks of activist resistance must be non 
collaboration with the state and all its 
agencies. As the FBI has amped up its attacks 
over the past couple of years against Muslims, 
Black Panthers eco-justice activists and animal 
rights organizers, they are eager to redefine all 
acts of resistance as terrorism and to get those 
who once might have supported militant resistance 
to repudiate it in the name of 
non-violence.  Apparently, some people were 
seduced by the FBI assurance that ?With 100 years 
of history of course mistakes were made.  Lessons 
learned from mistakes like COINTELPRO have led to 
reforms and oversight of the agency.?  This 
assertion strains credibility if one looks at the FBI?s recent track record.

Five former Black Panthers were jailed in 2005 
for not cooperating with the same agents that 
tortured them in New Orleans in 1973. The Green 
Scare rounded up dozens of animal rights and 
eco-justice activists several of whom were set up 
by the FBI. The threat of many years of 
imprisonment has shaken the principles of many 
young activists who agree to turn on their 
friends and cooperate for life with FBI 
investigators.  Members of the Black community in 
Florida were set up by an FBI agent provocateur. 
Blacks and/or Muslims are prosecuted and 
imprisoned as terrorists in Buffalo and Portland, 
Oregon. Middle East scholars are convicted for 
?aiding terrorists? because they support the 
Palestinian resistance against Israeli genocide 
and colonialism. Other professors are denied 
entry to the u.s. and their jobs have been 
threatened because they challenge the notion that 
it is irrational to hate the u.s. People are 
pulled off planes or denied entry into the u.s. 
because of their names, others are deported, 
communities flooded with agents whose purpose is 
to intimidate and frighten people into 
cooperation. Animal enterprise terrorism becomes 
a new club against people whose impact on 
business and animal research is effective ? long prison terms are meted out.

So what would possess activists to help teach a 
class to the FBI at Quantico in this atmosphere? 
Have they been oblivious to their recent 
activities or is there something more self-serving going on here?

We wonder when given the opportunity whether they 
questioned the FBI about the current CIA 
practices of dehumanizing the enemy through 
extraordinary rendition, torture and denial of 
basic human rights protected by international 
law.  Is it comforting to any of us that were 
able to sit down and have a ?human? conversation 
with these FBI agents on a one-to-one level?  Or 
is it, in fact, deeply disturbing?

Many victims of COINTELPRO still languish in u.s. 
prisons like Leonard Peltier, Mumia Abu-Jamal, 
Herman Bell, Oscar Lopez-Rivera and Marilyn Buck. 
How long and how many lives will it take for 
people to realize that whatever you say to the 
FBI can be used against you and your friends? Are 
these activists somehow above the fray?

Let us not forget that today?s agency has never 
been held accountable for the hundreds of victims 
of the FBI?s wrath ? the Fred Hamptons and Ana 
Mae Aquashes of the world
or to Filiberto Ojeda 
Rios who was assassinated by the ?reformed? FBI 
just a year ago in Puerto Rico?

*****************************************************************************

What Follows is an exchange made public in July 
by Dr. Jerry Vlasak who chose to reject the FBI?s 
offer of participating at the Quantico class and which is posted on the web:

<http://animalliberationfront.com/ALFront/AgainstALF/NAALPO-FBI.htm>http://animalliberationfront.com/ALFront/AgainstALF/NAALPO-FBI.htm

7 July 2006

Press Officer Turns Down FBI Offer to Speak at HQ in Quantico

Canoga Park, CA: Two weeks ago one of the North 
American Animal Liberation Press Officers 
received an unsolicited offer by email from FBI 
Headquarters in Quantico, Virginia to speak to a 
classroom full of "police executives".

As long as non-human animals continue to be 
oppressed, imprisoned, tortured and murdered by 
humans for their personal pleasure and profit, 
the Press Office will continue to support those 
brave warriors who risk their lives and freedom 
to fight for animal liberation. And we certainly 
have no plans to educate state police agencies on how to catch them.

The following reply was returned this week; the 
original request is reprinted below that.


July 4, 2006
Dear Mr. Bringuel:

While I appreciate your offer to speak to "police 
executives" from around the world at the FBI 
Academy in Quantico, VA, I must decline to do so. 
My role as Press Officer with the North American 
Animal Liberation Press Office is to explain and 
support the liberation of animals who are 
imprisoned, tortured, exploited, and murdered by 
the billions; the role of the Federal Bureau of 
Investigation and other state police agencies is 
to target, harass, imprison, or otherwise 
"neutralize" those who break unjust laws that 
perpetuate the oppression and slaughter of innocent, defenseless animals.

Because our goals are ideologically and 
diametrically opposed, there is no reason to 
believe that any information I impart to your 
classes will be employed in any manner other than 
to further your own illicit goals of suppression 
of liberation activities. I have no intention of 
aiding and abetting your agency by providing 
information and insights that might be used against activists.

I am aware that others from the animal 
rights/liberation movement have cooperated with 
your agency, but I am not interested in doing so. 
As you are no doubt aware, I have chosen in the 
past to speak to members of the U.S. Senate 
Environment and Public Works Committee on the 
subject, but they constitute an elected body that 
presumably can be educated to effect change that 
might benefit animals. Your agency has goals 
pertaining only to the maintenance of the status 
quo (or - as you state it so characteristically - 
the "social order") by quashing those who challenge immoral and unjust laws.

Perhaps one day the state will recognize its 
obligation to stop the oppression of non-human 
animals - not unlike governments that have been 
forced to recognize the rights of various human 
groups in places like Algeria, South Africa, Viet 
Nam, and here in the United States where black 
humans suffered (and continue to suffer) from inhumane treatment by whites.

Some nations have stopped the most cruel 
practices of veal crates, chicken battery cages, 
and cosmetic testing on animals - while others, 
like Barcelona, are legislating rights for some 
non-human primates. Until that day when non-human 
beings are afforded the right to be free of human 
domination, I will support those who risk their 
freedom for the animals and will continue to 
educate the media about why some activists decide 
to go underground to liberate animals and stop 
the horrific crimes perpetrated daily - and with 
your express blessings - against non-humans.

Sincerely:

Jerry W. Vlasak, MD
Press Officer
North American Animal Liberation Press Office
<http://www.animalliberationpressoffice.org/>www.animalliberationpressoffice.org


"When a person places the proper value on 
freedom, there is nothing under the sun that she 
will not do to acquire that freedom. Whenever you 
hear a person saying he wants freedom, but in the 
next breath she is going to tell you what she 
won't do to get it, or what he doesn't believe in 
doing in order to get it, he doesn't believe in 
freedom. A person who believes in freedom will do 
anything under the sun to acquire...or preserve his freedom."-- Malcolm X


Bringuel, Andrew wrote:

Dr. Vlasak;
My name is Andrew Bringuel and I am an 
instructor/researcher at the FBI Academy at 
Quantico, Virginia. I teach a course that deals 
with understanding the motives and tactics of 
activist groups/individuals and the government?s 
response options. The class is taught to police 
executives from the United States and around the 
world through the FBI?s National Academy program.
The class studies both historical and 
contemporarily significant groups in order to 
understand their motives and tactics. They also 
look at ways government can respond to maintain 
social order while resolving conflict. The class 
is taught as a graduate level course through a 
partnership between the FBI and University of 
Virginia. I bring in different speakers 
representing many different world views. I am 
looking to establish a speaker?s bureau so I have 
a ready group of available speakers for future classes.
I believe your insights as a leader in the animal 
rights community would be beneficial for the 
students. I have hosted Anthony Nocella and 
Charlotte Laws.*  Both provided valuable insight 
and felt the experience to be a positive one. I 
don?t have much of a budget for guest instructors 
but I can pay $600 for your expenses and time. 
The block of instruction would be 2 hours and I 
am looking for a speaker for the 2nd quarter of 2007 (February/March).
Let me know if you are interested or if you have any questions.
Thank you,
Andy Bringuel

* While the FBI mentions these two activists by 
name, there are others who attended. Be aware 
that this ?friendly? and educational approach may be ongoing!


The Freedom Archives
522 Valencia Street
San Francisco, CA 94110
(415) 863-9977
www.freedomarchives.org 
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From news at freedomarchives.org  Mon Oct  9 11:53:41 2006
From: news at freedomarchives.org (Anti-Imperialist News)
Date: Mon, 09 Oct 2006 08:53:41 -0700
Subject: [News] Panther DVD release @ AK Press Mon Oct
Message-ID: <6.2.5.6.2.20061009085223.043b38d0@freedomarchives.org>



http://akpress.org/2006/items/whatwewantwhatwebelieve

Monday, October 16th?What We Want, What We Believe DVD release
Film-showing and conversation with Newsreel 
archivist, Roz Payne and former Black Panthers
7:30pm at the AK Press Warehouse

Join us on the 40th anniversary of the Black 
Panther Party as we 
launch<http://www.akpress.org/2006/items/whatwewantwhatwebelieve> 
What We Want, What We Believe
a four-DVD collection chronicling the Panthers 
and their supporters. The DVDs?released to 
coincide with the  40th anniversary of the 
Panthers  ?include three acclaimed Newsreel 
films, and a mmassive quantity of rare and 
exclusive materials culled from Roz Payne's 
extensive collection of FBI documents, correspondence, and interviews.
We'll be playing selections from the DVDs, and 
Roz will be joined in conversation with former 
Black Panthers, Billy Jennings and Evans Hopkins, among others.

EVENTS ARE AT THE AK PRESS WAREHOUSE,
AK Press 674-A 23rd. St Oakland, CA
b/t MLK and San Pablo - near 19th St. BART and West Grand Exit of 80/980
For more info contact:
AK Press at 510.208.1700, akpress at akpress.org or visit www.akpress.org



What We Want, What We Believe: The Black Panther Party Library

Donald Cox (Included), Beverly Axelrod 
(Included), Elizabeth Fink (Included), Marilyn 
Buck (Included), Kathleen Neal Cleaver 
(Included), Roz Payne (Editor), and Bobby Seale (Included)
ISBN:
Publisher: AK Press
Release Date: 2006-10-10

ITEM OVERVIEW
"The invaluable Movement documentaries Newsreel 
produced furthered the work of the Black Panther 
Party and now provide the esdentail visual record 
of the Party's early days. This new dvd 
collection offers an extraordinary compilation 
that includes historic behind the scenes details 
taken from a wide range of interviews and 
contemporary events as well as the classic 
Newsreel films."?Kathleen Cleaver, Communications 
Secretary, Black Panther Partyy, 1967?1971


For the first time on DVD, AK Press is proud to 
present three acclaimed Newsreel Films on the 
Black Panther Party: Off the Pig; Mayday; and Repression.

Formed in 1967, the Newsreel film collective was 
dedicated to chronicling and analyzing current 
events. In their time, they produced more than 
three dozen films throughout the US and abroad. 
By working directly with the Black Panthers, 
Newsreel was able to explore realities often 
ignored by traditional media outlets, while 
producing documents that the Panthers and other 
activists could use in organizing their own 
communities. The results speak for themselves and 
stand as true testimonials to the spirit of 
community self-defense and political savvy the 
Panthers are celebrated?and were targetedd?for.

Accompanying the Newsreel films is a massive 
quantity of rare and exclusive materials culled 
from Roz Payne's extensive collection of FBI 
documents, correspondence, and interviews with 
Black Panthers and their supporters. It's all 
here, the government-sponsored repression, the 
trials, exile, triumph, and reunion.

What We Want, What We Believe is not a 
straight-forward documentary?the additional 
materials are like Roz Payne's home movies????but 
more like a tapestry woven from fragments of 
cloth. As a whole, these fragments present a rich 
and provocative history, straight from the mouths 
of Panthers, their supporters, and even the 
agents charged with neutralizing them.

These materials?over 12 hours?are crucial to our 
continuing ng understanding of the Black Panther 
Party and their legacy. Any student of American 
History, Black Studies, Political Science & Law, 
Film Studies, or Civil Rights struggles will find 
a wealth of valuable information in the Library.

A portion of the proceeds from this project will 
go to support Black Panther Prisoners through 
Books Behind Bars, the Jericho Movement, and the 
Human Rights Research Fund. We urge you to seek 
out these groups and donate time and resources to their ongoing work.

This 12-hour DVD features three films on the 
Black Panther Party and additional footage on their history and legacy.
Special bonus features: Documents from the Roz 
Payne Archives chronicling the movement and 
repression against it. English Language, Region Free
Disc One:
Three Newsreel Films, Interviews with Field 
Marshall Donald Cox, Footage from 35th Anniversary Reunion
Disc Two:
s with Former FBI Agents discussing COINTELPRO 
tactics, Footage from the Wheelock Academic Conference on the BPP
Disc Three:
Interviews with various movement lawyers discussing Panther cases
Disc Four:
Interviews with Newsreel members, DVD-Rom extras from the Roz Payne Archives





The Freedom Archives
522 Valencia Street
San Francisco, CA 94110
(415) 863-9977
www.freedomarchives.org 
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From news at freedomarchives.org  Wed Oct 11 11:14:29 2006
From: news at freedomarchives.org (Anti-Imperialist News)
Date: Wed, 11 Oct 2006 08:14:29 -0700
Subject: [News] Break the Chains: Black Panther Prisoners & Repression Today
 - Sun Oct 15th, Oakland
Message-ID: <6.2.5.6.2.20061011081427.044b59f0@freedomarchives.org>

Break the Chains: Black Panther Prisoners & Repression Today

Commemorating the 40th Anniversary of the Black Panther Party

With Kathleen Cleaver, Ashanti Alston and BPP Grand Jury Resisters

Sunday, October 15th at 6pm

Eastside Arts Alliance
2587 International Blvd @ 26th Ave

Sponsored by Malcolm X Grassroots Movement, Eastside Arts Alliance, 
The Freedom Archives & It's About Time

Donations Requested (nobody turned away)

More information: 510 533-6629


The Freedom Archives
522 Valencia Street
San Francisco, CA 94110
(415) 863-9977
www.freedomarchives.org  
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From news at freedomarchives.org  Wed Oct 11 13:39:39 2006
From: news at freedomarchives.org (Anti-Imperialist News)
Date: Wed, 11 Oct 2006 10:39:39 -0700
Subject: [News] Pyongyang 1, Bush 0
Message-ID: <6.2.5.6.2.20061011103825.044be4b0@freedomarchives.org>

http://www.counterpunch.org/

October 11, 2006


Wave Stick, Get Stung


Pyongyang 1, Bush 0

By JOHN FEFFER

Five years ago, when George W. Bush took office, North Korea didn't 
claim membership in the nuclear club. Its plutonium reprocessing 
facilities were frozen. It was even willing to negotiate away its 
missile program.

Instead of pursuing the diplomatic route, the Bush administration 
tried to ignore Pyongyang. Then came the schoolyard taunts such as 
lumping North Korea together with Iraq and Iran in an "axis of evil." 
When indifference and insult failed to move the isolated East Asian 
country, the administration accused North Korea of enriching uranium, 
which led to the unraveling of the 1994 Agreed Framework and the 
reigniting of a major crisis. To top it off, Washington began to 
squeeze Pyongyang economically with sanctions.

Pyongyang has refused to cry "uncle." Instead, it has replied in 
kind. With its missile launches in July and its recently announced 
nuclear test, Pyongyang has demonstrated that it can be as stubborn 
and as enamored of military playthings as the Bush administration.

With such a miserable track record in inducing behavior change, why 
has the United States continued to speak loudly and wield a big stick 
against a hornet's nest like North Korea? It might be, like North 
Korea's recent test, a fundamental miscalculation. The Bush 
administration, after all, has shown a pathological inability to 
learn from its mistakes. Or there might be a deeper, more malign 
intent at work.

Wave Stick, Hornet Stings

At first, the Bush administration followed the logic of its 
predecessors. It looked at North Korea through the prism of Eastern 
Europe. With a little nudge, the regime was supposed to topple just 
like the communist governments in Warsaw, Bucharest, and East Berlin. 
But North Korea showed remarkable resilience, surviving the collapse 
of its Soviet trading partner, several years of extreme famine in the 
mid-1990s, and then the containment-plus tactics of the Bush administration.

In the absence of a dramatic coup or military putsch in Pyongyang, 
the Bush administration had to demonstrate that it was not just 
twiddling its thumbs while North Korea unfroze its plutonium 
reprocessing facilities and moved full-speed ahead toward a nuclear 
arsenal. The faintest whiff of weapons of mass destruction had 
justified U.S. military intervention in Iraq. And all the United 
States could do with North Korea was call it names?

Thus were born the Six Party Talks, a multilateral effort involving 
the two Koreas, China, Russia, Japan, and the United States. A 
remarkable group of diplomats gathered to talk, but alas, not to 
negotiate. Guided by the
[]
uncompromising Vice President Dick Cheney, the Bush administration 
has viewed any meaningful negotiations with North Korea-and the 
prospect of any serious agreement-as simply prolonging the lifespan 
of Kim Jong Il's regime. The State Department was on a short leash. 
The Bush administration refused to negotiate bilaterally, North 
Korea's negotiating process of choice. In the Bush-Cheney lexicon, 
compromise equals appeasement and "Munich" stops all conversations.

Here's what the problem with the strategy of pointless talking was: 
North Korea was not satisfied with cat-and-mouse maneuvers. Its 
economy reeling and its population malnourished, the North Korean 
government wanted a deal. And the only thing worth trading that it 
possessed-or that the world thought it possessed-was a nuclear program.

The recent nuclear test is the logical consequence of the North's 
policy over the last four years. It developed a nuclear program to 
deter U.S. attacks, but it also needed a bargaining chip to trade for 
status, cash, and other goodies. It froze its nuclear program under 
the 1994 Agreed Framework, but probably kept some reprocessed 
plutonium in reserve just in case and began a covert 
uranium-enrichment program as a similar insurance policy. When the 
Agreed Framework collapsed in 2002, North Korea changed tactics, 
declaring that it did in fact have nukes, which served to strengthen 
its deterrent capabilities and increase its ask at the negotiating table.

But the Bush administration wasn't dealing. So North Korea ended its 
self-imposed missile moratorium last July. And when that didn't get 
the United States into one-on-one negotiations, it raised the ante 
once again with a nuclear test.

Such tactics should surprise no one. Pyongyang has begun giving the 
world advance notice of its actions. Psychologists call these signals 
a "cry for help." North Korea wants to negotiate, wants to avoid 
options that are clearly suicidal. But global 911, staffed by the 
inattentive Bush administration, is just not responding.

External Signal, Internal Audience

The nuclear test is a signal to the international community that 
North Korea refuses to be disrespected, have its sovereignty 
abridged, or suffer a full-frontal military assault. But the test 
also serves various internal purposes.

The staff of the country's nuclear complex-scientists, military 
officials, and government representatives-have an important stake in 
seeing their project through to completion. As George Perkovich 
perceptively argued in his book India's Nuclear Bomb, the team 
developing nuclear weapons is not simply a group of technicians that 
can be turned on or off depending on government whim. The nuclear 
complex develops political power within the overall government 
system. Tasked to create a bomb, it must demonstrate its success or 
it will lose that power. A nuclear test translates into bonuses and 
promotions, and consolidated political power within the system.

Another internal rationale is provided by the date of the test: 
October 9. North Korean leader Kim Jong Il formally took the helm of 
the Korean Worker's Party on that date in 1997. There have been only 
two leaders in North Korean history. Kim Il Sung founded the country 
and, despite often horrendous policies, enjoyed the adulation of the 
population. With the famine that took place on his watch and the near 
collapse of the country, Kim Jong Il has squandered his father's legacy.

The nuclear test is, in other words, a rather large example of 
overcompensation. Economic news out of North Korea hasn't been very 
positive. Heavy rains and flooding over the summer damaged the 
country's capacity to feed itself. Financial sanctions applied by the 
United States have helped stall any economic reforms. Even China, 
outraged over the July missile launches, has begun to put a gentle 
squeeze on its neighbor. There's not a lot of bread in North Korea 
and, though the Pyongyang Circus is quite good, such performances 
will not distract the population. Kim Jong Il might have as much 
charisma as a chunk of anthracite but only a handful of world leaders 
have pushed their countries past the well-guarded gates of the nuclear club.

But did North Korea really test the bomb? The verdict isn't yet in. 
The recent test might have been just a lot of TNT or it could have 
been a very small weapon tested unsuccessfully. However, from North 
Korea's point of view, the perception of deterrence is more important 
than the reality. It wants to prevent an attack. If the United States 
and others are scared off by empty underground caverns-like 
Kumchang-ri in 1999-or by a whole lot of dynamite, so much the cheaper.

To Strike or Not to Strike

Will an attack on North Korea be the administration's October 
surprise? The rally-around-the-flag effect of bombing North Korea 
would be overwhelmed by the sheer scope of the immediate 
consequences, not to mention the longer-term blowback. The Bush 
administration has insisted on keeping all options on the table, even 
though the Pentagon has made it clear that a military strike against 
North Korea would lead to retaliatory attacks that would kill tens of 
thousands of U.S. and South Korean soldiers and civilians. The 
Pentagon has also confessed that it would have great difficulty 
eliminating the dispersed nuclear facilities in North Korea.

For military, economic, and electoral reasons, it doesn't make sense 
for the Bush administration to launch an attack against any country 
at this moment. Alas, the administration seems to be singing only one 
tune these days, that old Talking Heads favorite: Stop Making Sense. 
The administration ignored the top-level Pentagon advice on Iraq. It 
could do so again with North Korea.

If the military option is not really on the table, the Bush 
administration is running out of choices. It is unveiling a new set 
of financial sanctions and wants inspections on all cargo going in 
and out of North Korea. But Pyongyang, while not exactly reveling in 
its isolation of late, is accustomed to being the odd man out. Kim 
Jong Il's regime endured several famine years; perhaps it calculates 
that two more cold-shoulder years from the Bush administration are survivable.

For some in the Bush administration, the nuclear test is cause for 
celebration. The coterie around Dick Cheney rejoices at the growing 
divide between North Korea and China, the more aggressive military 
and foreign policy of Japan, and the compromised efforts of South 
Korea to engage the North. The nuclear test is the most effective 
argument the Cheney crowd can use to defeat calls for diplomacy. An 
amplified North Korean threat works wonders on Capitol Hill and with 
our allies to push missile defense, more military spending, and the like.

But the recent test has not destroyed the diplomatic option. 
Pyongyang has reiterated its willingness to negotiate. It doesn't 
have much choice. A nuclear weapon can't feed its people or rebuild 
its factories.

The international community, through the UN, should by all means 
register its outrage at North Korea's act and translate that outrage 
into some concrete actions. But many years of sanctions haven't 
brought North Korea to its knees or back to the negotiating table. 
It's time for the Bush administration to make up for a half-decade of 
failed policies by talking seriously with Pyongyang, both bilaterally 
and multilaterally. Just inside the door, North Korea can still be 
persuaded to back out of the nuclear club.

John Feffer is the co-director of <http://www.fpif.org/>Foreign 
Policy In Focus for the International Relations Center, 
<http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1583226036/counterpunchmaga>North 
Korea, South Korea: U.S. Policy at a Time of Crisis (Seven Stories 
Press).and the editor of The Future of U.S.-Korean Relations 
(Routledge, 2006).


The Freedom Archives
522 Valencia Street
San Francisco, CA 94110
(415) 863-9977
www.freedomarchives.org 
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From news at freedomarchives.org  Thu Oct 12 11:56:24 2006
From: news at freedomarchives.org (Anti-Imperialist News)
Date: Thu, 12 Oct 2006 08:56:24 -0700
Subject: [News] A re-run of the Lebanon war in Palestine?
Message-ID: <6.2.5.6.2.20061012085529.044b0430@freedomarchives.org>

A re-run of the Lebanon war in Palestine?
Hasan Abu Nimah & Ali Abunimah, The Electronic Intifada, 11 October 2006
http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article5838.shtml

While Gaza starves, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice shakes 
hands with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas as they attend a joint 
press conference in the West Bank city of Ramallah, 4 October 2006. 
(<http://www.maanimages.com>MaanImages/Fadi Arouri)

There are ominous signs that the long-contemplated plan to overthrow 
the democratically-elected Hamas-led Palestinian Authority cabinet is 
about to enter its most dangerous phase: a political coup, supported 
by local militias, with foreign and regional backing. This could 
ignite serious intra-Palestinian violence. With Iraq providing a 
dreadful warning of how foreign occupation can foster civil 
bloodshed, everything must be done to expose and thwart this 
dangerous conspiracy.

The head of Palestinian Authority intelligence, and Fatah militia 
leader, Tawfiq Tirawi, said in an interview with the Sunday Times on 
8 October, "We are already at the beginning of a civil war, no doubt 
about it. They (Hamas) are accumulating weapons and a full-scale 
civil war can break out at any moment." The paper cited Palestinian 
sources saying that Palestinian Authority chairman Mahmoud Abbas "has 
notified the US, Jordan and Egypt that he is preparing to take action 
against Hamas." And, asserting that Hamas "are preparing for a war 
against us," Tirawi "forecasts that the violence would begin in Gaza 
and spread to the West Bank." Hamas leaders, including prime minister 
Ismail Haniyeh, have issued strenuous reassurances that they will 
never allow civil war, even as a Fatah-affiliated militia recently 
released a statement explicitly threatening to assassinate them.

Let us recall that in last January's legislative council elections 
the Islamic Resistance Movement, Hamas, resoundingly defeated Fatah, 
the nominally nationalist and secular faction founded by Yasir Arafat 
and which has dominated the institutionalized Palestinian movement 
since the 1960s. Fatah, led now by Palestinian Authority chairman 
Mahmoud Abbas, was widely rejected for its corruption and 
mismanagement of the Palestinian Authority which was founded under 
the Oslo Accords in 1994.

Coming a week after more than a dozen Palestinians were killed in 
fighting between Hamas and Fatah followers, Tirawi's latest comments 
could be seen as laying the groundwork for a full-scale and 
premeditated confrontation. A senior Fatah "security source," 
probably also Tirawi, had already told the same Sunday Times 
journalist last May that "[c]ivil war is inevitable" and that "Time 
is running out for Hamas." He warned that "We'll choose the right 
time and place for the military showdown. But after that there will 
be no more of Hamas's militias."

Is that time approaching? Abbas is being encouraged by his sponsors 
outside the country to take on Hamas. Tirawi's warnings followed US 
Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice's visit to the region which 
included a warm public embrace of Abbas. On October 5, Reuters 
reported that militias loyal to Abbas are receiving arms and training 
from the United States. "Expanding the size of the presidential 
guard," Abbas' personal militia, "by up to 70 percent under a U.S. 
plan," the report stated, "has become a central part of American 
policy since [Hamas] beat Abbas's Fatah in elections and took over 
the government." This apparent encouragement to resort to the bullet 
when use of the ballot failed to produce the desired results is a 
direct contradiction of the simplest principles of democracy, apart 
from its sheer immorality. This sounds bad enough, but it also looks 
like a repeat of the strategy in Lebanon where western powers 
apparently thought that Israel, as a local client state, could be 
used to strike a lethal blow at Hizbullah. The human and political 
results of that adventure, last summer's systematic Israeli 
destruction of Lebanon, speak for themselves. This time, Abbas and 
his forces would fill the role of local US client, and Hamas would be 
cast as Hizbullah.

The only outcome of such a confrontation will be another orgy of 
bloody violence. And almost certainly, support for Hamas would be 
strengthened, but among the Palestinian people there would be only losers.

There is good reason to fear that the moment is coming when this 
conspiracy will turn to the naked use of armed force, as the campaign 
to overthrow Hamas has escalated in stages. Just weeks after the 
January election, The New York Times reported that US and Israeli 
officials met at the "highest level" to plot the downfall of Hamas by 
"starving" the Palestinian Authority. It started with the US-EU aid 
cutoff, ostensibly to force Hamas to "recognize Israel" and "abandon 
violence." (When it was elected Hamas had already observed a 
year-long unilateral suspension of attacks on Israel, and its leaders 
strongly indicated a willingness to reach a "long-term agreement"). 
Israel escalated its military attacks on Gaza, killing and maiming 
thousands of civilians, and destroying civilian infrastructure 
including the only power station. Most Palestinians now face 
difficulties feeding their families. Israel kidnapped eight Hamas 
cabinet ministers and a quarter of the elected members of the 
legislative council, while Fatah leaders have continually agitated 
against Hamas, including organizing strikes and protests by Fatah 
loyalists among Palestinian Authority civil servants who have been 
deprived of salaries by the very international siege that Fatah 
leaders have winked at and even encouraged.

Efforts to bridge the political impasse by forming a "national unity 
government" have also failed because the Fatah election losers, 
backed by foreign powers, are demanding that Hamas, the election 
winners, abandon their policies and principles and endorse those of 
the defeated party. But none of this has worked. Despite the 
punishment, Palestinians under occupation are no more willing than 
ever to submit to Israeli tyranny: 67 percent "do not believe Hamas 
should recognize the state of Israel in order to meet international 
donor demands" even though "63 percent would support a Palestinian 
recognition of Israel as a state for the Jewish people after a peace 
agreement is reached and a Palestinian state is established," a 
September poll by the Palestinian Center for Survey Research found.

As violent incidents and provocations by followers of both factions 
mount, Abbas is considering other coercive means amounting to a coup: 
dismissing the Hamas cabinet, forming an "emergency" administration, 
and dissolving the Hamas-dominated legislative council to make way 
for new general elections which can be postponed indefinitely or at 
least until a Fatah victory can be engineered.

The danger facing Palestinians is acute. But let us be clear: it is 
not a threat of civil war. Among millions of ordinary Palestinians, 
whether under Israel's brutal occupation, living as second class 
citizens within the "Jewish state," or in forced exile, there is no 
disagreement remotely great enough that could get them to turn 
brother against brother and family against family in a civil war. On 
the contrary, Palestinians are united in their understanding of what 
afflicts them -- Israeli colonialism armed, backed and bankrolled by 
western powers. The danger is of an armed coup staged on behalf of 
these powers by a small minority, but which could drag more 
Palestinians into internecine fighting whose consequences are awful 
to contemplate.

Perhaps the most serious miscalculation Hamas has made is to 
underestimate the determination with which the results of democratic 
elections will be undermined and opposed if they do not suit the 
interests of Israel and other world powers. The reality is that the 
Palestinian Authority is not and has never been a government for the 
Palestinian people. The Palestinian Authority receives western 
backing only to the extent that it directly and exclusively serves 
their own and Israeli interests. It was designed to protect the 
Israeli occupation against its victims; no one will be permitted to 
turn it into a representative body that fights for the rights and 
interests of Palestinians. To avoid the lethal trap that is being set 
for them and the Palestinian people, Hamas will either have to sell 
out or get out.

Hamas has done the right thing by abandoning its campaign of suicide 
attacks on Israeli civilians, observing an ongoing voluntary truce 
and embracing politics. It should now abandon the effort to hold on 
to the wreckage of the powerless and discredited Oslo institutions. 
Instead, it should turn its considerable popularity, organizational 
skills and increased legitimacy into a full fledged campaign of civil 
resistance, mobilizing together with other sectors of Palestinian and 
global civil society against every aspect of Israeli colonialism and 
racism. This is the only thing it has not yet tried, and it holds out 
the best hope for a way out of the dark tunnel.

EI contributor Hasan Abu Nimah was Jordanian Ambassador in several 
European Union countries and at the United Nations in New York. Ali 
Abunimah is co-founder of The Electronic Intifada and author of 
<http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0805080341/theelectronic-20>One 
Country, A Bold-Proposal to End the Israeli-Palestinian Impasse 
(Metropolitan Books, 2006)


The Freedom Archives
522 Valencia Street
San Francisco, CA 94110
(415) 863-9977
www.freedomarchives.org 
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From news at freedomarchives.org  Thu Oct 12 12:01:58 2006
From: news at freedomarchives.org (Anti-Imperialist News)
Date: Thu, 12 Oct 2006 09:01:58 -0700
Subject: [News] Can We Call It Genocide Now?
Message-ID: <6.2.5.6.2.20061012090113.044c1c10@freedomarchives.org>

http://www.counterpunch.org/roberts10122006.html

October 12, 2006


"You're Either With Us or You're Dead"


Can We Call It Genocide Now?

By PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS

When does "collateral damage" so dwarf combatant deaths that war 
becomes genocide?

Bush's illegal invasion of Iraq has cost 655,000 Iraqis their lives. 
That is the conclusion of a study financed by the Massachusetts 
Institute of Technology's Center for International Studies and 
conducted by physicians under the direction of Johns Hopkins 
University epidemiologists. These are deaths over and above the 
pre-invasion mortality rate. Bush's illegal invasion raised Iraq's 
mortality rate from 5.5 deaths per 1,000 people per year to 13.3 
deaths per 1,000 people per year. The study is published by the 
distinguished British medical journal, The Lancet, and is available 
on the 
<http://www.thelancet.com/webfiles/images/journals/lancet/s0140673606694919.pdf>journal's 
online site (October 11).

The study uses a scientific method known as "cluster sampling." In 
87% of the deaths, the researchers requested death certificates, and 
more than 90% of the surveyed households produced the death 
certificates. Violence accounted for 601,000 deaths and disease and 
destruction of civilian infrastructure accounted for 54,000 deaths. 
The violent deaths are attributed to gunshot wounds, coalition air 
strikes, and car bombs.

Johns Hopkins University epidemiologist Gilbert Burnham says, "We're 
very confident with the results." Columbia University epidemiologist 
Ronald Waldman says the survey method used is "tried and true" and 
that "this is the best estimate of mortality we have."

When asked about the report, President Bush stated: "I don't consider 
it a credible report." Bush, of course, is not reality-based, and he 
knows that any unfavorable news is "enemy propaganda." That's what 
the neocons who pull his strings tell him, and that is what he believes.

What percentage of these 655,000 deaths were insurgents or 
"terrorists"? Probably 1% and no more than 2%. Bush's "war on terror" 
is, in fact, a war on Iraqi civilians.

Bush's invasion has also spawned sectarian conflict or civil war, 
although the Bush regime denies it. Even Bush is smart enough to know 
that "bringing freedom and democracy to Iraq" is not compatible with 
setting off a civil war in Iraq. Since Bush, the faith-based, 
believes that he is bringing "freedom and democracy to Iraq," he 
cannot accept the fact that he has started a civil war.

Hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians are not the only innocent 
victims of Bush's illegal aggression. The New York Times (October 11) 
reports that Department of Veterans Affairs documents show that about 
one in five US soldiers who have served in Iraq or Afghanistan have 
suffered at least partial disability.

To date more than 100,000 US troops who are veterans of these wars 
have been granted disability compensation. Although the US cannot put 
on the ground in Iraq more than 150,000 troops at one time, 1.5 
million troops have served so far and 567,000 have been discharged of 
which 100,000 are receiving disability payments.

Paul Sullivan, director of programs for Veterans for America, says 
that the current rate of injuries will produce 400,000 American 
veterans suffering 30% to 100% disability. Apparently, one of the 
severe forms of disability is post-traumatic stress, which does not 
count as a physical wound.

What is America's reward for Bush's illegal wars that have killed 
655,000 Iraqis, an uncounted number of Afghanis, and disabled as many 
as 400,000 US troops?

According to the US National Intelligence Estimate and to practically 
every Middle East expert, Bush's invasions have radicalized the 
Muslim Middle East, created legions of recruits for extremists, 
undermined America's puppet rulers, imperiled Israel, and destroyed 
America's reputation.

We are talking about over one million casualties that have no other 
cause than blatant lies by Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rice, the 
bloodthirsty neoconservative cabal that occupies Bush's subcabinet, 
and their corporate media propagandists, especially The Weekly 
Standard, Fox News, National Review, CNN, and the Wall Street Journal 
editorial page. The Bush regime deceived America and the world with 
its lies that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction that 
would be turned against the West by terrorists. By giving speeches 
that continually mentioned Iraq in the same context as 9/11, the Bush 
regime created the widespread impression, still prevalent among 
Americans, that Iraq was responsible for 9/11.

What kind of government would destroy the lives through death or 
disability of over one million people for no valid reason?

The same kind of government that fires its own lawyers for doing 
their constitutional duty. Navy lawyer Lt. Cmdr. Charles Swift was 
assigned the task of bringing Salim Hamdan to a guilty plea before 
the unconstitutional military tribunal that President Bush created 
for Guantanamo detainees. Instead, Cmdr. Swift did his duty and 
defended his client, winning in the US Supreme Court. The Bush 
administration retaliated by blocking Cmdr. Swift's promotion, which 
killed his military career and sent the chilling message to all US 
military and government attorneys that constitutional scruples are 
career-enders in the Bush regime. Anyone who stands for the US 
Constitution is against Bush and his neocon regime.

The Bush regime is proceeding exactly as the Nazi regime proceeded.
First, eliminate every person of conscience and integrity from the 
government. Second, redefine duty as service to the leader: "You are 
with us or against us"--a formulation that leaves no place for duty 
to the US Constitution. Patriotism is redefined from loyalty to 
country and Constitution to loyalty to the government's leader.

Americans are too inattentive and distracted to be aware of the grave 
danger that the neoconservative Bush regime presents to American 
liberty and to world stability. The neoconservative drive to achieve 
hegemony over the American people and the entire world is similar to 
Hitler's drive for hegemony. Hitler used racial superiority to 
justify Germany's right to ride roughshod over other peoples and the 
right of the Nazi elite to rule over the German people.
Neoconservatives use "American exceptionalism" and "the war on 
terror." There is no practical difference. Hitler cared no more about 
the peoples he mowed down in his drive for supremacy than the 
neoconservatives care about 655,000 dead Iraqis, 100,000 disabled 
American soldiers and 2,747 dead ones.

When Bush, the Decider, claims unconstitutional powers and uses 
"signing statements" to negate US law whenever he feels the rule of 
law is in the way of his leadership, he is remarkably similar to 
Hitler, the Fuhrer, who told the Reichstag on February 20, 1938: "A 
man who feels it his duty at such an hour to assume the leadership of 
his people is not responsible to the laws of parliamentary usage or 
to a particular democratic conception, but solely to the mission 
placed upon him. And anyone who interferes with this mission is an 
enemy of the people."

"You are with us or against us."


The Freedom Archives
522 Valencia Street
San Francisco, CA 94110
(415) 863-9977
www.freedomarchives.org 
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From news at freedomarchives.org  Fri Oct 13 15:14:01 2006
From: news at freedomarchives.org (Anti-Imperialist News)
Date: Fri, 13 Oct 2006 12:14:01 -0700
Subject: [News] Video on torture,
 Cointelpro & Panther GJ resisters to premiere at East Side event
 Sun 10/15
Message-ID: <6.2.5.6.2.20061013120736.044d0eb0@freedomarchives.org>

Break the Chains: Black Panther Prisoners & Repression Today

Commemorating the 40th Anniversary of the Black Panther Party

With Kathleen Cleaver, Ashanti Alston and BPP Grand Jury Resisters

First showing of new Freedom Archives video on Torture, Cointelpro & 
Panther Grand Jury resisters (a work-in-progress)

Sunday, October 15th at 6pm

Eastside Arts Alliance
2587 International Blvd @ 26th Ave
Oakland

Sponsored by Malcolm X Grassroots Movement, Eastside Arts Alliance, 
The Freedom Archives & It's About Time

Donations Requested (nobody turned away)

More information: 510 533-6629


The Freedom Archives
522 Valencia Street
San Francisco, CA 94110
(415) 863-9977
www.freedomarchives.org 
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From news at freedomarchives.org  Fri Oct 13 16:20:10 2006
From: news at freedomarchives.org (Anti-Imperialist News)
Date: Fri, 13 Oct 2006 13:20:10 -0700
Subject: [News] The Myth of the Spat Upon Vets
Message-ID: <6.2.5.6.2.20061013131855.044d2810@freedomarchives.org>

http://www.counterpunch.org/philion10132006.html

October 13, 2006


An Interview with Jerry Lembcke


The Myth of the Spat Upon Vets

By STEPHEN PHILION

Jerry Lembcke is the author of 
<http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0814751474/counterpunchmaga>The 
Spitting Image: Myth, Memory and the Legacy of 
Vietnam, He teaches Sociology at Holy Cross University.

Q: In the recent days the British general 
responsible for British troops in Iraq has make 
remarkably strong 
<http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0%2C%2C1921450%2C00.html>calls 
for British troops to be removed from Iraq. So 
it's pretty timely to have a discussion like 
this, since I'm finding that there are quite a 
few students who are opposed to the US occupation 
of Iraq, but are afraid to "go against" the 
soldiers, many of whom are friends or relatives. 
First thing, though, is, for the sake of 
Counterpunchers who haven't read your book The 
Spitting Image, maybe you could give a quick 
intro to the key arguments of the book.

Lembcke: I got interested in this topic in the 
runup to the Persian Gulf War in 90-91. There 
were students who were opposed to the war, but 
afraid to speak out because of what they had 
heard about the antiwar movement and veterans 
during the Vietnam War era. These stories of 
'<http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0430-21.htm>spat 
upon' vets were beginning to circulate in the 
news and students on campuses were picking up on 
these stories. I had never heard these stories 
before. So I got interested in where they were 
coming from, how long they had been told, who was telling them and so forth.

One thing led to another and I kept looking back 
in the historical records, when people were 
actually coming home from Vietnam and I found out 
that no, there was no record. Not only was there 
no record of people spat on, but none of anyone 
claiming that they were spat on. So then I got 
interested in the stories as a form of myth and 
found out that in other times and other places, 
especially Germany after WW 1, soldiers came home 
and told stories of feeling rejected by people 
and particularly stories of being spat on.

Like with the case of the Vietnam stories many of 
the 'spitters' were young girls and knowing that 
these things happened at abother time and place 
supposedly, I found out about a Freudian 
psychologist who wrote about male fantasies and 
treated these stories as fantasies, expressions 
of the subconscious, men who felt they'd lost 
manhood in the war. When I told a psychologist 
friend of mine in womens studies, she asked me 
who the spitters wereshe too thought it was 
likely a myth since the spitters were women, an expression of loss of manhood.

Looking a little further, I found that French 
soldiers returning from Indochina after defeat at 
Dien Bien Phu also told stories of being treated 
badly, rejected by women, attacked by women on 
the streets, having to take their uniforms off 
before going in public, being ashamed of their 
military service. These were very similar to 
stories circulating in the 1980's in the US. The 
time gap between the end of the Vietnam War and 
when the stories began to be told is also a sign 
that there is something of an element of myth or 
legend. That's the key part of the book, not 
whether or not such things, since it's hard to 
refute what isn't documented, ever happened, as much as the mythical element.

And of course we see how the rise of the myth had 
an effect on support for the war in Iraq.

Q: And what is the link that you see?

Lembcke: In a nutshell, most people remember 
there was pretty widespread opposition to the US 
going into Iraq with huge demos in March and 
April of 2003. And then there were a good number 
of 'support the troops' rallies that tapped into 
the popular sentiment that something bad happened 
to the troops when they returned from Vietnam. 
The very slogan "support the troops" with the 
yellow ribbons and all that sort of presumes that 
someone doesn't support the troops and that 
presumption is based on that sentiment, belief 
that when people came home from Vietnam they were 
treated badly and we don't want to do that again this time.

By having these rallies in 2003, the people who 
supported the war use support the troops as a way 
to support the war. A lot of these rallies told 
stories of Vietnam vets who had been spat on. I 
got calls from people in Florida, North Carolina, 
Vermont,news reporters who had been at these 
rallies and asking me, "What about these 
stories?". Sometimes they would even have men who 
said they were vets or family members who claimed 
they remembered someone being spat on. The myth 
was used to drum up emotional troops for the 
troops, or better said, to dampen down opposition 
to the war. Again, the same way it worked during 
the Persian Gulf War, some were afraid of being 
outspoken against the war lest they be accused of being 'against the troops'.

I teach at Holy Cross College and just the other 
day in one of my classes, in the context of 
talking about the context of the Bush 
administration's strategy of being very 
accusatory toward critics of the war policy as 
being 'cut and run' Democrats, 'soft on 
terrorism'With no more context than that, one of 
my students said she was 'undecided about the 
war, but as long as the troops were fighting it 
was really important to 'support the troops and 
we have to support the mission'Now is not the 
time to be critical of the war, it was, in her mindall mixed together.

That's the way it works on people's emotions. It throws them off-target.

The target is the war itself and what we need to 
be doing is opposing the war itself. Often 
emotions get kind of confused with this stuff 
about 'supporting the troops'. It creates just 
enough space for the administration to push on ahead.

Q: Yes, it seems to be a good strategy to 
distract from the main issue, namely the policy 
of making war itself. I never quite understand 
why it's so important to focus on the supporting 
the troops as so central an issue. It doesn't 
really matter, since the troops in fact have 
little, in fact no say, in war policies to begin with.

Lembcke: Yes, it confuses the means and ends of 
war, it becomes a form of demagoguery. It makes a 
non-issue an issue, 'support or not supporting 
the troops'. At a humanitarian level, none of us 
wants to put people in harm's way. The people who 
oppose the wars are most strident in that 
objective of keeping people out of the war. 
That's not an issue, but it keeps us from 
focusing on the war itself and talking about it. 
And one of the things I'm concerned about now is 
a certain strain of the anti-war movement ahs 
gotten caught up in this itself. There's a 
certain group of antiwar types who focus on what 
happens to the soldiers, how they're damaged 
psychologically, physically,I've been to a number 
of anti-war rallies now where all they talk about 
is PTSD and what happens to 'our boys' when we 
send them off to war. It's sort of a mirroring of 
the political right's approach. They make the 
'support the troops' ideology the basis for 
supporting the war, and some strands in the 
anti-war movement now mimic that we need to 
oppose the war by 'supporting the troops' and, 
I've been to some antiwar protests where very 
very little is said about the war itself!

We hear instead about getting the troops the help 
they need and heart rendering stories of parents 
of sons who have committed suicide after they 
come home, etc. That stuff from the anti-war left 
is as beclouding as similar rhetoric from the 
right, in that it takes us away from a political 
discourse, which we need in order to focus our 
energies around stopping the war and its causes.

Q: What's your sense in terms of how this myth is 
replayed now with vets coming home from Iraq and 
claims of their being 'abused' by the antiwar movement or sentiment?

Lembcke: I've heard a few of these stories. 
Again, in the spring of '03, stories circulated 
about soldiers being spat on. In New Hampshire a 
story went around that a woman in the National 
Guard had been pelted with a box of stones by 
antiwar teenagers. None of these stories have 
turned out to be supportable by any sort of 
evidence. And then, periodically, other stories 
like one in Seattle of a guy who was back from 
Iraq marching in a parade, 'spat on', 'booed', 
'called baby killer', etc. The same, no serious evidence.

Occasionally then I get reports of these, but 
I've always suspected if the war goes down as a 
'lost war', we'll hear more such stories, but the 
more important point, I think, is that the image 
of spat on Vietnam Vets is so engrained and part 
of the American memory and cultural sub-text, it 
almost doesn't have to be reaffirmed through 
stories of Iraq Vets being 'spat on' or 
'mistreated'. It's almost as though the Vietnam 
Spitting myth is a background that everyone 
'knows' about and when the President talks of 
Democrats not supportive of the war or otherwise 
baits antiwar people, the background that makes 
that resonant is the belief that something untoward happened to Vietnam Vets.

So it's not necessarily good news for the 
anti-war movement if we don't hear stories of 
Iraq Vets being 'spat on'. My fear is the 
mythical spat on Vietnam Vet is now so 
internalized as something that "happened', it 
doesn't have to be spoken anymore as a contemporary phenomenon.

Q: What's the significance of the documentary 
"<http://www.sirnosir.com/>Sir! No Sir" , which 
tells the story of the GI antiwar movement during 
Vietnam, in terms of what that film can tell 
students trying to organize antiwar movements on campuses across America today?

Lembcke: Oh, I think it's terribly powerful. Even 
thought there's no mention of Iraq, Afghanistan, 
or the War on Terror in the film, it seems that 
everyone that sees the film can extrapolate from 
it to the ways it applies to the wars that we're 
currently involved in. Probably the greatest 
impact it has is on young people in the military 
today. I've done quite a bit of public speaking at showings of the film.

First of all, it reminds even those of us 
involved in the antiwar movement as vets of stuff 
that they had forgotten about or informed us 
about things that were going on at that time that 
we didn't know about. They're kind of surprised 
to find out quite a few things about the GI 
antiwar movement that they didn't know.

Q: One of the things I was surprised to learn of 
was the extent of support shown to Jane Fonda by 
American soldiers stationed in Asia during the 
war at the 
"<http://www.rottentomatoes.com/click/movie-10000934/reviews.php?critic=all&sortby=default&page=1&rid=820716>Free 
The Army" tour that she, other famous actors such 
as Donald Southerland, and soldiers/vets 
organized at US bases. Considering all the media 
discourse about vets' anger at Fonda , I had no 
idea that some 60,000 soldiers had attended and 
enthusiastically received her at those shows, 
which served as an alternative to Bob Hope's 
pro-war tours at the time. Also the extent of 
African American soldiers in the antiwar movement 
was something I never fully heard about in 
histories of the antiwar movement, which the 
movie makes clear was very deep and militant.

Lembcke: I was in Vietnam in 1969 and got 
involved in Vietnam Veterans Against the War once 
I returned and yet there were things in that film 
that I had not known about at the time. On the 
one hand there was a lot in the news in the 
papers about the vets antiwar movement at the 
time, which I know now just from researching it. 
I don't think there was a blackout at all, often 
it was front page news and people knew about it.
One of the things I found interesting was looking 
at Stars and Stripes, the civilian published but 
military supported publication that soldiers got 
in Vietnam and it was all antiwar stuff. It 
reported the story of Billy Gene Smith, the GI 
accused of fragging an officer, which is featured 
in Sir! No Sir!. It had stories about soldiers in 
Vietnam wearing black armbands in support of the 
1969 anti-war Moratorium back home. It turns out 
Stars and Stripes is a pretty good source for 
information on the vets' and soldiers antiwar 
sentiment and movement back then!

So people knew of these things then. The more 
important story is what's happened to that in 
people's consciousness and memory. It certainly 
is gone now, even from people who were active in 
the vets antiwar movement then. Sir! No Sir! has 
helped to bring it back into the public memory 
and showing that a vets antiwar movement can 
happen now is very helpful for people teaching in 
college and high school. They can take this 
knowledge into the classroom and that part of the 
history can get back into the curriculum. Younger 
people will now get a different view of what happened then.

I've talked to a few soldiers back from Iraq, one 
a Holy Cross University Law School graduate who 
was an ROTC cadet who is back from Iraq and has 
spoken after showings of Sir No Sir! and likewise 
didn't know about the GI antiwar movement during 
Vietnam. She reports that there is a lot of 
opposition to the US occupation of Iraq among US 
soldiers in Iraq but it doesn't express itself 
because there's no organization, no organized 
communication between people. Maybe the film will 
play a catalyst role, if people see this film 
about organized GI opposition to the Vietnam War, 
it might inspire and even spark their imagination 
about the kinds of thing that can be done to 
oppose the war from within the military.

Q: And the significance of that for today?

Well, the GI antiwar movement became a vitally 
important part of the antiwar movement during 
Vietnam. And that is likely to be the case today 
also. Lots of people are asking what's the 
difference between today and Vietnam? Why isn't 
there a movement today? One possible answer is 
that the movement within the military is not 
quite congealed yet, but that the potential is 
there. Hopefully Sir! No Sir! can have an effect 
on accelerating that development a bit.

Q: One of the things that struck me about the 
film is that you saw that soldiers were not just 
protesting the war because of their equipment 
issues or technical matters about how the war was 
being conducted, but actually because they were 
against what was happening to the people of 
Vietnam because of the war and they were 
learning, while deployed there, about the actual 
history of the Vietnamese people's struggles 
against foreign occupation as opposed to what 
they were brainwashed to believe in boot camp or high school teachers.

Lembcke: Here's a big difference, namely the 
nature of the 'enemy' and how it's perceived. In 
the later years of Vietnam we came back rather 
sympathetic to the cause of the other side. One 
of the vets interviewed in the film, David Klein, 
talks of how he was shot and how he had shot a 
Viet Cong soldier. He then recalls how he looked 
at the fellow he had shot dead and realizes that 
this man was fighting for his country too, for 
freedom. That was a real consciousness raising 
moment for him and he dedicated moments like that 
to doing something to honor the loss of that 
man's life, namely to end the war and 
contributing to the other side's fight for 
freedom. I certainly came back in February 1970 
with such sentiments, though I'm not sure exactly 
how it happened. Surely conversations with other 
GIs and my own reading at the time helped with that.

But today it is harder to portray the 'enemy' in 
Iraq or Afghanistan in that kind of sympathetic 
way, there's a political challenge there for the 
American antiwar movement to understand what the other side represents.

It needs to get some grasp on what is supportable 
in what the other side is doing in Iraq and 
Afghanistan, like we did in the Vietnam War. 
Recall in the early phases of the Vietnam war, Ho 
Chi Minh and the Viet Cong were called terrorists 
and there tactics were called tactics of terror. 
Today we talk about the roadside bomb in Iraq, 
but during Vietnam there was the satchel charges 
were one of the main Vietnamese War.

Q: For those of us who haven't fought in a war, what is a Satchel Charge?

Lembcke: A briefcase that would be loaded with 
explosives, dropped off some place and would 
explode. The point I'm making is that early in 
the war in Vietnam the Vietnamese and the 
Vietcong weren't as viewed sympathetically as 
they were by the early 1970's. What changed was 
how they were represented in terms of what they 
were all about. I think we need to go through 
that rethinking process on Iraq now, though I'm not sure where that goes.

We don't right now have an embraceable 'other' as 
we did in Vietnam and what the complexity of the 
other side means, how it's to be sorted out, 
what's supportablebut we need to find if there is 
something there to be supportable and that can 
have a big impact on the military elements 
against the war, namely that there is an 
honorableness to the 'enemy' on the other side as 
was the case for GIs against the war in Vietnam.

Q: I always find it interesting to focus on what 
happens with US when it does negotiate with the 
armed opposition in Iraq, what the US's key 
demands are during such negotiations and how the 
US can't meet the oppositions' demands because of 
that oppositions' demands, no matter how low the 
bar is set, because those demands go against the 
interests of the US, given its actual goals in Iraq.

Lembcke: Most of us understand the war ended when 
the Vietnamese people won. And when we recognized 
that the sooner the other side wins, the war is 
over. The US is not gonna stop fighting until it 
stops, when the US is unable or unwilling to win 
the war. That conclusion is very sobering if it's 
applied to the war in Iraq. That's a pretty 
sobering thought, is this war going to go on 
until the US can't do so anymore and at what 
point is the US antiwar movement going to see 
that the war won't end until the other sides win 
and who is the other side? It's very complex, the 
other side is very divided, not a monolith. So I 
don't know how that lesson from Vietnam 
translates into something we can act on to inform our political work today.

Q: There's plenty of writing out there on the 
liberal left that we can't leave now because of the nature of the opposition.

Lembcke: Yes, there is that, but you know the 
pro-war elements during Vietnam used that logic 
too. They often said we can't leave now, we'll 
have so many losses or the 'bloodbath' that would happen if we left too soon

Q: I find that when I deal with people on the 
liberal-left who will argue that calling for 
leaving Iraq immediately is 'isolationism'. But 
if you argue back that this is not isolationism 
we are arguing, but that the US should pay 
massive reparations to the people of Iraq for the 
damage the US invasion and occupation has caused 
the Iraqi people-no reply forthcoming. They have 
no answer as to why we know that that is not 
going to happen if the US stays there or if it leaves!

But it opens up the question that people on the 
liberal-left who support staying there that the 
pro-war or lukewarm "anti-war" liberal left have 
no answer for, namely what is the purpose of what 
the US is doing in Iraq? It's just set in stone 
for them that if we leave things will be worse, 
even though the evidence now is so overwhelmingly 
that the US occupation is the key source of the 
violence we see in Iraq today. So much so that 
the argument that once was so common among the 
liberal left, "well the Iraqis want us to stay" 
has really collapsed under the weight of Iraqi 
realities. Now even the Iraqis polled are saying 
in big majorities in 
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/26/AR2006092601721.html>US 
State Dept. commissioned polls that they want us 
to leave now and it's ok to shoot US soldiers.

Lembcke: The NYT kind of buried that story on the 
inside, but the antiwar movement can use that 
information. We shouldn't have to make that 
argument, it should be apparent we're not 
welcome, but sometimes data helps to persuade.

Q: It also throws the light back on Iraqis, which 
the 'supports the troops' antiwar movement focus 
doesn't do. The focus is so often only on 
Americans as though the only impact is on 
Americans or it's the only one that matters, 
except for small periods like Abu Ghraib or Haditha

Lembcke: Yes, the war becomes all about us and 
erases Iraqis, much like we did during Vietnam 
erasing the agency of Vietnamese people.

Q: Yes, it's interesting that in the process, 
ironically, it ignores the agency of the soldiers 
and their potential role in stopping the war and 
recognizing the actual roots of war itself.

Lembcke: Yes, you know one of the best new 
sources of information for the antiwar movement 
is another film called 
"<http://www.sonyclassics.com/whywefight/>Why We 
Fight". I saw it with two classes and they 
haven't stopped talking about it. If they had 
heard before about the term 'military industrial 
compex", now it makes it more real. Now they 
think about the war beyond the slogans of "the 
war is for freedom, democracy'which is all most 
Americans know. The oil thing too has also become 
a kind of clich? they don't think about much. For 
my students those bumper stickered explanations 
are erased and the film puts the war in a much 
more material and realistic framing. It's a film 
that might have as important an impact as Sir! No Sir!

Stephen Philion is an assistant professor of 
sociology at St. Cloud State University in the 
Department of Sociology and Anthropology, 
teaching social theory, sociology of race, and 
China and Globalization. His writings can be 
found at his 
<http://stephenphilion.efoliomn2.com/>website. He 
can be reached at: <mailto:stephen_philion at yahoo.com>stephen_philion at yahoo.com


The Freedom Archives
522 Valencia Street
San Francisco, CA 94110
(415) 863-9977
www.freedomarchives.org 
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From news at freedomarchives.org  Mon Oct 16 08:53:27 2006
From: news at freedomarchives.org (Anti-Imperialist News)
Date: Mon, 16 Oct 2006 05:53:27 -0700
Subject: [News] Palestinian Women call for unity government or interim
 government
Message-ID: <6.2.5.6.2.20061016055235.044c5eb0@freedomarchives.org>

Women call for unity government or interim government; anything to 
engender reform
http://english.pnn.ps/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=800&Itemid=1

(Bethlehem) Najib Farag
Monday, 16 October 2006

In an appeal "for the sake of Palestine," the collective Palestinian 
women's organizations called for intensified dialogue to form a 
national unity government.

The women condemned internal fighting and violence, and called to 
remove armed persons from the streets and remove the political 
affiliations from security organizations. The organizations said 
today that the coalition government should be formed on the basis of 
the National Accord Document, which all parties agreed upon during 
the several-day national meetings earlier in the year.

The women's organizations pointed out the President Abbas and Prime 
Minister Haniya have already agreed on the Accord Document and so 
there is no need to hash through other agreements or external 
conditions. The two have agreed on something, and that is enough. The 
call is for the new government to be formed as early as the end of Ramadan.

The women's memo was signed by dozens of institutions and female 
officials, professional, and educators. Included was an additional 
call to create an interim government to function for one year, 
working to address internal affairs. The players should be 
independent in order to leave behind as much political muckraking as possible.

The issues of the economy and social deterioration must be dealt 
with, poverty and unemployment addressed, and the political and 
economic blockade must be broken to ensure that international aid can 
begin to flow and that the Israelis will pay taxes on the funds they 
froze. Administrative and financial reform is also required. These 
points are crucial, wrote the women, "for the good of Palestine." 
They continued to say that "organizing against occupation as the Wall 
takes more land, working to end occupation and human rights 
violations, these are the issues we should be dealing with."

The women also supported the role of the Palestine Liberation 
Organization as the source of the political authority to follow-up on 
the political file. Monday's memo called for immediate reform as "the 
country can no longer wait."


The Freedom Archives
522 Valencia Street
San Francisco, CA 94110
(415) 863-9977
www.freedomarchives.org 
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From news at freedomarchives.org  Thu Oct 19 17:43:01 2006
From: news at freedomarchives.org (Anti-Imperialist News)
Date: Thu, 19 Oct 2006 14:43:01 -0700
Subject: [News] Keith Olbermann "Special Comments" re: signing of the
 Military Commissions Act
Message-ID: <6.2.5.6.2.20061019144146.044dfd80@freedomarchives.org>


Keith Olbermann   "Special Comments" re:  signing of the Military 
Commissions Act signed by President Bush on Tuesday,  Oct. 17, 2006.

Need Real Player and DSL.

<http://www.crooksandliars.com/2006/10/18/countdown-special-comment-death-of-habeas-corpus-your-words-are-lies-sir/>http://www.crooksandliars.com/2006/10/18/countdown-special-comment-death-of-habeas-corpus-your-words-are-lies-sir/





The Freedom Archives
522 Valencia Street
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(415) 863-9977
www.freedomarchives.org 
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From news at freedomarchives.org  Fri Oct 20 12:41:34 2006
From: news at freedomarchives.org (Anti-Imperialist News)
Date: Fri, 20 Oct 2006 09:41:34 -0700
Subject: [News] How to Stay Out of Gitmo - Get a Nuke
Message-ID: <6.2.5.6.2.20061020094044.044ea580@freedomarchives.org>

http://www.counterpunch.org/day10202006.html

Weekend Edition
October 20 / 22, 2006


Get a Nuke


How to Stay Out of Gitmo

By SUSIE DAY

In case you've been too stunned by other 
newsworthy disasters to pay proper attention, the 
Military Commissions Act of 2006 was just signed 
into law. This law gives the U.S. government 
legal permission to do things they've been doing 
sub-legally for years, such as: designate people 
as "unlawful enemy combatants"; deny these people 
the right of habeas corpus; detain them for years 
without charges; and obtain evidence through "coercion."

If it only affected immigrants and foreigners 
captured in battle, this law would be bad 
enough--but when we learn that it also permits 
U.S. citizens to be deemed "enemy combatants," 
it's time to ACT! Here, then, are some tips on 
proving to the feds that you are not the enemy:

1. BECOME A FAMOUS MOVIE STAR. Hollywood 
celebrities rarely, if ever, spend years in 
Guant?namo without charges, surrounded by barbed 
wire and vicious dogs. Their movies may bomb, but 
they never do, thanks to the virulent Red Scares 
that purged the motion picture industry of all 
terrorists, with the possible exception of Mel Gibson.

When you become a famous movie star, you will 
receive: a dazzling smile, affordable health 
insurance, and a rock-hard sense of self-esteem 
that comes from millions of 
government-indoctrinated nobodies knowing who you 
are. Push comes to shove and you are sent to a 
detention camp, guards will treat you better. 
"Hey, isn't that Julia Roberts on that gurney? I 
loved her in Erin Brockovich. Maybe I'll let her call her attorney..."

2. EMIT NOXIOUS FUMES. No one will ever accuse 
you of Islamofascism as you proudly stand in 
solidarity with our great multinational 
corporations and spew harmful chemical, 
radioactive, and industrial waste into our 
ecosystem. By polluting rivers, the air, and 
low-income neighborhoods, you'll garner lots of 
government perks, too, including military 
contracts and tax-breaks you could only dream of 
as an ordinary, "save-the-whales" citizen. Best 
of all, your carcinogenic emissions will increase 
chances that, among the thousands of Americans 
who die each year from environmentally caused 
cancer, one or two will be terrorists.

3. SCAPEGOAT SECULAR HUMANISTS. Stuck-up, egghead 
Secular Humanists like Frank Rich, Molly Ivins, 
and Noam Chomsky say that Islamic extremists are 
not the real problem. They're right! The real 
problem is stuck-up, egghead Secular Humanists!

Secular Humanists have caused terrorism, global 
warming, and every major disaster for the last 
5,000 years--and it's our duty to stop them before they TAKE OVER THE WORLD!

FACT: these intellectual malcontents have turned 
from God and home-schooling to the golden calf of 
"Humanities"! FACT: since the Crusades, Secular 
Humanists have stood at the center of a vast, 
satanic plot to STOP God-ordained conquest and 
unite humankind through Logic, Science, and 
Enlightenment! FACT: Much of our U.S. 
Constitution was written by these depraved, 
happiness-pursuing "Enlightenati"! Would you want 
one of these "created equal" degenerates to marry your sister?

Why are we waiting? Let's show them God's logic. 
Let's show them the only way to prevent another 
Third Reich is with another Inquisition.

4. ACQUIRE A NUCLEAR WEAPON. If you are not an 
Arab, Communist, or person of color, announcing 
that you have a nuclear weapon capable of mass 
destruction will make you an instant ally of the 
United States! A small NB about the WMD, however: 
Do NOT make the mistake of that silly Iranian 
President, who followed the Non-Proliferation 
Treaty, inquired through proper channels about 
legally obtaining nuclear technology for 
"peaceful" purposes, and was called "Hitler" for 
his efforts. Please show that you are thoughtful 
enough to handle your ability to create perpetual 
nuclear winter by obtaining your WMD before you 
inform the U.S. government. To make absolutely 
certain you're in good standing, insist that the 
U.S. government call you "France."

5. DEVELOP AGORAPHOBIC CATATONIA. "All that is 
necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to 
do nothing." A wise man said that in the 18th 
Century--a wise, stupid man. This man never 
looked ahead to the 21st Century, to see that 
doing nothing would become the apogee of cutting-edge activism!

Remember the Afghanistan invasion? The Iraq 
invasion? All those meetings and lectures you 
went to, where you became "informed" and had 
"doubts" about WMD and al Qaeda connections? All 
that peace marching--once, with 10,000,000 people 
all over the world, so the destruction of 
millennia-old cultures and the slaughter of 
innocents wouldn't happen? It happened anyway.

It happened because you left the house.

To prevent further mayhem, it is necessary to 
effect social change at home, by nonviolently 
reading your email. Uh-oh: look at all those 
listserves on murder and torture and indefinite 
detention. They force you to devise a new 
activist strategy: You must play "Minesweeper" 
and "Pac-Man" for the next four hours.

Now, for direct action! Using psychological 
skills honed at your computer, it is time to 
emotionally, intellectually, and spiritually 
"shut down." This allows you to do radical civil 
disobedience while lying on your couch. As you 
remain in staunch protest, allow crises such as 
Darfur, AIDS, and our war on Iran to roll over you.

While they are rolling, turn on TV. Look, there's 
a Sex and the City rerun. Enter the world of 
beautiful people with no real problems, lots of 
sex, and million-dollar hygiene. Why does New 
York City suddenly have so few Black people? 
Isn't that gay person being treated like a pet? 
Doesn't matter. All good. Now, try to picture 
somebody water-boarding Sarah Jessica Parker. You 
can't. Ah, finally--you have effected social change.

Susie Day can be reached at: <mailto:sday at skadden.com>sday at skadden.com

? Susie Day, 2006


The Freedom Archives
522 Valencia Street
San Francisco, CA 94110
(415) 863-9977
www.freedomarchives.org 
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From news at freedomarchives.org  Mon Oct 23 08:41:48 2006
From: news at freedomarchives.org (Anti-Imperialist News)
Date: Mon, 23 Oct 2006 05:41:48 -0700
Subject: [News] White Liberals and Glass Houses
Message-ID: <6.2.5.6.2.20061023054100.044f19a0@freedomarchives.org>



White Liberals and Glass Houses: A Reminder that 
Black Radical Journalism is a Tradition
Jared A. Ball

October 21, 2006
VOXUNION MEDIA

Note: 
<http://voxunion.com/realaudio/coupradio/WhiteLiberalsMix.mp3>Click 
here for the audio version or visit 
<http://voxunion.com>voxunion.com for the stream and MP3 download options.


             Even as they decry the practice of 
exclusion among the mainstream press the white 
left-led media reform movement does the same to 
Black American and domestic or local news.  While 
just a brief overview, one far from being 
exhaustive in its study, this commentary is both 
a postscript to past analysis performed on the 
subject and a prelude of more in-depth 
forthcoming work.  However, following a recent 
study published by the white-left media watchdog 
group Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting or FAIR 
and in advance of my own participation at next 
year?s Media Reform Conference in Memphis I would 
at least like to propose the following for consideration.


This is precisely why I make mixtapes.  As crazy 
as it sounds to some FreeMix Radio: The Original 
Mixtape Radio Show, a Washington, DC-based freely 
distributed mixtape CD, is as likely to let an 
audience in on the real conditions of the United 
States, particularly Black America, or to allow 
for the airing of the real critical political 
hip-hop as any popular media including that 
produced from the white liberal left.  In other 
spaces I have, and will continue to, analyzed the 
fact that maybe more than any other popular form 
of musical expression political, or at least 
non-abusive hip-hop, is least likely to gain 
access to any airwaves in the United 
States.  Even my beloved WPFW Pacifica Radio here 
in DC with whom I currently work has an 
allegiance to jazz that relegates only 5 hours a 
week to hip-hop and that is it for the entire 
city when it comes to the particular form of 
which I now speak.  This leaves our youth solely 
at the hands and whims of a commercial pop 
culture world which, in the words of Jonathan 
Kozol, is bent on their 
?cognitive  decapitation.?  In terms of news or 
perspective little changes when it comes to the 
white left.  We agree that the right-led 
mainstream news environment is a destructive mess 
and many of us consider even attempting change in 
that arena a hopeless waste of time.  But perhaps 
we will yet again need to condemn our comrades on 
the left and further the development of more 
Black-centered progressive or radical journalism.


The 
<http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=2973>October 
13, 2006 edition of Counterspin ? the 30 minute 
weekly radio show from Fairness and Accuracy in 
Reporting a white liberal media watchdog group ? 
was dedicated to their recent study on PBS?s 
Newshour with Jim Lehrer which detailed the 
right-wing slant of the show and an overall lack 
of inclusiveness in major media.  Among the 
report?s findings were that on PBS?s Newshour men 
appeared 4 times as much as women, republicans 
twice as often as democrats and that only 15% of 
all guests were so-called ?people of color.?  But 
even with such distinguished guests as FAIR?s own 
Julie Hollar (who also co-wrote the study) and 
media scholar Robert McChesney founder of the 
media reform group Free Press nothing was 
mentioned of their own inclusiveness failure 
rates.  It must also be noted, parenthetically, 
that their standard of inclusion also remained 
fairly conservative in that it only measured 
republican versus democrat as if that latter is 
somehow enough of a distinction.  In other words, 
their study would be even more damning were it to 
include even more white radical perspectives of 
communism, socialism, anarchy, etc. not to 
mention were it to include the varied radical 
concerns among African Americans (or Africans in 
America or New Afrikans).  That is if inclusion 
of democrats is a standard then where are we to 
look for pan-Africanism or African Socialism?



But if we take their radio programs as signs of 
their particular range of coverage and 
perspective of that coverage, understanding as we 
do that FAIR, for instance, also publishes a 
print edition called Extra!, McChesney and Free 
Press all publish widely, etc. and so on, we 
would notice an absolute paucity of focus on 
African America.  Future analysis will expand on 
this but I am enough of a listener and reader (I 
read McChesney widely and have interviewed him 
myself twice and even once emailed him with these 
very concerns) I feel confident in saying that similar findings would result.



The FAIR study mentioned uses invited guests as a 
leading component in their analysis.  Being that 
I am not able to determine in all cases the race 
or ethnicity of guests by listening to them or 
reading their names in show summaries and 
recognizing that the inclusion of Black faces is 
not necessarily a guarantor of Black-centered or 
Black radical perspectives, I can make an 
assessment based on keynote topic selection as to 
whether or not particular attention was paid, in 
this case, to Black America.   If we just look at 
the last calendar year and the primary or central 
themes of Counterspin we notice that only four of 
those themes were potentially specific to the 
conditions or struggles of African Americans and 
every single one was related to Katrina (shows 
on: 10/14/05, 1/27/06, 3/10/06 and 9/1/06).  Each 
of these shows were follow ups on Katrina, but 
while we can give some benefit of the doubt, 
there would need to be further investigation to 
determine exactly what percentage of these 
stories were about Black people as opposed to 
issues of finance or the funneling of tax dollars 
via friendly no-bid contracts, etc.  Even still, 
the horrific event some thought would bring media 
into more of a discussion of race and class has 
largely failed to do so even within the media reform left wing.



             McChesney is no better in this 
regard.  In his weekly one-hour radio show Media 
Matters there has been little discussion of race 
and the Black struggle or current condition and 
when there is his invited guest expert is likely 
to be white male.  In roughly the last year he 
too has had only 4 shows which discussed race at 
all, and these not necessarily the condition of 
Black America or its ongoing struggle, and 2 of 
these shows had white male guests Robert Jensen 
(10/02/05) and David Roediger (7/24/05).  I wrote 
him recently an email reminding him that during 
these shows while he twice referenced writer and 
journalist Glen Ford (formerly of Black 
Commentator and now 
<http://blackagendareport.com>BlackAgendaReport.com) 
he had yet to actually invite him on as a 
featured guest.  McChesney did remind me of what 
I had known that in the 2 other instances 
Sundiata Cha-Jua (3/19/06) and Salim Muwakkil 
(1/29/06) had appeared bringing the grand total 
of Black guests to 2 in the course of roughly 50 shows in the past year.



             In preparation for our participation 
in Free Press? upcoming conference on media 
reform my 
<http://industryears.com>IndustryEars.com 
colleague Paul Porter too noted the lack of 
inclusion of Black voices and was even inclined 
to remark how ?Free Press is the Clear Channel of 
Media Reform.?  Porter continued, saying that, 
?It has become blatantly obvious that the media 
reform movement is as racist as media ownership. 
While we continue to lose ground daily for some 
strange reason our efforts often lead us to align 
with the groups that marginalize us.  Groups like 
Free Press and Democracy Now! have systematically 
added token voices to appear as our agenda's are 
the same. When you look at key reform groups over 
the years they consistently hire and speak to 
audiences that don't look or think like 
us.  Until we collectively form a unified 
partnership we will continue to be marginalized 
and basically used until further notice. I am 
sure I will hear the benefits from some of you on 
why we need to align with larger reform groups 
but the proof has been in  past history.  I am 
most interested in change.  Speaking at the 
Memphis media reform or conducting a panel is of 
no use unless it changes the landscape.?



Oh, and that beloved media reform movement and 
Pacifica radio favorite Democracy Now!, which 
airs 5 days a week?  In my 2005 study of that 
show I noted that of the 176 possible shows in 
the calendar year prior to the levies flooding in 
New Orleans only 21 shows or 12% had any focus on 
Black America.  Of those 21, 10 were historical 
references to the Civil Rights era, including 2 
about the historic ? yet re-emergent ? story of 
Emmitt Till, but only 4 with any contemporary 
focus.  Of the 4 all were with the late activist 
Damu Smith surrounding much of his organizational 
work on issues of politics and environmental 
racism.  One would hope that this powerful media 
outlet would not need to await another of the 
caliber of Damu before these issues gain 
coverage.  Or perhaps such a figure will go 
unnoticed because of such inattention.



Now, this is not to say that the white left is 
the cause of the problem.  But they are a 
problem.  The pattern of abandoning Black 
American concerns for those considered more 
pressing or more exotic is again playing out in 
2006.  The fact remains, that listeners to the 
radio programs discussed above will have a 
greater working knowledge of Iraq, Israel or 
Palestine than of Black America.  I am sure part 
of the response will be that there is a war or 
international news is sorely lacking in 
mainstream press.  No doubt this is 
true.  However, I think it is more of a return to 
the Black Power era of ?you don?t want us? The 
fuck you too! We can cover Vietnam or the 
environment or the whales!?  It is necessary to 
inform the nation of its role in and relationship 
to international politics.  However, an overly 
intense focus on international issues or to 
domestically tend only to cover issues at the 
highest federal levels that borders on copping 
out in that in each case the mostly white 
audience will feel appeased of its guilt in being 
complicit with a North American juggernaut and 
powerless to make real change.  More attention to 
local and domestic concerns would be more likely 
to challenge people to become more active in 
fixing, internally, the nation that most of the 
world rightly recognizes as the greatest threat to world peace.



But what we are seeing now are the remnants of 
the Civil Rights and Black Power era sellouts and 
conformists who have abandoned any attempt at 
domestic revolution in favor of challenging 
mainstream coverage of federal-level or 
international concerns.  In the end the white 
left follow an agenda set by the elite owners of 
media and the world and leave the rest of us 
unsupported, protected or covered.  The issue of 
communication, as Mark Lloyd has said, is a civil 
rights one but we are not seeing the same kind of 
white liberal, progressive or radical 
journalism  that supported those efforts and 
popular Black media has convinced us we need no 
such similar effort in Black journalism.



White America, as Dr. King said 40 years ago, has 
not done enough to condition itself out of white 
supremacy and there is a sense I get from this 
wing of political struggle that says, ?we did 
that Black stuff already.  You got your rights, 
you have celebrities and Black 
journalists.  We?re moving onward and 
upward.?  Well, despite the imagery Black America 
is no better off today than at any other 
time.  We remain imprisoned, ill-educated, with 
poverty and segregation levels that rival any 
other point in our history.  Plantation slavery 
remains the standard by which we measure the 
condition of African Americans which prevents us 
from seeing that what currently exists is not 
progress but the proverbial knife being pulled 5 
inches out of a 9 inch deep wound as Malcolm X 
once made clear.  And of any segment of the 
population who should be most able; given access, 
education and proclaimed criticism to see through 
the barrage of false imagery its our white 
friends of the upper-middle class left.  But more 
likely is the reality that the trend remains much 
like Dr. King again said of the white left, they 
have ?in devastating numbers walked off with the 
aggressor? where it appears as though the ?white 
segregationist and the average white citizen has 
more in common with one another than either had with the negro.?



Dr. Todd Burroughs and I have argued for the 
creation of a <http://voxunion.com>B-SPAN, a 
Black national news service dedicated to 
year-round coverage of Black struggle and 
condition.  I make mixtapes, do low-power and 
internet radio all of which is meant to support 
or exemplify underground and alternative 
journalism or the development of space for the 
expression of a decolonized culture.  But more 
will need to be done in media and political 
organization if real progress is to occur.  We 
must remember that the primary reason, despite a 
lack of intent to include from the white left, 
that Black Americans have eschewed ?media reform? 
as a ?movement? is because from the beginning it 
was and is understood that dominant media work 
for the dominant and that there is little chance 
of democratizing media in a decidedly 
un-democratic society.  From Sam Cornish to 
Marcus Garvey, W.E.B. DuBois, Ida B. Wells, 
Robert and Mabel Williams, Sam Napier, Malcolm X 
Black radicalism has always included an 
underground/alternative press component.  None 
argued that reforming media would reform society 
they all argued that in order to reform or 
revolutionize society a supportive media would 
have to be created.  And this is not exclusive to 
Black America.  As noted by Lauren Kessler, 
radical journalism is a ?tradition? not an 
anomalous ?time-bound? occurrence.  This brief 
look at the white left need only be a reminder 
that we cannot expect that movement to be 
ours.  Black America, whether in journalism or 
larger political struggle, is fast-approaching 
complete isolation mostly from half-hearted and 
apolitical media inclusion and journalistic 
practice but also from a complete inattention 
from our white left comrades.  As we work within we must also work without.



This has been Jared Ball for VOXUNION MEDIA and FreeMix Radio.


Dr. Jared A. Ball is an assistant professor of 
Communications/Media Studies at Morgan State 
University.  He is editor of the 
<http://wblinc.org>Words, Beats and Life Journal 
of Hip-Hop and Global Culture and is also the 
founder and creator of FreeMix Radio: The 
Original Mixtape Radio Show, a rap music mixtape 
committed to the practice of underground 
emancipatory journalism.  He and his work can be 
found online at <http://voxunion.com>VOXUNION.COM.


The Freedom Archives
522 Valencia Street
San Francisco, CA 94110
(415) 863-9977
www.freedomarchives.org 
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From news at freedomarchives.org  Mon Oct 23 11:57:55 2006
From: news at freedomarchives.org (Anti-Imperialist News)
Date: Mon, 23 Oct 2006 08:57:55 -0700
Subject: [News] Demand HUD Create Affordable Housing and Protect Public
 Housing in NOLA
Message-ID: <6.2.5.6.2.20061023085733.044ec280@freedomarchives.org>


URGENT CALL TO ALL THOSE WHO SUPPORT THE
RIGHT OF RETURN OF DISPLACED PEOPLE
Many of you have already pressured the Louisiana
legislature to make housing affordable for low-income
people. While we won a small battle, the war
continues. Now it is important to direct our lobbying
efforts at the Department of Housing and Urban
Development (HUD).  Please take immediate action to
demand that HUD protect public housing and make
low-income and affordable housing in New Orleans and
Louisiana possible.

Despite their recent defeat within the state
legislature, conservative members of the legislature
persist in trying to pressure HUD to waive various
aspects of the Community Development Block Grant
(CDBG0 enforcement statutes that seek to provide
housing to low-income families. If these statutes are
waived the vast majority of low-income renters
displaced New Orleanians won?t be able to come home as
there will be no housing stock in the city that they
could reasonably afford.

Similar forces in the region are also pressuring HUD
to destroy the existing public housing stock in New
Orleans. There are 5,100 units of public housing in
New Orleans? that were occupied before Katrina, many
of which were barely damaged by the flood. These units
could and should be used to house its prior occupants,
and where possible, to serve as transitional housing
to New Orleanians seeking to return home immediately.

If we don?t act in force, we will allow the
neo-conservative forces within HUD, like the Bush
appointed Secretary of HUD, Alphonse Jackson, to
implement the neo-liberal agenda of privatizing and
eventually eliminating government services for the
poor and neglecting its responsibility to provide
housing for internally displaced people.

We must not allow HUD to relax its existing housing
protections for low-income families, nor destroy the
public housing stock in New Orleans. The People?s
Hurricane Relief Fund and Oversight Coalition
(PHRF/OC) calls on everyone who supports the right of
return to call, fax, and email HUD National Secretary
Alphonse Jackson and other top HUD officials to demand
the following:
1. That no waivers be granted on the low-income
requirements of the Community Development Block Grant
(CDBG) funds to the State of Louisiana, Governor
Kathleen Blanco, and the Louisiana Recovery Authority
(LRA).
2. That HUD demand that Governor Blanco and the LRA
appropriate a percentage of the CDBG funds  held by
the LRA ? proportionate to the percent of internally
displaced people who were renters ? to renter
transition and recovery programs including assistance
for moving costs, deposits, and rent assistance.
3. That all of the public housing units in New Orleans
be reopened immediately. That there be no demolition
of any of the public housing units in New Orleans.

Call, email or fax the following HUD officials:

Alphonse Jackson
National Secretary
U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development
Telephone: (202) 708-1112
TTY: (202) 708-1455

Brian Montgomery
Assistant Secretary
Housing/Federal Housing Commissioner
Telephone: (202) 708-2601

Pamela Patenaude
Assistant Secretary
Community Planning and Development
Telephone: (202) 708-2690

Kim Kendrick
Assistant Secretary
Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity
Telephone: (202) 708-4252

Marvel Robertson
New Orleans Field Office Director
Telephone: (504) 589-7201
Fax: (504) 589-7266
TTY: (504) 589-7277
Email: LA_Webmanager at hud.gov

For more information contact PHRF/OC at (504)
301-0215. Visit www.peopleshurricane.org.

The Freedom Archives
522 Valencia Street
San Francisco, CA 94110
(415) 863-9977
www.freedomarchives.org 
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From news at freedomarchives.org  Mon Oct 23 12:31:16 2006
From: news at freedomarchives.org (Anti-Imperialist News)
Date: Mon, 23 Oct 2006 09:31:16 -0700
Subject: [News] BBC poll: World against torture, Jews in Israel in favor
Message-ID: <6.2.5.6.2.20061023092505.044e8340@freedomarchives.org>

One-third support 'some torture'
Nearly a third of people worldwide back the use 
of torture in prisons in some circumstances, a BBC survey suggests.

Although 59% were opposed to torture, 29% thought 
it acceptable to use some degree of torture to combat terrorism.

While most polled in the US are against torture, 
opposition there is less robust than in Europe and elsewhere.

More than 27,000 people in 25 countries were 
asked if torture would be acceptable if it could 
provide information to save innocent lives.

Some 36% of those questioned in the US agreed 
that this use of torture was acceptable, while 
58% were unwilling to compromise on human rights.


The percentage favouring torture in certain cases 
makes it one of the highest of all the countries polled.

The majority of those questioned in the BBC World 
Service poll - 19 of the 25 countries surveyed - 
agree that clear rules against torture in prisons 
should be maintained because it is immoral and 
its use would weaken human rights standards.

"The dominant view around the world is that 
terrorism does not warrant bending the rules 
against torture," said Steven Kull, director of 
the Program on International Policy Attitudes 
(PIPA), whose organisation helped conduct the survey.

Saving lives?

All of the countries surveyed have signed up to 
the Geneva Conventions which prohibit the use of 
torture and cruel and degrading behaviour.

But countries that face political violence are 
more likely to accept the idea that some degree 
of torture is permissible because of the extreme threat posed by terrorists.

Israel has the largest percentage of those polled 
endorsing the use of a degree of torture on 
prisoners, with 43% saying they agreed that some 
degree of torture should be allowed.

However, a larger percentage - 48% - think it should remain prohibited.

The question
Most countries have agreed to rules prohibiting 
torturing prisoners. Which position is closer to yours?
Terrorists pose such an extreme threat that 
governments should now be allowed to use some 
degree of torture if it may gain information that saves innocent lives
Clear rules against torture should be maintained 
because any use of torture is immoral and will 
weaken international human rights

Other countries that polled higher levels of 
acceptance of the use of torture include Iraq 
(42%), the Philippines (40%), Indonesia (40%), Russia (37%) and China (37%).

The Israeli figure conceals a stark difference in 
attitude within the country, split along religious lines.

A majority of Jewish respondents in Israel, 53%, 
favour allowing governments to use some degree of 
torture to obtain information from those in 
custody, while 39% want clear rules against it.

But Muslims in Israel, who represent 16% of the 
total number polled, are overwhelmingly against any use of torture.

Meanwhile opposition to the practise is highest 
in Italy, where 81% of those questioned think torture is never justified.

Australia, France, Canada, the UK and Germany 
also registered high levels of opposition to any use of torture.

The survey was carried out for the BBC World 
Service by polling firm Globescan and the Program 
on International Policy Attitudes (PIPA).

Views on torturing prisoners
Country Against all torture * Some degree permissible * Neither/Don't Know
Australia 75% 22% 3%
Brazil 61% 32% 8%
Canada 74% 22% 4%
Chile 62% 22% 16%
China 49% 37% 13%
Egypt 65% 25% 9%
France 75% 19% 6%
Germany 71% 21% 7%
Gt Britain 72% 24% 4%
India 23% 32% 45%
Indonesia 51% 40% 8%
Iraq 55% 42% 1%
Israel 48% 43% 9%
Italy 81% 14% 6%
Kenya 53% 38% 9%
Mexico 50% 24% 27%
Nigeria 49% 39% 12%
Philippines 56% 40% 5%
Poland 62% 27% 12%
Russia 43% 37% 19%
S Korea 66% 31% 3%
Spain 65% 16% 19%
Turkey 62% 24% 14%
Ukraine 54% 29% 18%
US 58% 36% 7%
Average 59% 29% 12%
*27,000 respondents in 25 countries were asked 
which position was closer to their own views:
    * Clear rules against torture should be 
maintained because any use of torture is immoral 
and will weaken international human rights standards against torture.
    * Terrorists pose such an extreme threat that 
governments should now be allowed to use some 
degree of torture if it may gain information that saves innocent lives.
Source: BBC/Globescan/PIPA


Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/world/6063386.stm

Published: 2006/10/19 02:07:46 GMT

? BBC MMVI



The Freedom Archives
522 Valencia Street
San Francisco, CA 94110
(415) 863-9977
www.freedomarchives.org 
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From news at freedomarchives.org  Tue Oct 24 08:47:37 2006
From: news at freedomarchives.org (Anti-Imperialist News)
Date: Tue, 24 Oct 2006 05:47:37 -0700
Subject: [News] World silent as fascists join Israel government
Message-ID: <6.2.5.6.2.20061024054649.044f8ac0@freedomarchives.org>

World silent as fascists join Israel government
Ali Abunimah, The Electronic Intifada, 24 October 2006

http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article5874.shtml


Official EU propaganda on display at Dublin airport claims that the 
"European Union is working for peace, security and stability 
everywhere." (Image: Ali Abunimah/EI)

In a frightening but long expected move, Israeli prime minister Ehud 
Olmert has brought the Yisrael Beitenu party into his coalition 
government. The party's leader, Avigdor Lieberman, is to be vice 
prime minister and, as "Minister for Strategic Threats," a key member 
of Israel's "security cabinet" in charge of the Iran portfolio.

Yisrael Beitenu is a dangerous extremist party with fascist 
tendencies that has openly advocated the "transfer" of Palestinians, 
including the transfer of Arab towns within Israel to a 
Bantustan-like future Palestinian entity. It has made clear that a 
Jewish supremacist state is more important than a democratic one. The 
party, whose strongest base is among Russian immigrants brought to 
Israel in the 1990s, surged at the Israeli election earlier this 
year, taking eleven seats in Israel's 120 seat Knesset.

Last summer, Israel launched a disastrous war of destruction against 
Lebanon, and continues its siege and onslaught against Palestinians 
in the occupied territories which has killed nearly three hundred 
people in three months and left hundreds of thousands without 
sufficient food, water and electricity. Lieberman has advocated even 
more harsh and criminal measures against the Palestinians and 
Israel's neighbors.

It is dismaying that the European Union, a key international actor, 
seems set to maintain warm, normal relations with this extremist 
government, thus giving it encouragement and legitimacy.

"You will understand that we cannot interfere with the setting up of 
a foreign government. This is a matter for which the concerned State 
alone is responsible," wrote Cristina Gallach, the official 
spokesperson for Javier Solana, the EU High Representative for 
foreign policy, in an email responding to a query about whether the 
EU would impose sanctions on Israel if Yisrael Beitenu joined the government.

Gallach added that "We think that both Israel and the Palestinians 
are aware of the responsibility they have in creating the favorable 
conditions for reactivating the Peace Process with the ultimate goal 
of having two States living side by side in peace and security." 
Other than such bland and cynical platitudes, Solana's spokesperson 
offered no hint of EU concern about the horrifying political 
developments within Israel that are certain to bring about further 
violence, escalation and needless suffering.

In an interview with an Israeli newspaper in September, Yisrael 
Beitenu leader Lieberman said: "The vision I would like to see here 
is the entrenching of the Jewish and the Zionist state...I very much 
favour democracy, but when there is a contradiction between 
democratic and Jewish values, the Jewish and Zionist values are more 
important." (Scotsman, October 23, 2006)

In addition to espousing ethnic cleansing, Lieberman has a long 
history of inciting discrimination, hatred and violence against 
Palestinians within the Jewish state and living under Israeli 
military occupation in East Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza Strip. 
When he served as minister of transport in a previous government, 
Lieberman called for all Palestinian prisoners held by the Israeli 
occupation authorities to be drowned in the Dead Sea and offered to 
provide the buses ("Lieberman blasted for suggesting drowning 
Palestinian prisoners," Ha'aretz, July 11, 2002). He has proposed to 
strip the citizenship of, and expel any Palestinian citizen of Israel 
who refuses to sign a loyalty oath to the Jewish Zionist state ("A 
Jewish demographic state," Ha'aretz, June 28, 2002).

In 2002, Lieberman declared, "I would not hesitate to send the 
Israeli army into all of Area A [the area of the West Bank ostensibly 
under Palestinian Authority control] for 48 hours. Destroy the 
foundation of all the authority's military infrastructure, all of the 
police buildings, the arsenals, all the posts of the security 
forces... not leave one stone on another. Destroy everything." He 
also suggested to the Israeli cabinet that the air force 
systematically bomb all the commercial centers, gas stations and 
banks in the occupied territories (The Independent, March 7, 2002). 
And, he has proposed bombing Egypt's Aswan Dam, despite that 
country's peace treaty with Israel since 1979. What will he propose 
to do to Iran?

Hebrew University professor Ze'ev Sternhell, a leading Israeli 
academic specialist on fascism and totalitarianism, was quoted by the 
Scotsman newspaper as terming Lieberman "perhaps the most dangerous 
politician in the history of the state of Israel."

Urgent action is needed to stem the growing threat to international 
peace and security that Israel presents. Rather than do anything of 
the kind, the office of the EU High Representative has set a new low 
standard, offering only appeasement and accomodation for Israeli 
extremism and apartheid. The claim that the EU does not interfere in 
the internal affairs of foreign governments is just a fig leaf for 
political cowardice and unwillingness to stand up to Israel or its 
backers; it is not remotely consistent with past or present practice 
in other cases.

Most glaringly, since Palestinians under occupation elected Hamas to 
lead the Palestinian Authority last January, in the Arab world's most 
free election ever, the EU has interfered in their affairs in the 
most irresponsible manner, imposing a total siege and cut off of aid 
that has directly penalized the Palestinian population, causing 
widespread hunger and deprivation. This siege is explicitly intended 
to force the Hamas-led authority to abandon the platform on which it 
was elected, or to force it out of office completely. (The EU claims 
it wants Hamas to recognize Israel and end violence, even though 
Hamas has observed a 22-month one-sided truce, halting attacks on 
Israel, and its leaders have issued repeated statements in favor of 
reaching a long-term agreement with Israel on the basis of equality 
and mutual, not one-sided, recognition.) The European Union, under 
Solana's personal stewardship, orchestrated this gross interference 
in the development of Palestinian democracy and punishment of those 
who tried to practice it.

And in 2000, EU countries took the unprecedented measure of imposing 
diplomatic sanctions on one of their own member states, Austria, 
after the far-right Freedom Party joined the government following 
elections. Although many voices criticized the EU for meddling in the 
internal affairs of a democratic country, one of the most vocal 
supporters of the sanctions was none other than Javier Solana, who on 
that occasion declared "I think Europe has given a very good example 
of how in important things -- things that have to go with principles, 
with values -- there's no possibility of compromise." ("Sanctions hit 
Austria," Reuters, February 4, 2000).

But when it comes to EU member states discharging their 
responsibilities to hold Israel accountable for its escalating 
violations of the EU-Israel Association Agreement, the Fourth Geneva 
Convention, numerous UN Security Council Resolutions, and basic human 
decency, the principles that Solana and many powerful others are so 
proud to boast of are nowhere to be found.

In this moral and political vacuum, it is ever more urgent to heed 
the call of Palestinian civil society to join the growing global 
campaign of boycott, divestment and sanctions.

Ali Abunimah is co-founder of The Electronic Intifada and author of 
<http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0805080341/theelectronic-20>"One 
Country - A Bold Proposal to End the Israeli-Palestinian Impasse" 
(Metropolitan Books, 2006)


The Freedom Archives
522 Valencia Street
San Francisco, CA 94110
(415) 863-9977
www.freedomarchives.org 
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From news at freedomarchives.org  Tue Oct 24 18:16:33 2006
From: news at freedomarchives.org (Anti-Imperialist News)
Date: Tue, 24 Oct 2006 15:16:33 -0700
Subject: [News] Liberty City Miami - Take Back the Land Update
Message-ID: <6.2.5.6.2.20061024151538.044eceb0@freedomarchives.org>


From: Max Rameau <afrimax at gmail.com>
Date: Oct 24, 2006 7:09 AM
Subject: Take Back the Land Update
To: afrimax at gmail.com

Greetings:

We did it!

Yesterday, a group of organizations and 
individuals, led by the Center for Pan-African 
Development, successfully took over land in Liberty City.

Fed up with broken government promises and stolen 
money, activists and residents took over the 
vacant publicly owned land on 62nd St. and NW 
17th Ave. in the Liberty City section of Miami. 
Miami police tried to evict us, but, having done 
our research in advance, we had lawyers and the law on our side.

We fed over 50 people and housed about 20. Today 
and through the week, we will continue to build 
our city. Our objective is not just to make a 
statement, it is to directly provide housing to 
poor Black people, to do for our community what 
the government and market are unwilling and uncapable of doing.

Please show your support by coming to our shanty 
town any evening you can. We are also in need of 
donations: wood, building material, blankets, 
tarps, tents, food, money and your time. We must 
show that the concept of direct people control 
over land is an idea with support.

Also, review two media pieces from yesterday at:

http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/local/15833004.htm
http://cbs4.com/video/?id=24699 at wfor.dayport.com

forward,

Max Rameau
Center for Pan-African Development

**********************************************


         Posted on Tue, Oct. 24, 2006


Housing activists set up camp in Liberty City
Protesters angry at a lack of affordable housing 
set up a tent camp on cityowned land in Liberty City.
BY DANI MCCLAIN
dmcclain at MiamiHerald.com

A group of activists pitched camp in the heart of 
Liberty City on Monday to protest what they 
called the failure of the city and Miami-Dade 
County to build affordable housing.

Carrying tents, tarps and banners that read, 
''Take back the Land!,'' the group said it was 
building a shantytown on a vacant, city-owned lot 
to house hundreds of the neighborhood's homeless.

''The government is an active part of the 
problem,'' said Max Rameau, spokesman for the 
Center for Pan-African Development, an activist 
organization. ``The city and the county have no 
interest in housing poor black people, so we will do it ourselves.''

About 40 people gathered at the corner of 
Northwest 62nd Street and 17th Avenue. As they 
pitched tents and served soup on the trash-strewn 
lot, passersby stopped to look.

Among them was 20-year-old Roderick Mitchell, a 
former resident of the Scott/Carver Homes. 
Mitchell said he and his sister have lived with 
relatives since their section of the huge housing complex closed in 2004.

Mitchell said he planned to join the group camping out Monday night.

''This statement can help,'' Mitchell said, 
gesturing at the activity around him.

But Rameau, one of the key organizers, said his 
intention is not simply to make a statement. The 
group, including members of Hope for the Homeless 
and Hopeless and the Fort Lauderdale chapter of 
Food Not Bombs, intends to provide shelter and food indefinitely, Rameau said.

The group did not notify the city of its intention to take over the lot.

Several city police cruisers -- including one 
carrying Neighborhood Enhancement Team 
administrator Von Carol Kinchens -- drove up 
about 30 minutes after the activists converged on the lot.

The officers warned the protesters they could face arrest but then left.

''As long as there's no criminal activity, we're 
just letting them vent out,'' said William Moreno, a department spokesman.

Rameau said the group is protected by a landmark 
legal case, Pottinger v. City of Miami, a 
class-action suit filed by the ACLU and settled in 1998.

The settlement prohibited Miami police from 
arresting homeless people engaged in 
''life-sustaining conduct'' -- such as sleeping 
or eating -- on public property when there is no shelter space available.

The people who set up camp on the lot should 
remain in the clear legally as long as they don't 
obstruct traffic or damage property, said Ray 
Taseff, an attorney affiliated with the Miami ACLU.

''I really can't see how the city can argue 
around it,'' Taseff said of the Pottinger 
settlement. ``The police did the right thing today.''



? 2006 MiamiHerald.com and wire service sources. All Rights Reserved.
http://www.miami.com

***********************************************
Forwarded by the Haitian Lawyers Leadership Network
***********************************************

The Freedom Archives
522 Valencia Street
San Francisco, CA 94110
(415) 863-9977
www.freedomarchives.org 
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From news at freedomarchives.org  Wed Oct 25 12:08:12 2006
From: news at freedomarchives.org (Anti-Imperialist News)
Date: Wed, 25 Oct 2006 09:08:12 -0700
Subject: [News] Lieberman Steps Out of the Shadows
Message-ID: <6.2.5.6.2.20061025090716.044e8250@freedomarchives.org>

http://www.counterpunch.org/

October 25, 2006


Lieberman Steps Out of the Shadows


Israel's Minister of Strategic Threats

By JONATHAN COOK

The furore that briefly flared this week at the decision of Israel's 
Prime Minister, Ehud Olmert, to invite Avigdor Lieberman and his 
Yisrael Beiteinu party into the government coalition is revealing, 
but not in quite the way many observers assume.

Lieberman, a Russian immigrant, is every bit the populist and racist 
politician he is portrayed as being. Like many of his fellow 
politicians, he harbours a strong desire to see the Palestinians of 
the occupied territories expelled, ideally to neighbouring Arab 
states or Europe. Lieberman, however, is more outspoken than most in 
publicly advocating for this position.

Where he is seen as overstepping the mark is in arguing that the 
state should strip up to a quarter of a million Palestinians living 
inside Israel of their citizenship and seal them and their homes into 
the Palestinian ghettoes being created inside the West Bank 
(presumably in preparation for the moment when they will all be 
expelled to Jordan). He believes any remaining Arab citizens should 
be required to sign a loyalty oath to Israel as a "Jewish and 
democratic state" -- loyalty to a democratic state alone will not 
suffice. Any who refuse will be physically expelled from Israel.

And, as a coup de grace, he has recently demanded the execution for 
treason of any Arab parliamentarian who talks to the Palestinian 
leadership in the occupied territories or commemorates Nakba Day, 
which marks the expulsion and permanent dispossession of the 
Palestinian people in 1948. That would include every elected 
representative of Israel's Arab population.

These are Lieberman's official positions. Apparently unofficially he 
wants even worse measures taken against Palestinians, both inside 
Israel and in the occupied territories. In May 2004, for example, he 
told a crowd of his supporters, in Russian, that 90 per cent of the 
country's Arab citizens should be expelled. "They have no place here. 
They can take their bundles and get lost." His speech could have had 
second billing with one by Adolf Hitler at a Nuremberg Rally.

Despite Lieberman's well-known political platform, Olmert has been 
courting him ever since Yisrael Beiteinu (Israel is Our Home) upset 
the expected three-way struggle between Olmert's Kadima party, Labor 
and Likud in the March elections. Lieberman romped home with 11 seats 
in the Knesset, making his party a sparring partner of both Likud and 
the popular religious fundamentalist party Shas.

According to reports in the Israeli media, Lieberman has not joined 
the coalition until now because he has been playing hard to get, 
making increasing demands of Olmert before agreeing to sign up for 
the government. His hand has grown stronger too: according to opinion 
polls, he is now the most popular politician in Israel after Binyamin 
Netanyahu, leader of the Likud party.

In the newly established post of Minister for Strategic Threats, 
Lieberman -- the avowed Arab hater -- will shape Israel's response to 
Iran, leading the chorus threats being made by Israel that the 
country is only a hair's 
<http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0745325556/counterpunchmaga>
[]
breadth from dropping bombs, possibly nuclear warheads, on Tehran. 
After that, he will presumably help the government decide what other 
"strategic threats" it faces.

While Olmert enthuses over Lieberman, most in the Labor party seem 
quietly resigned to his inclusion. Labor's elder statesman and former 
leader, Shimon Peres, says he has no objections, so long as Lieberman 
does not challenge the core policies agreed by Kadima and Labor. 
This, of course, is precisely what Lieberman is doing -- it was the 
price of the bargain he struck with Olmert. Lieberman wants no peace 
overtures to the Palestinians, and favours the hardline neoliberal 
economic policies pursued by Kadima.

On Wednesday the Labor leader Amir Peretz, a supposed socialist and 
former head of the Israeli trade union movement, accepted Lieberman's 
entry to the coalition, as Olmert surely knew he would. In typical 
Labor style, Peretz bought off his conscience by insisting on a 
package of modest benefits for Arab citizens, the same Arab citizens 
Lieberman wants expelled. The last time the government made a similar 
promise to its Arab minority back in late 2001 -- when the prime 
minister of the day, Ehud Barak, needed their votes -- the $4 million 
pledge was broken immediately after the election.

So why are Israel's politicians, of the left and right, so 
comfortable sitting with Lieberman, the leader of Israel's only 
unquestionably fascist party? Because, in truth, Lieberman is not the 
maverick politician of popular imagination, even if he is every bit 
the racist -- a Jewish Jorg Haider or Jean Marie Le Pen.

In reality, Lieberman is entirely a creature of the Israeli political 
establishment, his policies sinister reflections of the principles 
and ideas he learnt in the inner sanctums of the Likud party, a young 
hopeful immigrant rubbing shoulders with the likes of Ariel Sharon, 
Binyamin Netanyahu and, of course, Ehud Olmert.

 From their political infancy, the latter three were schooled in the 
minor arts of Israeli diplomacy: feel free to speak plainly in the 
womb of the party; speak firmly but cautiously in Hebrew to other 
Israelis; and speak in another tongue entirely when using English, 
the language of the goyim, the non-Jews.

But Lieberman, who arrived in Israel as a 21-year-old, was not around 
for those lessons. He imbibed nothing of the principles of "hasbara", 
the "advocacy for Israel" industry that has its unpaid battalions of 
propagandists regularly assaulting the phone lines and email inboxes 
of the Western media. He tells it exactly as he sees it, even if 
mostly in Russian.

Inside the Likud party, his political training ground, that hardly 
mattered. He rapidly rose through the ranks to become 
director-general of Likud from 1993-96 and soon afterwards to head 
the office of Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu. For many years he 
was the darling of the Likud, a party that today exists in two 
halves: its original incarnation, once again led by Netanyahu; and 
the renovated, sleeker model, Kadima, founded by Sharon.

But it was in breaking from Likud and founding his own party, Yisrael 
Beiteinu, in 1999 that Lieberman finally found his voice outside the 
Likud's smoke-filled rooms. The audience for his message was as 
untutored in the deceits of Israeli politicking as Lieberman himself.

Lieberman immigrated to Israel from Moldova in 1978, leading the 
vanguard of a wave of immigration from Russia and its satellite 
states that reached a peak in the early 1990s as the Soviet empire 
broke up. By the time most Russian speakers began pouring into 
Israel, Lieberman was already well esconced in the Israeli political system.

Yisrael Beiteinu's openly racist agenda spoke to the darkest 
instincts of the one million newly arrived Russian speakers.

Many of them poor and struggling to adapt to Israeli culture, they 
live far from the prosperous centre of the country in their own 
neglected ghettos, Little Moscows, where the signs and street 
language are more than a decade later still in Russian. They feel 
little affinity for the Jewish state -- apart from a loathing for 
everything Arab.

The state has found it easy to manipulate these immigrants' emotions. 
They have little understanding of the historic reasons for Israel's 
conflict with the Palestinians, and like other Israelis learn almost 
nothing more at school. With no context for appreciating why the 
Palestinians might carry out suicide attacks, Russian speakers assume 
the Palestinians are simply the hate-filled barbarians described to 
them by their politicians.

When young Russian men do their three years of active duty in the 
occupied territories, all these prejudicies are confirmed. Now one of 
the largest blocs of Israel's citizen army, the Russians are assigned 
some of the toughest spots in the West Bank and Gaza, often their 
first experience of meeting "Arabs".

When they return home, they find it hard to make sense of Israeli 
officialdom's lip service in distinguishing between Arab citizens, 
who have some rights in the Jewish state, and the "Arabs" of the 
occupied territories, who have none. Many Russian speakers wonder why 
Israel does not simply kill or expel the lot of them.

And this is where Lieberman steps in. Because usefully this is 
exactly what he not only believes but also openly declares. Lieberman 
can tap the support of nearly a million voters, a huge reservoir of 
support for any prime ministerial hopeful trying to assemble the 
coalition needed to form a government under the fractious Israeli 
political system.

Neither Olmert nor Netanyahu can afford to say what is really on 
their minds: that they want to cleanse the region of as many 
Palestinians as they can manage -- most certainly those in the 
occupied territories, and later the even bigger nuisance of the ones 
who have citizenship and undermine Israel's Jewishness.

But instead they can let a Lieberman, the charismatic leader of a 
popular party who does dare to say these things, join the government 
with minimal damage to their own reputations.

They can also let him use the platform provided by a cabinet position 
to shape a new coarser political language in which ideas of expulsion 
and transfer become ever more mainstream. Until one day the policies 
Lieberman advocates, reflections of the values he imbibed during his 
long years spent in Likud, become acceptable enough that a Prime 
Minister -- Olmert or Netanyahu or Lieberman himself -- will be able 
to put them in the government's programme.

Instead of using words like "disengagement", "convergence" or 
"realignment", Israel's politicians of the near future may simply 
call for the expulsion of Arabs, all Arabs.

Even now they do little to conceal the fact that such thoughts are 
uppermost in their minds. Netanyahu, currently Israel's most popular 
politician and leader of the opposition, has repeatedly called the 
1.2 million Arab citizens of the country a "demographic timebomb". 
Back in 2002, for example, he told an audience of policymakers: "If 
there is a demographic problem, and there is, it is with the Israeli 
Arabs who will remain Israeli citizens We therefore need a policy 
that will first of all guarantee a Jewish majority."

Unlike Lieberman, Netanyahu never spells out what policies he is 
advocating. But most Israelis understand that in practice, if he felt 
free to speak his mind, his platform would not look much different 
from Yisrael Beiteinu's.

Olmert too uses code words readily understood by his Israeli 
audiences. In late 2004, in an interview with the Haaretz newspaper, 
he said: "There is no doubt in my mind that very soon the government 
of Israel is going to have to address the demographic issue with the 
utmost seriousness and resolve. This issue above all others will 
dictate the solution that we must adopt." He added that he feared the 
Palestinians would soon be a majority in the area comprising both the 
occupied territories and Israel, and that then they could launch a 
"dangerous" struggle for "one-man-one-vote" similar to the one 
against apartheid in South Africa. He concluded: "For us, it would 
mean the end of the Jewish state."

What "solution" was Olmert referring to? Israelis know only too well. 
Every year since 2000 Olmert, Netanyahu, Peres and other senior 
policymakers have been meeting at the Herzliya conference, near Tel 
Aviv, to draw up ideas about how to deal with the demographic threat: 
the rapidly approaching moment when the Palestinians, either those 
with Israeli citizenship or the non-citizens living under military 
occupation in the West Bank and Gaza, will outnumber Jews.

The solutions they have proposed have been similar to Lieberman's. 
Both the disengagement from Gaza and the planned limited withdrawals 
from the West Bank came out of Herzliya. But so did a range of 
measures to deal with the country's Arab citizens: land swaps to lose 
areas of Israel densely populated with Arabs in return for the 
settlements in the West Bank; loyalty oaths as a condition of 
citizenship; stripping the Arab population of their right to vote; 
and forcing all political parties to subscribe to Zionist ideals.

These are not fanciful ideas; they are now firmly in the mainstream. 
Israel already has legislation requiring all parties running for the 
Knesset to support Israel remaining a "Jewish and democratic state". 
Technically, the only non-Zionist parties -- two Arab parties and the 
small joint Jewish and Arab Communist party -- could quite legally be 
disqualified from all general elections under the current 
legislation. They expect that at some point in the near future they 
will be too.

The two previous prime ministers, Ehud Barak and Ariel Sharon, both 
secretly favoured land swaps in which large numbers of Arab citizens 
would be removed from the Jewish state. Barak proposed such a scheme 
at Camp David in the summer of 2000, as several participants later 
confirmed. And in February 2004 Sharon floated the same idea during 
an interview in the Maariv newspaper. When it caused a storm, he 
backtracked, but investigations by the paper revealed that he had 
been formulating a land swap for some time with his advisers and had 
even consulted the then Labor leader and his foreign minister, Shimon 
Peres, on its feasibility.

At the top of Lieberman's list of demands before agreeing to enter 
Olmert's coalition are major changes to Israel's constitution, 
including the introduction of a presidential system to replace the 
current parliamentary system. Israel already has a President, 
currently Moshe Katsav, who is facing a string of rape and sexual 
harassment allegations, but the post is entirely symbolic.

Lieberman wants a president who has the authority to make major 
legislative changes, even constitutional ones, without having to make 
the backroom compromises to keep together the coalition governments 
that characterise Israel's current political system. The president 
Lieberman has in mind would be more on the lines of an autocratic ruler.

Olmert is apparently sympathetic to Lieberman's plans to change the 
political system. It is not difficult to understand why.

Jonathan Cook is a writer and journalist based in Nazareth, Israel. 
He is the author of 
"<http://www.press.umich.edu/titleDetailDesc.do?id=224729>Blood and 
Religion: The Unmasking of the Jewish and Democratic State" published 
by Pluto Press, and available in the United States from the 
University of Michigan Press. His website is 
<http://www.jkcook.net/>www.jkcook.net


The Freedom Archives
522 Valencia Street
San Francisco, CA 94110
(415) 863-9977
www.freedomarchives.org 
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From news at freedomarchives.org  Sat Oct 28 16:04:01 2006
From: news at freedomarchives.org (Anti-Imperialist News)
Date: Sat, 28 Oct 2006 13:04:01 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: [News] Brad Will, Indymedia Journalist among dead in Oaxaca, Mexico
Message-ID: <1309.75.2.171.176.1162065841.squirrel@www.freedomarchives.org>

BRAD WILL, INDYMEDIA JOURNALIST, AMONG THE DEAD IN OAXACA CITY, MEXICO

OSWALDO RAMIRIO, PHOTOGRAPHER FOR MILENIO DIARIO, ALSO SHOT AND AMONG
INJURED

[Readers of Open Letter:  There is a large Oaxacan community in Los
Angeles, with members active both in the immigrant and migrant labor
struggles, and in the solidarity actions with striking workers at the
barricades and in the zocalo of Oxaca.  I will try to place a few reports
on the developing struggle in Oaxaca and throughout Mexico in future
issues of Open Letter. --Scott Tucker, Editor of Open Letter Online.

Reports in English and Spanish with weblinks below

Government repression continues, reports of paramilitary squads

Workers, teachers, peasants and indigenous communities vow to defend
working class gains

http://indybay.org/newsitems/2006/10/27/18323891.php

  A shootout has occurred in the municipality of Calicate, in Oaxaca City,
Mexico today, leaving New York City Indymedia journalist Bradley Will dead
after bein shot in the chest. He died before reaching the hospital,
according to La Jornada. A photographer from the newspaper millenio diario,
who was at Wills side, was shot in the foot and reported injured, his
status unknown.

Radio APPO, the radio of the Assembly Popular of the Oaxacan People, are
reporting truckloads of armed paramilitaries entering the city. They are
also calling for people to reinforce the thousands of barricades that have
been constructed for months as part of the statewide teacher strike and
popular uprising that has demanded the removal of PRI governor Ulisis Ortiz
Ruiz.


Original Article from La Jornada:

Matan a documentalista de EU en Oaxaca; un fot?grafo herido

La Jornada On Line

27/10/2006 18:38

Oaxaca, Oax. Una balacera ocurrida en el municipio de Calicante caus? la
muerte del documentalista estadunidense Brat Will, de Indimedia Washington,
quien recibi? un balazo en el pecho. A su vez, un fot?grafo del peri?dico
Milenio Diario, Oswaldo Ram?rez, result? herido con un disparo en el pie,
inform? la edici?n Web del peri?dico.

El enfrentamiento ocurri? cuando grupos de supuestos guardias blancas,
seg?n report? Radio F?rmula, agredieron a los brigadistas que resguardan
las barricadas.

El dirigente de la APPO, Flavio Sosa, pidi? la urgente intervenci?n del
gobierno federal en ese municipio, porque dijo que grupos al servicio del
alcalde pri?sta est?n amedrentando con armas de guego a los brigadistas que
resguardan las barricacas. Nosotros s?lo tenemos piedras y ellos armas de
fuego", dijo.

De acuerdo a las primeras informaciones, en Calicante se registr? una
balacera y aparte del periodistas muerto y el fot?grafo herido, tres
personas m?s resultaron heridas.

El reportero fue herido en el est?mago, y falleci? antes de llegar a un
hospital.

Tanto en Calicante como en el municipio de San Antonio, ambos conurbados a
la capital, priva un ambiente de tensi?n, debido a que en ambos grupos de
appistas que resguardan las barricadas y de supuestos guardias blancas se
encuentran separados por un centenar de metros y se corre el riesgo de un
enfrentamiento mayor.

Los brigadistas se mantienen agazapados tras las barricadas y de acuerdo
con la informaci?n, uno de ellos se encuentra herido sin posibilidad de
ser
trasladado a un centro de atenci?n.

http://www.jornada.unam.mx:8080/ultimas/matan-a-documentalista-de-eu-en-oaxaca-un-fotografo-herido

INDYMEDIA:

http://publish.indymedia.org/en/2006/10/849305.shtml
Federal Police and Paramilitaries attack the barricades near Oaxaca's
office of justice, in the Calicante municipality. There aresereveal
injured and one person dead.

Indymedia New York's reporter, BRAD WILL, was shot in the chest and die
before get the hospital, while Oswaldo Ram?rez, photographer for Milenio
Diario, has also been shot and is injured in the foot.

THIS IS WHAT WE KNOW SO FAR ABOUT BRAD FROM A PERSON WHO WAS THERE WITH HIM:
- He was at the Santa Lucia Barricade
- He was shot from a distance of 30-40 meters right in the pit of the
stomach
- They say it was urban paramilitary priistas in plain clothes who shot him
- People then pulled him away to safety; its confirmed that he's dead; his
body is at the red cross in oaxaca
- 3 additional dead (4 total); 1 member of radio universidad was injured, he
went to the hospital in a volkswagen cuz no ambulances would come


More information: English report
NarcoNews (english) - CML - La Jornada - IMC M?xico

Radio APPO steaming now | Live (spanish) coverage at CML

Other spanish media
milenio.com - reforma.com


Claude Marks
Freedom Archives
522 Valencia Street
San Francisco, CA 94110
(415) 863-9977





From news at freedomarchives.org  Sat Oct 28 16:16:44 2006
From: news at freedomarchives.org (Anti-Imperialist News)
Date: Sat, 28 Oct 2006 13:16:44 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: [News] Brad Will - last dispatch from Oaxaca
Message-ID: <1346.75.2.171.176.1162066604.squirrel@www.freedomarchives.org>

Subject: friend and  companero brad was killed
Our friend, brother, and companero, Brad Will  was killed today by
paramilitaries in Oxaca Mexico.

Brad has been an  inspiring and passionate militant, joining
struggles all over the world, from  land occupations in the Pacific
North West of the US, to direct actions against  global capital, to
rebellions in Argentina, land occupations in Brazil,
and  anti-privatization struggles in Bolivia. Brad was always a part
of whatever he  was in. He was always with people, not organizing
them. He taught me, and so  many others so much through example. He
will be missed in so many  ways.

Brad was a part of our communities. We should remember him with
the  love and affection that he showed, and we feel. We should also
carry on with  direct action to stop those that are trying to stop
social creation, in the US,  Mexico, Argentina, and the globe.

brad Presente!
brad  presente!
brad Presente!


Brad's last email dispatch ...
early  dawn, oct16

yesterday i went for a walk with the good people of oaxaca -- was  walking
all day really -- in the afternoon they showed me where the bullets  hit the
wall -- they numbered the ones they could reach -- it reminded me of  the
doorway of amadou diallos home -- but here the grafitti was there before  the
shooting began -- one bullet they didnt number was still in his head --  he
was 41 years old -- alejandro garcia hernandez -- at the  neighborhood
barricade every night -- that night he came out to join his wife  and sons to
let an ambulance through -- then a pickup tried to follow -- he  took their
bullet when he told them they could not pass -- they never did --  these
military men in civilian dress shot their way out of there
a  young man who wanted to only be called marco was with them when the
shooting  happened -- a bullet passed through his shoulder -- he was clearly
in shock  when we met -- 19 years old -- said he hadnt told his parents yet
-- said he  had been at the barricade every night -- said he was going back
as soon as  the wound closed -- absolutely
just days before there was a delegation of  senators visiting to determine
the ungovernability of the state -- they got a  taste -- the call went out to
shut down the rest of the government -- dozens  went walking out of the
zocalo city center with big sticks and a box full of  spray paint -- they
took control of 3 city buses and went around the city all  morning visiting
local government buildings and informing them that that they  were closed --
and we appreciate your voluntary cooperation -- and they filed  out preturbed
but still getting paid -- shut -- as they pulled away from the  last stop 3
gunmen came out and started shooting -- 2 buses had already  pulled away --
mayhem -- 10 minute battle with stones and slingshots and  screaming -- one
headwound -- another through the leg -- made their way to  the hospital while
the fighting continued -- shout out on the radio and  people came from all
parts -- the gunmen were around the side of the building  -- they got away --
they were inside -- no one sure -- watchful  --  undercover police were
reported lurking around the hospital and folks went  running to stand watch
over the wounded
what can you say about this  movement -- this revolutionary moment -- you
know it is building, growing,  shaping -- you can feel it -- trying
desperately for a direct democracy -- in  november appo will have a state
wide conference for the formation of a state  wide assemblea estatal del
pueblo de oaxaca (aepo) -- now there are 11 of 33  states in mexico that have
declared formation of assemblea populares like  appo -- and on la otra lado
in the usa a few -- the marines have returned to  sea even though the federal
police who ravaged atenco remain close by -- the  new encampment in mexico
has begun a hunger strike -- the senate can expell  URO -- whats next
nobodies sure -- it is a point of light pressed through  glass -- ready to
burn or show the way -- it is clear that this is more than  a strike, more
than expulsion of a governor, more than a blockade, more than  a coalition of
fragments -- it is a genuine peoples revolt -- and after  decades of pri rule
by bribe, fraud, and bullet the people are tired -- they  call him the tyrant
-- they talk of destroying this authoritarianism -- you  cannot mistake the
whisper of the lancandon jungle in the streets -- in every  street corner
deciding together to hold --  you see it their faces  --  indigenous, women,
children -- so brave -- watchful at night -- proud and  resolute
went walking back from alejandros barricade with a group of  supporters who
came from an outlying district a half hour away -- went  walking with angry
folk on their way to the morgue -- went inside and saw him  -- havent seen
too many bodies in my life -- eats you up  -- a stack of  nameless corpes in
the corner -- about the number who had died -- no  refrigeration -- the smell
-- they had to open his skull to pull the bullet  out -- walked back with him
and his people and now alejandro waits in  the zocalo -- like the
others at their plantones
-- hes waiting for an  impasse, a change, an exit, a way forward, a way out,
a solution -- waiting  for the earth to shift and open -- waiting for
november when he can sit with  his loved ones on the day of the dead and
share food and drink and a song --  waiting for the plaza to turn itself over
to him and burst -- he will only  wait until morning but tonight he is
waiting for the governor and his lot to  never come back -- one more death --
one more martyr in a dirty war -- one  more time to cry and hurt -- one more
time to know power and its ugly head --  one more bullet cracks the night --
one more night at the barricades -- some  keep the fires -- others curl up
and sleep -- but all of them are with him as  he rests one last night at his
watch


Claude Marks
Freedom Archives
522 Valencia Street
San Francisco, CA 94110
(415) 863-9977





From news at freedomarchives.org  Sun Oct 29 11:16:43 2006
From: news at freedomarchives.org (Anti-Imperialist News)
Date: Sun, 29 Oct 2006 08:16:43 -0800
Subject: [News] Benefit for Oaxaca - SF, Wed Nov 1
Message-ID: <6.2.5.6.2.20061029081552.044f1360@freedomarchives.org>


The situation in Oaxaca is escalating by the minute, as paramilitaries and
police attack demonstrators. Yesterday, it was said that 13 people were
killed throughout the day... Please attend this event if you can and fwd
the info to others. thanks!
_________

BENEFIT FOR REBELI?N POPULAR IN OAXACA!!!


Wednesday Novemeber 1st, 7:00 PM - 9:30 PM
STATION 40: 3030B 16th Street, in front of Mission Street Bart

FILMS DOCUMENTING EVENTS IN OAXACA, SPEAKERS FROM LOCAL ZAPATISTA GROUPS
AND PRINTS FROM EL CARACOL DE LA MISI?N.

Updates and four short films on Oaxaca, plus silkscreen poster display
from el Caracol de la Misi?n. All funds raised will directly benefit the
needs of the those in resistance and their families, through APPO, (the
Popular Assembly of the Pueblo of Oaxaca), and part will also go to
support the Independent Media Collective in Oaxaca to help them document
what is taking place in the front lines of the popular resistance.

Some of the films have subtitles, and some are narrated by a live
interpreter, and guided by speakers from El Caracol de la Misi?n, who are
also bringing many fresh silk-screened prints and shirts to sell for
5-$10.

Members of La Colectiva Zapatista Ramona will also report back on La Otra
Campa?a and will share stories of their earlier travels to many places in
Mexico, including Oaxaca, Atenco and will give a report back from the
popular struggles and the recent coming together of all three popular
fronts from Oaxaca, Atenco and Chiapas.


i Viva Oaxaca y sus Flores Magon!
i Viva Ramona, la Sexta y la Otra!

Donation: 5-$20, (more or less is ok, just give what you can compa :)

The Freedom Archives
522 Valencia Street
San Francisco, CA 94110
(415) 863-9977
www.freedomarchives.org 
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From news at freedomarchives.org  Mon Oct 30 11:58:34 2006
From: news at freedomarchives.org (Anti-Imperialist News)
Date: Mon, 30 Oct 2006 08:58:34 -0800
Subject: [News] Voices of a People's History of the United States - Berkeley
 Nov. 9
Message-ID: <6.2.5.6.2.20061030085745.044f0290@freedomarchives.org>



The Middle East Children's Alliance, Speak Out, 
Vanguard Public Foundation, and
KPFA present:
Bay Area premiere of Howard Zinn & Anthony Arnove's

"Voices of a People's History of the United States"
--Dramatic Readings Celebrating Voices of Dissent--

Thursday, Nov. 9, 2006, 7:30pm
Berkeley Community Theatre
1930 Allston Way

The words of individuals across five hundred 
years of U.S. history will come to
life through readings and songs by:.
Howard Zinn, Anthony Arnove, Aya de Leon, Melanie DeMore, Steve Earle, Nora el
Samahy, Mos Def,
John Trudell, Luis Valdez, Alice Walker, and more!

TICKETS - $25 General Admission
$150 Leaders' Circle -- Best seats, post-event reception, autographed event
poster and listing in program
$60 Supporters' Circle -- Excellent seats, 
autographed event poster, listing in
program

TO PURCHASE TICKETS:
By Phone or Online through Brown Paper Tickets,1-800-838-3006, or
www.mecaforpeace.org.

At your local bookstore: ($25 tickets only): East 
Bay ???????? Black Oak, Diesel,
Pegasus (Shattuck & Solano)
Global Exchange, Walden Pond, Bonanza Books (Walnut Creek);
San Francisco ???????? Modern Times, City Lights, Global Exchange;
North Bay ???????? Copperfield????????s (Santa 
Rosa/Sebastopol/Petaluma/Napa/Calistoga), North Light Books (Cotati) Levin &
Company (Healdsburg), Book Passage (Corte Madera);
South Bay ???????? Willow Glen Books (San Jose).

All proceeds benefit the work of Middle East Children's Alliance and Speak Out.

This event will be wheelchair accessible and ASL interpreted. For disability
tickets: Call 510-548-0542, or
email Events at mecaforpeace.org, or send SASE with check to MECA, 901 Parker
Street, Berkeley, CA 94710.

The Freedom Archives
522 Valencia Street
San Francisco, CA 94110
(415) 863-9977
www.freedomarchives.org 
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From news at freedomarchives.org  Mon Oct 30 12:04:34 2006
From: news at freedomarchives.org (Anti-Imperialist News)
Date: Mon, 30 Oct 2006 09:04:34 -0800
Subject: [News] Did Israel Use Uranium Weapons?
Message-ID: <6.2.5.6.2.20061030090330.044fdeb0@freedomarchives.org>

http://www.counterpunch.org/fisk10302006.html

October 30, 2006


Did Israel Use Uranium Weapons?


Dirty Bombs Over Lebanon

By ROBERT FISK

Did Israel use a secret new uranium-based weapon in southern Lebanon 
this summer in the 34-day assault that cost more than 1,300 Lebanese 
lives, most of them civilians?

We know that the Israelis used American "bunker-buster" bombs on 
Hizbollah's Beirut headquarters. We know that they drenched southern 
Lebanon with cluster bombs in the last 72 hours of the war, leaving 
tens of thousands of bomblets which are still killing Lebanese 
civilians every week. And we now know--after it first categorically 
denied using such munitions--that the Israeli army also used 
phosphorous bombs, weapons which are supposed to be restricted under 
the third protocol of the Geneva Conventions, which neither Israel 
nor the United States have signed.

But scientific evidence gathered from at least two bomb craters in 
Khiam and At-Tiri, the scene of fierce fighting between Hizbollah 
guerrillas and Israeli troops last July and August, suggests that 
uranium-based munitions may now also be included in Israel's weapons 
inventory--and were used against targets in Lebanon. According to Dr 
Chris Busby, the British Scientific Secretary of the European 
Committee on Radiation Risk, two soil samples thrown up by Israeli 
heavy or guided bombs showed "elevated radiation signatures". Both 
have been forwarded for further examination to the Harwell laboratory 
in Oxfordshire for mass spectrometry--used by the Ministry of 
Defence--which has confirmed the concentration of uranium isotopes in 
the samples.

Dr Busby's initial report states that there are two possible reasons 
for the contamination. "The first is that the weapon was some novel 
small experimental nuclear fission device or other experimental 
weapon (eg, a thermobaric weapon) based on the high temperature of a 
uranium oxidation flash ... The second is that the weapon was a 
bunker-busting conventional uranium penetrator weapon employing 
enriched uranium rather than depleted uranium." A photograph of the 
explosion of the first bomb shows large clouds of black smoke that 
might result from burning uranium.

Enriched uranium is produced from natural uranium ore and is used as 
fuel for nuclear reactors. A waste product of the enrichment process 
is depleted uranium, it is an extremely hard metal used in anti-tank 
missiles for penetrating armour. Depleted uranium is less radioactive 
than natural uranium, which is less radioactive than enriched uranium.

Israel has a poor reputation for telling the truth about its use of 
weapons in Lebanon. In 1982, it denied using phosphorous munitions on 
civilian areas--until journalists discovered dying and dead civilians 
whose wounds caught fire when exposed to air.

I saw two dead babies who, when taken from a mortuary drawer in West 
Beirut during the Israeli siege of the city, suddenly burst back into 
flames. Israel officially denied using phosphorous again in Lebanon 
during the summer--except for "marking" targets--even after civilians 
were photographed in Lebanese hospitals with burn wounds consistent 
with phosphorous munitions.

Then on Sunday, Israel suddenly admitted that it had not been telling 
the truth. Jacob Edery, the Israeli minister in charge of government 
and parliament relations, confirmed that phosphorous shells were used 
in direct attacks against Hizbollah, adding that "according to 
international law, the use of phosphorous munitions is authorised and 
the (Israeli) army keeps to the rules of international norms".

Asked by if the Israeli army had been using uranium-based munitions 
in Lebanon this summer, Mark Regev, the Israeli Foreign Ministry 
spokesman, said: "Israel does not use any weaponry which is not 
authorised by international law or international conventions." This, 
however, begs more questions than it answers. Much international law 
does not cover modern uranium weapons because they were not invented 
when humanitarian rules such as the Geneva Conventions were drawn up 
and because Western governments still refuse to believe that their 
use can cause long-term damage to the health of thousands of 
civilians living in the area of the explosions.

American and British forces used hundreds of tons of depleted uranium 
(DU) shells in Iraq in 1991--their hardened penetrator warheads 
manufactured from the waste products of the nuclear industry--and 
five years later, a plague of cancers emerged across the south of Iraq.

Initial US military assessments warned of grave consequences for 
public health if such weapons were used against armoured vehicles. 
But the US administration and the British government later went out 
of their way to belittle these claims. Yet the cancers continued to 
spread amid reports that civilians in Bosnia--where DU was also used 
by Nato aircraft--were suffering new forms of cancer. DU shells were 
again used in the 2003 Anglo-American invasion of Iraq but it is too 
early to register any health effects.

"When a uranium penetrator hits a hard target, the particles of the 
explosion are very long-lived in the environment," Dr Busby said 
yesterday. "They spread over long distances. They can be inhaled into 
the lungs. The military really seem to believe that this stuff is not 
as dangerous as it is." Yet why would Israel use such a weapon when 
its targets--in the case of Khiam, for example--were only two miles 
from the Israeli border? The dust ignited by DU munitions can be 
blown across international borders, just as the chlorine gas used in 
attacks by both sides in the First World War often blew back on its 
perpetrators.

Chris Bellamy, the professor of military science and doctrine at 
Cranfield University, who has reviewed the Busby report, said: "At 
worst it's some sort of experimental weapon with an enriched uranium 
component the purpose of which we don't yet know. At best--if you can 
say that--it shows a remarkably cavalier attitude to the use of 
nuclear waste products."

The soil sample from Khiam--site of a notorious torture prison when 
Israel occupied southern Lebanon between 1978 and 2000, and a 
frontline Hizbollah stronghold in the summer war--was a piece of 
impacted red earth from an explosion; the isotope ratio was 108, 
indicative of the presence of enriched uranium. "The health effects 
on local civilian populations following the use of large uranium 
penetrators and the large amounts of respirable uranium oxide 
particles in the atmosphere," the Busby report says, "are likely to 
be significant ... we recommend that the area is examined for further 
traces of these weapons with a view to clean up."

This summer's Lebanon war began after Hizbollah guerrillas crossed 
the Lebanese frontier into Israel, captured two Israeli soldiers and 
killed three others, prompting Israel to unleash a massive 
bombardment of Lebanon's villages, cities, bridges and civilian 
infrastructure. Human rights groups have said that Israel committed 
war crimes when it attacked civilians, but that Hizbollah was also 
guilty of such crimes because it fired missiles into Israel which 
were also filled with ball-bearings, turning their rockets into 
primitive one-time-only cluster bombs.

Many Lebanese, however, long ago concluded that the latest Lebanon 
war was a weapons testing ground for the Americans and Iranians, who 
respectively supply Israel and Hizbollah with munitions. Just as 
Israel used hitherto-unproven US missiles in its attacks, so the 
Iranians were able to test-fire a rocket which hit an Israeli 
corvette off the Lebanese coast, killing four Israeli sailors and 
almost sinking the vessel after it suffered a 15-hour on-board fire.

What the weapons manufacturers make of the latest scientific findings 
of potential uranium weapons use in southern Lebanon is not yet 
known. Nor is their effect on civilians.

Robert Fisk is a reporter for The Independent and author of 
<http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1560254424/counterpunchmaga>Pity 
the Nation. He is also a contributor to CounterPunch's collection, 
<http://www.easycarts.net/ecarts/CounterPunch/CounterPunch_Bookshop.html>The 
Politics of Anti-Semitism. Fisk's new book is 
<http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1400041511/counterpunchmaga>The 
Conquest of the Middle East.


The Freedom Archives
522 Valencia Street
San Francisco, CA 94110
(415) 863-9977
www.freedomarchives.org 
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From news at freedomarchives.org  Mon Oct 30 13:21:30 2006
From: news at freedomarchives.org (Anti-Imperialist News)
Date: Mon, 30 Oct 2006 10:21:30 -0800
Subject: [News] Mexican Federal Police Invade...But the APPO Still Controls
 The Heart Of Oaxaca
Message-ID: <6.2.5.6.2.20061030101719.044fa3e0@freedomarchives.org>

TWO ARTICLES FOLLOW

Mexican Federal Police Invade...But the APPO Still Controls The Heart Of Oaxaca
http://narcosphere.narconews.com/story/2006/10/30/1233/6752

By 
<http://narcosphere.narconews.com/story/2006/10/30/1233//user/uid:140>Gregory 
Berger,
Posted on Mon Oct 30th, 2006 at 01:23:03 AM EST
After a full day's assault, the thousands of 
Mexican Federal Police that invaded Oaxaca City 
today have now occupied the town square and other 
key parts of the city. But there are many this 
morning that maintain that the fight is far from over.

At first glance, the Federal Government delivered 
a victory to the State Government of Oaxaca in 
its attempt to return control of the State 
Capital to Governor Ulises Ruiz. Armored tanks 
slammed through the APPO's barricades and brushed 
aside the women and children on the streets who 
had lined up to ask them not to enter their city. 
At least 50 people have been arrested, but the 
real number is feared to be much higher. Illegal 
search and seizures are occurring throughout the 
city, where Federal police and intelligence 
agents are hunting for the leadership of the 
Peoples' Popular Assembly of Oaxaca. (APPO) And, 
in outrageous coincidence evoking memories of 
Alexis Benhumea's murder in the town of San 
Salvador Atenco in May, at least one person is 
confirmed dead, a 15 year old boy slammed by a 
tear canister launched by the Federal Preventative Police (PFP).

But most observers on the ground told this 
correspondent last night that the fight is far 
from over; Radio Universidad, the voice of the 
APPO, is back on the air. Three marches are 
planned for today in the city of Oaxaca. The APPO 
remains present on every city block in every 
corner of the city. And despite the government's 
absurd claim that teachers will be back in 
classrooms today, members of section 22 of the 
teachers union made it clear that despite 
previous announcements, teachers will remain on 
strike. In fact, teachers from the democratic 
wing of the teachers? movements in several 
states, including Guerrero, Michoac?n, Tlaxcala, 
Morelos, Zacatecas, Oaxaca, Mexico City, and 
beyond, have vowed to walk out of classes as 
well. A mega march is planned in Mexico City to 
insist on the immediate withdrawal of the PFP.

"This is not a defeat." Insisted a host of Radio 
Universidad. "There are still more of us. They 
can't win unless they are prepared to put 
thousands upon thousands of us in jail, or turn 
the schools into jails. Or perhaps even turn the 
stadiums into jails, like Pinochet did."

Radio Universidad is currently on air giving 
instructions to citizens on how to engage in continued resistance.

Prior to yesterday's invasion, many people 
claimed that a Federal incursion into Oaxaca 
would not only fail to squash the movement, but 
would in fact strengthen it. Today, there are 
many signs that their predictions may well come 
true. Allies of the APPO took control of the 
government radio station yesterday in Guelatao, 
the small town in the mountains two hours from 
Oaxaca where Benito Juarez was born. From the 
word on the street, one suspects that today we 
will learn of many such small victories.



http://www.narconews.com/Issue43/article2259.html

Chronicle of the Battle of Oaxaca: Stage Three, Day One




The Majority of People on the Street Waiting to 
Confront the Police were Common Citizens Ready to Put Their Lives on the Line





By James Daria
The Other Journalism with the Other Campaign in Oaxaca

October 30, 2006

With the death of at least three people 
(including a foreign journalist) on Friday, 
Mexican president Vicente Fox must have found his 
excuse to bring in federal police to repress the 
civil unrest that has made the state of Oaxaca 
practically ungovernable and has spurred further 
unrest throughout the republic. By Saturday, 
elements of the Federal Preventive Police landed 
at the Oaxaca airport and word spread about their 
arrival by ground just north of the city. 
According to word on the street the federal 
forces were supposed to have entered the city 
under the cover of darkness Saturday night. 
Although the city was abandoned and no new 
barricades were erected, the arrival of the 
police did not happen. Sunday morning came and 
the city awoke to a buzz of activity as troop 
movement was detected at different points of the 
city and helicopters could be seen flying 
overhead. The battle of Oaxaca was about to begin 
and who would control the city at the end of the 
day would be decided at various strategic barricades.

The majority of the federal forces were stationed 
at the base of the PFP near the entrance to the 
highway to Mexico City just past the village of 
Etla. The police, dressed in full riot gear and 
equipped with various ?tanks? (actually armored 
vehicles with water cannons and video cameras), 
stationed themselves just on the edge of this 
highway. What laid between them and the center of 
Oaxaca City were no less than five major 
barricades made up of buses and semi trailers and 
the fury of thousands of common Oaxacan citizens. 
There were also reports of troop movements in the south of the city.

Heading towards the front line in the morning, an 
amazing amount of citizens filled the highway 
between downtown Oaxaca and the federal police 
stationed to the north east of the city. The 
majority of people were local residents who left 
their homes to man the barricades located nearby. 
Others brought water or food to the protesters. 
Although everyone knew the violence of the state 
was encroaching, the level of generosity and 
mutual aid expressed by these people was 
tremendous. While the presence of teachers and 
others affiliated directly with the APPO was 
clearly evident, the majority of people on the 
street waiting to confront the police were common 
citizens who were ready to put their lives on the 
lines to prevent the federal forces from reaching the city.

Talking to a woman who was sitting at the 
monument to Benito Juarez on the road to Etla, 
she explained that the current social movement 
rocking the foundations of the state government?s 
authoritarianism and brutality is actually in its 
third and most important stage. The first stage, 
according to her, was the vanguard of the 
teachers union. Although the union has always 
fought for its own self-interest the union taught 
the people how to fight for their rights, 
especially after June 16. The second phase was 
the consolidation of various social organizations 
in the Popular Assembly of the Oaxaca People. 
These disparate groups followed the example of 
the union in terms of organization and 
combativeness. The third and current stage in 
which the movement finds itself is the radical 
democratization of the struggle with the massive 
participation of common, until now unorganized 
people. In light of the sell out of the 
leadership of the teachers union and the failure 
of the APPO to achieve certain objectives, the 
people have found the strength within themselves 
to take active participation and leadership in 
the greatly expanding movement. Evidence of the 
truth of her statements was the large number of 
women and children among the protestors. Many 
people throughout the day expressed their wish 
that the outside world realize that the majority 
of the protesters were common folk who were 
simply tired of poverty and repression and not 
armed thugs portrayed in the mass media.

Sitting underneath a giant statue of the Oaxacan 
Indian who became president of the nation and 
fought for independence and reform, she explained 
that Oaxaca has always been on the forefront of 
revolutionary change in Mexico. And the movement 
in Oaxaca is not isolated to this state. 
According to her, Oaxacans are setting an example 
for all Mexicans to rise up and fight against the 
authoritarianism of bad governments. Oaxaca is 
but the tip of the iceberg of the coming change at a national level.

Arriving at the front lines, the people had 
amassed in front of the PFP with signs 
demonstrating their rejection of the use of force 
to solve the Oaxacan conflict. Everyone insisted 
that the peaceful resolution of the conflict was 
possible with the ousting of the governor Ulises 
Ruiz and the implementation of radical reforms in 
this poor, southern state. ?We want peace!
The 
uniformed are also exploited!...Oaxaca isn?t 
Atenco!
were some of the chants that vibrated 
throughout the phalanx of peaceful protestors. In 
a symbolic act representing the blood that has 
been shed in order to keep Ulises Ruiz in power, 
three people took blood from their arms and with 
it wrote slogans against the PFP. ?If Abascal 
wants Oaxacan blood, have him come here to take 
mine! Enough blood has been shed!? cried one of the bleeding protestors.

Around three o?clock and shortly after the bloody 
demonstration the troops began to move forward. 
Women flung themselves against the shields of the 
riot squads and the armored cars trying to push 
them back. Other protesters laid on the ground 
trying to block their path. The protesters 
peacefully tried to stop the police from moving 
forward but the police pushed on using water 
cannons to stun and disorient the protestors. The 
PFP slowly moved forward advancing towards the 
capital as the protesters tried in vain to stop 
their progression. At this point the attitude of 
the protestors was complete non-violence. When 
one ski-masked youth threw rocks at the police, 
other demonstrators grabbed him and took off the 
mask telling him that rock throwing only provokes 
a confrontation leading to an excuse for violence on the part of the state.

Word spread that the PFP was entering the city 
from the south clearing away the barricades in 
that part of the city. Back up north, while the 
protestors headed to defend the next barricade 
down the highway, the police deviated from the 
highway and entered the dirt roads near the banks 
of the river Atoyac that lines the highway 
leading to downtown. In this way the majority of 
the major barricades were averted. Confrontation 
eventually happened in Viguera near the Oaxacan 
Technological Institute where the police launched 
large amounts of tear gas. Although awaiting 
confirmation, according to the security force of 
the APPO, a teenager was killed by the impact of 
a tear gas canister. Many others were supposedly detained.

While a march in support of the APPO was arriving 
in downtown, Oaxaca was slowing being occupied by 
the federal police. Trying not to provoke 
confrontations the police slowly made their way 
to the southern corners of the Zocalo and amassed 
there waiting for nightfall. The city of Oaxaca 
was covered in thick black smoke from burning busses and car tires.

With the cover of darkness, the PFP finally 
occupied the Zocalo and began to tear down the 
APPO?s encampment. The electricity was cut off in 
the University City and surrounding neighborhoods 
as the police tried to silence the voice of the 
people, Radio Universidad. The protesters 
reinforcing the barricades around the university 
quickly hooked up a generator and restored 
transmission although the surrounding 
neighborhoods remained in darkness. Reports 
broadcast on the radio and word of mouth from 
relatives and neighbors indicate that the PFP is 
searching houses supposedly looking for evidence 
of participation in the movement. Neighbors are 
burning anything they have that could be linked 
to the APPO in fear of government repression.

Entering the longest hours of the night there are 
reports of barricades being rebuilt along the 
highway to Mexico City once again blocking off 
traffic and impeding the further arrival of 
federal troops. Explosions are being heard in 
different parts of the city and three helicopters 
are circling overhead. It is assumed that Radio 
Universidad will be the next target.

Although the city of Oaxaca has been occupied by 
federal troops the problem is far from resolved. 
One protestor commented that the following day 
when the police have set up camp in the Zocalo, 
the people will then surround them and force them 
out. Although the physical perimeter has been 
broken the spirit of resistance and the rage of 
the people have not been extinguished. The use of 
force to quell the social unrest here in Oaxaca 
will not solve the underlying problems and until 
the problems are solved or enough people have 
died, the conflict will continue. Tomorrow will 
be yet another day fighting for control of the 
city of Oaxaca. It is thought that the next 
strategy of the federal forces will be to enter 
into the surrounding neighborhoods to clean out 
the barricades and restore order.


The Freedom Archives
522 Valencia Street
San Francisco, CA 94110
(415) 863-9977
www.freedomarchives.org 
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From news at freedomarchives.org  Tue Oct 31 08:46:25 2006
From: news at freedomarchives.org (Anti-Imperialist News)
Date: Tue, 31 Oct 2006 05:46:25 -0800
Subject: [News] EZLN Communique: Call to Protest Oaxaca Repression on Nov 1
Message-ID: <6.2.5.6.2.20061031054513.0450feb0@freedomarchives.org>



Message from the
COMITE` CLANDESTINO REVOLUCIONARIO INDIGENA COMANDANCIA GENERAL
of the
EJERCITO ZAPATISTA DE LIBERACION NACIONAL.
MEXICO.

30th of October, 2006.

To the people of Mexico:
To the people of the world:
To the Other Campaign in Mexico and the other side of the Rio Bravo:
To the entire Sixth International:

Comrades:
Brothers and sisters:

It is now known publicly that yesterday, 29th of October 2006; Vicente
Fox's federal forces attacked the people of Oaxaca and its most
legitimate representative, the Peoples' Popular Assembly of Oaxaca (APPO).

Today, we know that the Federal Troops have assassinated at least 3
people, among them a minor, leaving dozens of wounded including many
women from Oaxaca and dozens of detainees were illegally transported to
military prisons. All this, in addition to the total of deaths, detainees
and missing persons since the beginning of the mobilization demanding that
Ulises Ruiz steps down as Oaxaca's governor.

The sole objective of the federal attack is to maintain Ulises Ruiz in
power and to destroy the popular grassroots organization of the people of
Oaxaca.

Oaxaca's people are resisting. No honest person can remain quiet and
unmoved while the entire society, of which the majority are indigenous,
is assassinated, beaten and imprisoned.

We, Zapatistas, will not be silent; we will mobilize to support our
brothers, sisters and comrades in Oaxaca.

The EZLN's Sixth Commission has already consulted the Zapatista Command
and the following has been decided:

Firstly- During whole day of the 1st of November 2006, the major and
minor roads that pass through Zapatista controlled territories in the
Southwest of the state of Chiapas will be closed.

Consequently, we ask that one makes the necessary arrangements in order
to avoid using these roads on this day.

Secondly- through the Sixth Commission, the EZLN has begun making contact
and consulting other political and social organizations, groups,
collectives and individuals in the Other Campaign, in order to coordinate
joint solidarity actions across Mexico, leading to a nationwide shut-down
on the 20th of November, 2006.

Thirdly- the EZLN calls out to the Other Campaign in Mexico and north of
the Rio Bravo, so that this November 1st mobilizations happen where
possible; completely, partially, at intervals or symbolically shutting
down major roads, streets, toll booths, stations, airports and mainstream
media offices.

Fourthly- The central message that the Zapatistas send and will continue
sending, is that the people of Oaxaca are not alone: They are not alone!

Ulises Ruiz out of Oaxaca!

Immediate withdrawal of the occupying Federal Forces from Oaxaca!

Immediate and unconditional freedom for all detainees!

Cancel all arrest warrants!

Punish the murderers!

Justice!
Freedom!
Democracy!

 >From the north of Mexico.
For the Comite' Clandestino Revolucionario Indi'gena- Comandancia General of
the Eje'rcito Zapatista de Liberacio'n Nacional.
For the EZLN's Comisio'n Sexta.

Subcomandante Insurgente Marcos
Mexico, October, 2006.





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(415) 863-9977
www.freedomarchives.org 
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From news at freedomarchives.org  Tue Oct 31 08:51:49 2006
From: news at freedomarchives.org (Anti-Imperialist News)
Date: Tue, 31 Oct 2006 05:51:49 -0800
Subject: [News] NICARAGUA -- Desperate acts of faith
Message-ID: <6.2.5.6.2.20061031055130.0450fa70@freedomarchives.org>



Desperate acts of faith

Gioconda Belli

October 30, 2006 11:38 AM

http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/gioconda_belli/2006/10/nicaragua.html

Interrupting a pregnancy that endangered a mother's life - 
therapeutic abortion - was legal in my country until a few days ago. 
On October 26, the national assembly in Nicaragua 
<http://www.guardian.co.uk/frontpage/story/0,,1932784,00.html>struck 
down article 165 of its penal code, which had been untouched since 
the 19th century, and decided to penalise this life-saving procedure. 
The decision was taken in spite of numerous protests by women's 
organisations, the international community and, more importantly, the 
leading medical associations of the country.

It was no surprise that the ruling Liberal party - which is liberal 
by name but, in effect, represents the most rightwing, conservative 
and corrupt Nicaraguan politicians - would do this to please the 
Catholic church. Pinochet did it in Chile and the Arena party in El 
Salvador. What was dismaying and representative of the desperate 
attempt to regain power on the part of Daniel Ortega and his wife 
Rosario Murillo, was that the majority deputies who voted to penalise 
abortion - 28 of the 52 - were Sandinistas.

Nicaragua is holding general elections on November 5. This is the 
fourth time Ortega is running for president. He was defeated in 1990, 
1996 and 2001, but he has not given up. On the contrary, he has 
refused any suggestion within his party of the need for a new 
candidate. Anybody who has tried to rise within Sandinista to compete 
with Ortega has been marginalised or expelled. That was the case of 
Herty Lewites, the popular Sandinista mayor of Managua, who left 
office with a 76% approval rating. Daniel Ortega and his wife Rosario 
accused him of treason in no uncertain words. Herty decided to run 
anyway and led a coalition, the Movement for the Renovation of 
Sandinismo, until his untimely death of a heart attack in July 2 of this year.

Besides getting rid of inside competition, Ortega entered into an 
uncanny alliance with the Liberal party and signed a pact with 
Arnoldo Aleman, the Liberal party leader. After being president from 
1996 to 2001, Aleman was found guilty of embezzlement of state funds 
and condemned to jail. Thanks to the pact signed with Ortega, he was 
granted a "family regimen" which has allowed him to live at home, 
move freely in Managua and continue to be the highest real authority 
within liberalism. In exchange for this favour, the Liberal party 
agreed to reduce the percentage of votes needed to be elected 
president from 40 to 35%. With more obstacles out of the way, Ortega 
then decided to "clean up his act" and court the Catholic church.

Supplying the votes it needed to achieve its demand to penalise 
therapeutic abortion has been Ortega's most outrageous attempt to 
demonstrate that he has changed and is now a devoted and true convert 
to the faith. His support of the church in its staunch opposition to 
all kinds of abortions, including those aimed at saving a mother's 
life, aims to dispel whatever doubts any one could have of his 
"conversion". Ortega's campaign, orchestrated and managed by his 
wife, Rosario Murillo claims that Sandinista is now the party of 
unity, reconciliation and peace. When Edmundo Jarquin, who took over 
as presidential candidate for the MRS after Lewites death, declared 
last August that he supported therapeutic abortion, Rosario Murillo 
gave an interview to the Sandinista Radio Ya, and declared:

It is precisely because we have faith, because we are religious, 
because we love God above all else that we have been able to overcome 
all obstacles. This is why we coincide fully with the Catholic 
church. We emphatically join the church and churches in their 
opposition to all kinds of abortion. We emphatically say no to 
abortion, yes to life, yes to religious beliefs, yes to faith, yes to 
the search for God, yes to the spiritual and pastoral guides of our 
people such as Cardinal Obando, who gave Nicaraguans the flag of 
reconciliation, the same flag we support and which will bring 
Nicaragua out of its misery.


I for one do not believe either in Murillo's or Ortega's proclaimed 
transformation. On the last two electoral campaigns Ortega has tried 
very hard to pretend to be a different man, only to revert to his old 
self as soon as the polling stations close and he has to admit 
defeat. For 16 years, as the sole leader of the Sandinista party he 
has modified it and purged it to suit his authoritarian style. His 
pact with Arnold Aleman, on the other hand, has turned every 
institution in the country into a party structure where Liberals and 
Sandinistas make decisions according to their parties' instructions 
with no respect to legal procedures that they adjust and interpret to 
suit their objectives. This is how Ortega was able to avoid the 
charges brought against him by his stepdaughter, Zoilamerica Narvaez, 
who accused him of sexually abusing her since she was an 11-year-old child.

According to the latest polls, Daniel Ortega has a strong chance of 
winning this election. It is not surprising given his manoeuvring 
through the years and the sorry inefficiency and corruption of the 
Liberal governments. Although Daniel Ortega has been an accomplice to 
this state of affairs, he portrays himself as the advocate of the 
poor, as a repenting Christian who this time will get it right. 
Obtaining the complicity of the Catholic church and his one time 
nemesis, Cardinal Obando y Bravo - who Ortega managed to protect from 
a scandal of misused funds in a church's non-profit organisation of 
which the cardinal is president - this time he might be able to 
convince voters that he's a changed man. Obviously, Ortega considers 
that a few thousand dead women are of no consequence if he finally 
manages to regain power in Nicaragua.

The Freedom Archives
522 Valencia Street
San Francisco, CA 94110
(415) 863-9977
www.freedomarchives.org 
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From news at freedomarchives.org  Tue Oct 31 11:17:09 2006
From: news at freedomarchives.org (Anti-Imperialist News)
Date: Tue, 31 Oct 2006 08:17:09 -0800
Subject: [News] Frontline Report from New Orleans - Wed Nov 8th
Message-ID: <6.2.5.6.2.20061031081253.0450e8b0@freedomarchives.org>



You're invited to a Frontline Report from New Orleans by:

             Kali Akuno, Executive Director of the Peoples Hurricane 
Relief Fund based in New Orleans, Malcolm Suber, National Organizer 
for the People's Hurricane Relief Fund and Arlene Eisen, long term 
volunteer in New Orleans and SF Bayview Reporter

They will present a slideshow and lead a discussion about the 
continuing war against
Black people in New Orleans.

Plan to attend:        Wednesday, November 8, 2006,   7:30PM
                                     522 Valencia between 16th and 
17th [near BART] in SF

Sponsored by:
Peoples Hurricane Relief Fund, Bay Katrina Solidarity Network and Bay 
to Gulf Solidarity, Malcom X Grassroots Movement

For more info call (415) 305-7835



The Freedom Archives
522 Valencia Street
San Francisco, CA 94110
(415) 863-9977
www.freedomarchives.org 
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From news at freedomarchives.org  Tue Oct 31 15:10:37 2006
From: news at freedomarchives.org (Anti-Imperialist News)
Date: Tue, 31 Oct 2006 12:10:37 -0800
Subject: [News] UN witnesses Israeli devastation of Palestinian olive harvest
Message-ID: <6.2.5.6.2.20061031120933.0450deb0@freedomarchives.org>

United Nations delegation witnesses Israeli devastation of 
Palestinian olive harvest
http://english.pnn.ps/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=892&Itemid=1

(Tulkarem) Palestine News Network
Tuesday, 31 October 2006

The World Food Program, in cooperation with the United Nations 
Humanitarian Coordination Office, sponsored a tour of Deir Al Ghusun 
and its agricultural lands Tuesday in honor of the olive harvest and 
all that it entails under occupation.

The northwestern West Bank's Tulkarem District town is in the midst 
of the olive harvest season, as so many Palestinian agricultural 
lands are. Today's tour included employees of UN branches and media 
organizations investigating Palestinian farmers' conditions this year.

The Director of the World Food Program joined Tulkarem's Governor, 
Tulkarem City's Mayor, the Coordinator of the National Committee 
against the Wall, a large number of farmers and citizens, and the 
Under Assistant in the Ministry of Agriculture,  also walked through 
agricultural lands north of Tulkarem.

The Governor explained how the Israeli-built Wall is causing a great 
deal of difficulty for farmers as it has swallowed vast areas of 
agricultural land planted with vegetables and olives. He said that 
the Wall contravenes international law and public opinion and asked 
that the Israeli government realize that it does not bring security 
to anyone, instead only suffering to the occupied Palestinian people. 
Governor Dweikat said, "As long as there is occupation, there is no security."

He continued, "We call upon all countries of the world to stand up 
for the Palestinian farmer who has lost his land altogether or who 
cannot access it. We also ask that you buy the Palestinian olive oil 
that we are able to produce."

The Under the Assistant of the Ministry of Agriculture stressed, "the 
importance of the olive tree, which is a part of the Muslim faith and 
heritage, and the customs and traditions of Palestine." He said that 
this year's harvest is expected to produce 35,000 tons of oil. "The 
surplus will reach 15,000 tons without proper access to outside 
markets and the Israeli Wall and settlements, and burning vast tracts 
of land and preventing farmers from reaching their own will add to the loss."
The Mayor of Deir Al Ghusun said that the town is living a nightmare. 
He recounted numerous attempts to obtain permits from the Israeli 
government that is in full occupation of this West Bank area, the 
inconsistent behavior of Israeli soldiers operating the gates in the 
Wall, and the devastating economic situation, calling for 
international support. Several farmers returned from their fields 
early as the gates close at 4 pm and briefed the delegation before 
hosting a lunch.

A well-informed source told PNN Tuesday that the World Food Program 
intends to purchase a major quantity of local olive oil in 
recognition of the suffering and the need.


The Freedom Archives
522 Valencia Street
San Francisco, CA 94110
(415) 863-9977
www.freedomarchives.org 
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From news at freedomarchives.org  Mon Oct  2 08:56:40 2006
From: news at freedomarchives.org (Anti-Imperialist News)
Date: Mon, 02 Oct 2006 05:56:40 -0700
Subject: [News] "Bush The Decider"  or "Yertle the Turtle" is a reality
Message-ID: <6.2.5.6.2.20061002055614.044a5790@freedomarchives.org>



THE DECIDER
   by Toni Smith

*"I hear the voices and I read the front page and I know the
speculation," the president told reporters in the Rose Garden.
"But I'm the decider and I decide what's best. And what's best
is for Don Rumsfeld to remain as the secretary of defense."*
*-------- George W. Bush*

Well, it took me awhile, but I finally realized what "I'm the
decider," reminds me of. It sounds like something a character in
a Dr Seuss book might say. So with apologies to the late Mr.
Geisel, here is some idle speculation as to what else such a
character might say:

I'm the decider. I pick and I choose.
I pick among whats.
And choose among whos.

And as I decide
Each particular day,
The things I decide on
All turn out that way.

I decided on Freedom
For all of Iraq.
And now that we have it,
I'm not looking back.

I decided on tax cuts
That just help the wealthy.
And Medicare changes
That aren't really healthy.

And parklands and wetlands
Who needs all that stuff?
I decided that none
Would be more than enough!

I decided that schools
All in all are the best.
The less that they teach
And the more that they test.

I decided those wages
You need to get by,
Are much better spent
On some CEO guy.

I decided your Wade
Which was versing your Roe,
Is terribly awful
And just has to go.

I decided that levees
Are not really needed.
Now when hurricanes come
They can come unimpeded.

That old Constitution?
Well, I have decided-
As "just Goddamn paper"*
It should be derided.

I've decided gay marriage
Is icky and weird.
Above all other things,
It's the one to be feared.

And Cheney and Rummy
And Condi all know
That I'm the Decider -
They tell me it's so.

I'm the Decider
So watch what you say,
Or I may decide
To have you whisked away

Or I'll tap your phones.
Your e-mail I'll read.
`cause I'm the Decider -
   Like Jesus decreed.

* This is an exact Bush Quote! Now that I think about it, Dr. Seuss 
anticipated this administration pretty well when he wrote Yertle the Turtle


On the far-away island of Sala-ma-Sond,
Yertle the Turtle was king of the pond.
A nice little pond. It was clean. It was neat.
The water was warm. There was plenty to eat.
The turtles had everything turtles might need.
And they were all happy. Quite happy indeed.
They were... until Yertle, the king of them all,
Decided the kingdom he ruled was too small.
"I'm ruler", said Yertle, "of all that I see.
But I don't see enough. That's the trouble with me.
With this stone for a throne, I look down on my pond
But I cannot look down on the places beyond.
This throne that I sit on is too, too low down.
It ought to be higher!" he said with a frown.
"If I could sit high, how much greater I'd be!
What a king! I'd be ruler of all that I see!"
And Yertle, the Turtle King, gave a command.
He ordered nine turtles to swim to his stone
And, using these turtles, he built a new throne.
He made each turtle stand on another one's back
And he piled them all up in a nine-turtle stack.
And then Yertle climbed up. He sat down on the pile.
What a wonderful view! He could see 'most a mile!
"All mine!" Yertle cried. "Oh, the things I now rule!
I'm the king of a cow! And I'm the king of a mule!
I'm the king of a house! And, what's more, beyond that
I'm the king of a blueberry bush and a cat!
I'm Yertle the Turtle! Oh, marvelous me!
For I am the ruler of all that I see!"
And all through the morning, he sat up there high
Saying over and over, "A great king am I!"
Until 'long about noon. Then he heard a faint sigh.
"What's that?" snapped the king,and he looked down the stack.
And he saw, at the bottom, a turtle named Mack.
Just a part of his throne. And this plain little turtle
Looked up and he said, "Beg your pardon, King Yertle.
I've pains in my back and my shoulders and knees.
How long must we stand here, Your Majesty, please?"
"SILENCE!" the King of the Turtles barked back.
"I'm king, and you're only a turtle named Mack."
"You stay in your place while I sit here and rule.
I'm the king of a cow! And I'm the king of a mule!
I'm the king of a house! And a bush! And a cat!
But that isn't all. I'll do better than that!
My throne shall be higher!" his royal voice thundered,
"So pile up more turtles! I want 'bout two hundred!"
"Turtles! More turtles!" he bellowed and brayed.
And the turtles 'way down in the pond were afraid.
They trembled. They shook. But they came. They obeyed.
 From all over the pond, they came swimming by dozens.
Whole families of turtles, with uncles and cousins.
And all of them stepped on the head of poor Mack.
One after another, they climbed up the stack.
Then Yertle the Turtle was perched up so high,
He could see forty miles from his throne in the sky!
"Hooray!" shouted Yertle. "I'm the king of the trees!
I'm king of the birds! And I'm king of the bees!
I'm king of the butterflies! King of the air!
Ah, me! What a throne! What a wonderful chair!
I'm Yertle the Turtle! Oh, marvelous me!
For I am the ruler of all that I see!"
Then again, from below, in the great heavy stack,
Came a groan from that plain little turtle named Mack.
"Your Majesty, please... I don't like to complain,
But down here below, we are feeling great pain.
I know, up on top you are seeing great sights,
But down here at the bottom we, too, should have rights.
We turtles can't stand it. Our shells will all crack!
Besides, we need food. We are starving!" groaned Mack.

"You hush up your mouth!" howled the mighty King Yertle.
"You've no right to talk to the world's highest turtle.
I rule from the clouds! Over land! Over sea!
There's nothing, no, NOTHING, that's higher than me!"

But, while he was shouting, he saw with surprise
That the moon of the evening was starting to rise
Up over his head in the darkening skies.
"What's THAT?" snorted Yertle. "Say, what IS that thing
That dares to be higher than Yertle the King?
I shall not allow it! I'll go higher still!
I'll build my throne higher! I can and I will!
I'll call some more turtles. I'll stack 'em to heaven!
I need 'bout five thousand, six hundred and seven!"

But, as Yertle, the Turtle King, lifted his hand
And started to order and give the command,
That plain little turtle below in the stack,
That plain little turtle whose name was just Mack,
Decided he'd taken enough. And he had.
And that plain little lad got a bit mad.
And that plain little Mack did a plain little thing.
He burped!
And his burp shook the throne of the king!

And Yertle the Turtle, the king of the trees,
The king of the air and the birds and the bees,
The king of a house and a cow and a mule...
Well, that was the end of the Turtle King's rule!
For Yertle, the King of all Sala-ma-Sond,
Fell off his high throne and fell Plunk! in the pond!

And today the great Yertle, that Marvelous he,
Is King of the Mud. That is all he can see.
And the turtles, of course... all the turtles are free
As turtles and, maybe, all creatures should be.

by Dr. Seuss

The Freedom Archives
522 Valencia Street
San Francisco, CA 94110
(415) 863-9977
www.freedomarchives.org 
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From news at freedomarchives.org  Mon Oct  2 15:29:45 2006
From: news at freedomarchives.org (Anti-Imperialist News)
Date: Mon, 02 Oct 2006 12:29:45 -0700
Subject: [News] SF 10/4: Public Forum - No Troops to Oaxaca!
Message-ID: <6.2.5.6.2.20061002122759.044b7780@freedomarchives.org>

Background Article Follows

OWC - Open World Conference in Defense of Trade Union
Independence & Democratic Rights, c/o S.F. Labor Council,
1188 Franklin St., #203, San Francisco, CA 94109.
Phone: (415) 641-8616   Fax: (415) 440-9297.
-------------------



PUBLIC FORUM

MEXICO:  EMERGENCY ALERT

* NO FEDERAL TROOPS TO OAXACA!
* MEET THE PEOPLE'S DEMANDS!

Public Forum Featuring Jos? Alejandro Sandoval 
Torres & Juan Manuel L?pez Sarsoza, Indigenous 
Leaders of the Peoples Assembly of Oaxaca  (APPO).

These APPO representatives are currently on an 
Emergency West Coast Tour sponsored by the Frente 
de Mexicanos en el Exterior, Organizaci?n de 
Trabajadores Agricolas de California, Union 
Civica Primero de Mayo, Chicano Consortium, 
Sacramento City Teachers Union, and the 
Sacramento chapters of the Labor Council for 
Latin American Advancement and LULAC.

The Fox administration in Mexico is readying to 
send federal troops into the city of Oaxaca to 
crush the strike of more than 70,000 teachers and 
the resistance of an entire people, which has 
organized its own Popular Assembly of the Peoples of Oaxaca (APPO).

Join us to learn from these two representatives 
from the APPO in Oaxaca what is occurring on the 
ground in Oaxaca and what we in the United States 
can do to help them in their struggle to win 
their just and legitimate demands and to force 
the resignation of repressive Governor Ulises 
Ruiz Ortiz, who unleashed the police on the strikers last June 14.

For more background information, see the 
International Solidarity Appeal below.

DATE, TIME AND PLACE

Wednesday, OCTOBER 4 @ 7 p.m.
Center for Political Education, 522 Valencia St., 3rd Fl., San Francisco
(@ 16th Street; one block from 16th St. Mission BART station)
Donation Requested at door; No one Turned Away for lack of funds.

Forum Sponsored by Mexicanos En El Exterior, 
Global Exchange, S.F. LCLAA, Open World Conference, Comit? en Defensa Del voto

For more information, call 415-641-8616 or contact <ilcinfo at earthlink.net>

***********


BACKGROUND INFORMATION ON THE STRUGGLE OF THE PEOPLE OF OAXACA

INTERNATIONAL APPEAL IN SOLIDARITY WITH SECTION 
22 OF THE NATIONAL EDUCATION UNION (SNTE-CNTE) AND WITH THE PEOPLE OF OAXACA

The movement of the teachers of Section 22 of the 
National Education Union and the people of Oaxaca 
is facing a terrible situation.

The Secretario de Gobernaci?n (Minister of the 
Interior), with the backing of all the governors 
of the country, has called on President Vicente 
Fox to "act with the strict respect of the law 
against all the destabilizing forces that aim to 
directly prejudice the constitutional order." 
This is an open call to use force against the movement.

The bosses, the representatives of the Church, 
the media and a few mayors of all the parties 
have also called on the government to send a 
military expedition toward the State of Oaxaca.

The strike movement of 70,000 teachers of the 
State of Oaxaca began around the wage issues of 
Section 22 of the SNTE last May. The teachers 
called for all teachers to receive the same wages 
throughout all the districts of the State of Oaxaca.

On June 14, the PRI government headed by Governor 
Ulises Ruiz Ortiz unleashed a brutal attack 
against the strike encampments set up by the 
teachers in the center of the city of Oaxaca. But 
the teachers forced the police forces to retreat 
after five hours of confrontation.

In response, the unions, neighborhood 
organizations, peasants and indigenous groups set 
up a Popular Assembly of the Peoples of Oaxaca 
(APPO), which organized five huge marches and -- 
with the decisive participation of the teachers 
-- set up barricades that were staffed for 
self-defense purposes throughout the night.

The teachers and the population set up a 
political tribunal to fight for the demand, 
"Governor Ulises Ruiz must go!" The teachers and 
the APPO have occupied the headquarters of the 
executive, judicial, and legislative branches of 
the state, as well as the local private radios 
and the provincial television station.

The governor, incapable of launching a massive 
attack against the teachers and the people, has 
utilized gangster methods, by sending in armed 
individuals with pistols to shoot at people on 
the barricades and at the marches. Four people 
have died in this way, and dozens have been 
injured. Four people have been arrested, among 
them Elangelio Mendoza Gonzalez, the former 
General Secretary of Section 22 of SNTE-CNTE.

Currently, based on the decision of the General 
Assembly of Section 22 of the SNTE and 
representatives of the APPO, 5,000 teachers, 
health workers, and peasants are marching on 
Mexico City to express their resistance in the capital.

They must travel more than 500 km (from the South 
to the North, crossing over the Western Sierra 
Madre mountain chain). They must also face state 
aggression. For its part, the Ministry of the 
Interior has organized a meeting of "all the 
sectors eager to find a solution to the Oaxaca 
problem" for this Wednesday. At the same time, it 
declared that "things have reached their limit in 
Oaxaca" and has threatened to send in 10,000 federal police.

At the very moment we write these lines, several 
Navy helicopters are patrolling the skies of 
Oaxaca. A police assault could result in a 
bloodbath. The teachers and the population are 
ready to resist. They want to live peacefully and 
want to ensure that democracy is respected. And 
they want the will of the majority to be 
respected --that is, for Governor Ulises Ruiz to leave.

That is why we are appealing to the unions of the 
whole world, particularly to the teachers' 
unions, to write to Carlos Abascal Carranza 
(Minister of the Interior) and Vicente Fox (President) to say:

-- No to repression against the teachers and the 
people in the State of Oaxaca, Mexico!

-- Respect the fundamental demand of the 
movement: Governor Ulises Ruiz Ortiz must step down immediately!

The first signers calling for international solidarity:

Professor Ezequiel Carre?o Rosales, 
Organizational Secretary, Section 22 of the 
SNTE-CNTE; Professor Fernando Mendoza Perez, 
Coordinator of the Executive Committee of Section 
22 of the SNTE-CNTE; Augusto Fernando Reyes 
Medina, member of the Executive Committee of 
Section 22 of the SNTE-CNTE; Professor Luis 
Vasquez Villalobos, delegate of the Union of the 
Workers of the National Autonomous University of 
Mexico (STUNAM); Javier Brena Alfaro, union 
delegate of the STUNAM; Gustavo Grajales, 
president of the Savings Fund of Section 40 of 
SNTE-CNTE; Misael Palma Lopez, member of Section 
7 of the SNTE (Chiapas); Russel Aguilar Brindis, 
member of the committee of technical secondary 
school struggles, Section 7 of the SNTE 
(Chiapas); Humberto Martinez Brizuela, professor 
of the National Polytechnic Institute; Armando 
Pasos Cabrera, member of the Independent Workers 
Union of the Autonomous Metropolitan University 
(SITUAM); Gema Lopez Limon, professor of the 
National Autonomous University of Baja California.

Send your messages to:
Vicente Fox Quesada, President of the Mexico: 
vicente.fox.quesada at presidencia.gob.mx

and

Carlos Abascal, Ministry of the Interior:
segob at rtn.net.mx

Send a copy to Fernando Mendoza Perez, Member of 
the Executive Committee of Section 22 of the SNTE-CNTE:
Alborotador_oax at hotmail.com

Also, please send a copy of your letter to:
Entente Internationale (France):
eit-ilc at fr.oleane.com
<br>
<br>
</blockquote></x-html>

The Freedom Archives
522 Valencia Street
San Francisco, CA 94110
(415) 863-9977
www.freedomarchives.org 
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From news at freedomarchives.org  Mon Oct  2 15:42:37 2006
From: news at freedomarchives.org (Anti-Imperialist News)
Date: Mon, 02 Oct 2006 12:42:37 -0700
Subject: [News] Bolivar,
	Zapata and Sandino Ghosts - October 11 - San Francisco
Message-ID: <6.2.5.6.2.20061002124131.044aad60@freedomarchives.org>



8 p.m., Wednesday, October 11

CounterPULSE

1310 Mission (at 9th) in San Francisco

Bolivar, Zapata and Sandino Ghosts and Revolution in South America

Left-leaning political movements are reshaping politics south of
the U.S. border. Mobilized indigenous cultures are forming new
social movements in the Andes, deposing governments and shifting
the left toward a more profound anti-state and anti-imperialist
politics. The state-sponsored programs in Venezuela called
"Bolivarianism" and the bottom-up, grassroots Other Campaign of the
Zapatistas in Mexico are altering agendas across the hemisphere.
How will the new social movements reshape left-wing politics in the
U.S.? How are indigenous movements re-emerging to change our
thinking in both South and North America? Tonight's discussion will
try to pull these threads together and open the discussion for our
own politics here in the Bay Area. (John Ross, Roxanne Dunbar- Ortiz, 
Aileen "Chockie" Cottier)

http://www.counterpulse.org/fall-winter-talks.shtml



CounterPULSE

1310 Mission Street (at 9th),
San Francisco
Info: 415.626.2060

ALL EVENTS ARE FREE TO THE PUBLIC
(donations are welcome to help defray costs)

City Lights Foundation is the nonprofit wing of City Lights
Booksellers & Publishers, working to advance literacy and
democratic access to knowledge.

In collaboration with Independent Arts & Media, this series will be
broadcast on KUSF-FM and archived online.







The Freedom Archives
522 Valencia Street
San Francisco, CA 94110
(415) 863-9977
www.freedomarchives.org 
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From news at freedomarchives.org  Mon Oct  2 15:44:28 2006
From: news at freedomarchives.org (Anti-Imperialist News)
Date: Mon, 02 Oct 2006 12:44:28 -0700
Subject: [News] Women's Report Back from the Philippines - SF - Fri Oct 13
Message-ID: <6.2.5.6.2.20061002124259.04496340@freedomarchives.org>


GABRIELA NETWORK AND THE NATIONAL LAWYERS GUILD PRESENT:
SEEKING ANSWERS
An all-women human rights delegation's
report back from the Philippines

Over 755 activists have been killed in the Philippines since Gloria 
Macapagal Arroyo took office in 2001.  Hundreds more have been 
harassed, displaced and/or disappeared.  Of these over half came from 
the organized opposition movement. 80 of those killed were women - 
half murdered while working as GABRIELA Women's Party organizers, one 
of the only women's electoral parties in the world.
In May 2006, GABRIELA Network USA organized an all-women human rights 
delegation with lawyers from the Center for Constitutional Rights, 
the National Lawyers Guild and the International Association of 
Democratic Lawyers in order to investigate the situation.


We invite the Bay Area community to the West Coast release of their 
findings, with an update on the current situation in the 
Philippines.  Join us to support the women in the Philippines in 
their quest for justice!
WHEN:   FRIDAY, OCT 13, 2006. 7-9 pm
WHERE:  NEW COLLEGE OF CALIFORNIA,
                777 Valencia
             (btw 18th and 19th - near 16 St BART)

SPEAKERS INCLUDE:
RACHEL LEDERMAN, National Lawyers Guild atty - delegation member
ANNALISA ENRILE, Chairperson, GABRIELA Network - delegation member
GEMMA MIRKINSON, GABRIELA Network member recently returned from 4 
months in the Philippines
         CULTURE - FOOD - DISCUSSION
         $7-10 (no one turned away for lack of funds)
         All monies to go to the GABRIELA Philippine Women's Legal Defense Fund
         For more information 
contact:  <mailto:sfbayarea at gabnet.org>sfbayarea at gabnet.org




The Freedom Archives
522 Valencia Street
San Francisco, CA 94110
(415) 863-9977
www.freedomarchives.org 
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From news at freedomarchives.org  Mon Oct  2 15:47:07 2006
From: news at freedomarchives.org (Anti-Imperialist News)
Date: Mon, 02 Oct 2006 12:47:07 -0700
Subject: [News] Leftists call for unity, not internal chaos, in Palestine
Message-ID: <6.2.5.6.2.20061002124606.044a6370@freedomarchives.org>

Leftists call for unity, not internal chaos, in true Palestinian 
cause for independence
http://english.pnn.ps/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=691&Itemid=1


Palestine News Network
Monday, 02 October 2006

Image
A spokesperson for the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine 
has come out Monday in condemnation of yesterday's clashes between 
Hamas' Government and Fateh's forces, emphasizing the need for a 
national unity government incorporating all political factions.

The leftist spokesperson said Monday, "The recent events in the West 
Bank and Gaza that have killed and injured dozens of Palestinians 
serve only the Israeli occupation."

Leaders from the Hamas and Fateh parties have seconded the leftist 
PFLP's concern, calling for restraint and a calming of the situation. 
Hamas and Fateh leaders have also stressed maintaining national 
interests over more narrow, partisan interests.

The PFLP spokesperson called upon members of the Higher Follow-Up 
Committee to play their role in "defusing the crisis and stopping the 
bloodshed." He called upon President Abbas and government leaders to 
work for an immediate de-escalation of the situation, stressing that 
further internal strife comprises the future of a Palestinian state.


The Freedom Archives
522 Valencia Street
San Francisco, CA 94110
(415) 863-9977
www.freedomarchives.org 
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From news at freedomarchives.org  Tue Oct  3 11:57:39 2006
From: news at freedomarchives.org (Anti-Imperialist News)
Date: Tue, 03 Oct 2006 08:57:39 -0700
Subject: [News] Protest continues against construction of Jewish museum on
 desecrated Islamic cemetery
Message-ID: <6.2.5.6.2.20061003085646.044a6d40@freedomarchives.org>

Nonviolent protest continues against construction of Jewish museum on 
desecrated Islamic cemetery
http://english.pnn.ps/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=698&Itemid=1

(Jerusalem) Palestine News Network
Tuesday, 03 October 2006

Palestinians inside the Green Line are holding a nonviolent sit-in 
throughout Tuesday in protest of the Israeli decision to build a 
Jewish museum on the ruins of an Islamic cemetery, Ma'man Allah, in Jerusalem.

Earlier this year the Israeli government began destroying the 
Palestinian cemetery, exhuming corpses amid widespread protest by the 
Al Aqsa Foundation to Preserve Muslim Holy Sites. United States and 
Israel are working together in their bid to build a "Museum of 
Tolerance" on the desecrated cemetery.

On Tuesday morning the Israeli Supreme Court resumed deliberating the 
case of whether to continue exhuming bodies from Jerusalem's Ma'man 
Allah Cemetery and go-ahead with museum construction. The Islamic 
position is to cancel museum plans and preserve the sanctity of the cemetery.

The Al Aqsa Foundation issued a statement Tuesday saying, "American 
Jews, clergymen and representatives of the American companies that 
support building the 'Museum of Tolerance' arrived from America 
especially to attend sessions of the Israeli Supreme Court regarding 
the cemetery in an attempt to influence the decision and give the 
museum heightened significance. Building this museum is absolutely racist."

Head of the Islamic Movement inside the Green Line, Sheikh Ra'ed 
Salah, sent a call to the Secretary General of the Organization of 
the Islamic Conference and to the Secretary General of the Arab 
League, Amr Mousa, to help save Ma'man Allah. Sheikh Salah outlined 
Israeli attacks on Islamic holy sites and gave a brief history of the 
current case.

Museum construction is being sponsored by a Los Angeles, 
California-based company to link the Jewish people living in 
Jerusalem to surrounding settlements, the Sheikh explained. The Al 
Aqsa Foundation appealed to the Israeli Supreme Court in February 
2006 to stop desecration of the cemetery. The court appointed a 
retired Israeli judge as mediator who attempted to convince the Al 
Aqsa Foundation to transfer the remains of Muslim's to another site. 
Ma'man Allah Cemetery has been in use in Jerusalem for hundreds of years.

The Al Aqsa Foundation not only rejected such a suggestion, but also 
indicated that the Israeli and American venture intended to mislead 
the public by saying they were ready to preserve part of the cemetery.

Also on Tuesday the Israeli Supreme Court heard a case in appeals in 
which Israeli companies are bidding to build apartments on another 
Islamic cemetery.


The Freedom Archives
522 Valencia Street
San Francisco, CA 94110
(415) 863-9977
www.freedomarchives.org 
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From news at freedomarchives.org  Tue Oct  3 12:00:26 2006
From: news at freedomarchives.org (Anti-Imperialist News)
Date: Tue, 03 Oct 2006 09:00:26 -0700
Subject: [News] Palestine - Searching for solutions as internal situation
 further deteriorates
Message-ID: <6.2.5.6.2.20061003085938.0449a360@freedomarchives.org>

Searching for solutions as internal situation further deteriorates
http://english.pnn.ps/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=697&Itemid=1

(Jenin) Ali Samoudi
Tuesday, 03 October 2006

Dozens of parties are scrambling to the dialogue table, searching for 
a way out of the escalation in internal aggressions prevailing 
between Hamas and Fateh. In Jenin, the Hamas attacks have left a 
negative air throughout the northern West Bank city. Popular Front 
for the Liberation of Palestine Central Committee Member, Nasser Abu 
Aziz, said Tuesday that a state of discontent and anger prevailing in 
the Palestinian street as fighting escalates.

He added today, "While we condemn the practices and all the reactions 
that are continuing, we strive to prevent an ignition within the 
internal front. We do not want the Jenin District, a stronghold of 
unified endurance in the face of Israeli occupation, to use its 
resistance against itself. Jenin will not be dragged into this 
unacceptable fighting. The bickering and all forms of abuse must stop 
now. They only serve the enemies of our people."

An Islamic Jihad leader, Said Mahmoud Sa'adi, said Tuesday, "Everyone 
is to stop the ongoing conflict, which serves only the enemies of our 
people. Bombing the Palestinian arena, whatever the reason, is 
condemned in all its forms. This contradicts all that we stand for."

Sa'adi continued to tell PNN, "We are working hard to stop the 
unfortunate events, and regain control of ourselves in order to 
prevent further deterioration in the situation in Jenin, a city and 
camp and district that is the epitome of unity and cohesion."

The comments were issued in the wake of dawn Monday's armed attacks 
on offices belonging to the Hamas movement in Jenin City. Local 
sources report that armed persons surrounded the building that houses 
the Hamas Information Office, and began shooting which led to the 
outbreak of a fire.

An attorney's office was damaged. He told PNN, "Just two weeks ago 
occupation forces stormed our offices. They took our files and 
computers. And now this. "

Later on Monday armed persons attacked the Islamic Club headquarters 
near Jenin's Central Mosque. And in yet another attack against Hamas, 
others set fire to a vehicle belonging to the Director of the Jenin 
Municipality's Engineering Department, Osama Abu Seif. His car was 
parked in front of his home in the Jabal Abu Dahir neighborhood. Fire fighters
contained the blaze.

The local General Secretary of Fateh said, "Risking our unity serves 
the schemes of the occupation."

Fateh called yesterday for a general strike in Jenin today in protest 
against Hamas' Executive Forces actions in the Gaza Strip. One of 
Hamas' most prominent local leaders, Sheikh Khalid Al Haj condemned 
all internal attacks, calling for "unity and the language of dialogue."

He said, "We warn you all to not fall into the Israeli trap. Hamas 
will strike to protect our people, our achievements, and our institutions."


The Freedom Archives
522 Valencia Street
San Francisco, CA 94110
(415) 863-9977
www.freedomarchives.org 
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From news at freedomarchives.org  Tue Oct  3 13:00:30 2006
From: news at freedomarchives.org (Anti-Imperialist News)
Date: Tue, 03 Oct 2006 10:00:30 -0700
Subject: [News] Urgent Call to Action - Help make low-income housing
 possible in New Orleans
Message-ID: <6.2.5.6.2.20061003095833.044aeeb0@freedomarchives.org>

(it is unclear about the most strategic people to contact or respond 
to, but it is important to take this step)

URGENT CALL TO ALL THOSE WHO SUPPORT THE
RIGHT OF RETURN OF DISPLACED PEOPLE
Take immediate action to make low-income and
affordable housing in New Orleans and Louisiana
possible.

Louisiana State Representatives Steve Scalise,
R-Jefferson, and Peppi Bruneau, R-New Orleans are
attempting to force the Louisiana Recovery Authority
(LRA) to eliminate low-income housing protections and
incentives provided in Federal requirements of the
Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) program.

The racist aims of Rep's. Scalise and Bruneau were
thinly veiled in a recent letter written to Governor
Kathleen Blanco. In the letter Rep. Scalise states,
"that policy would destroy the middle-class rebirth of
this region." He further stated that the policy
somehow "discriminates against many middle-income
families", and that providing certain basic supports
to low-income families "is social engineering in its
most blatant and egregious form."  The initiative of
Rep's. Scalise and Bruneau is another blatant attempt
to intensify and consolidate the ethnic cleansing of
New Orleans, and keep Black and working class families
from finding affordable housing so they can make the
journey home.

By Thursday, October 5th, the Louisiana State
Legislature must vote to approve or reject the
low-income rental housing repair program being
proposed by the LRA.
To counter the proposal of Rep's Scalise and Bruneau,
the People's Hurricane Relief Fund and Oversight
Coalition (PHRF/OC) is asking you to take 5 minutes
out of your schedule by Wednesday, October 4th to
call, fax, or email Louisiana Governor Kathleen Blanco
and the Louisiana State Legislature and demand that
the Legislature:
1. Support the proposal of the low-income rental
repair proposal of the LRA.
2. Deny the request for a waiver to HUD to eliminate
the low-income requirements mandated by the CDBG
program.
3. Apply all of the CDBG requirements to the LRA
process.
4. Appropriate at least 20% of the LRA funds to renter
transition and recovery programs, including assistance
for moving costs, deposits, and rent assistance.

For more information about the LRA rental housing
proposal see Times-Picayune Saturday, September 30th
at
http://www.nola.com/archives/t-p/index.ssf?/base/news-4/115959744637130.xml&coll=1
or visit the Louisiana Recovery Authority (LRA)
website at http://louisianarecoveryauthority.org.

For contact information on the Louisiana State
Legislature, please see our attachment.

  Louisiana State Legislature
SENATORS - (alphabetical)
(Followed by House of Representatives)
Senator Robert Adley adleyr at legis.state.la.us - (318)
965-1755
Senator "Jody" Amedee amedeej at legis.state.la.us -
(225) 644-1526
Senator Diana E. Bajoie websen at legis.state.la.us -
(504) 568-7760
Senator Robert J. Barham barhamr at legis.state.la.us -
(318) 244-5582
Senator Walter J. Boasso boassow at legis.state.la.us -
(504) 270-9258
Senator Sharon Weston Broome lasen15 at legis.state.la.us
- (225) 359-9352
Senator James David Cain cainj at legis.state.la.us -
(337) 328-7266
Senator Joel T. Chaisson websen at legis.state.la.us -
(985) 764-9911
Senator Sherri Smith Cheek
smithcheek at legis.state.la.us - (318) 687-4820
Senator Donald R. "Don" Cravins
websen at legis.state.la.us - (337) 234-9695
Senator Jay Dardenne dardennej at legis.state.la.us (225)
342-9788
Senator Ann Duplessis duplessisa at legis.state.la.us -
(504) 243-7795
Senator Reggie P. Dupre lasen20 at legis.state.la.us -
(985) 876-9902
Senator Noble E. Ellington ellingtn at legis.state.la.us
- (318) 435-7313
Senator Cleo Fields fieldsc at legis.state.la.us - (225)
342-9793
Senator Heulette "Clo" Fontenot
fontenoc at legis.state.la.us - (225) 686-0108
Senator "Nick" Gautreaux gautreauxn at legis.state.la.us
- (337) 740-NICK (6425)
1-866-740-NICK (6425)
Senator D. A. "Butch" Gautreaux
lasen21 at legis.state.la.us - (800) 562-3204
Senator Francis C. Heitmeier
heitmeierf at legis.state.la.us - (504) 361-6014
Senator Donald E. Hines hinesd at legis.state.la.us -
(318) 346-4619
Senator Ken Hollis hollisk at legis.state.la.us - (504)
828-9300
Senator Lydia P. Jackson jacksonl at legis.state.la.us -
(318) 676-7029
Senator Charles D. "C.D." Jones
websen at legis.state.la.us - (318) 362-5469
Senator Robert W. "Bob" Kostelka
kostelka at legis.state.la.us - (800) 508-5572
Senator Arthur J. "Art" Lentini
lentini at legis.state.la.us - (504) 780-8700
Senator Max T. Malone malonem at legis.state.la.us -
(318) 676-5733
Senator Robert "Rob" Marionneaux
lasen17 at legis.state.la.us - (225) 637-3623
Senator Joe McPherson lasen29 at legis.state.la.us -
(318) 484-2211
Senator Michael J. "Mike" Michot
lasen23 at legis.state.la.us - (337) 262-1332
Senator Willie L. Mount lasen27 at legis.state.la.us -
(337) 491-2016
Senator Edwin R. Murray murraye at legis.state.la.us -
(504) 945-0042
Senator Ben Nevers websen at legis.state.la.us - (985)
732-6863
1-800-881-2749
Senator Julie Quinn quinnj at legis.state.la.us - (504)
219-4640
Senator Craig F. Romero romeroc at legis.state.la.us -
(337) 364-8006
Senator John T. "Tom" Schedler
schedlet at legis.state.la.us (985) 727-7949
Senator Derrick Shepherd websen at legis.state.la.us -
(504) 371-0263
Senator Kenneth M. "Mike" Smith
smithmi at legis.state.la.us - (318) 628-3075
Senator Gerald J. Theunissen
theunisg at legis.state.la.us - (337) 824-0376
Senator J. Chris Ullo websen at legis.state.la.us - (504)
361-6690

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES (alphabetical)

83 Alario, Jr., John A. smithg at legis.state.la.us -
(504)340-2221
43 Alexander, Ernie larep043 at legis.state.la.us -
(337)262-1214
92 Ansardi, Glenn larep092 at legis.state.la.us -
(504)466-1331
102 Arnold, Jeffery "Jeff" J.
larep102 at legis.state.la.us - (504)393-5801
100 Badon, Austin larep100 at legis.state.la.us -
(504)896-1491
53 Baldone, Damon J. larep053 at legis.state.la.us -
(985)876-8872
29 Barrow, Regina larep029 at legis.state.la.us -
(225)359-9331
39 Baudoin, Clara G. larep039 at legis.state.la.us -
(337)896-1340
3 Baylor, Jr., Ernest larep003 at legis.state.la.us -
(318)635-1850
69 Beard, Gary larep069 at legis.state.la.us -
(225)756-3499
78 Bowler, Shirley larep078 at legis.state.la.us -
(504)738-1922
7 Bruce, Beverly G. larep007 at legis.state.la.us -
(318)872-1666
94 Bruneau, Emile "Peppi" larep094 at legis.state.la.us -
(504)288-1200
89 Burns, Timothy G. larep089 at legis.state.la.us -
(985)624-4492
2 Burrell, Roy larep002 at legis.state.la.us -
(985)624-4492
93 Carter, Karen R. larep093 at legis.state.la.us -
(318)676-7137
72 Carter, Robert J. "Robby"
larep072 at legis.state.la.us - (985)878-6377
18 Cazayoux, Jr., Donald J. larep18 at legis.state.la.us
- (225)638-8725
22 Chandler, Billy R. larep022 at legis.state.la.us -
(318)899-1193
70 Crane, Carl ccrane at legis.state.la.us -
(225)766-7274
40 Cravins, Donald R., "Don", Jr.
larep040 at legis.state.la.us - (337)943-2407
76 Crowe, A. G. larep076 at legis.state.la.us -
(985)643-3600
26 Curtis, Israel B. larep026 at legis.state.la.us -
(318)487-5417
84 Damico, N. J. larep084 at legis.state.la.us -
(504)349-8840
68 Daniel, IV, William B. larep068 at legis.state.la.us -
(225)755-1000
51 Dartez, Carla Blanchard larep51 at legis.state.la.us -
(985)385-7019
25 DeWitt, Charlie larep025 at legis.state.la.us -
(318)442-1513
10 Doerge, Jean M. larep010 at legis.state.la.us -
(318)371-3092
67 Dorsey, Yvonne larep067 at legis.state.la.us -
(225)342-9700
52 Dove, Gordon larep052 at legis.state.la.us -
(985)876-8823
12 Downs, Hollis hdowns at legis.state.la.us -
(318)251-5039
46 Durand, Sydnie Mae larep046 at legis.state.la.us -
(337)845-4240
71 Erdey, Dale larep071 at legis.state.la.us -
(225)686-2881
13 Fannin, James R. larep013 at legis.state.la.us -
(318)259-6620
27 Farrar, Rick larep027 at legis.state.la.us -
(318)484-2210
57 Faucheux, Jr., Robert R. larep057 at legis.state.la.us
- (985)651-3886
47 Frith, Mickey larep047 at legis.state.la.us -
(337)893-5035
11 Gallot, Jr., Richard "Rick"
larep011 at legis.state.la.us - (318)251-5019
35 Geymann, Brett F. larep035 at legis.state.la.us -
(337)491-2315
4 Glover, Cedric B. larep004 at legis.state.la.us -
(318)226-5665
98 Gray, Cheryl A. larep098 at legis.state.la.us -
(504)568-2098
66 Greene, Hunter larep066 at legis.state.la.us -
(225)275-8064
34 Guillory, Elcie J. larep034 at legis.state.la.us -
(337)491-2320
41 Guillory, Mickey J. larep041 at legis.state.la.us -
(337)457-0194
87 Harris, Terrell larep087 at legis.state.la.us -
(504)340-8808
95 Heaton, Alex larep095 at legis.state.la.us -
(504)865-0751
49 Hebert, Troy larep049 at legis.state.la.us -
(337)276-6564
32 Hill, Herman Ray larep032 at legis.state.la.us -
(800)259-2118
63 Honey, Avon ahoney at legis.state.la.us -
(225)771-5674
1 Hopkins, Roy larep001 at legis.state.la.us -
(318)227-2003
17 Hunter, Jr., Willie larep017 at legis.state.la.us -
(318)362-5492
104 Hutter, Nita Rusich larep104 at legis.state.la.us -
(504)361-6684
61 Jackson, Michael larep061 at legis.state.la.us -
(225)342-0774
91 Jefferson-Bullock, Jalila
larep091 at legis.state.la.us - (504)896-1478
33 Johns, Ronnie larep033 at legis.state.la.us -
(337)626-2010
16 Katz, Kay larep016 at legis.state.la.us -
(318)340-0800
65 Kennard, Donald Ray larep065 at legis.state.la.us -
(225)261-7382
20 Kenney, Lelon larep020 at legis.state.la.us -
(318)649-9100
36 Kleckley, Chuck larep036 at legis.state.la.us -
(337)475-3016
81 LaBruzzo, John larep081 at legis.state.la.us -
(504)833-7788
38 LaFleur, Eric larep038 at legis.state.la.us -
(337)363-5019
96 LaFonta, Juan larep096 at legis.state.la.us -
(225)342-2435
59 Lambert, Eddie J. larep059 at legis.state.la.us -
(225)644-4428
80 Lancaster, Jr., Charles D.
larep080 at legis.state.la.us - (504)837-4477
99 Marchand, Charmaine larep099 at legis.state.la.us -
79 Martiny, Daniel R. larep079 at legis.state.la.us -
(504)834-7676
14 McDonald, Charles larep014 at legis.state.la.us -
(318)281-8121
62 McVea, Thomas H. "Tom" larep062 at legis.state.la.us -
(225)634-7470
9 Montgomery, Billy Wayne larep009 at legis.state.la.us -
(318)949-2463
37 Morrish, Dan W. "Blade" larep037 at legis.state.la.us
- (337)824-3979
103 Odinet, Sr., Kenneth L. larep103 at legis.state.la.us
- (985)845-1205
44 Pierre, Wilfred larep044 at legis.state.la.us -
(337)261-0044
42 Pinac, Gil larep042 at legis.state.la.us -
(337)783-7963
54 Pitre, Jr., Loulan J. larep054 at legis.state.la.us -
(985)632-2001
73 Powell, Henry "Tank" larep073 at legis.state.la.us -
(985)386-2910
6 Powell, Mike larep006 at legis.state.la.us -
(318)869-0008
58 Quezaire, Jr., Roy larep058 at legis.state.la.us -
(225)474-2025
101 Richmond, Cedric larep101 at legis.state.la.us -
(504)242-4198
75 Ritchie, Harold L. larep075 at legis.state.la.us -
(985)730-2147
45 Robideaux, Joel C. larep045 at legis.state.la.us -
(337)984-1091
48 Romero, Errol "Romo" larep048 at legis.state.la.us -
(337)373-0020
24 Salter, Joe R. larep024 at legis.state.la.us -
(800)259-4135
82 Scalise, Steve sscalise at legis.state.la.us - (504)
888-9899
90 Schneider, Matthew "Pete"
larep090 at legis.state.la.us - (985)863-3642
88 Smiley, Jr., M.J. "Mert" larep088 at legis.state.la.us
- (225)698-9694
50 Smith, Jack D. webreps at legis.state.la.us -
(985)764-9122
8 Smith, Jane H. larep008 at legis.state.la.us -
(337)828-7778
30 Smith, John R. larep030 at legis.state.la.us -
(318)741-2825
56 Smith, Jr., Gary L. larep56 at legis.state.la.us -
(985)764-9122
60 St. Germain, Karen Gaudet
larep060 at legis.state.la.us - (225)687-2410
74 Strain, Michael G. larep074 at legis.state.la.us -
(985)893-6246
19 Thompson, Francis C. larep019 at legis.state.la.us -
(318)878-9408
85 Toomy, Joseph F. larep085 at legis.state.la.us -
(504)361-6013
23 Townsend, T. Taylor larep023 at legis.state.la.us -
(318)357-7048
31 Trahan, Donald M. larep031 at legis.state.la.us -
(337)984-0175
55 Triche, Jr., Warren J. webreps at legis.state.la.us -
(985)447-0999
86 Tucker, Jim larep086 at legis.state.la.us -
(504)393-5646
5 Waddell, Wayne larep005 at legis.state.la.us -
(318)219-9000
28 Walker, Monica larep028 at legis.state.la.us -
(318)253-8891
15 Walsworth, Michael A. larep015 at legis.state.la.us -
(318)340-6453
64 White, Mack "Bodi" larep064 at legis.state.la.us -
(225)791-2199 or (800) 408-9764
77 Winston, Diane G. larep077 at legis.state.la.us -
(985)893-6262
105 Wooton, Ernest D. larep105 at legis.state.la.us - (504)393-5649


The Freedom Archives
522 Valencia Street
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(415) 863-9977
www.freedomarchives.org 
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From news at freedomarchives.org  Tue Oct  3 13:08:45 2006
From: news at freedomarchives.org (Anti-Imperialist News)
Date: Tue, 03 Oct 2006 10:08:45 -0700
Subject: [News] Break the Chains: Black Panther Prisoners & Repression Today
 - Sun Oct 15th, Oakland
Message-ID: <6.2.5.6.2.20061003100625.044b1c90@freedomarchives.org>

Break the Chains: Black Panther Prisoners & Repression Today

Commemorating the 40th Anniversary of the Black Panther Party

With Kathleen Cleaver, Ashanti Alston and BPP Grand Jury Resisters

Sunday, October 15th at 6pm

Eastside Arts Alliance
2587 International Blvd @ 26th Ave

Sponsored by Malcolm X Grassroots Movement, Eastside Arts Alliance, 
The Freedom Archives & It's About Time

Donations Requested (nobody turned away)

More information: 510 533-6629


The Freedom Archives
522 Valencia Street
San Francisco, CA 94110
(415) 863-9977
www.freedomarchives.org 
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From news at freedomarchives.org  Thu Oct  5 14:27:08 2006
From: news at freedomarchives.org (Anti-Imperialist News)
Date: Thu, 05 Oct 2006 11:27:08 -0700
Subject: [News] Ricardo Alarcon - The Truth About the "Embargo" on Cuba
Message-ID: <6.2.5.6.2.20061005112557.044a5090@freedomarchives.org>

http://www.counterpunch.org/alarcon10052006.html

October 5, 2006


An Economic War


The Truth About the "Embargo" on Cuba

By RICARDO ALARC?N

"To bring about hunger, desperation and overthrow of government"

State Department, April 6, 1960

A few weeks from now, the UN General Assembly 
will pass, with practical unanimity, a new 
resolution, the number 15, condemning the 
blockade on Cuba, which Washington tries to 
describe as barely an "embargo". The United 
States Government will try to justify its policy 
once again without success. They have been doing 
this for almost half a century now, concealing 
the truth behind their fabrications and lies.

The truth is, however, contained in documents 
that were kept secret by Washington until 1991. 
More than an embargo or blockade, it is in fact 
an act of ?economic warfare?, as the then 
secretary of state, Christian Herter, said in 
1959. An economic warfare that began with the 
triumph of the Revolution in January of 1959 and 
it is still in force today, a war which has 
always had the same genocidal purpose: to bring 
about hunger, misery and desperation among the people of Cuba.

Dictator Fulgencio Batista and his main 
accomplices plundered the Republic's Treasury and 
upon fleeing Cuba in January of that year they 
took with them more than 424 million dollars 
which came to rest in the United States and form 
the economic basis of a mafia often hailed by the 
US press as ?successful businessmen? of Miami. 
For Cuba the situation was critical and 
Washington knew it. The Department of State 
described it as such, saying in February 1959 that:

"the serious threat to the stability of the Cuba 
peso which results from the fact that following 
the departure of the Batista administration it 
was determined that the currency reserve of the 
country is depleted", something which, "would tax 
the governing abilities of any of the best leaders".

The Central Bank of Cuba sent a team of experts 
to Washington to seek a modest loan that would 
alleviate such a crisis. The issue was analysed 
by the National Security Council on February 12, 
1959. The decision was unequivocal: they would 
listen to the Cubans but offer them nothing at 
all. They didn't grant any kind of loan. They 
didn't even promise to look into the matter. 
Needless to say, not one cent of the money stolen 
from the Cuban people was ever returned.

The dispossession of Cuban bank reserves, which 
constitutes a blatant act of economic aggression, 
took place long before any revolutionary measure 
was adopted on the Island (the first being the 
Law of Agrarian reform, passed on May 17 of that year).

On March 26, 1959, the National Security Council 
also discussed the Cuba situation. At this 
meeting CIA's director, Allen Dulles, said that: 
"it was quite possible that the US Congress would 
do something which would affect the sale of Cuban 
sugar in the US". Depriving Cuba of its main 
source of income, sugar exports to the US market, 
would become a recurrent theme of Washington's 
secret meetings before, long before, 
relationships with the Soviet Union were 
re-established and before socialism was 
proclaimed to be Revolution's goal. They did that 
when sugar was still being grown on large landed 
estates and processed in factories -many of which 
were US owned- that had not been expropriated and 
were still in the hands of the Island's oligarchy and foreign companies.

US Government officials were aware of the 
consequences of such action. A report from the 
Department of State acknowledged that: "If Cuba 
were deprived of its quota privilege, the sugar 
industry would promptly suffer an abrupt decline, 
causing widespread further unemployment. The 
large numbers of people those forced out of work would begin to go hungry".

But they weren't just talking about sugar: "if we 
were to cut the Cubans off from their fuel 
supply, the effect would be devastating on them within a month or six weeks".

Nobody in Washington claimed to have been 
deceived. They knew that the actions taken 
against the Revolution would cause pain and 
suffering to all the Cuban people. They did it 
with premeditation and full knowledge of the 
effect, converting the act of genocide into a 
malicious political instrument. An analysis from 
this same Department, dated April 6, 1960 and 
approved with the signature of Assistant 
Secretary, Roy Rubottom, offers us explicit proof of this policy.

In this analysis it is flatly affirmed that:

"The majority of Cubans support CastroThe only 
foreseeable means of alienating internal support 
is through disenchantment and disaffection based 
on economic dissatisfaction and hardshipit 
follows that every possible means should be 
undertaken promptly to weaken the economic life 
of Cuba it should be the result of a positive 
decision which would call forth a line of action 
while as adroit and inconspicuous as possible, 
makes the greatest inroads in denying money and 
supplies to Cuba, to decrease monetary and real 
wages, to bring about hunger, desperation and overthrow of government".

Note that they acknowledged they should act in a 
manner "as adroit and inconspicuous as possible", 
something that fits with a criminal behaviour, 
and not just any crime, but rather one that has 
been particularly condemned by humankind: the 
crime of genocide clearly defined by the Geneva 
Convention of 1948 as any attempt to cause total 
or partial damage to any human group. What is 
this if it isn't precisely that: an attempt at 
?bringing about hunger and desperation? among all Cubans?

It is probably the most prolonged act of genocide 
in history. It began before the majority of 
Cubans alive today were born, meaning that they 
have spent their entire lives under the blockade.

Soon it will be condemned again by humankind as a 
whole. Once again the US administration will 
reveal its arrogance and ignore the demand being 
made worldwide. When will it end?

NB: All quotes are from the official documents 
compiled in the book published by the Department 
of State: Foreign Relations of the United States, 
1958-1960 Volume VI Cuba, United States Goverment 
Printing Office, Washington, 1991.

Ricardo Alarcon de Quesada is Cuba's Vice 
President and President of its National Assembly.


The Freedom Archives
522 Valencia Street
San Francisco, CA 94110
(415) 863-9977
www.freedomarchives.org 
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From news at freedomarchives.org  Fri Oct  6 16:31:58 2006
From: news at freedomarchives.org (Anti-Imperialist News)
Date: Fri, 06 Oct 2006 13:31:58 -0700
Subject: [News] Right-wing article about Israelis Contracted for US border
 controls
Message-ID: <6.2.5.6.2.20061006132909.044b4070@freedomarchives.org>

The American Free Press is a successor to The Spotlight, which was 
the publication of the right-wing Liberty Lobby. That being said, the 
information contained in this article can be found, albeit in less 
detail, from other articles in documents not intended for the general 
population including a long piece on the web site of the Heritage Foundation.

<http://www.rense.com/general73/iwn.htm>http://www.rense.com/general73/iwn.htm
Israelis Win Contract
To Secure US Borders
By Christopher Bollyn
American Free Press
10-5-6

   On Sept. 21, Michael Chertoff, the secretary of the Department of 
Homeland Security (DHS), announced that a consortium headed by the 
Chicago-based Boeing Company had won a multi-billion dollar contract 
to install sensors and radar along the U.S. border. The deal, the 
first part of a multibillion-dollar government plan designed to 
reduce illegal entry along the Canadian and Mexican borders calls for 
cameras, sensors and even unmanned planes.   When Chertoff was asked 
why DHS had chosen the Boeing-led group he declined to comment. The 
reason for Chertoff's silence, however, is telling: the Boeing team 
includes an Israeli military subcontractor which will play a key role 
in "securing" the U.S. border.   Of interest is the fact that 
Chertoff's Israeli mother played a key role in creating that country 
in its infancy.   The Boeing team, which will implement the DHS 
program called the Secure Border Initiative (SBI) along the northern 
and southern borders of the United States, includes a Merrimack, 
N.H.-based surveillance technology firm called Kollsman Inc., a 
wholly-owned subsidiary of Elbit Systems Ltd. of Haifa, 
Israel.     The Israeli-American team includes Unisys Corp., DRS 
Technologies Inc., L-3 Communications Holdings Inc., Lucent 
Technologies Inc., Perot Systems Corp. and the Israeli-owned 
Kollsman, which makes the thermo-imaging cameras used to monitor 
Israel's borders.   As Chertoff announced the awarding of the 
contract, estimated to be worth some $2.5 billion, he was giving a 
very lucrative and sensitive contract to an Israeli company with 
close ties to the Israeli military. The contract reportedly does not 
have a set value. Payments will be announced as parts for the system 
are ordered.     The work will be done in phases, with the first 
piece being a 28-mile stretch near Tucson, Ariz., Chertoff said. This 
first phase will cost $67 million, he said. Boeing's proposal 
includes some 1,800 towers along the borders with cameras developed 
by Israel's Elbit Systems Ltd. which can reportedly spot people up to 
9 miles away.   Elbit Systems says it is "the prime contractor and 
systems integrator for the Israel Police Border Control System, a 
computerized system for registration and control deployed at every 
Israeli border crossing.     "Elbit Systems has developed and 
integrated multi-layered solutions incorporating cutting-edge 
biometrics, optical ID and RFID [radio frequency identification] 
technologies. Our perimeter security solutions have also been adapted 
for energy infrastructures and offshore installations," the company's 
web site says.   "We are looking at a technology that is advanced and 
can pick a face in the crowd," Wayne Esser, capture team leader of 
the Boeing team, told Washington Technology.   Elbit provides 
Israel's military with a border security surveillance system with 
integrated sensors, radars, a "smart fence" and cameras.   TIES TO 
ISRAELI INTELLIGENCE   Kollsman is not the only player on the Boeing 
team with ties to Israeli military intelligence. As AFP has reported 
previously, Unisys Corp., chaired by Lawrence A. Weinbach, has 
integrated Israeli security software into the computer products it 
sells to the U.S. government and other clients. Software from Check 
Point Software Technologies of Ramat Gan, Israel, for example, is 
integrated into Unisys products.     Elbit Systems is directed by a 
high-level board that is comprised of former Israeli major generals, 
colonels, ambassadors, and former chiefs of Israel's largest banks 
and companies. The company's only non-Israeli director on its board 
of 18 members is Timothy Taylor, the British-born president and CEO 
of Elbit Systems of America. Taylor speaks to the U.S. media for the 
Israeli-owned company while the former Israeli fighter pilots and 
generals run the company from Haifa.   SBI is a Chertoff initiative 
that is meant to be "a comprehensive plan to control our borders and 
stem the flow of illegal immigration. "What we are looking to do is 
build a virtual fence," Chertoff said. "We want to know when anybody 
or anything is crossing the border."   While the Israeli press was 
quick to report that an Israeli company was part of the SBI border 
security program, Chertoff failed to mention it. "Elbit System's 
subsidiary Kollsman announced it would supply technology to identify 
threats, deter and prevent crossings, and apprehend intruders along 
U.S. borders," Israeli daily Ha'aretz reported.   Huntleigh U.S.A., 
another Israeli-owned security company, provided passenger screening 
at Boston's Logan Airport on the morning of Sept. 11, 2001. 
Huntleigh, which is wholly owned by the Israeli company International 
Consultants on Targeted Security (ICTS) apparently failed to 
intercept the Arab terrorists who hijacked the two planes that hit 
the World Trade Center, according to the government version. Now, the 
same administration that failed to stop the terror attacks of 9-11 is 
hiring an Israeli-owned company to help protect the entire U.S. land 
border.   Christopher Bollyn is a much-traveled international 
journalist currently based in Chicago, serving as Midwest bureau 
chief for American Free Press. He has written extensively on a wide 
variety of subjects including the controversy surrounding 
computerized voting systems, the Arab-Israeli conflict and the many 
unanswered questions surrounding the 9-11 terrorist attacks.   Lest 
we forget - Israeli security companies had the contracts for the 
security at the airports where the alleged 'Arab terrorists' were 
allowed to pass through to board the 911 flights. -ed



The Freedom Archives
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(415) 863-9977
www.freedomarchives.org 
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From news at freedomarchives.org  Fri Oct  6 16:47:04 2006
From: news at freedomarchives.org (Anti-Imperialist News)
Date: Fri, 06 Oct 2006 13:47:04 -0700
Subject: [News] Palestine - Leftist DFLP: Rice and the US rhetoric empty as
 ever
Message-ID: <6.2.5.6.2.20061006134607.044b3eb0@freedomarchives.org>

Leftist DFLP: Rice and the US rhetoric empty as ever
http://english.pnn.ps/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=720&Itemid=1

(Ramallah) Rashid Hilal
Friday, 06 October 2006

Image
After US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice met with President Abbas 
in Ramallah and later with Israeli officials, it was noted that the 
Israelis "were given no criticisms" despite the ongoing occupation, 
while the list of demands to the Palestinians was long.

President Abbas graciously described the meeting as "helpful" 
although it did not suggest that the US and Israeli political and 
economic blockade was any where near an end. The United States 
Secretary of State and the Palestinian President both said in a joint 
press conference that there is a great need to improve the heavily 
deprived humanitarian situation in Palestine.

However, coming from the US, these statements were intended to 
confuse the reality of the issue. The comments were invitations to 
Arab states and the United States to revive the 'peace process' by 
solving the 'Palestinian issue.'

Social Issues Chairperson in the Palestinian Legislative Council and 
member of the Political Bureau of the leftist Democratic Front for 
the Liberation of Palestine, Qais, Abu Laila, Abdul Karim, spoke with 
PNN. "The essence of the American moves thus far do not offer any 
concrete proposals for solutions to the core issues of the 
Palestinian-Israeli conflict, but focus on some of the issues that 
are the results of the ongoing conflict, rather than the reasons behind them."

Abu Laila said that between the lines of American talk to support 
President Abbas is a bid to "pour oil on the fire," and "incite civil 
war." By imposing the political blockade when Hamas took office, and 
the economic blockade that has destroyed the already tenuous economy, 
Hamas takes the blame. But before Hamas was in power, Fateh was and 
the situation, although workers were paid, was not much better. US 
Secretary of State Rice said that what is necessary is a Palestinian 
government capable of "meeting the needs of the Palestinian people." 
She did not mention the blockade, and certainly not the occupation.

Abu Laila pointed out, "The American talk about finding solutions to 
the living problems of the Palestinian people does not take into 
account that many of these problems are the result of Israeli 
politics, which cut off the Palestinian territories and prevent the 
advancement of Palestinian economic prosperity and ensure that the 
urgent needs of the Palestinians are not secured. It also did not 
take into account that the latest problems are due to the blockade 
imposed by Israel and the United States, and some other international 
powers, against the Palestinian Authority as a collective punishment 
because of the results of the recent elections."

Abu Laila said, "Instead of Rice discussing ways to address these 
difficult living conditions by eliminating the causes by  lifting the 
embargo and pressuring Israel to restore withheld Palestinian funds, 
we found this empty rhetoric."

In response to PNN queries to Abu Laila regarding US President Bush 
authorizing US Secretary of State to initiate movement to resolve the 
conflict in the region, Abu Laila said, "This authorization is 
theoretical, and once again comes with conditions on the 
Palestinians, arguing that there is no Palestinian partner. If we 
look at reality we see that this underlines the lack of American 
seriousness and the emptiness of such talk."

He told PNN, "If this move can seriously be taken through the 
Palestine Liberation Organization and the head of its Executive 
Committee, President Mahmoud Abbas, okay. If that would be able to 
find solutions to the issues raised, which would open the way to 
resolve internal Palestinian differences that impede the 
establishment of a national unity government, okay. It is true that 
differences arising internally is one of the most pressing elements 
that block our own political horizon, but the issue is the continuing 
Israeli aggression. And that is blamed on the people."

Qais Abdel Karim concluded, "Palestinians are again being blamed for 
Israeli aggression, for the US and Israeli blockade, and for 
suffering under occupation."


The Freedom Archives
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(415) 863-9977
www.freedomarchives.org 
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From news at freedomarchives.org  Sun Oct  8 14:07:11 2006
From: news at freedomarchives.org (Anti-Imperialist News)
Date: Sun, 08 Oct 2006 11:07:11 -0700
Subject: [News] Activists speak at FBI class in Quantico
Message-ID: <6.2.5.6.2.20061008105750.043bfb10@freedomarchives.org>

By Claude Marks and friends ? October 8, 2006

The FBI has recently asked several activists to 
speak to a class at its Academy in Quantico, 
Virginia about the very social movements that 
they are targeting for repression. The agent in 
charge, Andrew Bringuel, is a retired Major and 
worked with military intelligence. In his 
solicitation letter to activists he writes:

"I am an instructor/researcher at the FBI Academy 
at Quantico, Virginia. I teach a course that 
deals with understanding the motives and tactics 
of activist groups/individuals and the 
government?s response options. The class is 
taught to police executives from the United 
States and around the world through the FBI?s National Academy program.

"The class studies both historical and 
contemporarily significant groups in order to 
understand their motives and tactics. They also 
look at ways government can respond to maintain 
social order while resolving conflict. The class 
is taught as a graduate level course through a 
partnership between the FBI and University of Virginia."

Some people agreed to be part of the class. This 
decision raises serious questions about the 
principles guiding activists in their dealings 
with the FBI.  One person invited, Dr. Jerry 
Vlasak, refused the invitation (his exchange with 
the FBI follows). Unfortunately others have 
accepted the invitation, including some who have 
been leaders of radical movements in the past. 
While many young activists around the country are 
soul searching about whether they should talk to 
one of the numerous grand juries that have been 
convened around the country, some people decided 
that their input at the FBI?s class might, in 
some Machiavellian slight of hand,  help widen 
the split between the Bureau and its fascist 
masters. Despite attempts to justify this 
decision with left sounding language, it is clear 
that the real winners in this game of cooptation are the state and the FBI.

In a period of growing fascism, one of the 
benchmarks of activist resistance must be non 
collaboration with the state and all its 
agencies. As the FBI has amped up its attacks 
over the past couple of years against Muslims, 
Black Panthers eco-justice activists and animal 
rights organizers, they are eager to redefine all 
acts of resistance as terrorism and to get those 
who once might have supported militant resistance 
to repudiate it in the name of 
non-violence.  Apparently, some people were 
seduced by the FBI assurance that ?With 100 years 
of history of course mistakes were made.  Lessons 
learned from mistakes like COINTELPRO have led to 
reforms and oversight of the agency.?  This 
assertion strains credibility if one looks at the FBI?s recent track record.

Five former Black Panthers were jailed in 2005 
for not cooperating with the same agents that 
tortured them in New Orleans in 1973. The Green 
Scare rounded up dozens of animal rights and 
eco-justice activists several of whom were set up 
by the FBI. The threat of many years of 
imprisonment has shaken the principles of many 
young activists who agree to turn on their 
friends and cooperate for life with FBI 
investigators.  Members of the Black community in 
Florida were set up by an FBI agent provocateur. 
Blacks and/or Muslims are prosecuted and 
imprisoned as terrorists in Buffalo and Portland, 
Oregon. Middle East scholars are convicted for 
?aiding terrorists? because they support the 
Palestinian resistance against Israeli genocide 
and colonialism. Other professors are denied 
entry to the u.s. and their jobs have been 
threatened because they challenge the notion that 
it is irrational to hate the u.s. People are 
pulled off planes or denied entry into the u.s. 
because of their names, others are deported, 
communities flooded with agents whose purpose is 
to intimidate and frighten people into 
cooperation. Animal enterprise terrorism becomes 
a new club against people whose impact on 
business and animal research is effective ? long prison terms are meted out.

So what would possess activists to help teach a 
class to the FBI at Quantico in this atmosphere? 
Have they been oblivious to their recent 
activities or is there something more self-serving going on here?

We wonder when given the opportunity whether they 
questioned the FBI about the current CIA 
practices of dehumanizing the enemy through 
extraordinary rendition, torture and denial of 
basic human rights protected by international 
law.  Is it comforting to any of us that were 
able to sit down and have a ?human? conversation 
with these FBI agents on a one-to-one level?  Or 
is it, in fact, deeply disturbing?

Many victims of COINTELPRO still languish in u.s. 
prisons like Leonard Peltier, Mumia Abu-Jamal, 
Herman Bell, Oscar Lopez-Rivera and Marilyn Buck. 
How long and how many lives will it take for 
people to realize that whatever you say to the 
FBI can be used against you and your friends? Are 
these activists somehow above the fray?

Let us not forget that today?s agency has never 
been held accountable for the hundreds of victims 
of the FBI?s wrath ? the Fred Hamptons and Ana 
Mae Aquashes of the world
or to Filiberto Ojeda 
Rios who was assassinated by the ?reformed? FBI 
just a year ago in Puerto Rico?

*****************************************************************************

What Follows is an exchange made public in July 
by Dr. Jerry Vlasak who chose to reject the FBI?s 
offer of participating at the Quantico class and which is posted on the web:

<http://animalliberationfront.com/ALFront/AgainstALF/NAALPO-FBI.htm>http://animalliberationfront.com/ALFront/AgainstALF/NAALPO-FBI.htm

7 July 2006

Press Officer Turns Down FBI Offer to Speak at HQ in Quantico

Canoga Park, CA: Two weeks ago one of the North 
American Animal Liberation Press Officers 
received an unsolicited offer by email from FBI 
Headquarters in Quantico, Virginia to speak to a 
classroom full of "police executives".

As long as non-human animals continue to be 
oppressed, imprisoned, tortured and murdered by 
humans for their personal pleasure and profit, 
the Press Office will continue to support those 
brave warriors who risk their lives and freedom 
to fight for animal liberation. And we certainly 
have no plans to educate state police agencies on how to catch them.

The following reply was returned this week; the 
original request is reprinted below that.


July 4, 2006
Dear Mr. Bringuel:

While I appreciate your offer to speak to "police 
executives" from around the world at the FBI 
Academy in Quantico, VA, I must decline to do so. 
My role as Press Officer with the North American 
Animal Liberation Press Office is to explain and 
support the liberation of animals who are 
imprisoned, tortured, exploited, and murdered by 
the billions; the role of the Federal Bureau of 
Investigation and other state police agencies is 
to target, harass, imprison, or otherwise 
"neutralize" those who break unjust laws that 
perpetuate the oppression and slaughter of innocent, defenseless animals.

Because our goals are ideologically and 
diametrically opposed, there is no reason to 
believe that any information I impart to your 
classes will be employed in any manner other than 
to further your own illicit goals of suppression 
of liberation activities. I have no intention of 
aiding and abetting your agency by providing 
information and insights that might be used against activists.

I am aware that others from the animal 
rights/liberation movement have cooperated with 
your agency, but I am not interested in doing so. 
As you are no doubt aware, I have chosen in the 
past to speak to members of the U.S. Senate 
Environment and Public Works Committee on the 
subject, but they constitute an elected body that 
presumably can be educated to effect change that 
might benefit animals. Your agency has goals 
pertaining only to the maintenance of the status 
quo (or - as you state it so characteristically - 
the "social order") by quashing those who challenge immoral and unjust laws.

Perhaps one day the state will recognize its 
obligation to stop the oppression of non-human 
animals - not unlike governments that have been 
forced to recognize the rights of various human 
groups in places like Algeria, South Africa, Viet 
Nam, and here in the United States where black 
humans suffered (and continue to suffer) from inhumane treatment by whites.

Some nations have stopped the most cruel 
practices of veal crates, chicken battery cages, 
and cosmetic testing on animals - while others, 
like Barcelona, are legislating rights for some 
non-human primates. Until that day when non-human 
beings are afforded the right to be free of human 
domination, I will support those who risk their 
freedom for the animals and will continue to 
educate the media about why some activists decide 
to go underground to liberate animals and stop 
the horrific crimes perpetrated daily - and with 
your express blessings - against non-humans.

Sincerely:

Jerry W. Vlasak, MD
Press Officer
North American Animal Liberation Press Office
<http://www.animalliberationpressoffice.org/>www.animalliberationpressoffice.org


"When a person places the proper value on 
freedom, there is nothing under the sun that she 
will not do to acquire that freedom. Whenever you 
hear a person saying he wants freedom, but in the 
next breath she is going to tell you what she 
won't do to get it, or what he doesn't believe in 
doing in order to get it, he doesn't believe in 
freedom. A person who believes in freedom will do 
anything under the sun to acquire...or preserve his freedom."-- Malcolm X


Bringuel, Andrew wrote:

Dr. Vlasak;
My name is Andrew Bringuel and I am an 
instructor/researcher at the FBI Academy at 
Quantico, Virginia. I teach a course that deals 
with understanding the motives and tactics of 
activist groups/individuals and the government?s 
response options. The class is taught to police 
executives from the United States and around the 
world through the FBI?s National Academy program.
The class studies both historical and 
contemporarily significant groups in order to 
understand their motives and tactics. They also 
look at ways government can respond to maintain 
social order while resolving conflict. The class 
is taught as a graduate level course through a 
partnership between the FBI and University of 
Virginia. I bring in different speakers 
representing many different world views. I am 
looking to establish a speaker?s bureau so I have 
a ready group of available speakers for future classes.
I believe your insights as a leader in the animal 
rights community would be beneficial for the 
students. I have hosted Anthony Nocella and 
Charlotte Laws.*  Both provided valuable insight 
and felt the experience to be a positive one. I 
don?t have much of a budget for guest instructors 
but I can pay $600 for your expenses and time. 
The block of instruction would be 2 hours and I 
am looking for a speaker for the 2nd quarter of 2007 (February/March).
Let me know if you are interested or if you have any questions.
Thank you,
Andy Bringuel

* While the FBI mentions these two activists by 
name, there are others who attended. Be aware 
that this ?friendly? and educational approach may be ongoing!


The Freedom Archives
522 Valencia Street
San Francisco, CA 94110
(415) 863-9977
www.freedomarchives.org 
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From news at freedomarchives.org  Mon Oct  9 11:53:41 2006
From: news at freedomarchives.org (Anti-Imperialist News)
Date: Mon, 09 Oct 2006 08:53:41 -0700
Subject: [News] Panther DVD release @ AK Press Mon Oct
Message-ID: <6.2.5.6.2.20061009085223.043b38d0@freedomarchives.org>



http://akpress.org/2006/items/whatwewantwhatwebelieve

Monday, October 16th?What We Want, What We Believe DVD release
Film-showing and conversation with Newsreel 
archivist, Roz Payne and former Black Panthers
7:30pm at the AK Press Warehouse

Join us on the 40th anniversary of the Black 
Panther Party as we 
launch<http://www.akpress.org/2006/items/whatwewantwhatwebelieve> 
What We Want, What We Believe
a four-DVD collection chronicling the Panthers 
and their supporters. The DVDs?released to 
coincide with the  40th anniversary of the 
Panthers  ?include three acclaimed Newsreel 
films, and a mmassive quantity of rare and 
exclusive materials culled from Roz Payne's 
extensive collection of FBI documents, correspondence, and interviews.
We'll be playing selections from the DVDs, and 
Roz will be joined in conversation with former 
Black Panthers, Billy Jennings and Evans Hopkins, among others.

EVENTS ARE AT THE AK PRESS WAREHOUSE,
AK Press 674-A 23rd. St Oakland, CA
b/t MLK and San Pablo - near 19th St. BART and West Grand Exit of 80/980
For more info contact:
AK Press at 510.208.1700, akpress at akpress.org or visit www.akpress.org



What We Want, What We Believe: The Black Panther Party Library

Donald Cox (Included), Beverly Axelrod 
(Included), Elizabeth Fink (Included), Marilyn 
Buck (Included), Kathleen Neal Cleaver 
(Included), Roz Payne (Editor), and Bobby Seale (Included)
ISBN:
Publisher: AK Press
Release Date: 2006-10-10

ITEM OVERVIEW
"The invaluable Movement documentaries Newsreel 
produced furthered the work of the Black Panther 
Party and now provide the esdentail visual record 
of the Party's early days. This new dvd 
collection offers an extraordinary compilation 
that includes historic behind the scenes details 
taken from a wide range of interviews and 
contemporary events as well as the classic 
Newsreel films."?Kathleen Cleaver, Communications 
Secretary, Black Panther Partyy, 1967?1971


For the first time on DVD, AK Press is proud to 
present three acclaimed Newsreel Films on the 
Black Panther Party: Off the Pig; Mayday; and Repression.

Formed in 1967, the Newsreel film collective was 
dedicated to chronicling and analyzing current 
events. In their time, they produced more than 
three dozen films throughout the US and abroad. 
By working directly with the Black Panthers, 
Newsreel was able to explore realities often 
ignored by traditional media outlets, while 
producing documents that the Panthers and other 
activists could use in organizing their own 
communities. The results speak for themselves and 
stand as true testimonials to the spirit of 
community self-defense and political savvy the 
Panthers are celebrated?and were targetedd?for.

Accompanying the Newsreel films is a massive 
quantity of rare and exclusive materials culled 
from Roz Payne's extensive collection of FBI 
documents, correspondence, and interviews with 
Black Panthers and their supporters. It's all 
here, the government-sponsored repression, the 
trials, exile, triumph, and reunion.

What We Want, What We Believe is not a 
straight-forward documentary?the additional 
materials are like Roz Payne's home movies????but 
more like a tapestry woven from fragments of 
cloth. As a whole, these fragments present a rich 
and provocative history, straight from the mouths 
of Panthers, their supporters, and even the 
agents charged with neutralizing them.

These materials?over 12 hours?are crucial to our 
continuing ng understanding of the Black Panther 
Party and their legacy. Any student of American 
History, Black Studies, Political Science & Law, 
Film Studies, or Civil Rights struggles will find 
a wealth of valuable information in the Library.

A portion of the proceeds from this project will 
go to support Black Panther Prisoners through 
Books Behind Bars, the Jericho Movement, and the 
Human Rights Research Fund. We urge you to seek 
out these groups and donate time and resources to their ongoing work.

This 12-hour DVD features three films on the 
Black Panther Party and additional footage on their history and legacy.
Special bonus features: Documents from the Roz 
Payne Archives chronicling the movement and 
repression against it. English Language, Region Free
Disc One:
Three Newsreel Films, Interviews with Field 
Marshall Donald Cox, Footage from 35th Anniversary Reunion
Disc Two:
s with Former FBI Agents discussing COINTELPRO 
tactics, Footage from the Wheelock Academic Conference on the BPP
Disc Three:
Interviews with various movement lawyers discussing Panther cases
Disc Four:
Interviews with Newsreel members, DVD-Rom extras from the Roz Payne Archives





The Freedom Archives
522 Valencia Street
San Francisco, CA 94110
(415) 863-9977
www.freedomarchives.org 
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From news at freedomarchives.org  Wed Oct 11 11:14:29 2006
From: news at freedomarchives.org (Anti-Imperialist News)
Date: Wed, 11 Oct 2006 08:14:29 -0700
Subject: [News] Break the Chains: Black Panther Prisoners & Repression Today
 - Sun Oct 15th, Oakland
Message-ID: <6.2.5.6.2.20061011081427.044b59f0@freedomarchives.org>

Break the Chains: Black Panther Prisoners & Repression Today

Commemorating the 40th Anniversary of the Black Panther Party

With Kathleen Cleaver, Ashanti Alston and BPP Grand Jury Resisters

Sunday, October 15th at 6pm

Eastside Arts Alliance
2587 International Blvd @ 26th Ave

Sponsored by Malcolm X Grassroots Movement, Eastside Arts Alliance, 
The Freedom Archives & It's About Time

Donations Requested (nobody turned away)

More information: 510 533-6629


The Freedom Archives
522 Valencia Street
San Francisco, CA 94110
(415) 863-9977
www.freedomarchives.org  
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From news at freedomarchives.org  Wed Oct 11 13:39:39 2006
From: news at freedomarchives.org (Anti-Imperialist News)
Date: Wed, 11 Oct 2006 10:39:39 -0700
Subject: [News] Pyongyang 1, Bush 0
Message-ID: <6.2.5.6.2.20061011103825.044be4b0@freedomarchives.org>

http://www.counterpunch.org/

October 11, 2006


Wave Stick, Get Stung


Pyongyang 1, Bush 0

By JOHN FEFFER

Five years ago, when George W. Bush took office, North Korea didn't 
claim membership in the nuclear club. Its plutonium reprocessing 
facilities were frozen. It was even willing to negotiate away its 
missile program.

Instead of pursuing the diplomatic route, the Bush administration 
tried to ignore Pyongyang. Then came the schoolyard taunts such as 
lumping North Korea together with Iraq and Iran in an "axis of evil." 
When indifference and insult failed to move the isolated East Asian 
country, the administration accused North Korea of enriching uranium, 
which led to the unraveling of the 1994 Agreed Framework and the 
reigniting of a major crisis. To top it off, Washington began to 
squeeze Pyongyang economically with sanctions.

Pyongyang has refused to cry "uncle." Instead, it has replied in 
kind. With its missile launches in July and its recently announced 
nuclear test, Pyongyang has demonstrated that it can be as stubborn 
and as enamored of military playthings as the Bush administration.

With such a miserable track record in inducing behavior change, why 
has the United States continued to speak loudly and wield a big stick 
against a hornet's nest like North Korea? It might be, like North 
Korea's recent test, a fundamental miscalculation. The Bush 
administration, after all, has shown a pathological inability to 
learn from its mistakes. Or there might be a deeper, more malign 
intent at work.

Wave Stick, Hornet Stings

At first, the Bush administration followed the logic of its 
predecessors. It looked at North Korea through the prism of Eastern 
Europe. With a little nudge, the regime was supposed to topple just 
like the communist governments in Warsaw, Bucharest, and East Berlin. 
But North Korea showed remarkable resilience, surviving the collapse 
of its Soviet trading partner, several years of extreme famine in the 
mid-1990s, and then the containment-plus tactics of the Bush administration.

In the absence of a dramatic coup or military putsch in Pyongyang, 
the Bush administration had to demonstrate that it was not just 
twiddling its thumbs while North Korea unfroze its plutonium 
reprocessing facilities and moved full-speed ahead toward a nuclear 
arsenal. The faintest whiff of weapons of mass destruction had 
justified U.S. military intervention in Iraq. And all the United 
States could do with North Korea was call it names?

Thus were born the Six Party Talks, a multilateral effort involving 
the two Koreas, China, Russia, Japan, and the United States. A 
remarkable group of diplomats gathered to talk, but alas, not to 
negotiate. Guided by the
[]
uncompromising Vice President Dick Cheney, the Bush administration 
has viewed any meaningful negotiations with North Korea-and the 
prospect of any serious agreement-as simply prolonging the lifespan 
of Kim Jong Il's regime. The State Department was on a short leash. 
The Bush administration refused to negotiate bilaterally, North 
Korea's negotiating process of choice. In the Bush-Cheney lexicon, 
compromise equals appeasement and "Munich" stops all conversations.

Here's what the problem with the strategy of pointless talking was: 
North Korea was not satisfied with cat-and-mouse maneuvers. Its 
economy reeling and its population malnourished, the North Korean 
government wanted a deal. And the only thing worth trading that it 
possessed-or that the world thought it possessed-was a nuclear program.

The recent nuclear test is the logical consequence of the North's 
policy over the last four years. It developed a nuclear program to 
deter U.S. attacks, but it also needed a bargaining chip to trade for 
status, cash, and other goodies. It froze its nuclear program under 
the 1994 Agreed Framework, but probably kept some reprocessed 
plutonium in reserve just in case and began a covert 
uranium-enrichment program as a similar insurance policy. When the 
Agreed Framework collapsed in 2002, North Korea changed tactics, 
declaring that it did in fact have nukes, which served to strengthen 
its deterrent capabilities and increase its ask at the negotiating table.

But the Bush administration wasn't dealing. So North Korea ended its 
self-imposed missile moratorium last July. And when that didn't get 
the United States into one-on-one negotiations, it raised the ante 
once again with a nuclear test.

Such tactics should surprise no one. Pyongyang has begun giving the 
world advance notice of its actions. Psychologists call these signals 
a "cry for help." North Korea wants to negotiate, wants to avoid 
options that are clearly suicidal. But global 911, staffed by the 
inattentive Bush administration, is just not responding.

External Signal, Internal Audience

The nuclear test is a signal to the international community that 
North Korea refuses to be disrespected, have its sovereignty 
abridged, or suffer a full-frontal military assault. But the test 
also serves various internal purposes.

The staff of the country's nuclear complex-scientists, military 
officials, and government representatives-have an important stake in 
seeing their project through to completion. As George Perkovich 
perceptively argued in his book India's Nuclear Bomb, the team 
developing nuclear weapons is not simply a group of technicians that 
can be turned on or off depending on government whim. The nuclear 
complex develops political power within the overall government 
system. Tasked to create a bomb, it must demonstrate its success or 
it will lose that power. A nuclear test translates into bonuses and 
promotions, and consolidated political power within the system.

Another internal rationale is provided by the date of the test: 
October 9. North Korean leader Kim Jong Il formally took the helm of 
the Korean Worker's Party on that date in 1997. There have been only 
two leaders in North Korean history. Kim Il Sung founded the country 
and, despite often horrendous policies, enjoyed the adulation of the 
population. With the famine that took place on his watch and the near 
collapse of the country, Kim Jong Il has squandered his father's legacy.

The nuclear test is, in other words, a rather large example of 
overcompensation. Economic news out of North Korea hasn't been very 
positive. Heavy rains and flooding over the summer damaged the 
country's capacity to feed itself. Financial sanctions applied by the 
United States have helped stall any economic reforms. Even China, 
outraged over the July missile launches, has begun to put a gentle 
squeeze on its neighbor. There's not a lot of bread in North Korea 
and, though the Pyongyang Circus is quite good, such performances 
will not distract the population. Kim Jong Il might have as much 
charisma as a chunk of anthracite but only a handful of world leaders 
have pushed their countries past the well-guarded gates of the nuclear club.

But did North Korea really test the bomb? The verdict isn't yet in. 
The recent test might have been just a lot of TNT or it could have 
been a very small weapon tested unsuccessfully. However, from North 
Korea's point of view, the perception of deterrence is more important 
than the reality. It wants to prevent an attack. If the United States 
and others are scared off by empty underground caverns-like 
Kumchang-ri in 1999-or by a whole lot of dynamite, so much the cheaper.

To Strike or Not to Strike

Will an attack on North Korea be the administration's October 
surprise? The rally-around-the-flag effect of bombing North Korea 
would be overwhelmed by the sheer scope of the immediate 
consequences, not to mention the longer-term blowback. The Bush 
administration has insisted on keeping all options on the table, even 
though the Pentagon has made it clear that a military strike against 
North Korea would lead to retaliatory attacks that would kill tens of 
thousands of U.S. and South Korean soldiers and civilians. The 
Pentagon has also confessed that it would have great difficulty 
eliminating the dispersed nuclear facilities in North Korea.

For military, economic, and electoral reasons, it doesn't make sense 
for the Bush administration to launch an attack against any country 
at this moment. Alas, the administration seems to be singing only one 
tune these days, that old Talking Heads favorite: Stop Making Sense. 
The administration ignored the top-level Pentagon advice on Iraq. It 
could do so again with North Korea.

If the military option is not really on the table, the Bush 
administration is running out of choices. It is unveiling a new set 
of financial sanctions and wants inspections on all cargo going in 
and out of North Korea. But Pyongyang, while not exactly reveling in 
its isolation of late, is accustomed to being the odd man out. Kim 
Jong Il's regime endured several famine years; perhaps it calculates 
that two more cold-shoulder years from the Bush administration are survivable.

For some in the Bush administration, the nuclear test is cause for 
celebration. The coterie around Dick Cheney rejoices at the growing 
divide between North Korea and China, the more aggressive military 
and foreign policy of Japan, and the compromised efforts of South 
Korea to engage the North. The nuclear test is the most effective 
argument the Cheney crowd can use to defeat calls for diplomacy. An 
amplified North Korean threat works wonders on Capitol Hill and with 
our allies to push missile defense, more military spending, and the like.

But the recent test has not destroyed the diplomatic option. 
Pyongyang has reiterated its willingness to negotiate. It doesn't 
have much choice. A nuclear weapon can't feed its people or rebuild 
its factories.

The international community, through the UN, should by all means 
register its outrage at North Korea's act and translate that outrage 
into some concrete actions. But many years of sanctions haven't 
brought North Korea to its knees or back to the negotiating table. 
It's time for the Bush administration to make up for a half-decade of 
failed policies by talking seriously with Pyongyang, both bilaterally 
and multilaterally. Just inside the door, North Korea can still be 
persuaded to back out of the nuclear club.

John Feffer is the co-director of <http://www.fpif.org/>Foreign 
Policy In Focus for the International Relations Center, 
<http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1583226036/counterpunchmaga>North 
Korea, South Korea: U.S. Policy at a Time of Crisis (Seven Stories 
Press).and the editor of The Future of U.S.-Korean Relations 
(Routledge, 2006).


The Freedom Archives
522 Valencia Street
San Francisco, CA 94110
(415) 863-9977
www.freedomarchives.org 
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From news at freedomarchives.org  Thu Oct 12 11:56:24 2006
From: news at freedomarchives.org (Anti-Imperialist News)
Date: Thu, 12 Oct 2006 08:56:24 -0700
Subject: [News] A re-run of the Lebanon war in Palestine?
Message-ID: <6.2.5.6.2.20061012085529.044b0430@freedomarchives.org>

A re-run of the Lebanon war in Palestine?
Hasan Abu Nimah & Ali Abunimah, The Electronic Intifada, 11 October 2006
http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article5838.shtml

While Gaza starves, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice shakes 
hands with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas as they attend a joint 
press conference in the West Bank city of Ramallah, 4 October 2006. 
(<http://www.maanimages.com>MaanImages/Fadi Arouri)

There are ominous signs that the long-contemplated plan to overthrow 
the democratically-elected Hamas-led Palestinian Authority cabinet is 
about to enter its most dangerous phase: a political coup, supported 
by local militias, with foreign and regional backing. This could 
ignite serious intra-Palestinian violence. With Iraq providing a 
dreadful warning of how foreign occupation can foster civil 
bloodshed, everything must be done to expose and thwart this 
dangerous conspiracy.

The head of Palestinian Authority intelligence, and Fatah militia 
leader, Tawfiq Tirawi, said in an interview with the Sunday Times on 
8 October, "We are already at the beginning of a civil war, no doubt 
about it. They (Hamas) are accumulating weapons and a full-scale 
civil war can break out at any moment." The paper cited Palestinian 
sources saying that Palestinian Authority chairman Mahmoud Abbas "has 
notified the US, Jordan and Egypt that he is preparing to take action 
against Hamas." And, asserting that Hamas "are preparing for a war 
against us," Tirawi "forecasts that the violence would begin in Gaza 
and spread to the West Bank." Hamas leaders, including prime minister 
Ismail Haniyeh, have issued strenuous reassurances that they will 
never allow civil war, even as a Fatah-affiliated militia recently 
released a statement explicitly threatening to assassinate them.

Let us recall that in last January's legislative council elections 
the Islamic Resistance Movement, Hamas, resoundingly defeated Fatah, 
the nominally nationalist and secular faction founded by Yasir Arafat 
and which has dominated the institutionalized Palestinian movement 
since the 1960s. Fatah, led now by Palestinian Authority chairman 
Mahmoud Abbas, was widely rejected for its corruption and 
mismanagement of the Palestinian Authority which was founded under 
the Oslo Accords in 1994.

Coming a week after more than a dozen Palestinians were killed in 
fighting between Hamas and Fatah followers, Tirawi's latest comments 
could be seen as laying the groundwork for a full-scale and 
premeditated confrontation. A senior Fatah "security source," 
probably also Tirawi, had already told the same Sunday Times 
journalist last May that "[c]ivil war is inevitable" and that "Time 
is running out for Hamas." He warned that "We'll choose the right 
time and place for the military showdown. But after that there will 
be no more of Hamas's militias."

Is that time approaching? Abbas is being encouraged by his sponsors 
outside the country to take on Hamas. Tirawi's warnings followed US 
Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice's visit to the region which 
included a warm public embrace of Abbas. On October 5, Reuters 
reported that militias loyal to Abbas are receiving arms and training 
from the United States. "Expanding the size of the presidential 
guard," Abbas' personal militia, "by up to 70 percent under a U.S. 
plan," the report stated, "has become a central part of American 
policy since [Hamas] beat Abbas's Fatah in elections and took over 
the government." This apparent encouragement to resort to the bullet 
when use of the ballot failed to produce the desired results is a 
direct contradiction of the simplest principles of democracy, apart 
from its sheer immorality. This sounds bad enough, but it also looks 
like a repeat of the strategy in Lebanon where western powers 
apparently thought that Israel, as a local client state, could be 
used to strike a lethal blow at Hizbullah. The human and political 
results of that adventure, last summer's systematic Israeli 
destruction of Lebanon, speak for themselves. This time, Abbas and 
his forces would fill the role of local US client, and Hamas would be 
cast as Hizbullah.

The only outcome of such a confrontation will be another orgy of 
bloody violence. And almost certainly, support for Hamas would be 
strengthened, but among the Palestinian people there would be only losers.

There is good reason to fear that the moment is coming when this 
conspiracy will turn to the naked use of armed force, as the campaign 
to overthrow Hamas has escalated in stages. Just weeks after the 
January election, The New York Times reported that US and Israeli 
officials met at the "highest level" to plot the downfall of Hamas by 
"starving" the Palestinian Authority. It started with the US-EU aid 
cutoff, ostensibly to force Hamas to "recognize Israel" and "abandon 
violence." (When it was elected Hamas had already observed a 
year-long unilateral suspension of attacks on Israel, and its leaders 
strongly indicated a willingness to reach a "long-term agreement"). 
Israel escalated its military attacks on Gaza, killing and maiming 
thousands of civilians, and destroying civilian infrastructure 
including the only power station. Most Palestinians now face 
difficulties feeding their families. Israel kidnapped eight Hamas 
cabinet ministers and a quarter of the elected members of the 
legislative council, while Fatah leaders have continually agitated 
against Hamas, including organizing strikes and protests by Fatah 
loyalists among Palestinian Authority civil servants who have been 
deprived of salaries by the very international siege that Fatah 
leaders have winked at and even encouraged.

Efforts to bridge the political impasse by forming a "national unity 
government" have also failed because the Fatah election losers, 
backed by foreign powers, are demanding that Hamas, the election 
winners, abandon their policies and principles and endorse those of 
the defeated party. But none of this has worked. Despite the 
punishment, Palestinians under occupation are no more willing than 
ever to submit to Israeli tyranny: 67 percent "do not believe Hamas 
should recognize the state of Israel in order to meet international 
donor demands" even though "63 percent would support a Palestinian 
recognition of Israel as a state for the Jewish people after a peace 
agreement is reached and a Palestinian state is established," a 
September poll by the Palestinian Center for Survey Research found.

As violent incidents and provocations by followers of both factions 
mount, Abbas is considering other coercive means amounting to a coup: 
dismissing the Hamas cabinet, forming an "emergency" administration, 
and dissolving the Hamas-dominated legislative council to make way 
for new general elections which can be postponed indefinitely or at 
least until a Fatah victory can be engineered.

The danger facing Palestinians is acute. But let us be clear: it is 
not a threat of civil war. Among millions of ordinary Palestinians, 
whether under Israel's brutal occupation, living as second class 
citizens within the "Jewish state," or in forced exile, there is no 
disagreement remotely great enough that could get them to turn 
brother against brother and family against family in a civil war. On 
the contrary, Palestinians are united in their understanding of what 
afflicts them -- Israeli colonialism armed, backed and bankrolled by 
western powers. The danger is of an armed coup staged on behalf of 
these powers by a small minority, but which could drag more 
Palestinians into internecine fighting whose consequences are awful 
to contemplate.

Perhaps the most serious miscalculation Hamas has made is to 
underestimate the determination with which the results of democratic 
elections will be undermined and opposed if they do not suit the 
interests of Israel and other world powers. The reality is that the 
Palestinian Authority is not and has never been a government for the 
Palestinian people. The Palestinian Authority receives western 
backing only to the extent that it directly and exclusively serves 
their own and Israeli interests. It was designed to protect the 
Israeli occupation against its victims; no one will be permitted to 
turn it into a representative body that fights for the rights and 
interests of Palestinians. To avoid the lethal trap that is being set 
for them and the Palestinian people, Hamas will either have to sell 
out or get out.

Hamas has done the right thing by abandoning its campaign of suicide 
attacks on Israeli civilians, observing an ongoing voluntary truce 
and embracing politics. It should now abandon the effort to hold on 
to the wreckage of the powerless and discredited Oslo institutions. 
Instead, it should turn its considerable popularity, organizational 
skills and increased legitimacy into a full fledged campaign of civil 
resistance, mobilizing together with other sectors of Palestinian and 
global civil society against every aspect of Israeli colonialism and 
racism. This is the only thing it has not yet tried, and it holds out 
the best hope for a way out of the dark tunnel.

EI contributor Hasan Abu Nimah was Jordanian Ambassador in several 
European Union countries and at the United Nations in New York. Ali 
Abunimah is co-founder of The Electronic Intifada and author of 
<http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0805080341/theelectronic-20>One 
Country, A Bold-Proposal to End the Israeli-Palestinian Impasse 
(Metropolitan Books, 2006)


The Freedom Archives
522 Valencia Street
San Francisco, CA 94110
(415) 863-9977
www.freedomarchives.org 
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From news at freedomarchives.org  Thu Oct 12 12:01:58 2006
From: news at freedomarchives.org (Anti-Imperialist News)
Date: Thu, 12 Oct 2006 09:01:58 -0700
Subject: [News] Can We Call It Genocide Now?
Message-ID: <6.2.5.6.2.20061012090113.044c1c10@freedomarchives.org>

http://www.counterpunch.org/roberts10122006.html

October 12, 2006


"You're Either With Us or You're Dead"


Can We Call It Genocide Now?

By PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS

When does "collateral damage" so dwarf combatant deaths that war 
becomes genocide?

Bush's illegal invasion of Iraq has cost 655,000 Iraqis their lives. 
That is the conclusion of a study financed by the Massachusetts 
Institute of Technology's Center for International Studies and 
conducted by physicians under the direction of Johns Hopkins 
University epidemiologists. These are deaths over and above the 
pre-invasion mortality rate. Bush's illegal invasion raised Iraq's 
mortality rate from 5.5 deaths per 1,000 people per year to 13.3 
deaths per 1,000 people per year. The study is published by the 
distinguished British medical journal, The Lancet, and is available 
on the 
<http://www.thelancet.com/webfiles/images/journals/lancet/s0140673606694919.pdf>journal's 
online site (October 11).

The study uses a scientific method known as "cluster sampling." In 
87% of the deaths, the researchers requested death certificates, and 
more than 90% of the surveyed households produced the death 
certificates. Violence accounted for 601,000 deaths and disease and 
destruction of civilian infrastructure accounted for 54,000 deaths. 
The violent deaths are attributed to gunshot wounds, coalition air 
strikes, and car bombs.

Johns Hopkins University epidemiologist Gilbert Burnham says, "We're 
very confident with the results." Columbia University epidemiologist 
Ronald Waldman says the survey method used is "tried and true" and 
that "this is the best estimate of mortality we have."

When asked about the report, President Bush stated: "I don't consider 
it a credible report." Bush, of course, is not reality-based, and he 
knows that any unfavorable news is "enemy propaganda." That's what 
the neocons who pull his strings tell him, and that is what he believes.

What percentage of these 655,000 deaths were insurgents or 
"terrorists"? Probably 1% and no more than 2%. Bush's "war on terror" 
is, in fact, a war on Iraqi civilians.

Bush's invasion has also spawned sectarian conflict or civil war, 
although the Bush regime denies it. Even Bush is smart enough to know 
that "bringing freedom and democracy to Iraq" is not compatible with 
setting off a civil war in Iraq. Since Bush, the faith-based, 
believes that he is bringing "freedom and democracy to Iraq," he 
cannot accept the fact that he has started a civil war.

Hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians are not the only innocent 
victims of Bush's illegal aggression. The New York Times (October 11) 
reports that Department of Veterans Affairs documents show that about 
one in five US soldiers who have served in Iraq or Afghanistan have 
suffered at least partial disability.

To date more than 100,000 US troops who are veterans of these wars 
have been granted disability compensation. Although the US cannot put 
on the ground in Iraq more than 150,000 troops at one time, 1.5 
million troops have served so far and 567,000 have been discharged of 
which 100,000 are receiving disability payments.

Paul Sullivan, director of programs for Veterans for America, says 
that the current rate of injuries will produce 400,000 American 
veterans suffering 30% to 100% disability. Apparently, one of the 
severe forms of disability is post-traumatic stress, which does not 
count as a physical wound.

What is America's reward for Bush's illegal wars that have killed 
655,000 Iraqis, an uncounted number of Afghanis, and disabled as many 
as 400,000 US troops?

According to the US National Intelligence Estimate and to practically 
every Middle East expert, Bush's invasions have radicalized the 
Muslim Middle East, created legions of recruits for extremists, 
undermined America's puppet rulers, imperiled Israel, and destroyed 
America's reputation.

We are talking about over one million casualties that have no other 
cause than blatant lies by Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rice, the 
bloodthirsty neoconservative cabal that occupies Bush's subcabinet, 
and their corporate media propagandists, especially The Weekly 
Standard, Fox News, National Review, CNN, and the Wall Street Journal 
editorial page. The Bush regime deceived America and the world with 
its lies that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction that 
would be turned against the West by terrorists. By giving speeches 
that continually mentioned Iraq in the same context as 9/11, the Bush 
regime created the widespread impression, still prevalent among 
Americans, that Iraq was responsible for 9/11.

What kind of government would destroy the lives through death or 
disability of over one million people for no valid reason?

The same kind of government that fires its own lawyers for doing 
their constitutional duty. Navy lawyer Lt. Cmdr. Charles Swift was 
assigned the task of bringing Salim Hamdan to a guilty plea before 
the unconstitutional military tribunal that President Bush created 
for Guantanamo detainees. Instead, Cmdr. Swift did his duty and 
defended his client, winning in the US Supreme Court. The Bush 
administration retaliated by blocking Cmdr. Swift's promotion, which 
killed his military career and sent the chilling message to all US 
military and government attorneys that constitutional scruples are 
career-enders in the Bush regime. Anyone who stands for the US 
Constitution is against Bush and his neocon regime.

The Bush regime is proceeding exactly as the Nazi regime proceeded.
First, eliminate every person of conscience and integrity from the 
government. Second, redefine duty as service to the leader: "You are 
with us or against us"--a formulation that leaves no place for duty 
to the US Constitution. Patriotism is redefined from loyalty to 
country and Constitution to loyalty to the government's leader.

Americans are too inattentive and distracted to be aware of the grave 
danger that the neoconservative Bush regime presents to American 
liberty and to world stability. The neoconservative drive to achieve 
hegemony over the American people and the entire world is similar to 
Hitler's drive for hegemony. Hitler used racial superiority to 
justify Germany's right to ride roughshod over other peoples and the 
right of the Nazi elite to rule over the German people.
Neoconservatives use "American exceptionalism" and "the war on 
terror." There is no practical difference. Hitler cared no more about 
the peoples he mowed down in his drive for supremacy than the 
neoconservatives care about 655,000 dead Iraqis, 100,000 disabled 
American soldiers and 2,747 dead ones.

When Bush, the Decider, claims unconstitutional powers and uses 
"signing statements" to negate US law whenever he feels the rule of 
law is in the way of his leadership, he is remarkably similar to 
Hitler, the Fuhrer, who told the Reichstag on February 20, 1938: "A 
man who feels it his duty at such an hour to assume the leadership of 
his people is not responsible to the laws of parliamentary usage or 
to a particular democratic conception, but solely to the mission 
placed upon him. And anyone who interferes with this mission is an 
enemy of the people."

"You are with us or against us."


The Freedom Archives
522 Valencia Street
San Francisco, CA 94110
(415) 863-9977
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From news at freedomarchives.org  Fri Oct 13 15:14:01 2006
From: news at freedomarchives.org (Anti-Imperialist News)
Date: Fri, 13 Oct 2006 12:14:01 -0700
Subject: [News] Video on torture,
 Cointelpro & Panther GJ resisters to premiere at East Side event
 Sun 10/15
Message-ID: <6.2.5.6.2.20061013120736.044d0eb0@freedomarchives.org>

Break the Chains: Black Panther Prisoners & Repression Today

Commemorating the 40th Anniversary of the Black Panther Party

With Kathleen Cleaver, Ashanti Alston and BPP Grand Jury Resisters

First showing of new Freedom Archives video on Torture, Cointelpro & 
Panther Grand Jury resisters (a work-in-progress)

Sunday, October 15th at 6pm

Eastside Arts Alliance
2587 International Blvd @ 26th Ave
Oakland

Sponsored by Malcolm X Grassroots Movement, Eastside Arts Alliance, 
The Freedom Archives & It's About Time

Donations Requested (nobody turned away)

More information: 510 533-6629


The Freedom Archives
522 Valencia Street
San Francisco, CA 94110
(415) 863-9977
www.freedomarchives.org 
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From news at freedomarchives.org  Fri Oct 13 16:20:10 2006
From: news at freedomarchives.org (Anti-Imperialist News)
Date: Fri, 13 Oct 2006 13:20:10 -0700
Subject: [News] The Myth of the Spat Upon Vets
Message-ID: <6.2.5.6.2.20061013131855.044d2810@freedomarchives.org>

http://www.counterpunch.org/philion10132006.html

October 13, 2006


An Interview with Jerry Lembcke


The Myth of the Spat Upon Vets

By STEPHEN PHILION

Jerry Lembcke is the author of 
<http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0814751474/counterpunchmaga>The 
Spitting Image: Myth, Memory and the Legacy of 
Vietnam, He teaches Sociology at Holy Cross University.

Q: In the recent days the British general 
responsible for British troops in Iraq has make 
remarkably strong 
<http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0%2C%2C1921450%2C00.html>calls 
for British troops to be removed from Iraq. So 
it's pretty timely to have a discussion like 
this, since I'm finding that there are quite a 
few students who are opposed to the US occupation 
of Iraq, but are afraid to "go against" the 
soldiers, many of whom are friends or relatives. 
First thing, though, is, for the sake of 
Counterpunchers who haven't read your book The 
Spitting Image, maybe you could give a quick 
intro to the key arguments of the book.

Lembcke: I got interested in this topic in the 
runup to the Persian Gulf War in 90-91. There 
were students who were opposed to the war, but 
afraid to speak out because of what they had 
heard about the antiwar movement and veterans 
during the Vietnam War era. These stories of 
'<http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0430-21.htm>spat 
upon' vets were beginning to circulate in the 
news and students on campuses were picking up on 
these stories. I had never heard these stories 
before. So I got interested in where they were 
coming from, how long they had been told, who was telling them and so forth.

One thing led to another and I kept looking back 
in the historical records, when people were 
actually coming home from Vietnam and I found out 
that no, there was no record. Not only was there 
no record of people spat on, but none of anyone 
claiming that they were spat on. So then I got 
interested in the stories as a form of myth and 
found out that in other times and other places, 
especially Germany after WW 1, soldiers came home 
and told stories of feeling rejected by people 
and particularly stories of being spat on.

Like with the case of the Vietnam stories many of 
the 'spitters' were young girls and knowing that 
these things happened at abother time and place 
supposedly, I found out about a Freudian 
psychologist who wrote about male fantasies and 
treated these stories as fantasies, expressions 
of the subconscious, men who felt they'd lost 
manhood in the war. When I told a psychologist 
friend of mine in womens studies, she asked me 
who the spitters wereshe too thought it was 
likely a myth since the spitters were women, an expression of loss of manhood.

Looking a little further, I found that French 
soldiers returning from Indochina after defeat at 
Dien Bien Phu also told stories of being treated 
badly, rejected by women, attacked by women on 
the streets, having to take their uniforms off 
before going in public, being ashamed of their 
military service. These were very similar to 
stories circulating in the 1980's in the US. The 
time gap between the end of the Vietnam War and 
when the stories began to be told is also a sign 
that there is something of an element of myth or 
legend. That's the key part of the book, not 
whether or not such things, since it's hard to 
refute what isn't documented, ever happened, as much as the mythical element.

And of course we see how the rise of the myth had 
an effect on support for the war in Iraq.

Q: And what is the link that you see?

Lembcke: In a nutshell, most people remember 
there was pretty widespread opposition to the US 
going into Iraq with huge demos in March and 
April of 2003. And then there were a good number 
of 'support the troops' rallies that tapped into 
the popular sentiment that something bad happened 
to the troops when they returned from Vietnam. 
The very slogan "support the troops" with the 
yellow ribbons and all that sort of presumes that 
someone doesn't support the troops and that 
presumption is based on that sentiment, belief 
that when people came home from Vietnam they were 
treated badly and we don't want to do that again this time.

By having these rallies in 2003, the people who 
supported the war use support the troops as a way 
to support the war. A lot of these rallies told 
stories of Vietnam vets who had been spat on. I 
got calls from people in Florida, North Carolina, 
Vermont,news reporters who had been at these 
rallies and asking me, "What about these 
stories?". Sometimes they would even have men who 
said they were vets or family members who claimed 
they remembered someone being spat on. The myth 
was used to drum up emotional troops for the 
troops, or better said, to dampen down opposition 
to the war. Again, the same way it worked during 
the Persian Gulf War, some were afraid of being 
outspoken against the war lest they be accused of being 'against the troops'.

I teach at Holy Cross College and just the other 
day in one of my classes, in the context of 
talking about the context of the Bush 
administration's strategy of being very 
accusatory toward critics of the war policy as 
being 'cut and run' Democrats, 'soft on 
terrorism'With no more context than that, one of 
my students said she was 'undecided about the 
war, but as long as the troops were fighting it 
was really important to 'support the troops and 
we have to support the mission'Now is not the 
time to be critical of the war, it was, in her mindall mixed together.

That's the way it works on people's emotions. It throws them off-target.

The target is the war itself and what we need to 
be doing is opposing the war itself. Often 
emotions get kind of confused with this stuff 
about 'supporting the troops'. It creates just 
enough space for the administration to push on ahead.

Q: Yes, it seems to be a good strategy to 
distract from the main issue, namely the policy 
of making war itself. I never quite understand 
why it's so important to focus on the supporting 
the troops as so central an issue. It doesn't 
really matter, since the troops in fact have 
little, in fact no say, in war policies to begin with.

Lembcke: Yes, it confuses the means and ends of 
war, it becomes a form of demagoguery. It makes a 
non-issue an issue, 'support or not supporting 
the troops'. At a humanitarian level, none of us 
wants to put people in harm's way. The people who 
oppose the wars are most strident in that 
objective of keeping people out of the war. 
That's not an issue, but it keeps us from 
focusing on the war itself and talking about it. 
And one of the things I'm concerned about now is 
a certain strain of the anti-war movement ahs 
gotten caught up in this itself. There's a 
certain group of antiwar types who focus on what 
happens to the soldiers, how they're damaged 
psychologically, physically,I've been to a number 
of anti-war rallies now where all they talk about 
is PTSD and what happens to 'our boys' when we 
send them off to war. It's sort of a mirroring of 
the political right's approach. They make the 
'support the troops' ideology the basis for 
supporting the war, and some strands in the 
anti-war movement now mimic that we need to 
oppose the war by 'supporting the troops' and, 
I've been to some antiwar protests where very 
very little is said about the war itself!

We hear instead about getting the troops the help 
they need and heart rendering stories of parents 
of sons who have committed suicide after they 
come home, etc. That stuff from the anti-war left 
is as beclouding as similar rhetoric from the 
right, in that it takes us away from a political 
discourse, which we need in order to focus our 
energies around stopping the war and its causes.

Q: What's your sense in terms of how this myth is 
replayed now with vets coming home from Iraq and 
claims of their being 'abused' by the antiwar movement or sentiment?

Lembcke: I've heard a few of these stories. 
Again, in the spring of '03, stories circulated 
about soldiers being spat on. In New Hampshire a 
story went around that a woman in the National 
Guard had been pelted with a box of stones by 
antiwar teenagers. None of these stories have 
turned out to be supportable by any sort of 
evidence. And then, periodically, other stories 
like one in Seattle of a guy who was back from 
Iraq marching in a parade, 'spat on', 'booed', 
'called baby killer', etc. The same, no serious evidence.

Occasionally then I get reports of these, but 
I've always suspected if the war goes down as a 
'lost war', we'll hear more such stories, but the 
more important point, I think, is that the image 
of spat on Vietnam Vets is so engrained and part 
of the American memory and cultural sub-text, it 
almost doesn't have to be reaffirmed through 
stories of Iraq Vets being 'spat on' or 
'mistreated'. It's almost as though the Vietnam 
Spitting myth is a background that everyone 
'knows' about and when the President talks of 
Democrats not supportive of the war or otherwise 
baits antiwar people, the background that makes 
that resonant is the belief that something untoward happened to Vietnam Vets.

So it's not necessarily good news for the 
anti-war movement if we don't hear stories of 
Iraq Vets being 'spat on'. My fear is the 
mythical spat on Vietnam Vet is now so 
internalized as something that "happened', it 
doesn't have to be spoken anymore as a contemporary phenomenon.

Q: What's the significance of the documentary 
"<http://www.sirnosir.com/>Sir! No Sir" , which 
tells the story of the GI antiwar movement during 
Vietnam, in terms of what that film can tell 
students trying to organize antiwar movements on campuses across America today?

Lembcke: Oh, I think it's terribly powerful. Even 
thought there's no mention of Iraq, Afghanistan, 
or the War on Terror in the film, it seems that 
everyone that sees the film can extrapolate from 
it to the ways it applies to the wars that we're 
currently involved in. Probably the greatest 
impact it has is on young people in the military 
today. I've done quite a bit of public speaking at showings of the film.

First of all, it reminds even those of us 
involved in the antiwar movement as vets of stuff 
that they had forgotten about or informed us 
about things that were going on at that time that 
we didn't know about. They're kind of surprised 
to find out quite a few things about the GI 
antiwar movement that they didn't know.

Q: One of the things I was surprised to learn of 
was the extent of support shown to Jane Fonda by 
American soldiers stationed in Asia during the 
war at the 
"<http://www.rottentomatoes.com/click/movie-10000934/reviews.php?critic=all&sortby=default&page=1&rid=820716>Free 
The Army" tour that she, other famous actors such 
as Donald Southerland, and soldiers/vets 
organized at US bases. Considering all the media 
discourse about vets' anger at Fonda , I had no 
idea that some 60,000 soldiers had attended and 
enthusiastically received her at those shows, 
which served as an alternative to Bob Hope's 
pro-war tours at the time. Also the extent of 
African American soldiers in the antiwar movement 
was something I never fully heard about in 
histories of the antiwar movement, which the 
movie makes clear was very deep and militant.

Lembcke: I was in Vietnam in 1969 and got 
involved in Vietnam Veterans Against the War once 
I returned and yet there were things in that film 
that I had not known about at the time. On the 
one hand there was a lot in the news in the 
papers about the vets antiwar movement at the 
time, which I know now just from researching it. 
I don't think there was a blackout at all, often 
it was front page news and people knew about it.
One of the things I found interesting was looking 
at Stars and Stripes, the civilian published but 
military supported publication that soldiers got 
in Vietnam and it was all antiwar stuff. It 
reported the story of Billy Gene Smith, the GI 
accused of fragging an officer, which is featured 
in Sir! No Sir!. It had stories about soldiers in 
Vietnam wearing black armbands in support of the 
1969 anti-war Moratorium back home. It turns out 
Stars and Stripes is a pretty good source for 
information on the vets' and soldiers antiwar 
sentiment and movement back then!

So people knew of these things then. The more 
important story is what's happened to that in 
people's consciousness and memory. It certainly 
is gone now, even from people who were active in 
the vets antiwar movement then. Sir! No Sir! has 
helped to bring it back into the public memory 
and showing that a vets antiwar movement can 
happen now is very helpful for people teaching in 
college and high school. They can take this 
knowledge into the classroom and that part of the 
history can get back into the curriculum. Younger 
people will now get a different view of what happened then.

I've talked to a few soldiers back from Iraq, one 
a Holy Cross University Law School graduate who 
was an ROTC cadet who is back from Iraq and has 
spoken after showings of Sir No Sir! and likewise 
didn't know about the GI antiwar movement during 
Vietnam. She reports that there is a lot of 
opposition to the US occupation of Iraq among US 
soldiers in Iraq but it doesn't express itself 
because there's no organization, no organized 
communication between people. Maybe the film will 
play a catalyst role, if people see this film 
about organized GI opposition to the Vietnam War, 
it might inspire and even spark their imagination 
about the kinds of thing that can be done to 
oppose the war from within the military.

Q: And the significance of that for today?

Well, the GI antiwar movement became a vitally 
important part of the antiwar movement during 
Vietnam. And that is likely to be the case today 
also. Lots of people are asking what's the 
difference between today and Vietnam? Why isn't 
there a movement today? One possible answer is 
that the movement within the military is not 
quite congealed yet, but that the potential is 
there. Hopefully Sir! No Sir! can have an effect 
on accelerating that development a bit.

Q: One of the things that struck me about the 
film is that you saw that soldiers were not just 
protesting the war because of their equipment 
issues or technical matters about how the war was 
being conducted, but actually because they were 
against what was happening to the people of 
Vietnam because of the war and they were 
learning, while deployed there, about the actual 
history of the Vietnamese people's struggles 
against foreign occupation as opposed to what 
they were brainwashed to believe in boot camp or high school teachers.

Lembcke: Here's a big difference, namely the 
nature of the 'enemy' and how it's perceived. In 
the later years of Vietnam we came back rather 
sympathetic to the cause of the other side. One 
of the vets interviewed in the film, David Klein, 
talks of how he was shot and how he had shot a 
Viet Cong soldier. He then recalls how he looked 
at the fellow he had shot dead and realizes that 
this man was fighting for his country too, for 
freedom. That was a real consciousness raising 
moment for him and he dedicated moments like that 
to doing something to honor the loss of that 
man's life, namely to end the war and 
contributing to the other side's fight for 
freedom. I certainly came back in February 1970 
with such sentiments, though I'm not sure exactly 
how it happened. Surely conversations with other 
GIs and my own reading at the time helped with that.

But today it is harder to portray the 'enemy' in 
Iraq or Afghanistan in that kind of sympathetic 
way, there's a political challenge there for the 
American antiwar movement to understand what the other side represents.

It needs to get some grasp on what is supportable 
in what the other side is doing in Iraq and 
Afghanistan, like we did in the Vietnam War. 
Recall in the early phases of the Vietnam war, Ho 
Chi Minh and the Viet Cong were called terrorists 
and there tactics were called tactics of terror. 
Today we talk about the roadside bomb in Iraq, 
but during Vietnam there was the satchel charges 
were one of the main Vietnamese War.

Q: For those of us who haven't fought in a war, what is a Satchel Charge?

Lembcke: A briefcase that would be loaded with 
explosives, dropped off some place and would 
explode. The point I'm making is that early in 
the war in Vietnam the Vietnamese and the 
Vietcong weren't as viewed sympathetically as 
they were by the early 1970's. What changed was 
how they were represented in terms of what they 
were all about. I think we need to go through 
that rethinking process on Iraq now, though I'm not sure where that goes.

We don't right now have an embraceable 'other' as 
we did in Vietnam and what the complexity of the 
other side means, how it's to be sorted out, 
what's supportablebut we need to find if there is 
something there to be supportable and that can 
have a big impact on the military elements 
against the war, namely that there is an 
honorableness to the 'enemy' on the other side as 
was the case for GIs against the war in Vietnam.

Q: I always find it interesting to focus on what 
happens with US when it does negotiate with the 
armed opposition in Iraq, what the US's key 
demands are during such negotiations and how the 
US can't meet the oppositions' demands because of 
that oppositions' demands, no matter how low the 
bar is set, because those demands go against the 
interests of the US, given its actual goals in Iraq.

Lembcke: Most of us understand the war ended when 
the Vietnamese people won. And when we recognized 
that the sooner the other side wins, the war is 
over. The US is not gonna stop fighting until it 
stops, when the US is unable or unwilling to win 
the war. That conclusion is very sobering if it's 
applied to the war in Iraq. That's a pretty 
sobering thought, is this war going to go on 
until the US can't do so anymore and at what 
point is the US antiwar movement going to see 
that the war won't end until the other sides win 
and who is the other side? It's very complex, the 
other side is very divided, not a monolith. So I 
don't know how that lesson from Vietnam 
translates into something we can act on to inform our political work today.

Q: There's plenty of writing out there on the 
liberal left that we can't leave now because of the nature of the opposition.

Lembcke: Yes, there is that, but you know the 
pro-war elements during Vietnam used that logic 
too. They often said we can't leave now, we'll 
have so many losses or the 'bloodbath' that would happen if we left too soon

Q: I find that when I deal with people on the 
liberal-left who will argue that calling for 
leaving Iraq immediately is 'isolationism'. But 
if you argue back that this is not isolationism 
we are arguing, but that the US should pay 
massive reparations to the people of Iraq for the 
damage the US invasion and occupation has caused 
the Iraqi people-no reply forthcoming. They have 
no answer as to why we know that that is not 
going to happen if the US stays there or if it leaves!

But it opens up the question that people on the 
liberal-left who support staying there that the 
pro-war or lukewarm "anti-war" liberal left have 
no answer for, namely what is the purpose of what 
the US is doing in Iraq? It's just set in stone 
for them that if we leave things will be worse, 
even though the evidence now is so overwhelmingly 
that the US occupation is the key source of the 
violence we see in Iraq today. So much so that 
the argument that once was so common among the 
liberal left, "well the Iraqis want us to stay" 
has really collapsed under the weight of Iraqi 
realities. Now even the Iraqis polled are saying 
in big majorities in 
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/26/AR2006092601721.html>US 
State Dept. commissioned polls that they want us 
to leave now and it's ok to shoot US soldiers.

Lembcke: The NYT kind of buried that story on the 
inside, but the antiwar movement can use that 
information. We shouldn't have to make that 
argument, it should be apparent we're not 
welcome, but sometimes data helps to persuade.

Q: It also throws the light back on Iraqis, which 
the 'supports the troops' antiwar movement focus 
doesn't do. The focus is so often only on 
Americans as though the only impact is on 
Americans or it's the only one that matters, 
except for small periods like Abu Ghraib or Haditha

Lembcke: Yes, the war becomes all about us and 
erases Iraqis, much like we did during Vietnam 
erasing the agency of Vietnamese people.

Q: Yes, it's interesting that in the process, 
ironically, it ignores the agency of the soldiers 
and their potential role in stopping the war and 
recognizing the actual roots of war itself.

Lembcke: Yes, you know one of the best new 
sources of information for the antiwar movement 
is another film called 
"<http://www.sonyclassics.com/whywefight/>Why We 
Fight". I saw it with two classes and they 
haven't stopped talking about it. If they had 
heard before about the term 'military industrial 
compex", now it makes it more real. Now they 
think about the war beyond the slogans of "the 
war is for freedom, democracy'which is all most 
Americans know. The oil thing too has also become 
a kind of clich? they don't think about much. For 
my students those bumper stickered explanations 
are erased and the film puts the war in a much 
more material and realistic framing. It's a film 
that might have as important an impact as Sir! No Sir!

Stephen Philion is an assistant professor of 
sociology at St. Cloud State University in the 
Department of Sociology and Anthropology, 
teaching social theory, sociology of race, and 
China and Globalization. His writings can be 
found at his 
<http://stephenphilion.efoliomn2.com/>website. He 
can be reached at: <mailto:stephen_philion at yahoo.com>stephen_philion at yahoo.com


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(415) 863-9977
www.freedomarchives.org 
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From news at freedomarchives.org  Mon Oct 16 08:53:27 2006
From: news at freedomarchives.org (Anti-Imperialist News)
Date: Mon, 16 Oct 2006 05:53:27 -0700
Subject: [News] Palestinian Women call for unity government or interim
 government
Message-ID: <6.2.5.6.2.20061016055235.044c5eb0@freedomarchives.org>

Women call for unity government or interim government; anything to 
engender reform
http://english.pnn.ps/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=800&Itemid=1

(Bethlehem) Najib Farag
Monday, 16 October 2006

In an appeal "for the sake of Palestine," the collective Palestinian 
women's organizations called for intensified dialogue to form a 
national unity government.

The women condemned internal fighting and violence, and called to 
remove armed persons from the streets and remove the political 
affiliations from security organizations. The organizations said 
today that the coalition government should be formed on the basis of 
the National Accord Document, which all parties agreed upon during 
the several-day national meetings earlier in the year.

The women's organizations pointed out the President Abbas and Prime 
Minister Haniya have already agreed on the Accord Document and so 
there is no need to hash through other agreements or external 
conditions. The two have agreed on something, and that is enough. The 
call is for the new government to be formed as early as the end of Ramadan.

The women's memo was signed by dozens of institutions and female 
officials, professional, and educators. Included was an additional 
call to create an interim government to function for one year, 
working to address internal affairs. The players should be 
independent in order to leave behind as much political muckraking as possible.

The issues of the economy and social deterioration must be dealt 
with, poverty and unemployment addressed, and the political and 
economic blockade must be broken to ensure that international aid can 
begin to flow and that the Israelis will pay taxes on the funds they 
froze. Administrative and financial reform is also required. These 
points are crucial, wrote the women, "for the good of Palestine." 
They continued to say that "organizing against occupation as the Wall 
takes more land, working to end occupation and human rights 
violations, these are the issues we should be dealing with."

The women also supported the role of the Palestine Liberation 
Organization as the source of the political authority to follow-up on 
the political file. Monday's memo called for immediate reform as "the 
country can no longer wait."


The Freedom Archives
522 Valencia Street
San Francisco, CA 94110
(415) 863-9977
www.freedomarchives.org 
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From news at freedomarchives.org  Thu Oct 19 17:43:01 2006
From: news at freedomarchives.org (Anti-Imperialist News)
Date: Thu, 19 Oct 2006 14:43:01 -0700
Subject: [News] Keith Olbermann "Special Comments" re: signing of the
 Military Commissions Act
Message-ID: <6.2.5.6.2.20061019144146.044dfd80@freedomarchives.org>


Keith Olbermann   "Special Comments" re:  signing of the Military 
Commissions Act signed by President Bush on Tuesday,  Oct. 17, 2006.

Need Real Player and DSL.

<http://www.crooksandliars.com/2006/10/18/countdown-special-comment-death-of-habeas-corpus-your-words-are-lies-sir/>http://www.crooksandliars.com/2006/10/18/countdown-special-comment-death-of-habeas-corpus-your-words-are-lies-sir/





The Freedom Archives
522 Valencia Street
San Francisco, CA 94110
(415) 863-9977
www.freedomarchives.org 
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From news at freedomarchives.org  Fri Oct 20 12:41:34 2006
From: news at freedomarchives.org (Anti-Imperialist News)
Date: Fri, 20 Oct 2006 09:41:34 -0700
Subject: [News] How to Stay Out of Gitmo - Get a Nuke
Message-ID: <6.2.5.6.2.20061020094044.044ea580@freedomarchives.org>

http://www.counterpunch.org/day10202006.html

Weekend Edition
October 20 / 22, 2006


Get a Nuke


How to Stay Out of Gitmo

By SUSIE DAY

In case you've been too stunned by other 
newsworthy disasters to pay proper attention, the 
Military Commissions Act of 2006 was just signed 
into law. This law gives the U.S. government 
legal permission to do things they've been doing 
sub-legally for years, such as: designate people 
as "unlawful enemy combatants"; deny these people 
the right of habeas corpus; detain them for years 
without charges; and obtain evidence through "coercion."

If it only affected immigrants and foreigners 
captured in battle, this law would be bad 
enough--but when we learn that it also permits 
U.S. citizens to be deemed "enemy combatants," 
it's time to ACT! Here, then, are some tips on 
proving to the feds that you are not the enemy:

1. BECOME A FAMOUS MOVIE STAR. Hollywood 
celebrities rarely, if ever, spend years in 
Guant?namo without charges, surrounded by barbed 
wire and vicious dogs. Their movies may bomb, but 
they never do, thanks to the virulent Red Scares 
that purged the motion picture industry of all 
terrorists, with the possible exception of Mel Gibson.

When you become a famous movie star, you will 
receive: a dazzling smile, affordable health 
insurance, and a rock-hard sense of self-esteem 
that comes from millions of 
government-indoctrinated nobodies knowing who you 
are. Push comes to shove and you are sent to a 
detention camp, guards will treat you better. 
"Hey, isn't that Julia Roberts on that gurney? I 
loved her in Erin Brockovich. Maybe I'll let her call her attorney..."

2. EMIT NOXIOUS FUMES. No one will ever accuse 
you of Islamofascism as you proudly stand in 
solidarity with our great multinational 
corporations and spew harmful chemical, 
radioactive, and industrial waste into our 
ecosystem. By polluting rivers, the air, and 
low-income neighborhoods, you'll garner lots of 
government perks, too, including military 
contracts and tax-breaks you could only dream of 
as an ordinary, "save-the-whales" citizen. Best 
of all, your carcinogenic emissions will increase 
chances that, among the thousands of Americans 
who die each year from environmentally caused 
cancer, one or two will be terrorists.

3. SCAPEGOAT SECULAR HUMANISTS. Stuck-up, egghead 
Secular Humanists like Frank Rich, Molly Ivins, 
and Noam Chomsky say that Islamic extremists are 
not the real problem. They're right! The real 
problem is stuck-up, egghead Secular Humanists!

Secular Humanists have caused terrorism, global 
warming, and every major disaster for the last 
5,000 years--and it's our duty to stop them before they TAKE OVER THE WORLD!

FACT: these intellectual malcontents have turned 
from God and home-schooling to the golden calf of 
"Humanities"! FACT: since the Crusades, Secular 
Humanists have stood at the center of a vast, 
satanic plot to STOP God-ordained conquest and 
unite humankind through Logic, Science, and 
Enlightenment! FACT: Much of our U.S. 
Constitution was written by these depraved, 
happiness-pursuing "Enlightenati"! Would you want 
one of these "created equal" degenerates to marry your sister?

Why are we waiting? Let's show them God's logic. 
Let's show them the only way to prevent another 
Third Reich is with another Inquisition.

4. ACQUIRE A NUCLEAR WEAPON. If you are not an 
Arab, Communist, or person of color, announcing 
that you have a nuclear weapon capable of mass 
destruction will make you an instant ally of the 
United States! A small NB about the WMD, however: 
Do NOT make the mistake of that silly Iranian 
President, who followed the Non-Proliferation 
Treaty, inquired through proper channels about 
legally obtaining nuclear technology for 
"peaceful" purposes, and was called "Hitler" for 
his efforts. Please show that you are thoughtful 
enough to handle your ability to create perpetual 
nuclear winter by obtaining your WMD before you 
inform the U.S. government. To make absolutely 
certain you're in good standing, insist that the 
U.S. government call you "France."

5. DEVELOP AGORAPHOBIC CATATONIA. "All that is 
necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to 
do nothing." A wise man said that in the 18th 
Century--a wise, stupid man. This man never 
looked ahead to the 21st Century, to see that 
doing nothing would become the apogee of cutting-edge activism!

Remember the Afghanistan invasion? The Iraq 
invasion? All those meetings and lectures you 
went to, where you became "informed" and had 
"doubts" about WMD and al Qaeda connections? All 
that peace marching--once, with 10,000,000 people 
all over the world, so the destruction of 
millennia-old cultures and the slaughter of 
innocents wouldn't happen? It happened anyway.

It happened because you left the house.

To prevent further mayhem, it is necessary to 
effect social change at home, by nonviolently 
reading your email. Uh-oh: look at all those 
listserves on murder and torture and indefinite 
detention. They force you to devise a new 
activist strategy: You must play "Minesweeper" 
and "Pac-Man" for the next four hours.

Now, for direct action! Using psychological 
skills honed at your computer, it is time to 
emotionally, intellectually, and spiritually 
"shut down." This allows you to do radical civil 
disobedience while lying on your couch. As you 
remain in staunch protest, allow crises such as 
Darfur, AIDS, and our war on Iran to roll over you.

While they are rolling, turn on TV. Look, there's 
a Sex and the City rerun. Enter the world of 
beautiful people with no real problems, lots of 
sex, and million-dollar hygiene. Why does New 
York City suddenly have so few Black people? 
Isn't that gay person being treated like a pet? 
Doesn't matter. All good. Now, try to picture 
somebody water-boarding Sarah Jessica Parker. You 
can't. Ah, finally--you have effected social change.

Susie Day can be reached at: <mailto:sday at skadden.com>sday at skadden.com

? Susie Day, 2006


The Freedom Archives
522 Valencia Street
San Francisco, CA 94110
(415) 863-9977
www.freedomarchives.org 
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From news at freedomarchives.org  Mon Oct 23 08:41:48 2006
From: news at freedomarchives.org (Anti-Imperialist News)
Date: Mon, 23 Oct 2006 05:41:48 -0700
Subject: [News] White Liberals and Glass Houses
Message-ID: <6.2.5.6.2.20061023054100.044f19a0@freedomarchives.org>



White Liberals and Glass Houses: A Reminder that 
Black Radical Journalism is a Tradition
Jared A. Ball

October 21, 2006
VOXUNION MEDIA

Note: 
<http://voxunion.com/realaudio/coupradio/WhiteLiberalsMix.mp3>Click 
here for the audio version or visit 
<http://voxunion.com>voxunion.com for the stream and MP3 download options.


             Even as they decry the practice of 
exclusion among the mainstream press the white 
left-led media reform movement does the same to 
Black American and domestic or local news.  While 
just a brief overview, one far from being 
exhaustive in its study, this commentary is both 
a postscript to past analysis performed on the 
subject and a prelude of more in-depth 
forthcoming work.  However, following a recent 
study published by the white-left media watchdog 
group Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting or FAIR 
and in advance of my own participation at next 
year?s Media Reform Conference in Memphis I would 
at least like to propose the following for consideration.


This is precisely why I make mixtapes.  As crazy 
as it sounds to some FreeMix Radio: The Original 
Mixtape Radio Show, a Washington, DC-based freely 
distributed mixtape CD, is as likely to let an 
audience in on the real conditions of the United 
States, particularly Black America, or to allow 
for the airing of the real critical political 
hip-hop as any popular media including that 
produced from the white liberal left.  In other 
spaces I have, and will continue to, analyzed the 
fact that maybe more than any other popular form 
of musical expression political, or at least 
non-abusive hip-hop, is least likely to gain 
access to any airwaves in the United 
States.  Even my beloved WPFW Pacifica Radio here 
in DC with whom I currently work has an 
allegiance to jazz that relegates only 5 hours a 
week to hip-hop and that is it for the entire 
city when it comes to the particular form of 
which I now speak.  This leaves our youth solely 
at the hands and whims of a commercial pop 
culture world which, in the words of Jonathan 
Kozol, is bent on their 
?cognitive  decapitation.?  In terms of news or 
perspective little changes when it comes to the 
white left.  We agree that the right-led 
mainstream news environment is a destructive mess 
and many of us consider even attempting change in 
that arena a hopeless waste of time.  But perhaps 
we will yet again need to condemn our comrades on 
the left and further the development of more 
Black-centered progressive or radical journalism.


The 
<http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=2973>October 
13, 2006 edition of Counterspin ? the 30 minute 
weekly radio show from Fairness and Accuracy in 
Reporting a white liberal media watchdog group ? 
was dedicated to their recent study on PBS?s 
Newshour with Jim Lehrer which detailed the 
right-wing slant of the show and an overall lack 
of inclusiveness in major media.  Among the 
report?s findings were that on PBS?s Newshour men 
appeared 4 times as much as women, republicans 
twice as often as democrats and that only 15% of 
all guests were so-called ?people of color.?  But 
even with such distinguished guests as FAIR?s own 
Julie Hollar (who also co-wrote the study) and 
media scholar Robert McChesney founder of the 
media reform group Free Press nothing was 
mentioned of their own inclusiveness failure 
rates.  It must also be noted, parenthetically, 
that their standard of inclusion also remained 
fairly conservative in that it only measured 
republican versus democrat as if that latter is 
somehow enough of a distinction.  In other words, 
their study would be even more damning were it to 
include even more white radical perspectives of 
communism, socialism, anarchy, etc. not to 
mention were it to include the varied radical 
concerns among African Americans (or Africans in 
America or New Afrikans).  That is if inclusion 
of democrats is a standard then where are we to 
look for pan-Africanism or African Socialism?



But if we take their radio programs as signs of 
their particular range of coverage and 
perspective of that coverage, understanding as we 
do that FAIR, for instance, also publishes a 
print edition called Extra!, McChesney and Free 
Press all publish widely, etc. and so on, we 
would notice an absolute paucity of focus on 
African America.  Future analysis will expand on 
this but I am enough of a listener and reader (I 
read McChesney widely and have interviewed him 
myself twice and even once emailed him with these 
very concerns) I feel confident in saying that similar findings would result.



The FAIR study mentioned uses invited guests as a 
leading component in their analysis.  Being that 
I am not able to determine in all cases the race 
or ethnicity of guests by listening to them or 
reading their names in show summaries and 
recognizing that the inclusion of Black faces is 
not necessarily a guarantor of Black-centered or 
Black radical perspectives, I can make an 
assessment based on keynote topic selection as to 
whether or not particular attention was paid, in 
this case, to Black America.   If we just look at 
the last calendar year and the primary or central 
themes of Counterspin we notice that only four of 
those themes were potentially specific to the 
conditions or struggles of African Americans and 
every single one was related to Katrina (shows 
on: 10/14/05, 1/27/06, 3/10/06 and 9/1/06).  Each 
of these shows were follow ups on Katrina, but 
while we can give some benefit of the doubt, 
there would need to be further investigation to 
determine exactly what percentage of these 
stories were about Black people as opposed to 
issues of finance or the funneling of tax dollars 
via friendly no-bid contracts, etc.  Even still, 
the horrific event some thought would bring media 
into more of a discussion of race and class has 
largely failed to do so even within the media reform left wing.



             McChesney is no better in this 
regard.  In his weekly one-hour radio show Media 
Matters there has been little discussion of race 
and the Black struggle or current condition and 
when there is his invited guest expert is likely 
to be white male.  In roughly the last year he 
too has had only 4 shows which discussed race at 
all, and these not necessarily the condition of 
Black America or its ongoing struggle, and 2 of 
these shows had white male guests Robert Jensen 
(10/02/05) and David Roediger (7/24/05).  I wrote 
him recently an email reminding him that during 
these shows while he twice referenced writer and 
journalist Glen Ford (formerly of Black 
Commentator and now 
<http://blackagendareport.com>BlackAgendaReport.com) 
he had yet to actually invite him on as a 
featured guest.  McChesney did remind me of what 
I had known that in the 2 other instances 
Sundiata Cha-Jua (3/19/06) and Salim Muwakkil 
(1/29/06) had appeared bringing the grand total 
of Black guests to 2 in the course of roughly 50 shows in the past year.



             In preparation for our participation 
in Free Press? upcoming conference on media 
reform my 
<http://industryears.com>IndustryEars.com 
colleague Paul Porter too noted the lack of 
inclusion of Black voices and was even inclined 
to remark how ?Free Press is the Clear Channel of 
Media Reform.?  Porter continued, saying that, 
?It has become blatantly obvious that the media 
reform movement is as racist as media ownership. 
While we continue to lose ground daily for some 
strange reason our efforts often lead us to align 
with the groups that marginalize us.  Groups like 
Free Press and Democracy Now! have systematically 
added token voices to appear as our agenda's are 
the same. When you look at key reform groups over 
the years they consistently hire and speak to 
audiences that don't look or think like 
us.  Until we collectively form a unified 
partnership we will continue to be marginalized 
and basically used until further notice. I am 
sure I will hear the benefits from some of you on 
why we need to align with larger reform groups 
but the proof has been in  past history.  I am 
most interested in change.  Speaking at the 
Memphis media reform or conducting a panel is of 
no use unless it changes the landscape.?



Oh, and that beloved media reform movement and 
Pacifica radio favorite Democracy Now!, which 
airs 5 days a week?  In my 2005 study of that 
show I noted that of the 176 possible shows in 
the calendar year prior to the levies flooding in 
New Orleans only 21 shows or 12% had any focus on 
Black America.  Of those 21, 10 were historical 
references to the Civil Rights era, including 2 
about the historic ? yet re-emergent ? story of 
Emmitt Till, but only 4 with any contemporary 
focus.  Of the 4 all were with the late activist 
Damu Smith surrounding much of his organizational 
work on issues of politics and environmental 
racism.  One would hope that this powerful media 
outlet would not need to await another of the 
caliber of Damu before these issues gain 
coverage.  Or perhaps such a figure will go 
unnoticed because of such inattention.



Now, this is not to say that the white left is 
the cause of the problem.  But they are a 
problem.  The pattern of abandoning Black 
American concerns for those considered more 
pressing or more exotic is again playing out in 
2006.  The fact remains, that listeners to the 
radio programs discussed above will have a 
greater working knowledge of Iraq, Israel or 
Palestine than of Black America.  I am sure part 
of the response will be that there is a war or 
international news is sorely lacking in 
mainstream press.  No doubt this is 
true.  However, I think it is more of a return to 
the Black Power era of ?you don?t want us? The 
fuck you too! We can cover Vietnam or the 
environment or the whales!?  It is necessary to 
inform the nation of its role in and relationship 
to international politics.  However, an overly 
intense focus on international issues or to 
domestically tend only to cover issues at the 
highest federal levels that borders on copping 
out in that in each case the mostly white 
audience will feel appeased of its guilt in being 
complicit with a North American juggernaut and 
powerless to make real change.  More attention to 
local and domestic concerns would be more likely 
to challenge people to become more active in 
fixing, internally, the nation that most of the 
world rightly recognizes as the greatest threat to world peace.



But what we are seeing now are the remnants of 
the Civil Rights and Black Power era sellouts and 
conformists who have abandoned any attempt at 
domestic revolution in favor of challenging 
mainstream coverage of federal-level or 
international concerns.  In the end the white 
left follow an agenda set by the elite owners of 
media and the world and leave the rest of us 
unsupported, protected or covered.  The issue of 
communication, as Mark Lloyd has said, is a civil 
rights one but we are not seeing the same kind of 
white liberal, progressive or radical 
journalism  that supported those efforts and 
popular Black media has convinced us we need no 
such similar effort in Black journalism.



White America, as Dr. King said 40 years ago, has 
not done enough to condition itself out of white 
supremacy and there is a sense I get from this 
wing of political struggle that says, ?we did 
that Black stuff already.  You got your rights, 
you have celebrities and Black 
journalists.  We?re moving onward and 
upward.?  Well, despite the imagery Black America 
is no better off today than at any other 
time.  We remain imprisoned, ill-educated, with 
poverty and segregation levels that rival any 
other point in our history.  Plantation slavery 
remains the standard by which we measure the 
condition of African Americans which prevents us 
from seeing that what currently exists is not 
progress but the proverbial knife being pulled 5 
inches out of a 9 inch deep wound as Malcolm X 
once made clear.  And of any segment of the 
population who should be most able; given access, 
education and proclaimed criticism to see through 
the barrage of false imagery its our white 
friends of the upper-middle class left.  But more 
likely is the reality that the trend remains much 
like Dr. King again said of the white left, they 
have ?in devastating numbers walked off with the 
aggressor? where it appears as though the ?white 
segregationist and the average white citizen has 
more in common with one another than either had with the negro.?



Dr. Todd Burroughs and I have argued for the 
creation of a <http://voxunion.com>B-SPAN, a 
Black national news service dedicated to 
year-round coverage of Black struggle and 
condition.  I make mixtapes, do low-power and 
internet radio all of which is meant to support 
or exemplify underground and alternative 
journalism or the development of space for the 
expression of a decolonized culture.  But more 
will need to be done in media and political 
organization if real progress is to occur.  We 
must remember that the primary reason, despite a 
lack of intent to include from the white left, 
that Black Americans have eschewed ?media reform? 
as a ?movement? is because from the beginning it 
was and is understood that dominant media work 
for the dominant and that there is little chance 
of democratizing media in a decidedly 
un-democratic society.  From Sam Cornish to 
Marcus Garvey, W.E.B. DuBois, Ida B. Wells, 
Robert and Mabel Williams, Sam Napier, Malcolm X 
Black radicalism has always included an 
underground/alternative press component.  None 
argued that reforming media would reform society 
they all argued that in order to reform or 
revolutionize society a supportive media would 
have to be created.  And this is not exclusive to 
Black America.  As noted by Lauren Kessler, 
radical journalism is a ?tradition? not an 
anomalous ?time-bound? occurrence.  This brief 
look at the white left need only be a reminder 
that we cannot expect that movement to be 
ours.  Black America, whether in journalism or 
larger political struggle, is fast-approaching 
complete isolation mostly from half-hearted and 
apolitical media inclusion and journalistic 
practice but also from a complete inattention 
from our white left comrades.  As we work within we must also work without.



This has been Jared Ball for VOXUNION MEDIA and FreeMix Radio.


Dr. Jared A. Ball is an assistant professor of 
Communications/Media Studies at Morgan State 
University.  He is editor of the 
<http://wblinc.org>Words, Beats and Life Journal 
of Hip-Hop and Global Culture and is also the 
founder and creator of FreeMix Radio: The 
Original Mixtape Radio Show, a rap music mixtape 
committed to the practice of underground 
emancipatory journalism.  He and his work can be 
found online at <http://voxunion.com>VOXUNION.COM.


The Freedom Archives
522 Valencia Street
San Francisco, CA 94110
(415) 863-9977
www.freedomarchives.org 
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From news at freedomarchives.org  Mon Oct 23 11:57:55 2006
From: news at freedomarchives.org (Anti-Imperialist News)
Date: Mon, 23 Oct 2006 08:57:55 -0700
Subject: [News] Demand HUD Create Affordable Housing and Protect Public
 Housing in NOLA
Message-ID: <6.2.5.6.2.20061023085733.044ec280@freedomarchives.org>


URGENT CALL TO ALL THOSE WHO SUPPORT THE
RIGHT OF RETURN OF DISPLACED PEOPLE
Many of you have already pressured the Louisiana
legislature to make housing affordable for low-income
people. While we won a small battle, the war
continues. Now it is important to direct our lobbying
efforts at the Department of Housing and Urban
Development (HUD).  Please take immediate action to
demand that HUD protect public housing and make
low-income and affordable housing in New Orleans and
Louisiana possible.

Despite their recent defeat within the state
legislature, conservative members of the legislature
persist in trying to pressure HUD to waive various
aspects of the Community Development Block Grant
(CDBG0 enforcement statutes that seek to provide
housing to low-income families. If these statutes are
waived the vast majority of low-income renters
displaced New Orleanians won?t be able to come home as
there will be no housing stock in the city that they
could reasonably afford.

Similar forces in the region are also pressuring HUD
to destroy the existing public housing stock in New
Orleans. There are 5,100 units of public housing in
New Orleans? that were occupied before Katrina, many
of which were barely damaged by the flood. These units
could and should be used to house its prior occupants,
and where possible, to serve as transitional housing
to New Orleanians seeking to return home immediately.

If we don?t act in force, we will allow the
neo-conservative forces within HUD, like the Bush
appointed Secretary of HUD, Alphonse Jackson, to
implement the neo-liberal agenda of privatizing and
eventually eliminating government services for the
poor and neglecting its responsibility to provide
housing for internally displaced people.

We must not allow HUD to relax its existing housing
protections for low-income families, nor destroy the
public housing stock in New Orleans. The People?s
Hurricane Relief Fund and Oversight Coalition
(PHRF/OC) calls on everyone who supports the right of
return to call, fax, and email HUD National Secretary
Alphonse Jackson and other top HUD officials to demand
the following:
1. That no waivers be granted on the low-income
requirements of the Community Development Block Grant
(CDBG) funds to the State of Louisiana, Governor
Kathleen Blanco, and the Louisiana Recovery Authority
(LRA).
2. That HUD demand that Governor Blanco and the LRA
appropriate a percentage of the CDBG funds  held by
the LRA ? proportionate to the percent of internally
displaced people who were renters ? to renter
transition and recovery programs including assistance
for moving costs, deposits, and rent assistance.
3. That all of the public housing units in New Orleans
be reopened immediately. That there be no demolition
of any of the public housing units in New Orleans.

Call, email or fax the following HUD officials:

Alphonse Jackson
National Secretary
U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development
Telephone: (202) 708-1112
TTY: (202) 708-1455

Brian Montgomery
Assistant Secretary
Housing/Federal Housing Commissioner
Telephone: (202) 708-2601

Pamela Patenaude
Assistant Secretary
Community Planning and Development
Telephone: (202) 708-2690

Kim Kendrick
Assistant Secretary
Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity
Telephone: (202) 708-4252

Marvel Robertson
New Orleans Field Office Director
Telephone: (504) 589-7201
Fax: (504) 589-7266
TTY: (504) 589-7277
Email: LA_Webmanager at hud.gov

For more information contact PHRF/OC at (504)
301-0215. Visit www.peopleshurricane.org.

The Freedom Archives
522 Valencia Street
San Francisco, CA 94110
(415) 863-9977
www.freedomarchives.org 
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From news at freedomarchives.org  Mon Oct 23 12:31:16 2006
From: news at freedomarchives.org (Anti-Imperialist News)
Date: Mon, 23 Oct 2006 09:31:16 -0700
Subject: [News] BBC poll: World against torture, Jews in Israel in favor
Message-ID: <6.2.5.6.2.20061023092505.044e8340@freedomarchives.org>

One-third support 'some torture'
Nearly a third of people worldwide back the use 
of torture in prisons in some circumstances, a BBC survey suggests.

Although 59% were opposed to torture, 29% thought 
it acceptable to use some degree of torture to combat terrorism.

While most polled in the US are against torture, 
opposition there is less robust than in Europe and elsewhere.

More than 27,000 people in 25 countries were 
asked if torture would be acceptable if it could 
provide information to save innocent lives.

Some 36% of those questioned in the US agreed 
that this use of torture was acceptable, while 
58% were unwilling to compromise on human rights.


The percentage favouring torture in certain cases 
makes it one of the highest of all the countries polled.

The majority of those questioned in the BBC World 
Service poll - 19 of the 25 countries surveyed - 
agree that clear rules against torture in prisons 
should be maintained because it is immoral and 
its use would weaken human rights standards.

"The dominant view around the world is that 
terrorism does not warrant bending the rules 
against torture," said Steven Kull, director of 
the Program on International Policy Attitudes 
(PIPA), whose organisation helped conduct the survey.

Saving lives?

All of the countries surveyed have signed up to 
the Geneva Conventions which prohibit the use of 
torture and cruel and degrading behaviour.

But countries that face political violence are 
more likely to accept the idea that some degree 
of torture is permissible because of the extreme threat posed by terrorists.

Israel has the largest percentage of those polled 
endorsing the use of a degree of torture on 
prisoners, with 43% saying they agreed that some 
degree of torture should be allowed.

However, a larger percentage - 48% - think it should remain prohibited.

The question
Most countries have agreed to rules prohibiting 
torturing prisoners. Which position is closer to yours?
Terrorists pose such an extreme threat that 
governments should now be allowed to use some 
degree of torture if it may gain information that saves innocent lives
Clear rules against torture should be maintained 
because any use of torture is immoral and will 
weaken international human rights

Other countries that polled higher levels of 
acceptance of the use of torture include Iraq 
(42%), the Philippines (40%), Indonesia (40%), Russia (37%) and China (37%).

The Israeli figure conceals a stark difference in 
attitude within the country, split along religious lines.

A majority of Jewish respondents in Israel, 53%, 
favour allowing governments to use some degree of 
torture to obtain information from those in 
custody, while 39% want clear rules against it.

But Muslims in Israel, who represent 16% of the 
total number polled, are overwhelmingly against any use of torture.

Meanwhile opposition to the practise is highest 
in Italy, where 81% of those questioned think torture is never justified.

Australia, France, Canada, the UK and Germany 
also registered high levels of opposition to any use of torture.

The survey was carried out for the BBC World 
Service by polling firm Globescan and the Program 
on International Policy Attitudes (PIPA).

Views on torturing prisoners
Country Against all torture * Some degree permissible * Neither/Don't Know
Australia 75% 22% 3%
Brazil 61% 32% 8%
Canada 74% 22% 4%
Chile 62% 22% 16%
China 49% 37% 13%
Egypt 65% 25% 9%
France 75% 19% 6%
Germany 71% 21% 7%
Gt Britain 72% 24% 4%
India 23% 32% 45%
Indonesia 51% 40% 8%
Iraq 55% 42% 1%
Israel 48% 43% 9%
Italy 81% 14% 6%
Kenya 53% 38% 9%
Mexico 50% 24% 27%
Nigeria 49% 39% 12%
Philippines 56% 40% 5%
Poland 62% 27% 12%
Russia 43% 37% 19%
S Korea 66% 31% 3%
Spain 65% 16% 19%
Turkey 62% 24% 14%
Ukraine 54% 29% 18%
US 58% 36% 7%
Average 59% 29% 12%
*27,000 respondents in 25 countries were asked 
which position was closer to their own views:
    * Clear rules against torture should be 
maintained because any use of torture is immoral 
and will weaken international human rights standards against torture.
    * Terrorists pose such an extreme threat that 
governments should now be allowed to use some 
degree of torture if it may gain information that saves innocent lives.
Source: BBC/Globescan/PIPA


Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/world/6063386.stm

Published: 2006/10/19 02:07:46 GMT

? BBC MMVI



The Freedom Archives
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From news at freedomarchives.org  Tue Oct 24 08:47:37 2006
From: news at freedomarchives.org (Anti-Imperialist News)
Date: Tue, 24 Oct 2006 05:47:37 -0700
Subject: [News] World silent as fascists join Israel government
Message-ID: <6.2.5.6.2.20061024054649.044f8ac0@freedomarchives.org>

World silent as fascists join Israel government
Ali Abunimah, The Electronic Intifada, 24 October 2006

http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article5874.shtml


Official EU propaganda on display at Dublin airport claims that the 
"European Union is working for peace, security and stability 
everywhere." (Image: Ali Abunimah/EI)

In a frightening but long expected move, Israeli prime minister Ehud 
Olmert has brought the Yisrael Beitenu party into his coalition 
government. The party's leader, Avigdor Lieberman, is to be vice 
prime minister and, as "Minister for Strategic Threats," a key member 
of Israel's "security cabinet" in charge of the Iran portfolio.

Yisrael Beitenu is a dangerous extremist party with fascist 
tendencies that has openly advocated the "transfer" of Palestinians, 
including the transfer of Arab towns within Israel to a 
Bantustan-like future Palestinian entity. It has made clear that a 
Jewish supremacist state is more important than a democratic one. The 
party, whose strongest base is among Russian immigrants brought to 
Israel in the 1990s, surged at the Israeli election earlier this 
year, taking eleven seats in Israel's 120 seat Knesset.

Last summer, Israel launched a disastrous war of destruction against 
Lebanon, and continues its siege and onslaught against Palestinians 
in the occupied territories which has killed nearly three hundred 
people in three months and left hundreds of thousands without 
sufficient food, water and electricity. Lieberman has advocated even 
more harsh and criminal measures against the Palestinians and 
Israel's neighbors.

It is dismaying that the European Union, a key international actor, 
seems set to maintain warm, normal relations with this extremist 
government, thus giving it encouragement and legitimacy.

"You will understand that we cannot interfere with the setting up of 
a foreign government. This is a matter for which the concerned State 
alone is responsible," wrote Cristina Gallach, the official 
spokesperson for Javier Solana, the EU High Representative for 
foreign policy, in an email responding to a query about whether the 
EU would impose sanctions on Israel if Yisrael Beitenu joined the government.

Gallach added that "We think that both Israel and the Palestinians 
are aware of the responsibility they have in creating the favorable 
conditions for reactivating the Peace Process with the ultimate goal 
of having two States living side by side in peace and security." 
Other than such bland and cynical platitudes, Solana's spokesperson 
offered no hint of EU concern about the horrifying political 
developments within Israel that are certain to bring about further 
violence, escalation and needless suffering.

In an interview with an Israeli newspaper in September, Yisrael 
Beitenu leader Lieberman said: "The vision I would like to see here 
is the entrenching of the Jewish and the Zionist state...I very much 
favour democracy, but when there is a contradiction between 
democratic and Jewish values, the Jewish and Zionist values are more 
important." (Scotsman, October 23, 2006)

In addition to espousing ethnic cleansing, Lieberman has a long 
history of inciting discrimination, hatred and violence against 
Palestinians within the Jewish state and living under Israeli 
military occupation in East Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza Strip. 
When he served as minister of transport in a previous government, 
Lieberman called for all Palestinian prisoners held by the Israeli 
occupation authorities to be drowned in the Dead Sea and offered to 
provide the buses ("Lieberman blasted for suggesting drowning 
Palestinian prisoners," Ha'aretz, July 11, 2002). He has proposed to 
strip the citizenship of, and expel any Palestinian citizen of Israel 
who refuses to sign a loyalty oath to the Jewish Zionist state ("A 
Jewish demographic state," Ha'aretz, June 28, 2002).

In 2002, Lieberman declared, "I would not hesitate to send the 
Israeli army into all of Area A [the area of the West Bank ostensibly 
under Palestinian Authority control] for 48 hours. Destroy the 
foundation of all the authority's military infrastructure, all of the 
police buildings, the arsenals, all the posts of the security 
forces... not leave one stone on another. Destroy everything." He 
also suggested to the Israeli cabinet that the air force 
systematically bomb all the commercial centers, gas stations and 
banks in the occupied territories (The Independent, March 7, 2002). 
And, he has proposed bombing Egypt's Aswan Dam, despite that 
country's peace treaty with Israel since 1979. What will he propose 
to do to Iran?

Hebrew University professor Ze'ev Sternhell, a leading Israeli 
academic specialist on fascism and totalitarianism, was quoted by the 
Scotsman newspaper as terming Lieberman "perhaps the most dangerous 
politician in the history of the state of Israel."

Urgent action is needed to stem the growing threat to international 
peace and security that Israel presents. Rather than do anything of 
the kind, the office of the EU High Representative has set a new low 
standard, offering only appeasement and accomodation for Israeli 
extremism and apartheid. The claim that the EU does not interfere in 
the internal affairs of foreign governments is just a fig leaf for 
political cowardice and unwillingness to stand up to Israel or its 
backers; it is not remotely consistent with past or present practice 
in other cases.

Most glaringly, since Palestinians under occupation elected Hamas to 
lead the Palestinian Authority last January, in the Arab world's most 
free election ever, the EU has interfered in their affairs in the 
most irresponsible manner, imposing a total siege and cut off of aid 
that has directly penalized the Palestinian population, causing 
widespread hunger and deprivation. This siege is explicitly intended 
to force the Hamas-led authority to abandon the platform on which it 
was elected, or to force it out of office completely. (The EU claims 
it wants Hamas to recognize Israel and end violence, even though 
Hamas has observed a 22-month one-sided truce, halting attacks on 
Israel, and its leaders have issued repeated statements in favor of 
reaching a long-term agreement with Israel on the basis of equality 
and mutual, not one-sided, recognition.) The European Union, under 
Solana's personal stewardship, orchestrated this gross interference 
in the development of Palestinian democracy and punishment of those 
who tried to practice it.

And in 2000, EU countries took the unprecedented measure of imposing 
diplomatic sanctions on one of their own member states, Austria, 
after the far-right Freedom Party joined the government following 
elections. Although many voices criticized the EU for meddling in the 
internal affairs of a democratic country, one of the most vocal 
supporters of the sanctions was none other than Javier Solana, who on 
that occasion declared "I think Europe has given a very good example 
of how in important things -- things that have to go with principles, 
with values -- there's no possibility of compromise." ("Sanctions hit 
Austria," Reuters, February 4, 2000).

But when it comes to EU member states discharging their 
responsibilities to hold Israel accountable for its escalating 
violations of the EU-Israel Association Agreement, the Fourth Geneva 
Convention, numerous UN Security Council Resolutions, and basic human 
decency, the principles that Solana and many powerful others are so 
proud to boast of are nowhere to be found.

In this moral and political vacuum, it is ever more urgent to heed 
the call of Palestinian civil society to join the growing global 
campaign of boycott, divestment and sanctions.

Ali Abunimah is co-founder of The Electronic Intifada and author of 
<http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0805080341/theelectronic-20>"One 
Country - A Bold Proposal to End the Israeli-Palestinian Impasse" 
(Metropolitan Books, 2006)


The Freedom Archives
522 Valencia Street
San Francisco, CA 94110
(415) 863-9977
www.freedomarchives.org 
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From news at freedomarchives.org  Tue Oct 24 18:16:33 2006
From: news at freedomarchives.org (Anti-Imperialist News)
Date: Tue, 24 Oct 2006 15:16:33 -0700
Subject: [News] Liberty City Miami - Take Back the Land Update
Message-ID: <6.2.5.6.2.20061024151538.044eceb0@freedomarchives.org>


From: Max Rameau <afrimax at gmail.com>
Date: Oct 24, 2006 7:09 AM
Subject: Take Back the Land Update
To: afrimax at gmail.com

Greetings:

We did it!

Yesterday, a group of organizations and 
individuals, led by the Center for Pan-African 
Development, successfully took over land in Liberty City.

Fed up with broken government promises and stolen 
money, activists and residents took over the 
vacant publicly owned land on 62nd St. and NW 
17th Ave. in the Liberty City section of Miami. 
Miami police tried to evict us, but, having done 
our research in advance, we had lawyers and the law on our side.

We fed over 50 people and housed about 20. Today 
and through the week, we will continue to build 
our city. Our objective is not just to make a 
statement, it is to directly provide housing to 
poor Black people, to do for our community what 
the government and market are unwilling and uncapable of doing.

Please show your support by coming to our shanty 
town any evening you can. We are also in need of 
donations: wood, building material, blankets, 
tarps, tents, food, money and your time. We must 
show that the concept of direct people control 
over land is an idea with support.

Also, review two media pieces from yesterday at:

http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/local/15833004.htm
http://cbs4.com/video/?id=24699 at wfor.dayport.com

forward,

Max Rameau
Center for Pan-African Development

**********************************************


         Posted on Tue, Oct. 24, 2006


Housing activists set up camp in Liberty City
Protesters angry at a lack of affordable housing 
set up a tent camp on cityowned land in Liberty City.
BY DANI MCCLAIN
dmcclain at MiamiHerald.com

A group of activists pitched camp in the heart of 
Liberty City on Monday to protest what they 
called the failure of the city and Miami-Dade 
County to build affordable housing.

Carrying tents, tarps and banners that read, 
''Take back the Land!,'' the group said it was 
building a shantytown on a vacant, city-owned lot 
to house hundreds of the neighborhood's homeless.

''The government is an active part of the 
problem,'' said Max Rameau, spokesman for the 
Center for Pan-African Development, an activist 
organization. ``The city and the county have no 
interest in housing poor black people, so we will do it ourselves.''

About 40 people gathered at the corner of 
Northwest 62nd Street and 17th Avenue. As they 
pitched tents and served soup on the trash-strewn 
lot, passersby stopped to look.

Among them was 20-year-old Roderick Mitchell, a 
former resident of the Scott/Carver Homes. 
Mitchell said he and his sister have lived with 
relatives since their section of the huge housing complex closed in 2004.

Mitchell said he planned to join the group camping out Monday night.

''This statement can help,'' Mitchell said, 
gesturing at the activity around him.

But Rameau, one of the key organizers, said his 
intention is not simply to make a statement. The 
group, including members of Hope for the Homeless 
and Hopeless and the Fort Lauderdale chapter of 
Food Not Bombs, intends to provide shelter and food indefinitely, Rameau said.

The group did not notify the city of its intention to take over the lot.

Several city police cruisers -- including one 
carrying Neighborhood Enhancement Team 
administrator Von Carol Kinchens -- drove up 
about 30 minutes after the activists converged on the lot.

The officers warned the protesters they could face arrest but then left.

''As long as there's no criminal activity, we're 
just letting them vent out,'' said William Moreno, a department spokesman.

Rameau said the group is protected by a landmark 
legal case, Pottinger v. City of Miami, a 
class-action suit filed by the ACLU and settled in 1998.

The settlement prohibited Miami police from 
arresting homeless people engaged in 
''life-sustaining conduct'' -- such as sleeping 
or eating -- on public property when there is no shelter space available.

The people who set up camp on the lot should 
remain in the clear legally as long as they don't 
obstruct traffic or damage property, said Ray 
Taseff, an attorney affiliated with the Miami ACLU.

''I really can't see how the city can argue 
around it,'' Taseff said of the Pottinger 
settlement. ``The police did the right thing today.''



? 2006 MiamiHerald.com and wire service sources. All Rights Reserved.
http://www.miami.com

***********************************************
Forwarded by the Haitian Lawyers Leadership Network
***********************************************

The Freedom Archives
522 Valencia Street
San Francisco, CA 94110
(415) 863-9977
www.freedomarchives.org 
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From news at freedomarchives.org  Wed Oct 25 12:08:12 2006
From: news at freedomarchives.org (Anti-Imperialist News)
Date: Wed, 25 Oct 2006 09:08:12 -0700
Subject: [News] Lieberman Steps Out of the Shadows
Message-ID: <6.2.5.6.2.20061025090716.044e8250@freedomarchives.org>

http://www.counterpunch.org/

October 25, 2006


Lieberman Steps Out of the Shadows


Israel's Minister of Strategic Threats

By JONATHAN COOK

The furore that briefly flared this week at the decision of Israel's 
Prime Minister, Ehud Olmert, to invite Avigdor Lieberman and his 
Yisrael Beiteinu party into the government coalition is revealing, 
but not in quite the way many observers assume.

Lieberman, a Russian immigrant, is every bit the populist and racist 
politician he is portrayed as being. Like many of his fellow 
politicians, he harbours a strong desire to see the Palestinians of 
the occupied territories expelled, ideally to neighbouring Arab 
states or Europe. Lieberman, however, is more outspoken than most in 
publicly advocating for this position.

Where he is seen as overstepping the mark is in arguing that the 
state should strip up to a quarter of a million Palestinians living 
inside Israel of their citizenship and seal them and their homes into 
the Palestinian ghettoes being created inside the West Bank 
(presumably in preparation for the moment when they will all be 
expelled to Jordan). He believes any remaining Arab citizens should 
be required to sign a loyalty oath to Israel as a "Jewish and 
democratic state" -- loyalty to a democratic state alone will not 
suffice. Any who refuse will be physically expelled from Israel.

And, as a coup de grace, he has recently demanded the execution for 
treason of any Arab parliamentarian who talks to the Palestinian 
leadership in the occupied territories or commemorates Nakba Day, 
which marks the expulsion and permanent dispossession of the 
Palestinian people in 1948. That would include every elected 
representative of Israel's Arab population.

These are Lieberman's official positions. Apparently unofficially he 
wants even worse measures taken against Palestinians, both inside 
Israel and in the occupied territories. In May 2004, for example, he 
told a crowd of his supporters, in Russian, that 90 per cent of the 
country's Arab citizens should be expelled. "They have no place here. 
They can take their bundles and get lost." His speech could have had 
second billing with one by Adolf Hitler at a Nuremberg Rally.

Despite Lieberman's well-known political platform, Olmert has been 
courting him ever since Yisrael Beiteinu (Israel is Our Home) upset 
the expected three-way struggle between Olmert's Kadima party, Labor 
and Likud in the March elections. Lieberman romped home with 11 seats 
in the Knesset, making his party a sparring partner of both Likud and 
the popular religious fundamentalist party Shas.

According to reports in the Israeli media, Lieberman has not joined 
the coalition until now because he has been playing hard to get, 
making increasing demands of Olmert before agreeing to sign up for 
the government. His hand has grown stronger too: according to opinion 
polls, he is now the most popular politician in Israel after Binyamin 
Netanyahu, leader of the Likud party.

In the newly established post of Minister for Strategic Threats, 
Lieberman -- the avowed Arab hater -- will shape Israel's response to 
Iran, leading the chorus threats being made by Israel that the 
country is only a hair's 
<http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0745325556/counterpunchmaga>
[]
breadth from dropping bombs, possibly nuclear warheads, on Tehran. 
After that, he will presumably help the government decide what other 
"strategic threats" it faces.

While Olmert enthuses over Lieberman, most in the Labor party seem 
quietly resigned to his inclusion. Labor's elder statesman and former 
leader, Shimon Peres, says he has no objections, so long as Lieberman 
does not challenge the core policies agreed by Kadima and Labor. 
This, of course, is precisely what Lieberman is doing -- it was the 
price of the bargain he struck with Olmert. Lieberman wants no peace 
overtures to the Palestinians, and favours the hardline neoliberal 
economic policies pursued by Kadima.

On Wednesday the Labor leader Amir Peretz, a supposed socialist and 
former head of the Israeli trade union movement, accepted Lieberman's 
entry to the coalition, as Olmert surely knew he would. In typical 
Labor style, Peretz bought off his conscience by insisting on a 
package of modest benefits for Arab citizens, the same Arab citizens 
Lieberman wants expelled. The last time the government made a similar 
promise to its Arab minority back in late 2001 -- when the prime 
minister of the day, Ehud Barak, needed their votes -- the $4 million 
pledge was broken immediately after the election.

So why are Israel's politicians, of the left and right, so 
comfortable sitting with Lieberman, the leader of Israel's only 
unquestionably fascist party? Because, in truth, Lieberman is not the 
maverick politician of popular imagination, even if he is every bit 
the racist -- a Jewish Jorg Haider or Jean Marie Le Pen.

In reality, Lieberman is entirely a creature of the Israeli political 
establishment, his policies sinister reflections of the principles 
and ideas he learnt in the inner sanctums of the Likud party, a young 
hopeful immigrant rubbing shoulders with the likes of Ariel Sharon, 
Binyamin Netanyahu and, of course, Ehud Olmert.

 From their political infancy, the latter three were schooled in the 
minor arts of Israeli diplomacy: feel free to speak plainly in the 
womb of the party; speak firmly but cautiously in Hebrew to other 
Israelis; and speak in another tongue entirely when using English, 
the language of the goyim, the non-Jews.

But Lieberman, who arrived in Israel as a 21-year-old, was not around 
for those lessons. He imbibed nothing of the principles of "hasbara", 
the "advocacy for Israel" industry that has its unpaid battalions of 
propagandists regularly assaulting the phone lines and email inboxes 
of the Western media. He tells it exactly as he sees it, even if 
mostly in Russian.

Inside the Likud party, his political training ground, that hardly 
mattered. He rapidly rose through the ranks to become 
director-general of Likud from 1993-96 and soon afterwards to head 
the office of Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu. For many years he 
was the darling of the Likud, a party that today exists in two 
halves: its original incarnation, once again led by Netanyahu; and 
the renovated, sleeker model, Kadima, founded by Sharon.

But it was in breaking from Likud and founding his own party, Yisrael 
Beiteinu, in 1999 that Lieberman finally found his voice outside the 
Likud's smoke-filled rooms. The audience for his message was as 
untutored in the deceits of Israeli politicking as Lieberman himself.

Lieberman immigrated to Israel from Moldova in 1978, leading the 
vanguard of a wave of immigration from Russia and its satellite 
states that reached a peak in the early 1990s as the Soviet empire 
broke up. By the time most Russian speakers began pouring into 
Israel, Lieberman was already well esconced in the Israeli political system.

Yisrael Beiteinu's openly racist agenda spoke to the darkest 
instincts of the one million newly arrived Russian speakers.

Many of them poor and struggling to adapt to Israeli culture, they 
live far from the prosperous centre of the country in their own 
neglected ghettos, Little Moscows, where the signs and street 
language are more than a decade later still in Russian. They feel 
little affinity for the Jewish state -- apart from a loathing for 
everything Arab.

The state has found it easy to manipulate these immigrants' emotions. 
They have little understanding of the historic reasons for Israel's 
conflict with the Palestinians, and like other Israelis learn almost 
nothing more at school. With no context for appreciating why the 
Palestinians might carry out suicide attacks, Russian speakers assume 
the Palestinians are simply the hate-filled barbarians described to 
them by their politicians.

When young Russian men do their three years of active duty in the 
occupied territories, all these prejudicies are confirmed. Now one of 
the largest blocs of Israel's citizen army, the Russians are assigned 
some of the toughest spots in the West Bank and Gaza, often their 
first experience of meeting "Arabs".

When they return home, they find it hard to make sense of Israeli 
officialdom's lip service in distinguishing between Arab citizens, 
who have some rights in the Jewish state, and the "Arabs" of the 
occupied territories, who have none. Many Russian speakers wonder why 
Israel does not simply kill or expel the lot of them.

And this is where Lieberman steps in. Because usefully this is 
exactly what he not only believes but also openly declares. Lieberman 
can tap the support of nearly a million voters, a huge reservoir of 
support for any prime ministerial hopeful trying to assemble the 
coalition needed to form a government under the fractious Israeli 
political system.

Neither Olmert nor Netanyahu can afford to say what is really on 
their minds: that they want to cleanse the region of as many 
Palestinians as they can manage -- most certainly those in the 
occupied territories, and later the even bigger nuisance of the ones 
who have citizenship and undermine Israel's Jewishness.

But instead they can let a Lieberman, the charismatic leader of a 
popular party who does dare to say these things, join the government 
with minimal damage to their own reputations.

They can also let him use the platform provided by a cabinet position 
to shape a new coarser political language in which ideas of expulsion 
and transfer become ever more mainstream. Until one day the policies 
Lieberman advocates, reflections of the values he imbibed during his 
long years spent in Likud, become acceptable enough that a Prime 
Minister -- Olmert or Netanyahu or Lieberman himself -- will be able 
to put them in the government's programme.

Instead of using words like "disengagement", "convergence" or 
"realignment", Israel's politicians of the near future may simply 
call for the expulsion of Arabs, all Arabs.

Even now they do little to conceal the fact that such thoughts are 
uppermost in their minds. Netanyahu, currently Israel's most popular 
politician and leader of the opposition, has repeatedly called the 
1.2 million Arab citizens of the country a "demographic timebomb". 
Back in 2002, for example, he told an audience of policymakers: "If 
there is a demographic problem, and there is, it is with the Israeli 
Arabs who will remain Israeli citizens We therefore need a policy 
that will first of all guarantee a Jewish majority."

Unlike Lieberman, Netanyahu never spells out what policies he is 
advocating. But most Israelis understand that in practice, if he felt 
free to speak his mind, his platform would not look much different 
from Yisrael Beiteinu's.

Olmert too uses code words readily understood by his Israeli 
audiences. In late 2004, in an interview with the Haaretz newspaper, 
he said: "There is no doubt in my mind that very soon the government 
of Israel is going to have to address the demographic issue with the 
utmost seriousness and resolve. This issue above all others will 
dictate the solution that we must adopt." He added that he feared the 
Palestinians would soon be a majority in the area comprising both the 
occupied territories and Israel, and that then they could launch a 
"dangerous" struggle for "one-man-one-vote" similar to the one 
against apartheid in South Africa. He concluded: "For us, it would 
mean the end of the Jewish state."

What "solution" was Olmert referring to? Israelis know only too well. 
Every year since 2000 Olmert, Netanyahu, Peres and other senior 
policymakers have been meeting at the Herzliya conference, near Tel 
Aviv, to draw up ideas about how to deal with the demographic threat: 
the rapidly approaching moment when the Palestinians, either those 
with Israeli citizenship or the non-citizens living under military 
occupation in the West Bank and Gaza, will outnumber Jews.

The solutions they have proposed have been similar to Lieberman's. 
Both the disengagement from Gaza and the planned limited withdrawals 
from the West Bank came out of Herzliya. But so did a range of 
measures to deal with the country's Arab citizens: land swaps to lose 
areas of Israel densely populated with Arabs in return for the 
settlements in the West Bank; loyalty oaths as a condition of 
citizenship; stripping the Arab population of their right to vote; 
and forcing all political parties to subscribe to Zionist ideals.

These are not fanciful ideas; they are now firmly in the mainstream. 
Israel already has legislation requiring all parties running for the 
Knesset to support Israel remaining a "Jewish and democratic state". 
Technically, the only non-Zionist parties -- two Arab parties and the 
small joint Jewish and Arab Communist party -- could quite legally be 
disqualified from all general elections under the current 
legislation. They expect that at some point in the near future they 
will be too.

The two previous prime ministers, Ehud Barak and Ariel Sharon, both 
secretly favoured land swaps in which large numbers of Arab citizens 
would be removed from the Jewish state. Barak proposed such a scheme 
at Camp David in the summer of 2000, as several participants later 
confirmed. And in February 2004 Sharon floated the same idea during 
an interview in the Maariv newspaper. When it caused a storm, he 
backtracked, but investigations by the paper revealed that he had 
been formulating a land swap for some time with his advisers and had 
even consulted the then Labor leader and his foreign minister, Shimon 
Peres, on its feasibility.

At the top of Lieberman's list of demands before agreeing to enter 
Olmert's coalition are major changes to Israel's constitution, 
including the introduction of a presidential system to replace the 
current parliamentary system. Israel already has a President, 
currently Moshe Katsav, who is facing a string of rape and sexual 
harassment allegations, but the post is entirely symbolic.

Lieberman wants a president who has the authority to make major 
legislative changes, even constitutional ones, without having to make 
the backroom compromises to keep together the coalition governments 
that characterise Israel's current political system. The president 
Lieberman has in mind would be more on the lines of an autocratic ruler.

Olmert is apparently sympathetic to Lieberman's plans to change the 
political system. It is not difficult to understand why.

Jonathan Cook is a writer and journalist based in Nazareth, Israel. 
He is the author of 
"<http://www.press.umich.edu/titleDetailDesc.do?id=224729>Blood and 
Religion: The Unmasking of the Jewish and Democratic State" published 
by Pluto Press, and available in the United States from the 
University of Michigan Press. His website is 
<http://www.jkcook.net/>www.jkcook.net


The Freedom Archives
522 Valencia Street
San Francisco, CA 94110
(415) 863-9977
www.freedomarchives.org 
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From news at freedomarchives.org  Sat Oct 28 16:04:01 2006
From: news at freedomarchives.org (Anti-Imperialist News)
Date: Sat, 28 Oct 2006 13:04:01 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: [News] Brad Will, Indymedia Journalist among dead in Oaxaca, Mexico
Message-ID: <1309.75.2.171.176.1162065841.squirrel@www.freedomarchives.org>

BRAD WILL, INDYMEDIA JOURNALIST, AMONG THE DEAD IN OAXACA CITY, MEXICO

OSWALDO RAMIRIO, PHOTOGRAPHER FOR MILENIO DIARIO, ALSO SHOT AND AMONG
INJURED

[Readers of Open Letter:  There is a large Oaxacan community in Los
Angeles, with members active both in the immigrant and migrant labor
struggles, and in the solidarity actions with striking workers at the
barricades and in the zocalo of Oxaca.  I will try to place a few reports
on the developing struggle in Oaxaca and throughout Mexico in future
issues of Open Letter. --Scott Tucker, Editor of Open Letter Online.

Reports in English and Spanish with weblinks below

Government repression continues, reports of paramilitary squads

Workers, teachers, peasants and indigenous communities vow to defend
working class gains

http://indybay.org/newsitems/2006/10/27/18323891.php

  A shootout has occurred in the municipality of Calicate, in Oaxaca City,
Mexico today, leaving New York City Indymedia journalist Bradley Will dead
after bein shot in the chest. He died before reaching the hospital,
according to La Jornada. A photographer from the newspaper millenio diario,
who was at Wills side, was shot in the foot and reported injured, his
status unknown.

Radio APPO, the radio of the Assembly Popular of the Oaxacan People, are
reporting truckloads of armed paramilitaries entering the city. They are
also calling for people to reinforce the thousands of barricades that have
been constructed for months as part of the statewide teacher strike and
popular uprising that has demanded the removal of PRI governor Ulisis Ortiz
Ruiz.


Original Article from La Jornada:

Matan a documentalista de EU en Oaxaca; un fot?grafo herido

La Jornada On Line

27/10/2006 18:38

Oaxaca, Oax. Una balacera ocurrida en el municipio de Calicante caus? la
muerte del documentalista estadunidense Brat Will, de Indimedia Washington,
quien recibi? un balazo en el pecho. A su vez, un fot?grafo del peri?dico
Milenio Diario, Oswaldo Ram?rez, result? herido con un disparo en el pie,
inform? la edici?n Web del peri?dico.

El enfrentamiento ocurri? cuando grupos de supuestos guardias blancas,
seg?n report? Radio F?rmula, agredieron a los brigadistas que resguardan
las barricadas.

El dirigente de la APPO, Flavio Sosa, pidi? la urgente intervenci?n del
gobierno federal en ese municipio, porque dijo que grupos al servicio del
alcalde pri?sta est?n amedrentando con armas de guego a los brigadistas que
resguardan las barricacas. Nosotros s?lo tenemos piedras y ellos armas de
fuego", dijo.

De acuerdo a las primeras informaciones, en Calicante se registr? una
balacera y aparte del periodistas muerto y el fot?grafo herido, tres
personas m?s resultaron heridas.

El reportero fue herido en el est?mago, y falleci? antes de llegar a un
hospital.

Tanto en Calicante como en el municipio de San Antonio, ambos conurbados a
la capital, priva un ambiente de tensi?n, debido a que en ambos grupos de
appistas que resguardan las barricadas y de supuestos guardias blancas se
encuentran separados por un centenar de metros y se corre el riesgo de un
enfrentamiento mayor.

Los brigadistas se mantienen agazapados tras las barricadas y de acuerdo
con la informaci?n, uno de ellos se encuentra herido sin posibilidad de
ser
trasladado a un centro de atenci?n.

http://www.jornada.unam.mx:8080/ultimas/matan-a-documentalista-de-eu-en-oaxaca-un-fotografo-herido

INDYMEDIA:

http://publish.indymedia.org/en/2006/10/849305.shtml
Federal Police and Paramilitaries attack the barricades near Oaxaca's
office of justice, in the Calicante municipality. There aresereveal
injured and one person dead.

Indymedia New York's reporter, BRAD WILL, was shot in the chest and die
before get the hospital, while Oswaldo Ram?rez, photographer for Milenio
Diario, has also been shot and is injured in the foot.

THIS IS WHAT WE KNOW SO FAR ABOUT BRAD FROM A PERSON WHO WAS THERE WITH HIM:
- He was at the Santa Lucia Barricade
- He was shot from a distance of 30-40 meters right in the pit of the
stomach
- They say it was urban paramilitary priistas in plain clothes who shot him
- People then pulled him away to safety; its confirmed that he's dead; his
body is at the red cross in oaxaca
- 3 additional dead (4 total); 1 member of radio universidad was injured, he
went to the hospital in a volkswagen cuz no ambulances would come


More information: English report
NarcoNews (english) - CML - La Jornada - IMC M?xico

Radio APPO steaming now | Live (spanish) coverage at CML

Other spanish media
milenio.com - reforma.com


Claude Marks
Freedom Archives
522 Valencia Street
San Francisco, CA 94110
(415) 863-9977





From news at freedomarchives.org  Sat Oct 28 16:16:44 2006
From: news at freedomarchives.org (Anti-Imperialist News)
Date: Sat, 28 Oct 2006 13:16:44 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: [News] Brad Will - last dispatch from Oaxaca
Message-ID: <1346.75.2.171.176.1162066604.squirrel@www.freedomarchives.org>

Subject: friend and  companero brad was killed
Our friend, brother, and companero, Brad Will  was killed today by
paramilitaries in Oxaca Mexico.

Brad has been an  inspiring and passionate militant, joining
struggles all over the world, from  land occupations in the Pacific
North West of the US, to direct actions against  global capital, to
rebellions in Argentina, land occupations in Brazil,
and  anti-privatization struggles in Bolivia. Brad was always a part
of whatever he  was in. He was always with people, not organizing
them. He taught me, and so  many others so much through example. He
will be missed in so many  ways.

Brad was a part of our communities. We should remember him with
the  love and affection that he showed, and we feel. We should also
carry on with  direct action to stop those that are trying to stop
social creation, in the US,  Mexico, Argentina, and the globe.

brad Presente!
brad  presente!
brad Presente!


Brad's last email dispatch ...
early  dawn, oct16

yesterday i went for a walk with the good people of oaxaca -- was  walking
all day really -- in the afternoon they showed me where the bullets  hit the
wall -- they numbered the ones they could reach -- it reminded me of  the
doorway of amadou diallos home -- but here the grafitti was there before  the
shooting began -- one bullet they didnt number was still in his head --  he
was 41 years old -- alejandro garcia hernandez -- at the  neighborhood
barricade every night -- that night he came out to join his wife  and sons to
let an ambulance through -- then a pickup tried to follow -- he  took their
bullet when he told them they could not pass -- they never did --  these
military men in civilian dress shot their way out of there
a  young man who wanted to only be called marco was with them when the
shooting  happened -- a bullet passed through his shoulder -- he was clearly
in shock  when we met -- 19 years old -- said he hadnt told his parents yet
-- said he  had been at the barricade every night -- said he was going back
as soon as  the wound closed -- absolutely
just days before there was a delegation of  senators visiting to determine
the ungovernability of the state -- they got a  taste -- the call went out to
shut down the rest of the government -- dozens  went walking out of the
zocalo city center with big sticks and a box full of  spray paint -- they
took control of 3 city buses and went around the city all  morning visiting
local government buildings and informing them that that they  were closed --
and we appreciate your voluntary cooperation -- and they filed  out preturbed
but still getting paid -- shut -- as they pulled away from the  last stop 3
gunmen came out and started shooting -- 2 buses had already  pulled away --
mayhem -- 10 minute battle with stones and slingshots and  screaming -- one
headwound -- another through the leg -- made their way to  the hospital while
the fighting continued -- shout out on the radio and  people came from all
parts -- the gunmen were around the side of the building  -- they got away --
they were inside -- no one sure -- watchful  --  undercover police were
reported lurking around the hospital and folks went  running to stand watch
over the wounded
what can you say about this  movement -- this revolutionary moment -- you
know it is building, growing,  shaping -- you can feel it -- trying
desperately for a direct democracy -- in  november appo will have a state
wide conference for the formation of a state  wide assemblea estatal del
pueblo de oaxaca (aepo) -- now there are 11 of 33  states in mexico that have
declared formation of assemblea populares like  appo -- and on la otra lado
in the usa a few -- the marines have returned to  sea even though the federal
police who ravaged atenco remain close by -- the  new encampment in mexico
has begun a hunger strike -- the senate can expell  URO -- whats next
nobodies sure -- it is a point of light pressed through  glass -- ready to
burn or show the way -- it is clear that this is more than  a strike, more
than expulsion of a governor, more than a blockade, more than  a coalition of
fragments -- it is a genuine peoples revolt -- and after  decades of pri rule
by bribe, fraud, and bullet the people are tired -- they  call him the tyrant
-- they talk of destroying this authoritarianism -- you  cannot mistake the
whisper of the lancandon jungle in the streets -- in every  street corner
deciding together to hold --  you see it their faces  --  indigenous, women,
children -- so brave -- watchful at night -- proud and  resolute
went walking back from alejandros barricade with a group of  supporters who
came from an outlying district a half hour away -- went  walking with angry
folk on their way to the morgue -- went inside and saw him  -- havent seen
too many bodies in my life -- eats you up  -- a stack of  nameless corpes in
the corner -- about the number who had died -- no  refrigeration -- the smell
-- they had to open his skull to pull the bullet  out -- walked back with him
and his people and now alejandro waits in  the zocalo -- like the
others at their plantones
-- hes waiting for an  impasse, a change, an exit, a way forward, a way out,
a solution -- waiting  for the earth to shift and open -- waiting for
november when he can sit with  his loved ones on the day of the dead and
share food and drink and a song --  waiting for the plaza to turn itself over
to him and burst -- he will only  wait until morning but tonight he is
waiting for the governor and his lot to  never come back -- one more death --
one more martyr in a dirty war -- one  more time to cry and hurt -- one more
time to know power and its ugly head --  one more bullet cracks the night --
one more night at the barricades -- some  keep the fires -- others curl up
and sleep -- but all of them are with him as  he rests one last night at his
watch


Claude Marks
Freedom Archives
522 Valencia Street
San Francisco, CA 94110
(415) 863-9977





From news at freedomarchives.org  Sun Oct 29 11:16:43 2006
From: news at freedomarchives.org (Anti-Imperialist News)
Date: Sun, 29 Oct 2006 08:16:43 -0800
Subject: [News] Benefit for Oaxaca - SF, Wed Nov 1
Message-ID: <6.2.5.6.2.20061029081552.044f1360@freedomarchives.org>


The situation in Oaxaca is escalating by the minute, as paramilitaries and
police attack demonstrators. Yesterday, it was said that 13 people were
killed throughout the day... Please attend this event if you can and fwd
the info to others. thanks!
_________

BENEFIT FOR REBELI?N POPULAR IN OAXACA!!!


Wednesday Novemeber 1st, 7:00 PM - 9:30 PM
STATION 40: 3030B 16th Street, in front of Mission Street Bart

FILMS DOCUMENTING EVENTS IN OAXACA, SPEAKERS FROM LOCAL ZAPATISTA GROUPS
AND PRINTS FROM EL CARACOL DE LA MISI?N.

Updates and four short films on Oaxaca, plus silkscreen poster display
from el Caracol de la Misi?n. All funds raised will directly benefit the
needs of the those in resistance and their families, through APPO, (the
Popular Assembly of the Pueblo of Oaxaca), and part will also go to
support the Independent Media Collective in Oaxaca to help them document
what is taking place in the front lines of the popular resistance.

Some of the films have subtitles, and some are narrated by a live
interpreter, and guided by speakers from El Caracol de la Misi?n, who are
also bringing many fresh silk-screened prints and shirts to sell for
5-$10.

Members of La Colectiva Zapatista Ramona will also report back on La Otra
Campa?a and will share stories of their earlier travels to many places in
Mexico, including Oaxaca, Atenco and will give a report back from the
popular struggles and the recent coming together of all three popular
fronts from Oaxaca, Atenco and Chiapas.


i Viva Oaxaca y sus Flores Magon!
i Viva Ramona, la Sexta y la Otra!

Donation: 5-$20, (more or less is ok, just give what you can compa :)

The Freedom Archives
522 Valencia Street
San Francisco, CA 94110
(415) 863-9977
www.freedomarchives.org 
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From news at freedomarchives.org  Mon Oct 30 11:58:34 2006
From: news at freedomarchives.org (Anti-Imperialist News)
Date: Mon, 30 Oct 2006 08:58:34 -0800
Subject: [News] Voices of a People's History of the United States - Berkeley
 Nov. 9
Message-ID: <6.2.5.6.2.20061030085745.044f0290@freedomarchives.org>



The Middle East Children's Alliance, Speak Out, 
Vanguard Public Foundation, and
KPFA present:
Bay Area premiere of Howard Zinn & Anthony Arnove's

"Voices of a People's History of the United States"
--Dramatic Readings Celebrating Voices of Dissent--

Thursday, Nov. 9, 2006, 7:30pm
Berkeley Community Theatre
1930 Allston Way

The words of individuals across five hundred 
years of U.S. history will come to
life through readings and songs by:.
Howard Zinn, Anthony Arnove, Aya de Leon, Melanie DeMore, Steve Earle, Nora el
Samahy, Mos Def,
John Trudell, Luis Valdez, Alice Walker, and more!

TICKETS - $25 General Admission
$150 Leaders' Circle -- Best seats, post-event reception, autographed event
poster and listing in program
$60 Supporters' Circle -- Excellent seats, 
autographed event poster, listing in
program

TO PURCHASE TICKETS:
By Phone or Online through Brown Paper Tickets,1-800-838-3006, or
www.mecaforpeace.org.

At your local bookstore: ($25 tickets only): East 
Bay ???????? Black Oak, Diesel,
Pegasus (Shattuck & Solano)
Global Exchange, Walden Pond, Bonanza Books (Walnut Creek);
San Francisco ???????? Modern Times, City Lights, Global Exchange;
North Bay ???????? Copperfield????????s (Santa 
Rosa/Sebastopol/Petaluma/Napa/Calistoga), North Light Books (Cotati) Levin &
Company (Healdsburg), Book Passage (Corte Madera);
South Bay ???????? Willow Glen Books (San Jose).

All proceeds benefit the work of Middle East Children's Alliance and Speak Out.

This event will be wheelchair accessible and ASL interpreted. For disability
tickets: Call 510-548-0542, or
email Events at mecaforpeace.org, or send SASE with check to MECA, 901 Parker
Street, Berkeley, CA 94710.

The Freedom Archives
522 Valencia Street
San Francisco, CA 94110
(415) 863-9977
www.freedomarchives.org 
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From news at freedomarchives.org  Mon Oct 30 12:04:34 2006
From: news at freedomarchives.org (Anti-Imperialist News)
Date: Mon, 30 Oct 2006 09:04:34 -0800
Subject: [News] Did Israel Use Uranium Weapons?
Message-ID: <6.2.5.6.2.20061030090330.044fdeb0@freedomarchives.org>

http://www.counterpunch.org/fisk10302006.html

October 30, 2006


Did Israel Use Uranium Weapons?


Dirty Bombs Over Lebanon

By ROBERT FISK

Did Israel use a secret new uranium-based weapon in southern Lebanon 
this summer in the 34-day assault that cost more than 1,300 Lebanese 
lives, most of them civilians?

We know that the Israelis used American "bunker-buster" bombs on 
Hizbollah's Beirut headquarters. We know that they drenched southern 
Lebanon with cluster bombs in the last 72 hours of the war, leaving 
tens of thousands of bomblets which are still killing Lebanese 
civilians every week. And we now know--after it first categorically 
denied using such munitions--that the Israeli army also used 
phosphorous bombs, weapons which are supposed to be restricted under 
the third protocol of the Geneva Conventions, which neither Israel 
nor the United States have signed.

But scientific evidence gathered from at least two bomb craters in 
Khiam and At-Tiri, the scene of fierce fighting between Hizbollah 
guerrillas and Israeli troops last July and August, suggests that 
uranium-based munitions may now also be included in Israel's weapons 
inventory--and were used against targets in Lebanon. According to Dr 
Chris Busby, the British Scientific Secretary of the European 
Committee on Radiation Risk, two soil samples thrown up by Israeli 
heavy or guided bombs showed "elevated radiation signatures". Both 
have been forwarded for further examination to the Harwell laboratory 
in Oxfordshire for mass spectrometry--used by the Ministry of 
Defence--which has confirmed the concentration of uranium isotopes in 
the samples.

Dr Busby's initial report states that there are two possible reasons 
for the contamination. "The first is that the weapon was some novel 
small experimental nuclear fission device or other experimental 
weapon (eg, a thermobaric weapon) based on the high temperature of a 
uranium oxidation flash ... The second is that the weapon was a 
bunker-busting conventional uranium penetrator weapon employing 
enriched uranium rather than depleted uranium." A photograph of the 
explosion of the first bomb shows large clouds of black smoke that 
might result from burning uranium.

Enriched uranium is produced from natural uranium ore and is used as 
fuel for nuclear reactors. A waste product of the enrichment process 
is depleted uranium, it is an extremely hard metal used in anti-tank 
missiles for penetrating armour. Depleted uranium is less radioactive 
than natural uranium, which is less radioactive than enriched uranium.

Israel has a poor reputation for telling the truth about its use of 
weapons in Lebanon. In 1982, it denied using phosphorous munitions on 
civilian areas--until journalists discovered dying and dead civilians 
whose wounds caught fire when exposed to air.

I saw two dead babies who, when taken from a mortuary drawer in West 
Beirut during the Israeli siege of the city, suddenly burst back into 
flames. Israel officially denied using phosphorous again in Lebanon 
during the summer--except for "marking" targets--even after civilians 
were photographed in Lebanese hospitals with burn wounds consistent 
with phosphorous munitions.

Then on Sunday, Israel suddenly admitted that it had not been telling 
the truth. Jacob Edery, the Israeli minister in charge of government 
and parliament relations, confirmed that phosphorous shells were used 
in direct attacks against Hizbollah, adding that "according to 
international law, the use of phosphorous munitions is authorised and 
the (Israeli) army keeps to the rules of international norms".

Asked by if the Israeli army had been using uranium-based munitions 
in Lebanon this summer, Mark Regev, the Israeli Foreign Ministry 
spokesman, said: "Israel does not use any weaponry which is not 
authorised by international law or international conventions." This, 
however, begs more questions than it answers. Much international law 
does not cover modern uranium weapons because they were not invented 
when humanitarian rules such as the Geneva Conventions were drawn up 
and because Western governments still refuse to believe that their 
use can cause long-term damage to the health of thousands of 
civilians living in the area of the explosions.

American and British forces used hundreds of tons of depleted uranium 
(DU) shells in Iraq in 1991--their hardened penetrator warheads 
manufactured from the waste products of the nuclear industry--and 
five years later, a plague of cancers emerged across the south of Iraq.

Initial US military assessments warned of grave consequences for 
public health if such weapons were used against armoured vehicles. 
But the US administration and the British government later went out 
of their way to belittle these claims. Yet the cancers continued to 
spread amid reports that civilians in Bosnia--where DU was also used 
by Nato aircraft--were suffering new forms of cancer. DU shells were 
again used in the 2003 Anglo-American invasion of Iraq but it is too 
early to register any health effects.

"When a uranium penetrator hits a hard target, the particles of the 
explosion are very long-lived in the environment," Dr Busby said 
yesterday. "They spread over long distances. They can be inhaled into 
the lungs. The military really seem to believe that this stuff is not 
as dangerous as it is." Yet why would Israel use such a weapon when 
its targets--in the case of Khiam, for example--were only two miles 
from the Israeli border? The dust ignited by DU munitions can be 
blown across international borders, just as the chlorine gas used in 
attacks by both sides in the First World War often blew back on its 
perpetrators.

Chris Bellamy, the professor of military science and doctrine at 
Cranfield University, who has reviewed the Busby report, said: "At 
worst it's some sort of experimental weapon with an enriched uranium 
component the purpose of which we don't yet know. At best--if you can 
say that--it shows a remarkably cavalier attitude to the use of 
nuclear waste products."

The soil sample from Khiam--site of a notorious torture prison when 
Israel occupied southern Lebanon between 1978 and 2000, and a 
frontline Hizbollah stronghold in the summer war--was a piece of 
impacted red earth from an explosion; the isotope ratio was 108, 
indicative of the presence of enriched uranium. "The health effects 
on local civilian populations following the use of large uranium 
penetrators and the large amounts of respirable uranium oxide 
particles in the atmosphere," the Busby report says, "are likely to 
be significant ... we recommend that the area is examined for further 
traces of these weapons with a view to clean up."

This summer's Lebanon war began after Hizbollah guerrillas crossed 
the Lebanese frontier into Israel, captured two Israeli soldiers and 
killed three others, prompting Israel to unleash a massive 
bombardment of Lebanon's villages, cities, bridges and civilian 
infrastructure. Human rights groups have said that Israel committed 
war crimes when it attacked civilians, but that Hizbollah was also 
guilty of such crimes because it fired missiles into Israel which 
were also filled with ball-bearings, turning their rockets into 
primitive one-time-only cluster bombs.

Many Lebanese, however, long ago concluded that the latest Lebanon 
war was a weapons testing ground for the Americans and Iranians, who 
respectively supply Israel and Hizbollah with munitions. Just as 
Israel used hitherto-unproven US missiles in its attacks, so the 
Iranians were able to test-fire a rocket which hit an Israeli 
corvette off the Lebanese coast, killing four Israeli sailors and 
almost sinking the vessel after it suffered a 15-hour on-board fire.

What the weapons manufacturers make of the latest scientific findings 
of potential uranium weapons use in southern Lebanon is not yet 
known. Nor is their effect on civilians.

Robert Fisk is a reporter for The Independent and author of 
<http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1560254424/counterpunchmaga>Pity 
the Nation. He is also a contributor to CounterPunch's collection, 
<http://www.easycarts.net/ecarts/CounterPunch/CounterPunch_Bookshop.html>The 
Politics of Anti-Semitism. Fisk's new book is 
<http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1400041511/counterpunchmaga>The 
Conquest of the Middle East.


The Freedom Archives
522 Valencia Street
San Francisco, CA 94110
(415) 863-9977
www.freedomarchives.org 
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From news at freedomarchives.org  Mon Oct 30 13:21:30 2006
From: news at freedomarchives.org (Anti-Imperialist News)
Date: Mon, 30 Oct 2006 10:21:30 -0800
Subject: [News] Mexican Federal Police Invade...But the APPO Still Controls
 The Heart Of Oaxaca
Message-ID: <6.2.5.6.2.20061030101719.044fa3e0@freedomarchives.org>

TWO ARTICLES FOLLOW

Mexican Federal Police Invade...But the APPO Still Controls The Heart Of Oaxaca
http://narcosphere.narconews.com/story/2006/10/30/1233/6752

By 
<http://narcosphere.narconews.com/story/2006/10/30/1233//user/uid:140>Gregory 
Berger,
Posted on Mon Oct 30th, 2006 at 01:23:03 AM EST
After a full day's assault, the thousands of 
Mexican Federal Police that invaded Oaxaca City 
today have now occupied the town square and other 
key parts of the city. But there are many this 
morning that maintain that the fight is far from over.

At first glance, the Federal Government delivered 
a victory to the State Government of Oaxaca in 
its attempt to return control of the State 
Capital to Governor Ulises Ruiz. Armored tanks 
slammed through the APPO's barricades and brushed 
aside the women and children on the streets who 
had lined up to ask them not to enter their city. 
At least 50 people have been arrested, but the 
real number is feared to be much higher. Illegal 
search and seizures are occurring throughout the 
city, where Federal police and intelligence 
agents are hunting for the leadership of the 
Peoples' Popular Assembly of Oaxaca. (APPO) And, 
in outrageous coincidence evoking memories of 
Alexis Benhumea's murder in the town of San 
Salvador Atenco in May, at least one person is 
confirmed dead, a 15 year old boy slammed by a 
tear canister launched by the Federal Preventative Police (PFP).

But most observers on the ground told this 
correspondent last night that the fight is far 
from over; Radio Universidad, the voice of the 
APPO, is back on the air. Three marches are 
planned for today in the city of Oaxaca. The APPO 
remains present on every city block in every 
corner of the city. And despite the government's 
absurd claim that teachers will be back in 
classrooms today, members of section 22 of the 
teachers union made it clear that despite 
previous announcements, teachers will remain on 
strike. In fact, teachers from the democratic 
wing of the teachers? movements in several 
states, including Guerrero, Michoac?n, Tlaxcala, 
Morelos, Zacatecas, Oaxaca, Mexico City, and 
beyond, have vowed to walk out of classes as 
well. A mega march is planned in Mexico City to 
insist on the immediate withdrawal of the PFP.

"This is not a defeat." Insisted a host of Radio 
Universidad. "There are still more of us. They 
can't win unless they are prepared to put 
thousands upon thousands of us in jail, or turn 
the schools into jails. Or perhaps even turn the 
stadiums into jails, like Pinochet did."

Radio Universidad is currently on air giving 
instructions to citizens on how to engage in continued resistance.

Prior to yesterday's invasion, many people 
claimed that a Federal incursion into Oaxaca 
would not only fail to squash the movement, but 
would in fact strengthen it. Today, there are 
many signs that their predictions may well come 
true. Allies of the APPO took control of the 
government radio station yesterday in Guelatao, 
the small town in the mountains two hours from 
Oaxaca where Benito Juarez was born. From the 
word on the street, one suspects that today we 
will learn of many such small victories.



http://www.narconews.com/Issue43/article2259.html

Chronicle of the Battle of Oaxaca: Stage Three, Day One




The Majority of People on the Street Waiting to 
Confront the Police were Common Citizens Ready to Put Their Lives on the Line





By James Daria
The Other Journalism with the Other Campaign in Oaxaca

October 30, 2006

With the death of at least three people 
(including a foreign journalist) on Friday, 
Mexican president Vicente Fox must have found his 
excuse to bring in federal police to repress the 
civil unrest that has made the state of Oaxaca 
practically ungovernable and has spurred further 
unrest throughout the republic. By Saturday, 
elements of the Federal Preventive Police landed 
at the Oaxaca airport and word spread about their 
arrival by ground just north of the city. 
According to word on the street the federal 
forces were supposed to have entered the city 
under the cover of darkness Saturday night. 
Although the city was abandoned and no new 
barricades were erected, the arrival of the 
police did not happen. Sunday morning came and 
the city awoke to a buzz of activity as troop 
movement was detected at different points of the 
city and helicopters could be seen flying 
overhead. The battle of Oaxaca was about to begin 
and who would control the city at the end of the 
day would be decided at various strategic barricades.

The majority of the federal forces were stationed 
at the base of the PFP near the entrance to the 
highway to Mexico City just past the village of 
Etla. The police, dressed in full riot gear and 
equipped with various ?tanks? (actually armored 
vehicles with water cannons and video cameras), 
stationed themselves just on the edge of this 
highway. What laid between them and the center of 
Oaxaca City were no less than five major 
barricades made up of buses and semi trailers and 
the fury of thousands of common Oaxacan citizens. 
There were also reports of troop movements in the south of the city.

Heading towards the front line in the morning, an 
amazing amount of citizens filled the highway 
between downtown Oaxaca and the federal police 
stationed to the north east of the city. The 
majority of people were local residents who left 
their homes to man the barricades located nearby. 
Others brought water or food to the protesters. 
Although everyone knew the violence of the state 
was encroaching, the level of generosity and 
mutual aid expressed by these people was 
tremendous. While the presence of teachers and 
others affiliated directly with the APPO was 
clearly evident, the majority of people on the 
street waiting to confront the police were common 
citizens who were ready to put their lives on the 
lines to prevent the federal forces from reaching the city.

Talking to a woman who was sitting at the 
monument to Benito Juarez on the road to Etla, 
she explained that the current social movement 
rocking the foundations of the state government?s 
authoritarianism and brutality is actually in its 
third and most important stage. The first stage, 
according to her, was the vanguard of the 
teachers union. Although the union has always 
fought for its own self-interest the union taught 
the people how to fight for their rights, 
especially after June 16. The second phase was 
the consolidation of various social organizations 
in the Popular Assembly of the Oaxaca People. 
These disparate groups followed the example of 
the union in terms of organization and 
combativeness. The third and current stage in 
which the movement finds itself is the radical 
democratization of the struggle with the massive 
participation of common, until now unorganized 
people. In light of the sell out of the 
leadership of the teachers union and the failure 
of the APPO to achieve certain objectives, the 
people have found the strength within themselves 
to take active participation and leadership in 
the greatly expanding movement. Evidence of the 
truth of her statements was the large number of 
women and children among the protestors. Many 
people throughout the day expressed their wish 
that the outside world realize that the majority 
of the protesters were common folk who were 
simply tired of poverty and repression and not 
armed thugs portrayed in the mass media.

Sitting underneath a giant statue of the Oaxacan 
Indian who became president of the nation and 
fought for independence and reform, she explained 
that Oaxaca has always been on the forefront of 
revolutionary change in Mexico. And the movement 
in Oaxaca is not isolated to this state. 
According to her, Oaxacans are setting an example 
for all Mexicans to rise up and fight against the 
authoritarianism of bad governments. Oaxaca is 
but the tip of the iceberg of the coming change at a national level.

Arriving at the front lines, the people had 
amassed in front of the PFP with signs 
demonstrating their rejection of the use of force 
to solve the Oaxacan conflict. Everyone insisted 
that the peaceful resolution of the conflict was 
possible with the ousting of the governor Ulises 
Ruiz and the implementation of radical reforms in 
this poor, southern state. ?We want peace!
The 
uniformed are also exploited!...Oaxaca isn?t 
Atenco!
were some of the chants that vibrated 
throughout the phalanx of peaceful protestors. In 
a symbolic act representing the blood that has 
been shed in order to keep Ulises Ruiz in power, 
three people took blood from their arms and with 
it wrote slogans against the PFP. ?If Abascal 
wants Oaxacan blood, have him come here to take 
mine! Enough blood has been shed!? cried one of the bleeding protestors.

Around three o?clock and shortly after the bloody 
demonstration the troops began to move forward. 
Women flung themselves against the shields of the 
riot squads and the armored cars trying to push 
them back. Other protesters laid on the ground 
trying to block their path. The protesters 
peacefully tried to stop the police from moving 
forward but the police pushed on using water 
cannons to stun and disorient the protestors. The 
PFP slowly moved forward advancing towards the 
capital as the protesters tried in vain to stop 
their progression. At this point the attitude of 
the protestors was complete non-violence. When 
one ski-masked youth threw rocks at the police, 
other demonstrators grabbed him and took off the 
mask telling him that rock throwing only provokes 
a confrontation leading to an excuse for violence on the part of the state.

Word spread that the PFP was entering the city 
from the south clearing away the barricades in 
that part of the city. Back up north, while the 
protestors headed to defend the next barricade 
down the highway, the police deviated from the 
highway and entered the dirt roads near the banks 
of the river Atoyac that lines the highway 
leading to downtown. In this way the majority of 
the major barricades were averted. Confrontation 
eventually happened in Viguera near the Oaxacan 
Technological Institute where the police launched 
large amounts of tear gas. Although awaiting 
confirmation, according to the security force of 
the APPO, a teenager was killed by the impact of 
a tear gas canister. Many others were supposedly detained.

While a march in support of the APPO was arriving 
in downtown, Oaxaca was slowing being occupied by 
the federal police. Trying not to provoke 
confrontations the police slowly made their way 
to the southern corners of the Zocalo and amassed 
there waiting for nightfall. The city of Oaxaca 
was covered in thick black smoke from burning busses and car tires.

With the cover of darkness, the PFP finally 
occupied the Zocalo and began to tear down the 
APPO?s encampment. The electricity was cut off in 
the University City and surrounding neighborhoods 
as the police tried to silence the voice of the 
people, Radio Universidad. The protesters 
reinforcing the barricades around the university 
quickly hooked up a generator and restored 
transmission although the surrounding 
neighborhoods remained in darkness. Reports 
broadcast on the radio and word of mouth from 
relatives and neighbors indicate that the PFP is 
searching houses supposedly looking for evidence 
of participation in the movement. Neighbors are 
burning anything they have that could be linked 
to the APPO in fear of government repression.

Entering the longest hours of the night there are 
reports of barricades being rebuilt along the 
highway to Mexico City once again blocking off 
traffic and impeding the further arrival of 
federal troops. Explosions are being heard in 
different parts of the city and three helicopters 
are circling overhead. It is assumed that Radio 
Universidad will be the next target.

Although the city of Oaxaca has been occupied by 
federal troops the problem is far from resolved. 
One protestor commented that the following day 
when the police have set up camp in the Zocalo, 
the people will then surround them and force them 
out. Although the physical perimeter has been 
broken the spirit of resistance and the rage of 
the people have not been extinguished. The use of 
force to quell the social unrest here in Oaxaca 
will not solve the underlying problems and until 
the problems are solved or enough people have 
died, the conflict will continue. Tomorrow will 
be yet another day fighting for control of the 
city of Oaxaca. It is thought that the next 
strategy of the federal forces will be to enter 
into the surrounding neighborhoods to clean out 
the barricades and restore order.


The Freedom Archives
522 Valencia Street
San Francisco, CA 94110
(415) 863-9977
www.freedomarchives.org 
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From news at freedomarchives.org  Tue Oct 31 08:46:25 2006
From: news at freedomarchives.org (Anti-Imperialist News)
Date: Tue, 31 Oct 2006 05:46:25 -0800
Subject: [News] EZLN Communique: Call to Protest Oaxaca Repression on Nov 1
Message-ID: <6.2.5.6.2.20061031054513.0450feb0@freedomarchives.org>



Message from the
COMITE` CLANDESTINO REVOLUCIONARIO INDIGENA COMANDANCIA GENERAL
of the
EJERCITO ZAPATISTA DE LIBERACION NACIONAL.
MEXICO.

30th of October, 2006.

To the people of Mexico:
To the people of the world:
To the Other Campaign in Mexico and the other side of the Rio Bravo:
To the entire Sixth International:

Comrades:
Brothers and sisters:

It is now known publicly that yesterday, 29th of October 2006; Vicente
Fox's federal forces attacked the people of Oaxaca and its most
legitimate representative, the Peoples' Popular Assembly of Oaxaca (APPO).

Today, we know that the Federal Troops have assassinated at least 3
people, among them a minor, leaving dozens of wounded including many
women from Oaxaca and dozens of detainees were illegally transported to
military prisons. All this, in addition to the total of deaths, detainees
and missing persons since the beginning of the mobilization demanding that
Ulises Ruiz steps down as Oaxaca's governor.

The sole objective of the federal attack is to maintain Ulises Ruiz in
power and to destroy the popular grassroots organization of the people of
Oaxaca.

Oaxaca's people are resisting. No honest person can remain quiet and
unmoved while the entire society, of which the majority are indigenous,
is assassinated, beaten and imprisoned.

We, Zapatistas, will not be silent; we will mobilize to support our
brothers, sisters and comrades in Oaxaca.

The EZLN's Sixth Commission has already consulted the Zapatista Command
and the following has been decided:

Firstly- During whole day of the 1st of November 2006, the major and
minor roads that pass through Zapatista controlled territories in the
Southwest of the state of Chiapas will be closed.

Consequently, we ask that one makes the necessary arrangements in order
to avoid using these roads on this day.

Secondly- through the Sixth Commission, the EZLN has begun making contact
and consulting other political and social organizations, groups,
collectives and individuals in the Other Campaign, in order to coordinate
joint solidarity actions across Mexico, leading to a nationwide shut-down
on the 20th of November, 2006.

Thirdly- the EZLN calls out to the Other Campaign in Mexico and north of
the Rio Bravo, so that this November 1st mobilizations happen where
possible; completely, partially, at intervals or symbolically shutting
down major roads, streets, toll booths, stations, airports and mainstream
media offices.

Fourthly- The central message that the Zapatistas send and will continue
sending, is that the people of Oaxaca are not alone: They are not alone!

Ulises Ruiz out of Oaxaca!

Immediate withdrawal of the occupying Federal Forces from Oaxaca!

Immediate and unconditional freedom for all detainees!

Cancel all arrest warrants!

Punish the murderers!

Justice!
Freedom!
Democracy!

 >From the north of Mexico.
For the Comite' Clandestino Revolucionario Indi'gena- Comandancia General of
the Eje'rcito Zapatista de Liberacio'n Nacional.
For the EZLN's Comisio'n Sexta.

Subcomandante Insurgente Marcos
Mexico, October, 2006.





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From news at freedomarchives.org  Tue Oct 31 08:51:49 2006
From: news at freedomarchives.org (Anti-Imperialist News)
Date: Tue, 31 Oct 2006 05:51:49 -0800
Subject: [News] NICARAGUA -- Desperate acts of faith
Message-ID: <6.2.5.6.2.20061031055130.0450fa70@freedomarchives.org>



Desperate acts of faith

Gioconda Belli

October 30, 2006 11:38 AM

http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/gioconda_belli/2006/10/nicaragua.html

Interrupting a pregnancy that endangered a mother's life - 
therapeutic abortion - was legal in my country until a few days ago. 
On October 26, the national assembly in Nicaragua 
<http://www.guardian.co.uk/frontpage/story/0,,1932784,00.html>struck 
down article 165 of its penal code, which had been untouched since 
the 19th century, and decided to penalise this life-saving procedure. 
The decision was taken in spite of numerous protests by women's 
organisations, the international community and, more importantly, the 
leading medical associations of the country.

It was no surprise that the ruling Liberal party - which is liberal 
by name but, in effect, represents the most rightwing, conservative 
and corrupt Nicaraguan politicians - would do this to please the 
Catholic church. Pinochet did it in Chile and the Arena party in El 
Salvador. What was dismaying and representative of the desperate 
attempt to regain power on the part of Daniel Ortega and his wife 
Rosario Murillo, was that the majority deputies who voted to penalise 
abortion - 28 of the 52 - were Sandinistas.

Nicaragua is holding general elections on November 5. This is the 
fourth time Ortega is running for president. He was defeated in 1990, 
1996 and 2001, but he has not given up. On the contrary, he has 
refused any suggestion within his party of the need for a new 
candidate. Anybody who has tried to rise within Sandinista to compete 
with Ortega has been marginalised or expelled. That was the case of 
Herty Lewites, the popular Sandinista mayor of Managua, who left 
office with a 76% approval rating. Daniel Ortega and his wife Rosario 
accused him of treason in no uncertain words. Herty decided to run 
anyway and led a coalition, the Movement for the Renovation of 
Sandinismo, until his untimely death of a heart attack in July 2 of this year.

Besides getting rid of inside competition, Ortega entered into an 
uncanny alliance with the Liberal party and signed a pact with 
Arnoldo Aleman, the Liberal party leader. After being president from 
1996 to 2001, Aleman was found guilty of embezzlement of state funds 
and condemned to jail. Thanks to the pact signed with Ortega, he was 
granted a "family regimen" which has allowed him to live at home, 
move freely in Managua and continue to be the highest real authority 
within liberalism. In exchange for this favour, the Liberal party 
agreed to reduce the percentage of votes needed to be elected 
president from 40 to 35%. With more obstacles out of the way, Ortega 
then decided to "clean up his act" and court the Catholic church.

Supplying the votes it needed to achieve its demand to penalise 
therapeutic abortion has been Ortega's most outrageous attempt to 
demonstrate that he has changed and is now a devoted and true convert 
to the faith. His support of the church in its staunch opposition to 
all kinds of abortions, including those aimed at saving a mother's 
life, aims to dispel whatever doubts any one could have of his 
"conversion". Ortega's campaign, orchestrated and managed by his 
wife, Rosario Murillo claims that Sandinista is now the party of 
unity, reconciliation and peace. When Edmundo Jarquin, who took over 
as presidential candidate for the MRS after Lewites death, declared 
last August that he supported therapeutic abortion, Rosario Murillo 
gave an interview to the Sandinista Radio Ya, and declared:

It is precisely because we have faith, because we are religious, 
because we love God above all else that we have been able to overcome 
all obstacles. This is why we coincide fully with the Catholic 
church. We emphatically join the church and churches in their 
opposition to all kinds of abortion. We emphatically say no to 
abortion, yes to life, yes to religious beliefs, yes to faith, yes to 
the search for God, yes to the spiritual and pastoral guides of our 
people such as Cardinal Obando, who gave Nicaraguans the flag of 
reconciliation, the same flag we support and which will bring 
Nicaragua out of its misery.


I for one do not believe either in Murillo's or Ortega's proclaimed 
transformation. On the last two electoral campaigns Ortega has tried 
very hard to pretend to be a different man, only to revert to his old 
self as soon as the polling stations close and he has to admit 
defeat. For 16 years, as the sole leader of the Sandinista party he 
has modified it and purged it to suit his authoritarian style. His 
pact with Arnold Aleman, on the other hand, has turned every 
institution in the country into a party structure where Liberals and 
Sandinistas make decisions according to their parties' instructions 
with no respect to legal procedures that they adjust and interpret to 
suit their objectives. This is how Ortega was able to avoid the 
charges brought against him by his stepdaughter, Zoilamerica Narvaez, 
who accused him of sexually abusing her since she was an 11-year-old child.

According to the latest polls, Daniel Ortega has a strong chance of 
winning this election. It is not surprising given his manoeuvring 
through the years and the sorry inefficiency and corruption of the 
Liberal governments. Although Daniel Ortega has been an accomplice to 
this state of affairs, he portrays himself as the advocate of the 
poor, as a repenting Christian who this time will get it right. 
Obtaining the complicity of the Catholic church and his one time 
nemesis, Cardinal Obando y Bravo - who Ortega managed to protect from 
a scandal of misused funds in a church's non-profit organisation of 
which the cardinal is president - this time he might be able to 
convince voters that he's a changed man. Obviously, Ortega considers 
that a few thousand dead women are of no consequence if he finally 
manages to regain power in Nicaragua.

The Freedom Archives
522 Valencia Street
San Francisco, CA 94110
(415) 863-9977
www.freedomarchives.org 
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From news at freedomarchives.org  Tue Oct 31 11:17:09 2006
From: news at freedomarchives.org (Anti-Imperialist News)
Date: Tue, 31 Oct 2006 08:17:09 -0800
Subject: [News] Frontline Report from New Orleans - Wed Nov 8th
Message-ID: <6.2.5.6.2.20061031081253.0450e8b0@freedomarchives.org>



You're invited to a Frontline Report from New Orleans by:

             Kali Akuno, Executive Director of the Peoples Hurricane 
Relief Fund based in New Orleans, Malcolm Suber, National Organizer 
for the People's Hurricane Relief Fund and Arlene Eisen, long term 
volunteer in New Orleans and SF Bayview Reporter

They will present a slideshow and lead a discussion about the 
continuing war against
Black people in New Orleans.

Plan to attend:        Wednesday, November 8, 2006,   7:30PM
                                     522 Valencia between 16th and 
17th [near BART] in SF

Sponsored by:
Peoples Hurricane Relief Fund, Bay Katrina Solidarity Network and Bay 
to Gulf Solidarity, Malcom X Grassroots Movement

For more info call (415) 305-7835



The Freedom Archives
522 Valencia Street
San Francisco, CA 94110
(415) 863-9977
www.freedomarchives.org 
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From news at freedomarchives.org  Tue Oct 31 15:10:37 2006
From: news at freedomarchives.org (Anti-Imperialist News)
Date: Tue, 31 Oct 2006 12:10:37 -0800
Subject: [News] UN witnesses Israeli devastation of Palestinian olive harvest
Message-ID: <6.2.5.6.2.20061031120933.0450deb0@freedomarchives.org>

United Nations delegation witnesses Israeli devastation of 
Palestinian olive harvest
http://english.pnn.ps/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=892&Itemid=1

(Tulkarem) Palestine News Network
Tuesday, 31 October 2006

The World Food Program, in cooperation with the United Nations 
Humanitarian Coordination Office, sponsored a tour of Deir Al Ghusun 
and its agricultural lands Tuesday in honor of the olive harvest and 
all that it entails under occupation.

The northwestern West Bank's Tulkarem District town is in the midst 
of the olive harvest season, as so many Palestinian agricultural 
lands are. Today's tour included employees of UN branches and media 
organizations investigating Palestinian farmers' conditions this year.

The Director of the World Food Program joined Tulkarem's Governor, 
Tulkarem City's Mayor, the Coordinator of the National Committee 
against the Wall, a large number of farmers and citizens, and the 
Under Assistant in the Ministry of Agriculture,  also walked through 
agricultural lands north of Tulkarem.

The Governor explained how the Israeli-built Wall is causing a great 
deal of difficulty for farmers as it has swallowed vast areas of 
agricultural land planted with vegetables and olives. He said that 
the Wall contravenes international law and public opinion and asked 
that the Israeli government realize that it does not bring security 
to anyone, instead only suffering to the occupied Palestinian people. 
Governor Dweikat said, "As long as there is occupation, there is no security."

He continued, "We call upon all countries of the world to stand up 
for the Palestinian farmer who has lost his land altogether or who 
cannot access it. We also ask that you buy the Palestinian olive oil 
that we are able to produce."

The Under the Assistant of the Ministry of Agriculture stressed, "the 
importance of the olive tree, which is a part of the Muslim faith and 
heritage, and the customs and traditions of Palestine." He said that 
this year's harvest is expected to produce 35,000 tons of oil. "The 
surplus will reach 15,000 tons without proper access to outside 
markets and the Israeli Wall and settlements, and burning vast tracts 
of land and preventing farmers from reaching their own will add to the loss."
The Mayor of Deir Al Ghusun said that the town is living a nightmare. 
He recounted numerous attempts to obtain permits from the Israeli 
government that is in full occupation of this West Bank area, the 
inconsistent behavior of Israeli soldiers operating the gates in the 
Wall, and the devastating economic situation, calling for 
international support. Several farmers returned from their fields 
early as the gates close at 4 pm and briefed the delegation before 
hosting a lunch.

A well-informed source told PNN Tuesday that the World Food Program 
intends to purchase a major quantity of local olive oil in 
recognition of the suffering and the need.


The Freedom Archives
522 Valencia Street
San Francisco, CA 94110
(415) 863-9977
www.freedomarchives.org 
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